You are what you eat

Food has been on my mind a lot of late. I've been trying to lose some weight ahead of a race I've signed up for in a few weeks, and as a result, I've been perpetually hungry for the past two months or so.

And as I carefully monitor my intake of calories, I find myself noticing people's eating habits more than I usually would. My friends say I'm just plotting how to steal their food, and there might be some truth in that. But I've also noticed that what, and how we eat, says a fair bit about who we are.

There are a few basic stereotypes that seem to hold true: Guys tend to eat with gusto and abandon, girls tend to pick at their salads in a bid to stay trim; girls like to save space for dessert while guys will have two helpings of the sweet stuff after a regular meal, especially if they're in the midst of National Service.

The cliche that those who pick at their food or count calories too fastidiously aren't much fun or spontaneous in life definitely seems to hold true, as I've not been very good company in my state of perpetually low blood sugar (although I promise this will change once I'm done with the run and can stuff my face again).

But as I probed deeper, I noticed more nuances than are immediately apparent. The ability to stick to a specific diet, for example, suggests tremendous willpower and discipline and not just a bland personality.

A female friend of mine once told me she switched to an all-fruit diet in a bid to lose weight to get in good physical shape for a sporting competition, and managed to stay on it for a few years. She succeeded in lowering her body fat percentage, but raising the eyebrows of friends with her quirky dietary habits. Despite all the challenges, she persevered and remains the only fruitarian I know to this day.

I have another friend who will not eat complicated foods. Yes, you read that right. No watermelon with too many seeds, no foods that require peeling or excessive mastication, no food with too many elements or parts to it. She is the mother of three kids and runs the communications department of an international financial institution, so I guess she can be forgiven for seeking out simplicity in her diet. But I still find it hilarious.

A few years ago, a triathlete mate of mine - he was among the pioneers of Singaporean athletes who chose to explore extreme endurance sport before it became a favourite yuppie past-time - had read somewhere that olive oil was a supreme endurance fuel. He then promptly proceeded to only eat rice drenched in olive oil for months on end in a bid to get faster and last longer.

I think he managed to achieve that, but he started to smell odd after a few weeks. I'm not sure it was worth becoming an olfactory outcast, but he seemed happy enough and also developed an impressive six-pack.

The wide range of diets being promoted on the market these days is baffling to say the least. No carbs, no carbs after 7pm, eat in the "zone", eat according to your blood-type, drink only liquid protein, take only five bites of food ... the list goes on.

My fruitarian friend pointed out that, besides being thoroughly confusing, these faddish diets had the other undesirable effect of disconnecting us from our best dietary guide - our own bodies.

She asked me recently if I like ice-cream, and I said that I didn't mind it, but had over the years developed an indifference to it that was borne out of the fact that it did not have much nutritional benefit and tended to make me paunchy.

"But what if your body is telling you that you need something like ice-cream? Aren't you basically training yourself to shut out what your body is telling you?" she asked.

I'm not sure my own body has my interests at heart all the time though. Most days it seems to be telling me that I need beer and chicken wings, and while I'm far from a nutritional expert, I somehow think that's not the best diet I could have.

But I agree that we seem to have lost touch with our own innate sense of what our bodies need in terms of food and nourishment in the clutter of newfangled dieting trends.

Maybe we should all make the effort to listen a bit better to our inner diet guru. Perhaps that way, how we eat really will reflect who we truly are.