Hangry

Stock photography is magic.

My mom told me, "the best spice for dinner is hunger." No matter how good a meal is, if you are not hungry, it's just not going to be fully appreciated, and extreme hunger can make something like a leather boot or human flesh appear on the menu of edible things. The other truism my mom laid on me: "Never go food shopping hungry." All the food looks more appealing, all the quantities seem smaller, and all the prices seem slightly cheaper. Go in full with a list, stick to it, and get out. (I think there was a bit about a pile of clipped coupons from the local newspaper, but I somehow gratefully forgot about that part.)

So it is with some amusement and satisfaction that social scientists have measured and concluded in an experiment what the wisdom of my 'rents already knew, but take it one step farther:

For the study, called “Hunger Promotes Acquisition of Nonfood Objects,” marketing researchers ... asked sixty-three undergraduates not to eat for four hours. Then they treated half of them to as much cake as they fancied. All of the volunteers were subsequently presented with a three-quarter-inch binder clip from Staples, asked how much they liked it, and told to take as many more as they felt they needed. The members of the cake-deprived group were no fonder of the binder clips than their peers, but they went home with seventy per cent more. Later, Xu and her colleagues surveyed eighty-one shoppers exiting a department store, recording when and what they last ate and scanning their receipts. The researchers found, after controlling for the shoppers’ moods and the varying lengths of time they had been in the store, that the hungriest among them had spent as much as sixty per cent more than their well-fed counterparts. Hunger, Xu and her colleagues concluded, “renders acquisition-related concepts and behaviors more accessible.” In other words, the desire to grab something to eat becomes the desire to grab anything at all.

It's a common belief in nutritional science that you can over-eat and starve at the same time. If your diet solely consists of hyper-proceed food with no fruit and vegetables, it's easy to get enough calories but the lack of vitamins and other micro-nutrients will cause your body to kick into starvation mode, trying endlessly to consume more in hopes of acquiring what is lacking simply by increasing the quantity of everything. Hence, poor people balloon to outrageous obese proportions while literally starving. It's a leap, but perhaps it could be said that hyper-processed food in the US has encouraged a never-ending wasteful consumer culture.

There is a flip side to hunger and the urge for more of everything, too, though...

(Side) effects of hunger—intensified awareness, greater persistence, bolder risk assessments—...exist in humans. Like (other animals studied) people seem to behave with a profitable recklessness when hungry. 

Greater persistence and bolder risk taking? That sounds like a right-wing panacea for all that ails us. But I think these side effects are for the literal experience of hunger, not the cumulative biological effect of a lack of nutritional value. I imagine there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that if you eat a Big Mac for lunch, a Chipotle Burrito for dinner then a Grand Slam breakfast from Denny's the next morning, you will be neither hunger or feel a persistence for anything riskier than pooping and sleeping.

Well, if Stockphoto Lady can eat nothing but fast food and be hot, so can you!

My parents, being the good Jews they were, never ever let me go hungry...so I got fat. My father escaped the Holocaust when he was my daughter's age, and lived in a camp in Cuba first as a prisoner, then as a refugee. All his adult life he hoarded food and basic supplies in a pantry in the basement of the house I grew up in. I imagine he had some residual, innate fear of hunger and scarce resources that he and his family experienced as a child. My father spent most of his life hiding from hunger and shielding it from his family. 

The weekly rundown of what I eat addended to these blog posts are my attempt to run towards hunger -- a little hunger now and then will not only manage my weight, but as the scientists point out, also intensify my awareness, aid in my persistence and be bolder and less cowardly. I'm collecting a knowledge base...

Hoarding vs. Collecting
Hoarding is not the same as collecting. In general, collectors have a sense of pride about their possessions and they experience joy in displaying and talking about them. They usually keep their collection organized, feel satisfaction when adding to it, and budget their time and money.
Those who hoard usually experience embarrassment about their possessions and feel uncomfortable when others see them. They have clutter, often at the expense of livable space, feel sad or ashamed after acquiring additional items, and they are often in debt. 

I enjoy writing down what I eat, not to have a timeline of what went in my mouth, but the act makes me pause and reflect for a second in the act of writing. It helps me get hungry when our culture encourages constant satiation. Other than these essays, which can take an hour or so, the act of recording and measuring calories has become only minutes in my week, so second nature, it barely registers as clutter in my brain -- indeed, it's become a welcoming organizing principle to tune myself to my body, something that being overweight and in declining health really messes with. 

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2702
Weekly average remains stubbornly high. Next week's weigh in will determine whether I need to ring the alarm or just focus on good quality food.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2775

SLEPT: 8:30pm - 5am, 8.5hrs

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2:30pm, falafel, health salad, pickle, soup, 580 cal

PM SNACK: 3pm, rando piece of work chicken, +/- 200 cal

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, momma salad, 100 cal

DINNER: 7pm, flounder, asparagus,  poppa salad with dressing, 685 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, popcorn, +/-400 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, kind bar, 200 cal

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2915

SLEPT: 9pm - 4:30am, 7.5 hrs

AM SNACK: 4:45 am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, Cabot with honey, almonds, vanilla, 500 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, chicken meat balls, lentil curry, steamed stringbeans, pickle, 560

PM SNACK: 4pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, grilled pork tenderloin, roasted brussels, poppa salad with dressing, 785 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, kind bar, 4 kids granola bars, 600 cal
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2620

SLEPT: 9pm - 3:30am,  6.5 hrs

AM SNACK: 3:45 am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST 1: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, grilled pork tenderloin, roasted brussels, quinoa, pickle, 830 cal

PM SNACK: 6pm, momma salad, 310 cal

DINNER: 8:30pm, Chipotle Burrito, poppa salad with dressing, 1080 cal
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BIKE CREDIT: 655
THURSDAY COUNT: 2590

SLEPT: 10pm - 3:30am,  5.5 hrs

AM SNACK: 3:45am, iced green tea, homemade granola bar, 150mg caffeine, 220 cal

BIKE SNACK: 5:30am, homemade granola bar, 220 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, Fagewith honey, vanilla and almonds, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, poppa salad and dressing, sauteed chicken, 500 cal

PM SNACK: 4pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, cashews, 235 cal

EVENING SNORT: 6:30pm, 3/4 of a pint of beer, +/-150 cal

DINNER: 8pm, Maoz falafel salad, small cup of ice cream, 3 crab rangoons, +/- 1000 cal

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FRIDAY COUNT: 2610

SLEPT: 10pm -4:30am,  6.5 hrs

AM SNACK: 4:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice,  80 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, fruit smoothie, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, sardine & avocado on whole wheat toast, sautéed mushrooms, poppa salad with dressing, 800 cal

PM SNACK: 4pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 5:15pm, hotdog, fries, ice cream, +/- 1000 cal