The Caveman Diet

I have a problem: I love food. Not all foods, just the ones that are going to kill me by heart attack, stroke, cancer, or diabetes. I know they’re bad, but I just want to have them here, now, while I type this blog, what’s going on? Ok wait, let’s run a quick quiz.

1. Do I lack self control when I eat? Does my mind tell me to stop eating but my body disagrees? I absolutely lack self control.
2. Am I ashamed about my eating habits? Do I hide food and eat it behind closed doors? I am ashamed of them. I don’t hide food, exactly, but I will often try to be quiet getting out a snack so my wife doesn’t hear.
3. Do I feel guilty after I eat? Sometimes, sure. Like when I ate a whole large pizza during the first quarter of the Superbowl.
4. Do I eat when I’m simply upset about something but not hungry? Sure do
5. Do I eat even though I know it will only lead to negative consequences later? Every single day
6. Do I eat differently in public than I do in private? If I’m with friends I’ll often order less than I normally would. Otherwise, the only reason I eat differently is because the restaurant doesn’t have the portions I would normally eat at home.
7. When I eat, do I feel pleasure and comfort that I can’t really seem to achieve through other means? Not only that, but I feel depressed and angry when I can’t eat what I want
8. Is my weight adversely affecting my quality of life? Absolutely.

I guess it’s true, according to Web MD I’m a food addict.

I don’t know exactly when I become obsessed with eating greasy, fatty, non-food, I just know that one day I weighed 220 pounds, and the next day I was creeping up to 300. Maybe it all started with the roach coach that came to my worksite, offering the”Meatloaf dinner” that didn’t really taste like any cow I’ve ever eaten, “Taco Sticks” that were swimming in the oil they were deep fried in, and a nice, overly sweet Hostess Chocolate Pie, all for the reasonable price of about $5. It might have started with the winter that I was so broke I couldn’t get the gas turned back on and had no stove, meaning every dinner was either a microwave meal or a trip to Long John Silvers for their deliciously fried 3-piece chicken plank meal, cut the coleslaw, add extra fries (“oh you don’t supersize? ok give me two of those meals then”).  I think I went almost a year when my entire vegetable intake came from ketchup.

Looking back, I can see why those particular scenarios would help me pack on the pounds, but I don’t live in that life anymore. I have a nice job, I make decent middle-of-the-road income, I have an incredible wife that absolutely loves to cook real food, and all I want is Little Caesar’s/Taco Bell/Wendy’s/Long John Silvers. But I don’t just want a Wendy’s cheeseburger, I want a Wendy’s TRIPLE Cheeseburger, cheese and ketchup ONLY, large, with a Coke, and two orders of Chicken Nuggets with BBQ, please. Taco Bell? Ok I’ll have 3 soft tacos, 3 crunchy tacos, 2 double decker tacos, and a Nacho Bell Grande. Hold the lettuce and tomatoes on everything please. No veggies for me! That’s right, I want mass amounts of fat-laden garbage, hold the only semi-redeeming products available.

Is this the American way (weigh?) of eating? I’ve watched a bunch of documentaries in the last few months that do a good job of planting the blame for my eating habits on the feet of the American food industry. And you know, the food industry has helped create the problem as far as the nutritional content of out food, but they certainly don’t make me order enough food to feed a whole family just for my own gluttonous consumption. But what can I do to stop the cravings and addiction?

It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again. A food addiction is much harder to curtail than a drug addiction. Now I  have never been addicted to drugs, so I can’t say that I have personal experience comparing the two, but I do that when you go into rehab for, say, cocaine addiction, you don’t have to do cocaine three times a day just to be healthy, but with food that’s exactly what it is. You can’t quit food. You can’t go cold turkey off of cold turkey. So the food addict has to control their addiction by sheer will power, making the choice three times a day (or five times if you listen to nutritionists) to eat healthy. So how do you do it? How do you make that choice?

I have no clue. That’s why I still weigh over 300 pounds. But here’s the plan we’re trying this week (and hopefully forever): my wife and I are going on the Caveman Diet. We’re going to start with a walk around the block before each meal as if we were hunter-gatherers having to find our sustenance to survive. We’re going to eat plants more than anything, because plants didn’t run away from our ancestors, making meat a rare treat for them.

That’s it. That’s the plan. Exercise and vegetables. How’s that for brilliant?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m hungry, where are my shoes?

1. Do you feel you are a normal drinker? (“normal” – drink as much or less than most other people) YES or NO 2. Have you ever awakened the morning after some drinking the night before and found that you could not remember a part of the evening? YES or NO 3. Does any near relative or close friend ever worry or complain about your drinking? YES or NO 4. Can you stop drinking without difficulty after one or two drinks? YES or NO 5. Do you ever feel guilty about your drinking? YES or NO 6. Have you ever attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)? YES or NO 7. Have you ever gotten into physical fights when drinking? YES or NO 8. Has drinking ever created problems between you and a near relative or close friend? YES or NO 9. Has any family member or close friend gone to anyone for help about your drinking? YES or NO 10. Have you ever lost friends because of your drinking? YES or NO 11. Have you ever gotten into trouble at work because of drinking? YES or NO 12. Have you ever lost a job because of drinking? YES or NO 13. Have you ever neglected your obligations, your family, or your work for two or more days in a row because you were drinking? YES or NO 14. Do you drink before noon fairly often? YES or NO 15. Have you ever been told you have liver trouble such as cirrhosis? YES or NO 16. After heavy drinking have you ever had delirium tremens (D.T.’s), severe shaking, visual or auditory (hearing) hallucinations? YES or NO 17. Have you ever gone to anyone for help about your drinking? YES or NO 18. Have you ever been hospitalized because of drinking? YES or NO 19. Has your drinking ever resulted in your being hospitalized in a psychiatric ward? YES or NO 20. Have you ever gone to any doctor, social worker, clergyman or mental health clinic for help with any emotional problem in which drinking was part of the problem? YES or NO 21. Have you been arrested more than once for driving under the influence of alcohol? YES or NO 22. Have you ever been arrested, even for a few hours because of other behavior while drinking? (If Yes, how many times ________ ) YES or NO

SCORING

Please score one point if you answered the following: 1. No 2. Yes 3. Yes 4. No 5. Yes 6. Yes 7 through 22: Yes

Add up the scores and compare to the following score card: 0 – 2 No apparent problem 3 – 5 Early or middle problem drinker 6 or more Problem drinker