I decided firmly, without question, that my soul was a one bite soul. I remember standing in the shower in sixth grade, feeling disgusted by my body and saying to myself, this is not who i really am. What diet stories tend to leave out is that in the wake of restriction, people almost always gain the weight back. The story of a life is much longer than the story of a diet. Over the decade, my weight has fluctuated widely as i have pinged between pulls of excess and restriction,. appetite and control, abstinence and snacking.
We cannot escape our bodies. So how do we reconcile them with who we really are?
Sam Anderson, a staff writer, considers this particular conundrum of the human condition by recounting his lifelong struggle to maintain a healthy weight: his teenage triumph over the “legendary snacker” he was in middle school, the slow creep of the pounds in early adulthood, and the pandemic’s expansive effect on his waistline.
Anderson also explores what it takes to monitor food consumption, the linguistic legacy of 1980s diet culture, the curse of intergenerational weight problems, the natural limitations of weight-loss efforts and the importance of self-acceptance.
This story was written and narrated by Sam Anderson. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.