Red Pill With A Side Of Fries

GutundTasty / Pixabay

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Red Pill, Blue Pill.”

If you could get all the nutrition you needed in a day with a pill — no worrying about what to eat, no food preparation — would you do it?

Food has always been sort of a double-edged sword for me.  On one hand, I need it in order to survive.  On the other hand, I like it so much, it could kill me.

When I was a child, I was rail thin.  It wasn’t because I didn’t eat or anything like that.  I had a decent appetite.  I just had that body frame.  You know the kind, very bony like.  My knees and elbows were very pronounced and the bones at the side of my wrist and ankles protruded.  I’m still like that today.  Except, now, I have extra padding around my midsection.

Since I was also always tall, my mother always had a hard time finding clothes that would fit me.  We always ended up leaving the department stores with slacks that were in the “slim sized category.”  Nowadays, slim jeans are in.  Damn!  I grew up in the wrong era.

It wasn’t until around the age of 13, that I started to fill out.  During puberty, some boys experience slight breast growth.  Guess what?  I was lucky enough to be in that percentile.  Puberty was so fun.  Of course I’m joking.  I was traumatized with this extra flesh that was forming all around my body.  Even in the normal places, “down under.”  To ease my trauma, I quickly learned to curb my appetite.  On the occasion that I thought I did eat too much, I used another skill I learned, regurgitation.  I had that down pact.  I didn’t have to stick any fingers down my thought or anything.  I just did it.

The result of practicing these news skills was not a favorable one.  I ended up with anorexia.  Thank God my mother was able to see something was wrong, and promptly took me to see a doctor.  I was poked and prodded and asked all sorts of questions.  Eventually, I was sent to see a psychologist.  Among the things the psychologist had me do was draw pictures of my family, answer questions, and do puzzles.  I was clever enough to give the correct responses and was released from their care after only 2 visits.

I was fortunate to overcome anorexia, but food continued to play it’s evil games with me.  At one point I gained so much weight that bending over to tie my shoes was a chore.  Through a lot of introspection I’ve come to understand my issue with emotional eating.  Whenever I was stressed, I ate.  If I was sad, I ate.  Even boredom could send me to the refrigerator for something to fill the emptiness.  I overcame my overeating habits by telling myself I had to eat to live, not live to eat.

Today, I try to listen to my body.  I eat when I’m hungry.  The only problem is, sometimes I get so busy with whatever I’m doing, that I forget to check in with myself to see if I’m hungry.  Then, it’s too late, and I become famished.  That’s when I’ll grab something quick just for the sake of eating.  In those instances, a pill would be perfect for me.  However, I wouldn’t want to be limited to only having the perfect pill of nutrients.  I enjoy eating too much.  I also enjoy cooking.  Since, I’m not a pharmacist, making my own pills just wont do.

To answer the question at hand.  I guess I would like a set of pills that would provide me with everything I need.  But I would never want to sacrifice food for it.  It would be the ultimate situation if I could order a red pill and a side of fries to go.