You better clean up your plate…. with all those kids in Africa dying of h
* the idea expressed here are those of a fat man in a journey to understand himself and changes his habits. If they offend you, so be it*
Oh mom, dad, uncles and aunties…. I love you all so much but you have to take some blame in this. Sorry, but I am fat enough that I can share the blame, enough lbs in me to go around. So, instead of naming names, I will make this a general "you had a hand in this" award to every person in my family that every utter those words to me. And also, for every other person that was victim of that in the FAT NATION.
A little background, I was born in Haiti which is a third world country some of you may have heard of. So let’s say a great amount of the population is living below poverty level. I have met a few of those in that general population, and while I never had to go without food a day in my life, I felt their pain.
Now imagine that and your parents or family not understanding proper "portion" for a child, keep on telling you that you need to clean up your plate because allot of people in the country are going without. Wasting food was like a sin in my house growing, just unacceptable. In a way I understood, we were grateful that our parents/families were blessed to be able to afford a certain lifestyle for us, because we knew of family members that would go days without eating, so wasting food…. NO!
And I realize some of my FAT NATION brothers and sisters have gone thru the same thing growing up. They may have not lived in Haiti, but Africa, China or other third world country was used as a reference as to why you should not waste food. And after you hear that over and over, clean up your plate, clean up your plate, it sticks with you.
You don’t believe me? I am a grown ass man, that is married and pay my own freaking bills, so I can waste food like I want! WRONG. Till this day I cannot throw away food, seriously. My plate is always clean, even if I have to force myself to eat the last few bites to the point I felt sick!
If I am the one putting food in my plate, I usually put less then what I think I will need then if I am still hungry I will add some more. Or even better when I am counting calories, so I do not go overboard. This issue usually arrive when I go to someone else house or party and they fix me a plate, or my wife decide that my ass is running late and she needs to clean up "her" kitchen, so she fix me a plate so she can clean up…. Then I end up with a plate that is too much, and I cannot get ride of it.
Might sound like an excuse, so be it. But for me, it is my reality. I am mentally incapable of throwing out food. My wife will even go, you don’t have to eat, I will put it away or throw it out. I won’t let her. My wife hate eating sleep over food (reason why she cooks every day) or maybe not hate but get sick from it. So she used to throw out food often before we moved in together.
She admitted that only happened once since we have been living together and that because my black ass was not home. I will eat every left over in the fridge before I cook up new food because I am not throwing away good food. But the funny thing is, I am only like this with food. Every thing else, I throw away as soon as I don’t need it anymore. This is why my wife have three times the amount of things I have, I am not a pack rat or sentimental about "things".
So how can I get over this block? My brothers and sisters, I don’t know how you did it, but for me… it was portion control. And that will be the next subject….
And note if you have kids, be careful about the "Cleaning up your plate" statement, or they might end up like me… full after eating 1/4 of the plate and forcing themselves to finish the remaining 3/4 at freaking 24!
July 2, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Man, you’re a haitian rich kid? Ha ha, I know another haitian rich kid and well, I’ll just say that haitians don’t do well on a western diet which is probably part of the problem. My boy grows more and more every year I see him unless he goes on one of those crazy multi-week long programming binges where his only source of nutrition is red bull. Do not try this at home.
You know, I’ve heard this excuse several times as a kid. I come from a family full of skinny people save for a few exceptions. Parents always tell their kids this and when you come face to face with the fact there are people in various countries that are starving, you really become appreciative of it. However, something I’m quick to point out to people though are the contents of the diet when they actually have food. They’re not pizza, pasta, and mcdonalds when they get to it but well, prepared full meals that may be "fattening" by western standards but also happen to be commensurate with the traditional activity level of said country.
To be honest though, throwing away food is like throwing away money. Its a waste of cash and I myself never throw away food unless I bought more than I could possibly cook/eat before it went bad. Note: this means never buy more organic vegetables than you can eat. We have refrigerators so we can keep food for days and not have to worry about it spoiling after 12-24 hours. If I have more food then I can finish, I pack it away and eat it when I’m hungry again.
If I know I’m going to have more food than I could normally eat, I’ll do something crazy like go to the gym more. This is just to throw the hunger switch on and feed myself more. Then again, I’m a G-Flux type eater so the more activity I do, the more I eat.
I doubt that helps but it just might.