I’m the kind of girl who loves food more than most things in life and most of my days revolve around what I’m going to eat next. I could tell you that it’s because I played sports in high school, which pretty much created an eating monster (I mean, c’mon, those high school lunches are not enough when you have morning cross country practice, evening volleyball practice, late night play practice, and dance team practice wherever you can fit it in).
Or I could tell you that it’s because I’m a member of the Welsh family – we love food, like LOVE food. Most of our conversations revolve around food, and if you ever happen to go on a vacation with us, you’ll learn that food is our #1 priority at all times. We care about food more than most humans, and we’re not ashamed to admit that.
However, I’m not an emotional eater, never have been. I only remember emotionally eating one time in my whole life. My roommate was being a jerk, so I dragged my best friend out of the apartment and we went to Walmart. Most girls who emotionally eat would buy a tub of ice cream, right? Not me. I bought a jar of pickles. I ranted and ranted and ranted until we got to the car, and I got that jar open. I immediately felt better. I ate the whole jar of pickles and everything in the world was right again.
But that’s it, that’s the only time that I’ve ever emotionally eaten in my whole life. I’ve never been an emotional eater, but that doesn’t stop the fact that I love to eat.
My mother will tell you that when she met my father, she ate salads for a whole year. He didn’t see her eat anything besides a salad for an entire year. CAN YOU IMAGINE? In 2015, I went on one date, and it was to Olive Garden. We sat down, and the first thing I said was, “Just so you know, I’m going to eat all of my food, and I need you to be emotionally prepared for that.” I wasn’t about to sit there and only eat half of my food and pretend like I was full when I knew that I could eat the whole thing. Maybe that’s why I’m still single, who knows?
Last week, I went on my first business lunch ever. There was only one other girl with us, and we went to Red Robin. She ordered some sort of spinach wrap while I ordered a medium rare burger. She only ate half of her spinach wrap (honestly – there’s no way she was full), and I sat next to her and ate my entire burger.
I could’ve made 1000 excuses: “What? I’m an Iowa girl, I love red meat,” “I can’t normally afford to buy a burger, so this is a real treat,” “Burgers never taste as good reheated.” When in reality, I would’ve eaten the entire burger no matter the circumstance.
Because of my constant love affair with food, I will never be the girl who goes on diets. I can’t do it. I like good food; I just do, it’s who I am. Whenever I try to diet, I usually last somewhere between 1 and 4 hours, but never any longer. I don’t have enough will power in my whole body to diet. My mother loves to make fun of me for this – she’s the kind of person who just “forgets” to eat lunch. I’m halfway convinced she’s an alien because that can’t be normal.
Sometimes, I even do this thing where I pack a granola bar for lunch at work. I always give myself a pep talk before hand, and it goes something like this: “OK, if you pack a granola bar, then you won’t be tempted to buy lunch, and you can just eat the granola bar. You’ll save money and calories!”
Do you know what actually happens? I normally make it to about 11 am before I finally crack and eat the granola bar, then when 12 rolls around, I’m still starving. I spend about 10 minutes trying to talk myself out of it before I leave the office and go buy fast food. It happens 100% of the time (it doesn’t help that my office is right next to a Chick-Fil-A). So really, I should just stop wasting my money on granola bars since I always wind up buying myself lunch anyway.
I spent a good portion of my life wishing that I was the kind of girl who ordered a salad at restaurants and ate like a delicate little flower. I’ve tried to teach myself not to eat my entire plate of food, and I’ve tried to train myself to drink those nasty meal replacement shakes for lunch, but none of it ever works. I’ve even tried following the serving sizes on packaged food (please, tell me who the heck only eats 12 potato chips), but
I think that there are some girls who were born with the will to eat like tiny little fairies, then there are the rest of us who were born with an obsession for food. Sometimes, I still wish that I liked food less than I do, but I’m definitely done trying to force myself into a personality that I’m not.
Someday, I’ll meet a boy somewhere who loves food just as much as I do, right?
About Kaelly:
I’m a recent University of Iowa graduate who just moved out to the Seattle area. I’m an avid reader, adventure addict, and coffee connoisseur. Also, I like to write sometimes: https://kaellywelsh.wordpress.
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