This is quite fitting because I’m actually hungry (which for this time in the morning is highly unusual). It’s a topic that comes up quite a lot at home, at work and out and about because I have a very strange relationship with food.
I’ve always been a skinny little thing, never peaking the eleven stone mark which for someone over six foot is classified as being underweight I believe. From what I can remember the problems started at University where as a result of my lifestyle and lack of funds I completely lost any love I may have previously had for food. To this day I feel sick and guilty if I over indulge which some would probably classify as an eating disorder. At the end of the day it is my opinion that as a rule we eat far too much, and we also waste too much but that’s another post for another time. When I was at Uni I managed to get to the point where I was eating one or two meals a day and I was entirely comfortable with that. I wasn’t punishing myself, I wasn’t in pain as a result of it, my stomach had shrunk and I just didn’t have the capacity for it at all.
Food is just not classified as a priority to me; a very wise women once said that I ‘eat to live, whereas the rest of the family live to eat’ and that has stuck with me, and is something I turn to as a defence. If something is very well prepared then I can still appreciate it (my girlfriend’s cooking for example is spot on) but for the most part I just see food as being coal for the burner in my belly, I just need enough to keep me going and even that often gets forgotten when I get lost in a task. If I’m writing or recording or hung up on something it isn’t exactly the case that I forgo food as much as it doesn’t even come into my thoughts until I’m finished or the offer is made to me. I guess that’s why it would be dangerous for me to live alone again, there are only so many notches to feed into my belt.
Evaluate from that whatever you want.
Paul Schiernecker 