Juice-ly 22nd (Evening Edition): Man v. Food.

Day Twenty-Two! Almost halfway home. Supposedly it takes three weeks to form a habit, so juicing and defeating any cravings should by this point be a habit. More importantly, constant vigilance should be a habit by now. I have derailed several of my own efforts to strive for better health in the past when it seems that I have at least subdued my addiction for a time. I get to a point when I say, "Hey - I wonder if [pizza, or McDoubles, or Chinese food] still has the hold it used to have over me?" The answer, of course, is hell yes it did (and does). My addiction comes roaring back from dormancy, and the roller coaster plummets downward. I'm learning that the times when I feel the least vulnerable are the times that I need to be most watchful.


Today has been a good, good day. I enjoyed one of the very few days off from writing papers for my masters’ degree all summer by spending time with my three beautiful kids and, when my wife was done with her meetings, outside in amazing weather at the driving range. I finally got to know the feeling of liberation and release (after spending the last few weeks trying to catch the deluge in a paper cup), to quote an iconic ‘80s song. I’m trying to get my game back in gear for the tail end of the summer, and it’s coming along okay. One step forward, one and a half back. I’m glad losing weight hasn’t gone like finding my golf game!

As I’ve said before, I’m part of several juicing/weight loss support groups on Facebook. Today, a woman in the first week of her juice fast posted that the night before she had caved in to a craving and eaten a burrito. Of course, these things happen. Just dust yourself off and get back on the horse again. She went on to say that it’s actually a good thing to give in to your cravings every now and then, and that she was continuing to count her juice fast as if the craving never happened. Naturally, the wonderful and supportive people in this group rushed to reassure her that what she was doing was perfectly fine – and you know what? It probably is, for her. 

 I’m not thinking about her, though. I’m thinking about people like me, and worse than me, who are truly struggling not with a few extra pounds around the middle, but with significant overweight. And a relentless addiction to food. For me (and for them), giving in on a regular basis is a very, very bad thing. Almost akin to a heroin addict carrying around a 30-day AA chip proudly, after having only given in to their heroin habit two or three times during that thirty days. Are you kidding me? No one would be okay with that, would they? And no one would carry on counting the days of their sobriety as if those lapses hadn’t happened, would they?

I do know that if I had written that post, I would deserve and expect people to be in my face saying, “Dude – what is going on? That is not a healthy way for you to look at what you’re trying to do with your life. Get it together!” Alas, these are not *that* kind of group, nor should they be. Just saying what I, personally, would prefer.

Anyway, it has been extraordinarily therapeutic for me to review all those Facebook posts from my first extended juice fast in November 2014 for re-publication in this space. I had forgotten some of the things I had shared, and in what order I shared them. Today’s re-post made me think of a couple more recent large binges that were inspired by the Travel Network’s show, Man v. Food. The basic premise of the show, if you haven’t seen it before, is that a man traveled around the country looking for the tastiest foods in hideaway places, and taking some of those restaurants’ eating challenges. You know, eat a 64-ounce steak with sides in an hour. That sort of thing.

[Let me offer a quick disclaimer that I don’t share the stories I’m about to share with even the slightest hint of pride, or even regret over not being able to eat this way anymore. It’s all shame, believe me. I’m hoping that the more I share my struggles, the more that will resonate with someone who has tried and failed countless times to change the way they view eating, and are just looking for a word of encouragement.]

This, friends, is the actual Thurmanator. I think I might have also had ice cream with this?

Adam Richman, the show’s host, came to Columbus for an episode, which highlighted a couple of local restaurants and their food challenges. One was The Thurman Café, which features a monstrosity of a burger called the Thurmanator. From their menu, here’s a description of the behemoth: “Bottom bun, mayo, lettuce, tomato, pickle, banana peppers, 12 ounce burger, bacon, cheddar, another 12 ounce burger, sautéed mushrooms & onions, ham, mozzarella & American cheese, top bun served with fries and a pickle spear.” That’s a pound and a half of meat on one burger, for those of you scoring at home. Never mind all the rest of the stuff between those dinner plate-sized buns! Wowzers.

I had sampled a few local burger joints and was looking forward to having a burger from this place that came highly recommended from my more seasoned Columbus friends. On New Year’s Eve 2012, my wife and I were ready to make a(nother) brand new start with our eating and exercising habits. We had ordered Visalus from one of our friends and were ready to change our lives with one of their short-term kickstarts, or whatever they call them. Next year. We both wanted to get one last “good meal” in before we got really strict on ourselves – for me, in hindsight, it was like a junkie getting his last fix. At that point, however, I wasn’t near ready to view how I eat as an addiction, so I picked the Thurman and decided that I wanted to see if I could eat a whole Thurmanator in one sitting. 

Calorie-wise, the Thurmanator was Hiroshima for my innards.

I could, as it turns out. I know my addictive impulse was turned on high during that meal, because I remember feeling like I could have eaten even more than, you know, as if three-plus pounds of food wasn’t enough. Weight-wise, I was somewhere north of 320 before that meal, so I can only imagine what kind of havoc I caused when I dropped that nuclear calorie bomb over the Hiroshima that was my digestive system. My goodness. I know I still have a long way to go, but when I look back at how far I’ve come, all I can do is shake my head sometimes and thank God for His continued mercy and grace.

The other restaurant was the Ohio Deli, which featured the Dagwood Challenge. [Side note: In looking up the specifics for this post I found out that the restaurant actually burned down not too long ago, which is sad for the people who had poured their life’s work and savings into building an iconic Columbus restaurant, but not so sad for people in my mental and physical state in the summer of 2014.] Anyway, their Dagwood sandwich contains three pounds of cold cuts (roast beef, turkey, and ham), along with thick sandwich bread, lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard, pickle, onion, etc. But that’s not all! It also comes with a pound of fries as well. The seasonings they used reminded me of the best-tasting restaurant fries I’ve ever eaten, the ones from Checkers, so I knew I would have absolutely no trouble eating all of those. There probably could have been two pounds of fries, and I would have said the same thing.

...aaand this is *half of* the Dagwood. Consumed in less than 20 minutes.

And you had thirty minutes to consume it all, in order to get a t-shirt saying something like “I Won the Dagwood Challenge” on one side and the Ohio Deli logo on the other, and a Polaroid photo on their Wall of Immortals. (I have no idea where the shirt is now, but I’m sure it’s probably much looser on me now that it was back then.) Now, I’m no stranger to eating fast. In fact, one of the clearest manifestations of my food addiction comes in the speed with which I eat most meals. As quickly as possible. In fact, I’m not sure how much food I could have eaten at that point, if I had taken the whole half hour to consume whatever I could. I Hoover-ed down the whole platter in about 18 minutes and 30 seconds, which was actually faster than Adam Richman’s time when he took the challenge. The saddest part about the whole ordeal was that I was actually too fat to wear the shirt they gave me, and the sympathetic waitress told me that they could always special-order me a shirt and have it delivered later. I took the too-small shirt and walked out with only slightly wounded pride. (I think that was because my pride was near and all-time low, owing to my overall health and state of mind.)

When I read about people “giving in” and eating on their juice fasts, this is what I think about for myself. This is why I consider any compromise a complete capitulation to my addiction. I know how low I can sink, without the help of the Holy Spirit, for one, and constant vigilance against my base tendencies. That’s why it has nowhere near as much to do with what I eat or don’t eat over the course of the day, and everything to do with spending the time I have over the next few weeks continuing to develop a healthy attitude towards eating in general, and compulsive overeating in particular.