Cheat

I looked at, yearningly. Every inch of my body moved hungrily, I could feel all my senses being rekindled with passion. My lips parted, my mouth opened, my tongue licked and absorbed the juices, and every tiny bite brought a new high in me. I wanted to remain in that state of trance, when suddenly I Burped. Off was I from my delightful world of comfort and the reality dawned to me? I had cheated. Days of self-resistance in a moment of weakness made me a slave to temptation.

Ohhh, how could I do this? I was consumed by guilt, looking at the plate which was sometime before brimming with crispy fried vegetables in juicy sauce before it lured me to do the forbidable. The negligible calories lost from days of eating bland food, raw salads, drinking pungent juices and sugarless tea went for a toss with the calorific food I had just consumed. As I tried to console myself, continuously saying, “to err is human, to err is human”, the waiter came to me asking, “Anything else ma’am”. My inner conscience wanted to say “NOOOOOOOO, no more, just the bill”, but my brain said, “Chill, What difference does some more calories over calories make?” And my mouth automatically said, “A bowl of fruits, with three scoops of ice-cream and cream topping”. Wow!!! And that was heaven. I relished every bit of what was placed before me. Paying the bill, I walked out of the restaurant with my head high and unknown (sic) to me, the calories fighting among themselves to make a permanent mark on my body.

My tryst with food and diet maybe synonymous with all the foodies around. Actually it is a known fact in my circles that I prefer foodies. I love people who can make my mouth water with their description of food, experimentation of cooking and tasting new items. I feel out of the place when people tend to find out the drawbacks of food in terms of the way it is made. I would prefer the silence of people who have their head inside their phone checking as though the next economic decision to the PM has to be given by them than someone who lambasts food in any way, especially reminding me of the calories it contains.

Sometimes true but harsh comments like, “You need to reduce, fatso” or being handed over a piece of advertisement chit which says, “Do you want to lose weight? Ask me.” or some really insensitive people asking, “Do you eat the entire food prepared? Don’t you feed your kids?” has a temporary scar on me which sees me going to bland food and equally sad looking raw vegetables which keeps on crying with every bite saying, “My dear, please don’t eat us. Why make us enter inside you when your entire body is rebelling to throw us out?” During the first few days, I ignore their pleas by just gulping them, but eventually when their sorrows are no longer bearable to me, I pity them and go back to my old self.

Foodie or otherwise, no one enjoys being called fat. I remember in a seminar about accepting yourself the way you are, we were asked by the speaker, “Do you accept yourself as you are now?” One girl with all confidence, raised her hands. “Hi Fatty”, the speaker said, to which we saw her confidence weaning off. The speaker said, “When certain things which others say effect you, it means you want it to be changed. So change yourself or then don’t get affected by such comments and be the way you are.” I have taken the words of the speaker in parts, I get effected but can come back to my original state as the gravitational pull of food is too strong to be affected by any harsh comments.

Though no one flaunts the extra amount of flesh on their body, the one place where people especially women unabashedly flaunt it, is in the Mumbai local trains. Ask any women to shift so as to accommodate a person on the fourth seat, she will loudly justify, “Don’t look at my face, look at my waist, all my weight is settled here.” Actually the Mumbai Local Trains should find its place in the “Guinness Book of World Records” for having a record number of women proclaiming proudly that they are fat. Where else on this Planet Earth can such a feat be achieved?

Why is calorific food so precious to a Foodie? It’s like a passionate Mills & Boons lover, knocking off one’s senses, you know you are wrong, yet you regale in the experience. So Foodies turn to food whether they are happy or sad, lonely or in company, in love or out of it.

Me, the foodie admires a photo shopped perfect body seen in the glossy magazines. But do I seriously aim to achieve it? Na. To achieve it, I have to be on a stringent diet and exercise. I am like the guy who admires and dates all the beauties before marriage, but gets married to the simplest looking girl. Reason being, he can’t take the risk of keeping a beauty at home when he is on duty. Seriously, I too cannot take the risk of a diet and being stressed all the time. Till then happy admiring photo shopped pictures and seeing the calories makes its safe abode on me.

Happy Cheat Eating.