Anyone who’s looked at a nutritional information panel in the US has seen a phrase similar to: “Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet”. Well, I’ve been counting my calories recently, and I’m not really sure how anyone can manage on just 2000 calories. 

Here’s my breakfast, lunch, and snack for the average work day:

• Protein drink (150-190 calories) 
• Cheese (320 calories) or baked good (360 calories) 
• Chicken or tuna salad with avocado mayo (375 calories) 
• 2 hard-boiled eggs (100 calories) 
• Yogurt (180 calories) (I know there are yogurts with fewer calories but they taste terrible) 
• 2pm snack (280-300 calories) 

That’s 1445 calories right there, which leaves 555 for dinner and some sort of evening snack. 

I’m sure I’ve talked in the past about how I’m always hungry. Always. Even medications that are supposed to make me less hungry or eat less food don’t work. I wake up at 6am most work days, and if I don’t have breakfast by 7:30 I get nauseous from hunger. I get hungry again almost immediately but try to hold off until 9-9:30 before having my snack. Lunch is at 11:45 and by then I’m ravenous. I get hungry again at 2pm and that’s when I have a snack. When I get home from work, I’m usually hungry but I try to hold off for an hour or so before making dinner; the trade-off is that by the time I make it and eat it I’m so hungry that I wolf it down. Then I get hungry again around eight. 

Oh, and before you tell me I could eat lower-calorie foods — sure, I could, but they don’t do anything to my hunger and in fact they make it worse. One cup of carrots, for example, makes me hungrier than not eating at all. I don’t understand it. 

I try to keep my calorie intake under 3000 per day. At that rate, with my current weight, I should lose about a pound a week. I’d be happy losing half a pound a week even. But that’s not working because I’m so hungry that I often go over. Not always by a lot, but it does happen. 

And, if you look at my list of foods, I don’t eat a ton of highly-processed crap. Most of what I eat is relatively healthy. I don’t eat fast food almost at all anymore, not when it’s cheaper and healthier to get a deli sandwich from the grocery store. When I go out I try not to eat fried food. I don’t drink soda or juice. I do as much right as I can, and I’m still always hungry, and I still don’t lose weight. If I tried to cut my calorie intake down to 2000, I would be absolutely miserable; at 3000 I’m already pretty unhappy most of the time when it comes to food. 

Every day I try to avoid just giving up on calorie counting and losing weight, prioritizing my happiness over my size and general health. It’s a tough battle. It’s made worse by the fact that everything has so many fucking calories. (And yeah, I should be exercising, but I’d rather focus my energy on something productive, like writing. I only have so much energy in a day, and if I waste it on exercise I won’t have any left for creative endeavors.) 

I don’t know how people do it. I’ve never been able to. I wish I could but it doesn’t seem to be in the cards. I don’t love the way I look, but I guess I’m stuck with it. 

Yay.