Food = Numbers

As a kid, I was underweight. My parents would try to get me to eat anything (I was an extremely picky eater). After a lot of trial and error my main diet came down to eggs, meat (beef, pork, fish), and rice. I was pretty much told to eat until I couldn't so that I could gain some more weight and grow tall. This trend continued into high school, and it wasn't until halfway through high school when I wanted to perform better in sports that I became a bit more cognizant of my food intake. I tried to get more protein in and tried to drink some type of “green” juice to get nutrients from vegetables since I didn't eat any. The idea of getting proper macronutrients and micronutrients started but I wasn't very strict about it.

After graduating high school and moving to Los Angeles for college, I pretty much kept the same diet. I didn't experience “freshman 15” (I gained maybe 5-7 pounds). This was probably because the dining hall food wasn't great. I tried to eat whatever I could find in the dining halls, but I always left before I was full because the food just wasn't great. This slowly changed during sophomore and junior year. I started grocery shopping and cooking more so that I could buy and cook foods that I liked. I slowly filled out my frame and gained about 10 pounds (bodyweight around 165). I felt strong and healthy. I wasn;t sluggish and my overall mood was great. Towards the end of junior year, I decided to try to bulk to increase muscle mass and get stronger in the weight room. I started taking mass gainer and tried to eat until I could no longer eat. The calorie goal per day was about 4000. An example dinner was a full packet of orange chicken from Trader Joe's, 3 eggs, and a full packet of rice. I gained about another 10 pounds and my strength in the weight room skyrocketed.

The bulking phase lasted for the entire semester, and in the summer, I injured the tendons in my elbow and couldn't work out. My eating habits didn't change much, and to make matters worse, I traveled to Hawaii for 2 weeks for a family reunion and ate like a pig and drank my liver to death every day. By the end of the summer, I weighed 183 pounds.

After rehabbing my elbow for the first couple weeks of my senior year, I decided to compete in a powerlifting meet at the end of the semester with the goal of making collegiate nationals. The weight class I signed up for was 145 pounds. I had about 4.5 months to lose almost 40 pounds. My diet changed overnight from 4000 calories to 1600 calories - 190g protein, ~130g carbs, the rest were fats. I was miserable, but I had a goal in mind. I only ate what I cooked, and I barely took part in any social events. I completed my goal of cutting my weight down to 150 pounds by the week of the powerlifting meet and water loaded throughout the week to cut the 5 pounds overnight for the meet (water loading is when you overload your body with water for an extended period of time and then cut water / liquids on the last day - your body continues to expel water at the same rate as it did during the week and so you end up losing a lot of water weight).

After college, I didn't compete in powerlifting so I ate normally, and my body weight naturally returned to about 165 pounds. In 2022 I entered a BJJ tournament (ended up not competing due to elbow injury) and signed up for the 155 pound weight class. I slowly cut weight and returned to a calorie deficit diet but the diet was not as extreme as the previous weight cut's diet.

It was at this time that I met my girlfriend Blair and naturally, gained a good amount of weight from our awesome food adventures.

Cut to the beginning of 2024, I sat at about 173 pounds. This year I decided to diet again for two main reasons: feel healthier and help my climbing journey. Physically speaking, it's going to be easier to climb against gravity if your body weighs less. This topic is pretty controversial in the climbing space, but in my opinion, the only time it's controversial is when the subject is already lean and at a healthy weight. If you are overweight, then yes, losing weight will help. As I write this, I sit around 153 pounds, and I feel healthy and fit.

With all that being said, my relationship with food has taken an interesting turn in the last 5 years. I no longer see food as something that satisfies hunger or something that might taste good; instead, they are just numbers. They boil down to protein, carbohydrates, and fats. It has taken a lot of the joy out of eating food. Often times when I go out to eat, I subconsciously think to myself “do I deserve this?” or “this means I have to be in a calorie deficit tomorrow”. It's been hard to reset this train of thought, and I don't think the journey to see food as food will be easy. I don't see myself losing any more weight or gaining more weight. I'm at a comfortable spot. Going into 2025, the new goal will be to better my relationship with food and maintain a healthy lifestyle.