The most dangerous place in Kenya is not a game park, it’s an all-you-can-eat wild game restaurant called “The Carnivore”. Innocent tourists gasp and salivate as waiters come by their hut every 2 minutes with huge hunks of meat on skewers. Crocodile, ostrich, antelope, zebra – it’s impossible to refuse each new pound of flesh plonking onto your plate.

The morning after

Just like drinking, there’s that one point where you know you’re going to regret this in the morning. But then you hear the call of the wild – “Would you like to try some wild boar, sir?” – and the battle’s lost. The diet will just have to wait another day or two for the stomach pains and diarrhea to subside.

OK, cobra-meat addiction isn’t a big problem for most of us, but the tendency to overeat is. Biologically, our caveman ancestors were programmed to eat as much as possible during the warm times so they could stay alive during the frozen no-food times. Problem is, thanks to California and the trucking industry we don’t have those balancing lean times anymore.

So why do we overeat?

Sometimes it’s boredom, loneliness, habit, socialization, addiction, and of course advertising. Once in a while the answer is even taste, though let’s face it – that Super Big Gulp or bucket of chicken isn’t really such a treat at the bottom, and the third cookie doesn’t have that many more chocolate chips than the first two. It’s just there and we’re programmed to finish it.

The first time I ever fasted I learned quickly about another trigger: distraction. In the middle of university exam week – great time to skip nourishment! – I decided to annoy my female friends by showing off how easy it was to lose weight. I did indeed lose 10 pounds in three days (and a few female friends in the process), but also discovered that about every two minutes I was automatically turning from my books to reach for where the chips usually were kept on the side shelf. It wasn’t hunger – that passes after day one – it was just an easy way of meandering away from what I needed to do.

The Master Cleanse

Much healthier and more instructive is the Master Cleanse – 10 days of nothing but lemon juice with syrup and cayenne pepper (and some laxative tea, if you must know). As well as flushing out all that yucky residue that build up over the year, it amazingly frees up energy and focus for other things. All that time normally spent thinking about, shopping/gathering, preparing, eating, and cleaning up after food gets re-routed to creative projects, children, life.

To keep my naturopath happy, what I’d like to resolve is to listen to my body before I reach for the snacks or a second helping. Am I really hungry, or just losing focus? What is my body calling for – is it really that peanut-butter cup, or a quick nut or tofu protein fix, or those organic carrots and peaches on the counter? (Or maybe a yogurt smoothie with all of the above…)

Eating by the Body Clock

Eating has moved so far from a natural response to the body’s call for nourishment, this resolution is harder than it may sound. Mealtime is too often determined by the clock or the meeting schedule, not the body’s true calling. The menu arises from what’s on sale, what we have time to re-heat, or what recipe looks good to our eyes and brains.

I cycled from Vancouver to Ohio once because, well, just because. 25 days of sunrise-to-sunset cycling is a powerful way to build a relationship with your body. Mine would tell me precisely what to cook and when, and what the consequence would be otherwise. I’d just know that I’d have to cook pasta and veggies before passing out in exhaustion. And if I didn’t listen and had that Snickers bar, about 22 minutes down the road my blood-sugar would plummet and the road would get twice as steep. Listening to my body wasn’t just natural, it was a matter of survival.

I don’t know much about diets and nutrition charts, but I do trust my body to know what it needs, and that’s often different than what my tongue wants. If I listen to my stomach a bit more and my eyes a bit less, eating will be a healthier and ultimately more pleasurable and satisfying part of life.

A slice of elephant rump, anyone?

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Photo by star5112.