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Hunger
An effect of the Wellbutrin: I am eating less. The drug has not suppressed my appetite. Rather, it has reduced my desire to eat when I am not hungry. Seventeen pounds lost since the start of the year, though some of that is likely also due to another brain chemical associated with the Wellbutrin: Getoffmyassatol.
I am five feet, nine inches tall. At this height I have weighed 125 pounds, and I have weighed 225. Two hundred twenty-five pounds is better, even if just for ease in moving heavy appliances. One hundred-seventy would be better still. By the simple expedient of not eating things I don’t really want to eat, I now have just six pounds to lose before the NIH declares me merely overweight as opposed to obese. About three weeks, less if it doesn’t rain Monday and I can actually climb Diablo. According to the NIH, at 125 pounds I was merely on the light edge of normal. I have destroyed most of the photos of myself in that period: they reminded me uncomfortably of atrocity photos.
Well, that’s one of the reasons.
My unnecessary eating stemmed from boredom, that bane of the ADD hobbyist. It stemmed from a desire for sensation, the distractions of feel and flavor. And it stemmed from habit. For a few years, starting when I was about 17, I could never be sure of my next meal. Eating far past satiety was a survival skill. It was only at age 22, when I got a job in a cheap restaurant in Berkeley, that I could count on more than one meal a day.
I see that hunger now as if it hung before me, excised from my mind albeit still connected by the faintest tendrils. I study it. There is always the chance it will grow back, and I would do well to recognize it. For now I feel a burden gone, a lightness. It is a paring down of need, one obligation to myself removed.
The longing is not gone. It is transplanted.
In mornings I walk down the hill with Zeke, a slower walk each day. His legs are failing. I drink in the sight of him, his silly smile, his need to leap each curb despite his weakness. Steller’s jays taunt us from nearby oaks: I savor their ratcheted song. This morning seven vultures soared the thermal on our hill, tilting their wings only slightly in grand, wide arcs. We take the next block a bite at a time. At the park I let Zeke off leash, a violation the police and park staff tolerate in my old dog, and he follws me gamely to the creek. I have surveyed the creek each morning for some time, though Zeke does not always make it to the bank. It rises and falls with rain and tide, deep-throated murmur or trickly laugh, and the kingfisher flies upstream. This morning I watched it greedily. It was full and so, when I turned to walk toward Zeke again, was I.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Note: A database glitch in 2008 ate a bunch of archived comments. Don't be offended if yours isn't here, or confused if the conversation seems disjointed. Thanks!
Wow, you’re gonna be hotty mcnaturepants again in no time flat (*with an ursine twist of course).
I’m gonna have to hang up my “most handsomest dude at work” badge if this keeps up. Damn, where will I be then, huh?
C’mon clouds, rain rain rain!
By: By Ross on 2006 03 30
I think those guidelines are a bit off. If I weighed what they say I should, I would be sickly.
I am my most healthy feeling in the 185-195 range.
Of course, I haven’t seen that weight since moving back east from CA. :(
By: By craig on 2006 03 31
Woody: “Hi, Norm, whatcha up to?”
Norm: “My ideal weight, if I were 11 feet tall.”
By: By Charles on 2006 03 31
hotty mcnaturepants
Ross, I thought we agreed that name was just for in private.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 03 31
you do swing wildly, weightwise. i’m close to the same height and my range is about 140 (acid days) to 195 (earlier, beer days). have been a moderate (and temperate) 155 for many years.
hard to imagine myself at 125 pounds.
By: By dread pirate roberts on 2006 03 31
Uh-oh, I was going to write something here about weight, but now all I can think of is hotty mcnaturepants.
By: By Rexroths Daughter on 2006 03 31
One of the really lovely things about being old(er), is that i really don’t have to care at all anymore. Ironically, as soon as i stopped caring about it—paying attention to it—i began to just be healthier and happier. I stopped being a fitness freak (professional ocean sport and triathlete) 20 years ago when i broke my foot, followed by double knee surgery in 1987). I ballooned up to over 245 from my peak performance level of 185. I have eroded that down to a very comfortable 202, and eat what and when i want. And it is what i want that probably matters most.
We live in a culture of illusory abundance, and it is far too easy to eat too much off the less sustainable ends of our eco-footprints. Acquiring a taste for brown rice with steamed greens and vegetables really is worth the effort, not for oneself so much as for all the future generations. Plus it is hard to keep the adipose blubber layers.
By: By spyder on 2006 03 31
how very fucking apt. Just went back on the selfsame stuff….
and no, we won’t be talking about my weight, thanks very much… mr. hotty mc naturpants..(LOL-rexroth’s daughter)
so, the partner has left, the job is still killing me, the war rages on, and the drugs haven’t kicked in yet, but I turn to the same medicine you do—the dogs… out front in the pasture, in the evenings…
and that still works…
bless Zeke, drink him in
By: By lavalamp on 2006 03 31
mr. hotty mc naturepants
Ross, you might want to consider staying in Belize, seeing as I am totally kicking your ass when you get back to work.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 03 31
Like Rexroths Daughter, I was going to say something serious here, but…Hotty McNaturepants!
Chris might kick your ass, Ross, but it may comfort you in your suffering to know that that phrase will now forever be associated with “Chris Clarke,” in my head at least.
By: By Stephanie on 2006 04 01
