This is a Dumb Kind of Sad, but It's Sad Anyway

Look, before you get your panties all bunched up, I know what I'm about to say is shallow, and superficial, and horribly insensitive of the living conditions of a lot of people in the world. But this is how I feel right now, and you don't have to read it.

But I feel really bad for lacking the self control to stop myself from binge eating. Earlier this morning, I made a resolve to go on a cleanse. No, I'm not on a weight loss crash diet. I want to go on a cleanse because I heard it does wonders for the digestive system.

By 4 pm, I was stuffing my face with french fries.

This isn't the first time I failed at going on a cleanse. I've attempted it several times before, but I keep giving up. I lack the self-control to stop myself from stuffing my face with food. For dinner, I thought of saving up a few bucks by going on a budget meal. But when I went to Pizza Hut, the budget meal I wanted wasn't available, so I ordered soup, thinking, hey, I'll save some bucks if I just order soup. Except after ordering soup, I had, like, a personal sized pizza too. Which is a lot of baked bread and bacon and cheese, and totally defeats the purpose of a.) the budget dinner, and b.) the cleanse. I ended up spending more than twice what I was supposed to spend to save up on the little cash I had left until payday.

My friend Denis said it's because I have an emptiness in my heart that I'm trying to fill with food. I think he's right, that cheeky bastard. Since I seem to have no control over my lovelife, and that people leave me and I can't stop them from doing so, I exercise control over the one thing I still have control over: my consumption of food.

So I eat. I consume. I devour. Because I may not be attractive enough to pique the interest of someone who'd take me out to dinner, but I am so fucking gonna eat my way through this motherfucking pizza.

But I'm afraid that's just one more thing that I'm losing control over. I can't even control my food intake. I can't control anything.

I think I'm losing it.

Putting on Christmas Weight

Oh, god, I'm putting on so much Christmas weight.

It doesn't help that I'm a stress eater, and as degree holder in that totally useless intellectual pursuit of Philosophy, I'm really wicked in rationalizing. It's not fair, even to me, when I rationalize with myself why I should stuff my face with food. Here are some of my favorite rationalizations for cheating on my diet:

I'm burning this off at the gym tomorrow. This may sound logical. Sometimes, for a particular fitness goal, you need to load up on carbs, protein, and other fuel so you can burn it off. This sounds like the best excuse for someone like me to a.) stuff my face with food, and b.) force myself to the gym. However, I'm quite fickle minded when it comes to my fitness goals. There are days when I want to look crazy beautiful thin like Francisco Lachowski, or insanely fit like that Brody guy in Glee, and sometimes, I wannna be as massive as Dwayne The Rock Johnson. So, it's really frustrating when I eat like a hippo, hoping to run it off like a Cheetah, onlyy to go to the gym and meander around like a pregnant mammoth.

I deserve this for the day I've had. Ok, so sometimes you have one of those days that you just want to stab clients in their weird eyes that look like they're watching people from two different directions. Also, there are days when you're so pleased with something you've done, you feel like you deserve a reward. The worst is when I'm dealing with a particularly difficult client and somehow managing to overcome the challenges, then I eat for, like, 5 people. Two of them drowning their sorrows in carbs, the other two are celebrating, and there's the lonely guy who just came along for the salad.

I will start on my diet tomorrow. AKA, Dead Man's Last Meal. So, once in a while, I get this crazy idea into my head that I am desperate enough to starve myself gorgeous. Usually, this happens after mildly stalking Filipino bodybuilders from my model friends' network of other really insanely fit friends. These guys have a thing called "a season" where they basically obssess about eating nothing but fish and vegetables and protein supplements and spending mad amount of time lifting cars so they can compete in body building competitions. I don't get bodybuilding competitions. It's like it's halfway between a real sport and a beauty pageant, and it's madly competitive. Anyway, dedication to look that way demands an insane amount of discipline, and perhaps, a healthy dose of mental illness.. I have an insane amount of mental illness, and the discipline I have is reserved for BDSM nights with strangers I meet up with from the internet. So, as I browse through galleries after galleries of these almost naked men and their bulging muscles, I can't help but feel the deepest and sincerest of envy. I wish I can look like that. So, immediately after drying my eyes from ugly crying over the physique I so badly want, I make a resolution to never eat anything again, unless it contains 20 grams of protein per serving. This resolution I celebrate the night before by eating a meal equivalent to the weight of Kim Chiu. The next day, I immediately forget about being on a diet because I get distracted by watching American TV shows on my laptop.

I don't get to eat like this everyday.  So, I'm at a restaurant with friends. Or I'm alone, and I'm looking for a place to eat before I write in a coffeeshop. Anyway, I enter a place, with all the intention of ordering the tiniest portion of their lightest salad. My expectations don't go beyond nibbling on a piece of carrot. Instead, I end up ordering like half the menu. Because I'm thinking, I don't get to eat like this everyday. See, I was born poor. I grew up in the ghetto of Kalookan's 3rd Avenue. If you haven't been to Kalookan's 3rd Avenue, count yourself lucky. Now that I have my own job, and I'm making my own money, I suppose I can treat myself to dinner that my parents never could have afforded. Which is a really stupid way to justify eating a 6-course meal alone.

Just so we're clear, I spend an insane amount of time at the gym and training for mixed martial arts. When I'm at the gym, I'm usually all pumped up and sweating my blood out. I'm not like one of those limp guys who go to the gym just so they can check-in on Foursquare. If I increase the intensity of my physical activities, my heart would probably just burst.

