Terrible Tuesday - Gluttony

Since I'm in the midst of an existential panic revolving around my weight, I thought it'd be appropriate to start with Gluttony.

In today's society, we mostly associate this deadly sin with food or drink. However, the root existence of this sin is much more broad and includes any '"unreasonable or unnecessary consumption and/or a refusal to share resources". For my purposes though, I'll focus on food.

I vividly remember my mother getting angry with us kids (my siblings and I) because we would eat all of the junk food in the house at a record pace. One day the cabinets were full, the next, barren. Seriously, we were bad.

We consumed as if we would never see another Oreo or Drake's cake ever again. Like the bag of chips we had was the last one on earth. Like junk food suddenly became outlawed. Unfortunately, I think I've regressed back to that childish mindset. I must have the last piece of chicken, keep your hands off the last cookie unless you want your fingers broken, and god forbid you finish the brownies. That's grounds for justifiable homicide in my house. Consume, consume, consume. Eat simply for the sake of eating. Eat because it's there. It's not healthy and honestly, not something I even realized I did until I wrote this post.

Thing is, I hate being hungry. I just don't like the feeling of an empty stomach. When I'm hungry I can think of nothing else but eating. Thoughts of food will consume me until I do. To be completely honest, thoughts of food consume me even when I'm not hungry these days.
(I wasn't always this way. I used to eat once, maybe twice a day, hunger pangs were a tolerable nuisance, and if I didn't eat, I didn't care. It really wasn't a big deal. Not so now. Now I'm so much more food focused. Because I have children perhaps? That's the only reason I can think of.)


Lately, I don't think twice about inhaling an entire tray of brownies, having that second serving of ice cream, or getting seconds at dinner. I have lost all sense of portion control and I like it. Ahhh, gluttony at it's finest. I do not however, like the face that stares back at me in the mirror. Where have my cheekbones gone?

The reasoning behind why I can no longer see my fabulous cheekbones is exactly why I think gluttony is the most shameful of the seven sins. You wear it on the outside for all to see. You cannot hide your gluttony. There is no pushing it down into the depths of your soul. Quite to the contrary, gluttony doubles your chin, thickens your waist, and dimples your ass. Gluttony hangs off your arms, bulges over your belt, and drips over your bra straps. Gluttony is disgusting and I'm embarrassed to admit how indulgent I am.

::pause::

There...that last paragraph. I've spent the past 10 minutes sitting here, finger poised on the backspace key, contemplating deletion. But no, it stays. The raw brutality of it is exactly what I was hoping to unleash with this series. Gluttony is a new enemy to me, one I'm not familiar with fighting. And, that's ok. I know there are millions like me who battle with food on a daily basis, who are disgusted by their eating habits, and who yearn for the strength to defeat this voracious demon. And I know that it's possible to do so. For me, it seems, the first step has been confronting the demon and releasing it thru the words in this post, and with that, I am satisfied.

Thank you Jill for being the inspiration behind the Seven Sins Carnival.