Does food own you?

After my Whole30, I had a couple of weeks off. I went to NYC, played with friends and stopped watching what I ate. 3 things happened:

1 - I felt disgusting from the inside out. My tummy hurt, my joints ached and I was hungry again
2 - I began to think about food again, and when I could have more of it
3 - I realized the emptiness of using food for comfort

Insert this weekend. I spent the last week "mostly" off sugar. I'm trying to make it a lifestyle change, which requires testing myself in situations. As with all things, sometimes I fail. It's a learning experience. So this weekend, I started it off on Friday night at a new, adorable pizza place right by my house. I got a pizza, beer and a cookie.

I drank the beer, watched the game and ate half the pizza. HALF THE PIZZA.

I walked home.

I was still hungry. I felt like I hadn't eaten a single thing.

HOW????? Didn't my body know I had just consumed damn near 2000 calories? Probably more?

It didn't. I felt empty, hungry, grumpy, whiny and entirely unsatiated. And still, I wanted more. LAME.

It didn't take me long to hate that pizza. How dare it trick me like that? How dare it fill my stomach up without bothering to trip the natural *full-o-meter* that it's supposed to after eating!

While working in NYC, I would frequent a local pizza bar. One of the people I met there worked at a company just a few blocks north. Their job was to chemically test food additives that would allow companies to take up "more real estate" - her words - in your stomach. Essentially how to trick your body into being hungrier AFTER you ate than before. Some foods you love were on her list....Top Ramen, Doritos, Kraft Mac and Cheese and McDonalds were a few I remember her listing.

It's no coincidence that Americans are larger and more unhealthy than ANY other nation. We have companies paid billions to ensure we consume. This pizza? Clearly a client of hers...

What are you eating just because someone paid to use your body to make money?