Acquiring a taste for food that is good for me is as easy as developing a taste for food that isn’t. It is my choice.

No one likes the taste of pickled herring or whisky the first time as they are known to be acquired tastes. In thinking about how it has been possible that I am able to enjoy foods now that I didn’t before, I find that the answer is that I am able to acquire a taste for anything.

For me this means two things: while I didn’t get the same pleasure eating steamed broccoli and smoked, skinless chicken breasts that I once did from eating steaming bowls of pasta carbonara, I was, pretty soon in the scheme of things, able to be satisfied by it. I’ve also learned that my desires for foods that I’ve added to my “Verboten” list can very easily be rekindled and the cravings and wonderings about them can become an unnecessary distraction.

Now that I’m at my goal weight, I feel freer about adding calories to my diet. Broccoli, for example, is even more delicious when I make it with a satay-inspired sauce of peanut butter, soy and sesame oil for smokiness. While this addition of calories isn’t harmful to me, it has made the idea of naked, steamed broccoli seem boring. Alarm bells are ringing.

I’ve also noticed that I’m not stopping to eat when I naturally feel sated, but picking at this or that which remains on the table. This breaks my rule of one-plate-only-food but also reminds me how compelling I find left-over food to be. I know that it is important that I remain vigilant. What the scale says and the way my clothing fits is the ultimate arbiter but I don’t want to make the challenge of keeping to a healthy weight more difficult than it already is.

I think I’d better re-acquire a taste for naked, steamed broccoli and get used to the idea of throwing food away in the bin, rather than discarding it in my body.

I think it is true that as an addict I have replaced an addiction to food with an addiction to exercise but I also note that I’m needing more coffee than ever before, especially as a replacement to dessert which other people around me are eating when I’m not.

Marika Sboros did a brilliant interview with me for Business Day. Here is a link to it if you’d like to read it: http://www.bdlive.co.za/life/health/2013/01/08/vital-signs-how-not-having-bariatric-surgery-saved-my-life