I have been thinking about a post like this for a few months now, it’s not something I mention much, but if I have an addiction to something, even more than buying videogames or constantly modifying my website, it’s food. More specifically, snacks.
I don’t know if saying how it started helps at all, and I don’t know if it’s the actual reason of how I got here, but I wanted to tell a story anyway.
When I was a kid, I never got money to buy lunch. My mom and sometimes my dad would always make something for me. However, all the cool kids at school had money to get lunch from the stores right besides the school. Tortas, tacos, burritos, burguers, pizza, tamales, whatever.
And of course, they could also afford snacks, like Tostitos, Cheetos, Doritos, Sabritas, or maybe something sweet like cookies or churros, Gansitos, Pinguinos, etc. And some Coke or other soda for a drink.
American TV shows always showcased those neat cafeterias where all kids in a row got their food and the cool kids (or sometimes bullies) always got the ñast pizza slice right before the actually relatable protagonist, who ended up with some mashed potatoes. But I guess that since no such thing as a cafeteria with free food existed in any of the schools I went to, eating my mom’s lunch was the equivalent to those mashed potatoes.
I know that eating trash food is not good, and that some (if not most) of those kids who bought lunch did it because their parents were too busy to actually prepare something themselves. Anime and TV shows today (and even old ones that I have rewatched with adult eyes) usually show that the actual best lunches are the ones custom made at home, after all, I just never appreciated it.
But well, once I got to High School and University, I started to do small stuff, like selling candy, peanuts and such, and I had enough money to spare and spend it on a snack every once in a while.
My brain from that point onward thought something like “it’s time to buy every snack I couldn’t get as a kid”, or something that sounded like justice at the time, and that manner of thought has remained to this day.
I started buying the cheapest snacks possible. I remember always going for the ones called Runners, because they were like 7 pesos (a third of a USD today) and weighted more than most other snacks like Ruffles or Doritos.
University came, and more money too, and things were more or less the same. I still have my lunch, but I also managed to get one or two extra snacks a week. I even had enough money to actually buy lunch instead of getting it at home, like burguers and tacos on places next to the campus.
Then the pandemic started, and I didn’t have to buy snacks anymore because I stayed at home and just got food there.
However, I also started moving a lot less than before. I no longer had to walk 25 minutes to and from University, or at least to the bus that got me there. The physicality and movement that kept me pretty fit started to fade away.
When returning to the classrooms, we had changed homes further away, and walking to University was no longer an option, I could only afford to go by bus, so I walked much less than before now. I never really went back to the amount of movement of my earlier years.
And then I started to actually get paid once I started my internships, and I kind of stopped getting lunch altogether (my mom begun studying a career and my dad cooked but didn’t make me lunch). So I started to buy lunch (and snacks) from the cafeteria at work, and from outside places whenever I felt like it. At the very least the internship work required me to walk more, but still not enough, and not with the same intensity as the one that came when you were late to class.
And now I’ve been working for a couple years, and I spend most of the time sitting (or standing!) at a desk doing office work, sometimes I go up and down the stairs and walk to a place, but nowhere near as much.
And well, as much as it pains me to say it, I buy a snack pretty much every single day of the work week.
This is a fact that I’ve refused to see as that big of a deal, but it obviously is.
Today, only an hour or so ago as I write this post. A coworker (not one I usually interact with but we know each other by name) made a general question towards the group I eat with: “How do you guys manage to eat snacks every day?”
There was a bit of extra chatter about fitness and such, it didn’t last long, but my name came up a couple times, “He goes to the gym”—they said—“although it doesn’t seem to do much”—they said. Everyone laughed, I smiled nerviously.
I didn’t say much, and nothing hurt really, it’s the kind of chatter that happens at work every time, there’s people bulkier than me there who handle such things and throw their own jokes or friendly insults back at them. But it got me thinking about all of this.
Obviously, I should not buy snacks every day. I probably spend at least 2 or 3 USD per day on snacks—it’s more in Mexico than the amount in dollars implies. Sometimes both for brunch and lunch, and sometimes once more when I’m on my way home.
Sure, maybe I am only 10 kg over my ideal weight (I am honestly surprised at the fact I am not even more overweight given my circumstances). I still move faster than my older coworkers, and can pull in my belly and pretend everything is fine.
I guess the fact that I walk to and from the work bus almost every day, and that I go to the gym at least twice a week (sometimes), and that maybe I got a pretty decent metabolic system, has managed to keep my body relatively in check.
But I’ve said it many times, I want to lose weight. I know the areas where I can improve, I know the issues I’ve gotten, the small extra inertia and effort it takes me to run and to keep my pace when compared to a few years back, the clothes that I’ve had since high school that no longer fit me and not just because of regular body growth, I see the signs and I know I can change. It’s just a matter of actually doing it.
I wish I could say “from now on I won’t buy snacks anymore”, it just doesn’t seem feasible, but maybe it is something I can actually do, or just reduce it to only twice a week, or something like that, I don’t know if I can give them up though, I feel like if I commit and I fail, I’ll end up worse. But well, small steps.
