The Big Picture

I love everything about food. Planning, shopping, creating, cooking, eating. My love affair started when I was young and I can prove it once I dig out the photograph I know is buried somewhere with me eating spinach in a high chair. The passion grew into infatuation and what started out as eating healthy greens turned into very a bad behavior. Potato chips and ice cream before breakfast. Sleeves of cookies or chocolate bars as an afternoon snack. Multiples of everything. I no sooner finished one meal then I started thinking about the next.

I was chubby.

Puberty exasperated already unhealthy eating habits with sweet and salty cravings. My sister, thin as a rail, went as far as to nickname me Crisco. Food was unequivocally a control issue and dieting developed into a preoccupation.

As a teenager, I decided to become a vegetarian. That lasted twenty years, but bowls of rice and bags of homemade trail mix aren’t thinning and I can vouch for 50‑pound weight swings.

At 40, I put meat‑fish‑poultry back into my diet but swapped out the carbs. The informal keto diet worked for ten years, but I was embracing pretense, ignoring nasty habits and unsustainable management.

Control IS THE elephant in the room. In my late fifties, motivation to control everything went critical mass, fostered by years and years of contrived external constructs as ways to cope.

I was 60 when I finally had my singularity. I happened to be watching a re‑re‑rerun of The Spy Who Loved Me. Bond‑girl Barbara Bach, as Russian spy Anya Amasova (Agent Triple X), innocuously delivered the line that would change my life forever. Talking with James about survival tactics, she said, “It’s very important to have a positive mental attitude.”

Bam.

It started simply with a food journal. Then I created a spreadsheet and documented calories. I experimented with total daily calories, watching fat, protein and carb intake as well, learning about my secret sauce and discovering that my body weight would maintain at 1800 calories a day, lose moderate weight at 1400 calories, and drop pounds in buckets at 1200 calories.

I surrendered every attempt at control and nurtured a self‑awareness based on what I could actually perceive through touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and sense of time and space. As I was resetting the very way I approached life, the world around me exploded into view. I consciously practiced making better choices, cultivated that positive attitude and scrutinized my actions, inactions and reactions. I took ownership. I accepted blame without guilt knowing that I could make better decisions in time.

This morning, I enjoyed a hot and creamy oatmeal breakfast; a homemade slice of focaccia, a green salad with oil and vinegar, all in a small portion, for lunch. Tonight I’ll have a chicken or fish for dinner, alongside roasted, red‑skinned potatoes seasoned with rosemary and thyme and brocilli. A single handful of nuts and berries in season. Real sugar and cream to sweeten my coffee.

A chocolate‑glazed eclair filled with rich custard is possible but not probable. Perhaps, cut in half or just one single fork‑full. I’m still in love with all‑things‑food but I’m grateful for its proper place in the big picture of life.