Food When You're Happy, Food When You're Sad, Food As A Reward Is Kinda Bad

As anyone who follows me knows, I love to cook. Being stuck in the house for months during the pandemic took my slightly better-than-average cooking to amazing heights, even to the point where I started a food Instagram.

But I also gained 45 lbs. Because coupled with my cooking skills, I love to eat.

I love to eat in a car. I love to eat in a bar. I love to eat a show. I love to eat in the front row. I love to eat in the park. I love to eat in the dark. I love to eat in the light.

Wish I could go to restaurants every night.

While most people also enjoy food tremendously, occasionally I’ll meet one of those “I only eat for fuel/to live” people and instead of being jealous of their usually fit frame, I just feel bad for them. You don’t ENJOY food? Are you a sentient being? Are you a mammal? Are you even alive? But that’s how much I love food, which when done well is one part heaven, followed by that second part of hell when I gain 20 lbs for just looking at ice cream.

The Substack of the Writer Formally Known As The Black Snob is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

But I got a reprieve from the hell part after I started taking Ozempic and later Wegovy for the chronic obesity I’ve dealt with for most of my adult life. The famous diabetes-turned-weight loss drug changed my entire relationship with food and alcohol, and I’ll be honest, while I loved the 75 lbs of weight loss, I didn’t love that I’d lost most interest in food.

So many barely picked at meals in restaurants. And cooking a meal at home usually meant lots of leftovers, lasting me through the week and beyond, filling up my freezer. I started having more dinner parties just to have an excuse to make food that would get eaten.

The lack of joy from eating, for me, was the worst part of this drug I’ve been on for almost two years. There were other things that weren’t great — like nausea, constipation, or diarrhea — but those became more manageable with time. Not feeling the joy that came with binge-eating a giant plate of homemade nachos (my favorite lazy meal) or eating an entire pint of ice cream was discomforting. I hadn’t realized how much I truly used food as both a reward and a salve until I went on Ozempic. Suddenly, after a long day at work, an emotionally trying moment, or when I was just bored, food was taken off the table as a reward or time-killer. For all my life, I could always just eat something, but now? I barely think about food at all.

I was able to replace my enjoyment of eating with things like pilates and tennis, by writing more often, selling my old clothes and shoes on Poshmark (it’s actually been more fun than I thought it would be), starting new projects, and spending time with friends and my boyfriend, but … um … I still miss the feeling I used to get from food.

Shrimp was once one of my favorite foods. Now I can barely eat two shrimp before becoming bored/tired/disinterested in it, no matter how I prepare it. Pizza is second only to my homemade nachos as my favorite high-calorie meal. I used to binge eat an entire pie, but now I’m lucky if I can finish a slice.

It’s a weird thing to miss your disordered eating. I’m so much healthier now with a lot more energy and excitement for life. While prohibitively expensive and, depending on who you ask — controversial — weight loss medications have changed my life in a way I was never able to do on my own with years of diet and exercise. With the size of the obesity epidemic in this country, especially in the part of America where I grew up, there needs to be more access and opportunity to try different methods of weight management beyond “thoughts and prayers” to your waistline. We need to support and encourage people to do what’s best for their own health and get away from expecting all bodies to fit a particular mold. The amount of guilt I felt for being overweight was crushing, but feeling bad didn’t make me any healthier. If anything, it might have actually made my situation worse.

I’m more invested in staying healthy than going back to my “let’s eat the whole of America in one sitting” ways. I do miss how delicious my world once was, but much like missing an old boyfriend who I knew was bad for me, I don’t miss it enough to ever go back.

But if you wanna stop by Brooklyn, I’ll probably happily make you a plate.

The Substack of the Writer Formally Known As The Black Snob is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.