The Best Seasoning

My dietitian said an off-handed comment to me that will forever resonate with me. 

I have only ever hired one dietitian and have never had to pay for lifting coaches before as I was an athlete in high school and college so coaches were provided to us for the cost of blood, sweat, and tears. 

I didn’t know what to expect when hiring a dietitian for lifting but I was shocked when I got the first rendition of my meal plan for a cut. 

I thought I may get 5 different meals to cycle through for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That I would get to cycle through those various meal options weekly. 

I was greeted with two meals and a few snacks throughout the day. 

This was to be my diet going forward. 

Keep in mind, I’m large. My “cut” is 2,730 calories per day at 250 grams of protein. Doing this, I have cut almost 20 lbs in two months. 

After the initial shock passed I let him know, “Hey, I’m happy to try this but I think I will get tired of at the very least the eggs after a few weeks. They get too eggy for me.” 

My dietitian simply reassured me that we would pivot as needed and has been true to his word. 

Getting reacquainted with meal prepping was pretty easy and has made my life significantly easier. I know I have food in my fridge already prepared so I eat said food in my fridge. 

When fast food is less convenient than eating in, eating in become really easy. 

Then came the hunger.

The first day, I thought I was going to starve to death. 

Only 2,700 calories?! Who can eat this little and survive?! (aside from practically the whole population)

I let him know that I was hungry on day one. 

And day 2. 

And day 3. 

I got tired of letting him know I was hungry and just accepted my reality for the cut. 

But man, the food didn’t taste quite as good as all the junk food I had been eating for the last couple of years. 

I had to eat plain yogurt with a sprinkle of cinnamon. I mean, who does that? 

But by week two, all of the foods were tasting delicious. 

My yogurt, which I had considered tart on day one, suddenly was a luxurious snack. One of my favorite parts of my day has become mixing my half frozen blueberry and strawberry mixture into my cinnamon covered plain yogurt. 

I’m salivating just thinking about it. 

The taste of my burrito bowl hits me right every time. 

My egg scramble…. Well, we got rid of the mushrooms from that but with bell peppers.. Ohhhhh *chef’s kiss. 

I told him last week that I was shocked that I had made it 8 weeks eating the same thing day in and day out. Outside of maybe 4 meals for work or special holidays - my meals have been redundant. 

And I’ve… Loved it? It’s easy. It’s convenient. It tastes pretty good. 

All of my concerns have faded. 

And his response?

“Hunger is the best seasoning.” 

Now, I obviously didn’t mind the food to start or I wouldn’t have made it in a couple of months deep but I hadn’t even caught this the first time I listened to it; it was that subtle. 

I was listening back through our chats to see how much weight he wanted me to gain per month once we transitioned to a bulk and that’s when it hit me. 

Hunger is the best seasoning. 

I started laughing out loud. 

I don’t season pretty much any of my meals unless you count the cinnamon or the pineapple habanero salsa I add to my breakfast and dinner. 

Yet, the food tastes borderline gourmet when I eat it. 

I’m so happy to break my hunger that it tastes so good. 

It got me thinking. 

What else can we deprive ourselves of to make it better? 

Pretty much anything that gives us a dopamine hit, right?

When we are around something too much, it becomes decreasingly valuable to us. 

If I sit on the couch all day everyday for weeks on end, I get bored. I get lethargic. I feel bad about myself. 

But if I have one day after months of hard work where I just get to relax? It’s blissful. Serene. Tranquil. Life feels so good. 

When I eat Five Guys (overpriced but SO tasty) 3 times in a week, it hits way differently than when I haven’t had it in months. Same with In-N-Out. Same with Qdoba. 

Okay, you get it, I’m hungry. 

But the point stands. 

If you aren’t enjoying something, maybe it is because you are having too much exposure to it. Maybe, just maybe, if you take some time away from it, you’ll come back rejuvenated and excited about it instead of feeling neutral or negatively. 

Or maybe, this is just a long way of me telling you to take a day off…