The problem is really with how much I'm eating. I wish I have a friend to intervene. It's sad that I would need intervention.

But then, I can always eat the sadness away.

I Am a Filthy Bacon Hoe

I've been struggling with obesity for the longest time, and I'm not just talking about fat people getting in my way. I'm talking about being overweight, having a BMI of more than 25. It's an actual condition that incapacitates me from achieving my dreams, and it's a hurdle that I need to overcome to reach happiness.

I've always wanted to go on a diet. To have that discipline of inflicting famine upon myself. It would be wonderful if I have the willpower to stay famished. After all, didn't Steve Jobs himself advised us on the virtue of staying hungry?

Anyway, I've been dreaming of having washboard abs for the longest time now, and I keep making excuses. Like, I'm too tired from work to push myself hard in the gym, blah, blah, blah. But the truth is hard: I'm fat because I'm a voracious eater.

So, since yesterday, I made a pact with myself to watch what I eat. I need to monitor my caloric intake, and be conscious of my consumption.

But this morning, after working out at the gym, I felt a compulsion so strong that it defeated me, and I succumbed to it.

My mind's eye pictured this: BACON, laying on top of SPAM, while CHEESE melted on them. It's the UNHOLY TRINITY OF BREAKFAST, and it was waiting for me a couple of yards away at the nearby Burger King.

BACON. SPAM. CHEESE. For breakfast. How could anything go wrong? It's the perfect way to start the day.

And it means I'll be taking a thousand crunches back from my goal.

It's sad, this feeling of defeat. This dirty feeling of weakness. This shame for submission to a force stronger than my own will. I am conquered by Bacon, owned by Spam, enslaved by Cheese. I am a loyal subject of the Burger King. It makes me feel less of a warrior, and more of a... a filthy bacon whore.

I need professional help from this addiction.

Not Done at All

There's a snag in my weight loss program. I'm at the point where I'm ready to commit to cutting down my carbs intake, so I can consume more protein for muscle building and repair.

But I have a day job, and the food place where people go to for lunch is a carinderia that doesn't really cater to my needs. It's pretty OK for a carinderia, the food's OK, there's enough choices everyday. But they're mostly fried, or sauced up that they can only be eaten with lots of rice.

So, I'm forced to look for other places to eat. Like this inasal place nearby. Roast chicken is good, it's high in protein. It's also expensive to keep eating roast chicken for lunch. The other options for lunch are fast food (I work near Morato), which would hurt my budget and my diet plans WORSE.

Men's Health and other fitness experts recommend the same thing: For anyone dedicated enough to commit to a strict high protein low carbs diet, LEARN TO COOK.

My friend Neil cooks his own food, and that's why he looks like the Baby Hulk (which sounds like an amazing idea for a Marvel franchise). He steams chicken breasts everyday, seasoned with pepper and salt, and eaten with steamed camote (sweet potatoes).

Confession time. I know I may come off as perfect, and what with me being able to do basically everything, but I am not perfect. I can't cook.

Technically, I can learn to cook. There was a time when I saw myself experimenting in the kitchen, and by that, I don't mean sexually, with a stranger on the kitchen floor, but actually whipping up a dish.

But, really. I have a day job, I go to the gym, I'm working on two novels simultaneously, and I do my own laundry. I can't, by any sane amount of reason, squeeze in an extra hour in my life to prepare my own food. I can't invest in a steamer, do weekly grocery shopping for chicken breasts and fish fillet, wake an extra hour early (or stay an extra hour late) to prepare my food for the next day. That's where I'll draw the line. I can't do that, I won't do that, I refuse to prepare my own food.

Which sucks. So I'm stuck with eating what's easily bought. Ugh. I hate this.

Talking Myself Out of Hunger

I know hunger is a serious world issue, and it's somehow a travesty that people like me submit ourselves to it as a way of attaining a superficial goal such as having prominent abdominal muscles, but this is my reality, and you know what, you can take your issues to Twitter for all I care.

Anyway, I'm being extra hard on myself by cutting down my food intake. Been avoiding rice altogether, along with carbs like bread and pasta.

So now I'm starving. I'm really starving. I can't keep my thoughts away from eating, from devouring, from going on an all consuming orgy where I stuff food down my face, and I wallow in tastes and textures dancing wonderful ballet in my mouth.

My boss Icel, who is just couple of pounds shy from her ideal weight after going on a Cohen diet, said talking about hunger pangs work. When you talk to someone about your hunger pangs, you release the stress somehow, and you deal with fasting easier. So that's what I'm doing now. I'm blogging away this feeling of hunger.

Hunger is a social construct. We anticipate the intake of food because society told us we need to eat three square meals. Our instincts tell us otherwise: that we eat because we're hungry. And hunger is a sensation created in the brain when various organs tell the nerves that they need to be nourished.

Also, for ages, fasting has been used by ascetics to get closer to God. There's something about the brain being deprived of nourishment that apparently opens itself to God, and other voices. So, in a way, when I skip lunch, I sort of clock it in as practicing my religion.

Ugh. But I'm really cranky right now. I think my hormones are working overtime to compensate for the lack of pleasure that I usually associate with the consumption of a full meal.

Hey, it does help! Ranting about my hunger pain somehow alleviated it. Comfort in imagined sympathy. Anyway, that's it for now, I need to go back to work. Kaya ko to.