"Everything in moderation." Ugh, gag me.
It's a platitude I've heard for most of my adult life. But I never understood why it bothered me until I understood food noise. Lots of well-meaning people would love to preach that platitude to me each time that I tried and failed to have a healthy relationship with food. And every time I heard it, a voice in my head (food noise!) would yell, "yeah, okay, not for you though."
Food noise knew it the whole time -- there WAS never any moderation before. There were two choices: eat nothing, or eat until satiated, no matter how much food it takes, no matter what the food is. And part of why each of my previous attempts to have a healthy relationship with food ended in failure is that "moderation," after the initial motivation wears off, felt like climbing Everest to my mind. The amount of mental gymnastics I'd have to do in order to combat the food noise would never win the war on their own. The metaphorical angel in my brain looked like Simone Biles, bending over backwards to avoid the devil... the devil in the form of raging food noise.
When I first started Wegovy over two months ago, something I wanted to make sure that I never lost in the process was my love of food. I'm not afraid to say it... I LOVE FOOD, OKAY?! Lots of people do. But I wasn't on Wegovy that long when I realized, I wouldn't have to lose my love of food. I could feel satiated with smaller portions of foods I've always loved. There was a path to loving food without obsessing over it.
Now, that's not to say that there aren't some foods that I have abandoned eating completely over the past two months; if you're on a GLP-1, you'll learn quickly which foods you might develop sudden aversions to, unintentionally. And yes, you need to eat a lot of protein. You can take the opportunity while on a GLP-1 to learn about which foods fuel your body best. But the foods I've developed aversions to might be very well different than the foods someone else on a GLP-1 develops aversions to.
However, I haven't developed aversions to chocolate. Or dessert in general. I've found a lot of alternative desserts that you can find in my post about my new favorite foods. But... as someone who loves food without being obsessed with it, sometimes I want the genuine article.
Anthony and I went out to Applebee's a few weeks ago. I hadn't eaten in an Applebee's in some time (in spite of all of the time I spent there in my 20s), but we had a gift card. What I remember about eating at Applebee's includes mozzarella sticks that were sub-par, but also chips and queso made with white cheddar cheese. Four-cheese pasta with fried chicken. A big, juicy deluxe burger with seasoned fries. And giant brownie sundaes. Nothing that Wegovy would let agree with me. And food noise, amazingly, was nowhere to be heard.
We split beer cheese pretzel breadsticks for an appetizer. The breadsticks tasted so greasy to the point where I didn't even have one breadstick in its entirety -- strike one for Applebee's. I then went with what's been a restaurant standby throughout this process: The Big Salad. In an effort to stay away from my 15th chicken Caesar salad consumed in the month of July, I ordered "Chicken Tender Salad," which is essentially salad with fried chicken that I subbed out for grilled chicken. The chicken was not cooked enough. The salad was otherwise so painfully boring that it made me want to show it pity. Lesson learned: order the chicken Caesar salad every time. Strike two for Applebee's.
It was looking like I was going to leave Applebee's hungry until I remembered that on many late nights spent at Applebee's in my 20s, I consumed a number of "dessert shooters" -- or, mini desserts. Strike three for Applebee's almost happened because the dessert shooters were no longer on the menu; however, a new item caught my interest: The Brownie Bite. I queried our waiter about the Brownie Bite and found out it would arrive at our table exactly as advertised: a small, bite-sized brownie, accompanied by the smallest scoop of ice cream I've ever seen. And it was billed with 330 calories, compared to the 1,000+ calories in its larger brownie sundae counterpart.
The Brownie Bite was warmed. The plate was covered in just enough chocolate drizzle. Once I tasted the brownie, I realized that it tasted like redemption for Applebee's. But the best part of the entire evening was the euphoria I felt when I realized that the smallest dessert on the menu was... enough.
I never thought that a world where a literal bite of brownie and a tiny scoop of ice cream could ever be enough, especially on the heels of eating very little dinner, would ever be possible for me. The Brownie Bite was delicious and I certainly ate the entire thing, ice cream included. But I didn't leave Applebee's with my brain begging for more. Food noise wasn't kicked into overdrive. I wasn't stuffed to the brims of my stomach walls. A dessert that had the word "bite" in its title was enough, and I was okay.
Everything in moderation.
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