Recession or not, our society is consumed by consumerism. The government wants us to spend our economic stimulus package domestically; a joke says that prostitution and boozing are the last domestic products and services.

Despite the rising cost of food and the resulting rising weight of our nation, nothing is receding. The fat boy inside of me lives on too; he has learned to concede, but never to recede despite the recession of my body weight. My life centers around weight – my own, the study of its control in my graduate work, my writing, my prospective job hunting, and even my evening consumption of television –Valerie Bertinelli and her Jenny-Craig-whoring intrude the sanctity of my own living room!  

It’s hard to stay sober at night. All I want is out of my head; I want the weight to weigh less. I try not to drink on school nights, and instead, to pack a lunch that I won’t eat – at least not for lunch. I don’t think about food during the day unless my stomach signals. At night, my food sobriety is short lived while watching TV.

I eat as I watch, and I do not watch what I eat. The approach to this is often extreme or all-or-nothing. If I am not obsessed with eating, then I am obsessed with not eating. Dieting taught me well – deprive, revive, and re-fuel. But on what octane? Weight Watchers wants you to have a healthier relationship with food, so they give you a “Points calculator”. How many Points for X grams of fat and Y number of calories, factor in the F for fiber… and the answer is… who has time for this shit? I did, and I gave Points-guided tours of my local grocery story. People came, validating my shared obsession.

Paging Doctor Freud…

Being obsessive as well as being all-or-nothing are both defense mechanisms, and very common to those who have issues with their body weight. When anxiety becomes too overwhelming it is then the place of the ego to employ defense mechanisms to protect the individual. Feelings of guilt, embarrassment and shame often accompany the feeling of anxiety.

The feeling is like an evening binge; all it takes is one bite. The snowball grows in size and is digested in my middle section; it feels large as Mount Everest . When I can eat everything in front of me, there is nothing in front of me, in every which way.

And in the morning – the mourning; I brew coffee and self loathing.

Then it struck me. I don’t drink on school nights; I don’t want to suffer the hangover the next day. What makes the evening binge any different?

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