I've written plenty about how I eat a lot, so I don't think that part is a surprise to anyone. However, the part that always seems to surprise people is how little I appreciate sweets. It's not that I don't ever eat chocolate, it's that I never go looking for it. So, I will eat a bunch of entrees during a meal, but then I will tell people that I am too full to have dessert.
For some people, this falls somewhere between shocking and sacrilege. They simply don't understand how I don't want to eat ice cream (or whatever the dessert happens to be). This is also where the fact that I eat a lot comes into play. If I eat so much anyway, surely I must be able to sneak in some ice cream into my stomach. Besides, they argue, I must surely have a dessert pocket in my stomach.
It's a discussion I've had quite a few times, so it's no longer a surprise when it comes up. I've learned to accept that other people have this mysterious space for dessert that manifests itself even after they can't eat any more of their meal. However, I recently heard a very interesting description of this phenomenon that seemed to make a lot of sense. It doesn't quite have the ring of truth, but it's really close.
First off, I'm going to discount the basic difference in appetite sizes. Some people simply eat more than others. That doesn't account for the dessert pocket, though. If I eat two slices of pizza and you only eat one, that doesn't change the fact that we're both full. Full is full.
That said, someone recently described the difference between someone who eats like I do and someone with a dessert pocket is simply a shift in the full scale. Let me explain. Say that at the beginning of the meal, I am 0% full. That means that I have 100% of my stomach available to me, and I can eat until I hit the 100% mark. If I eat so much pizza that I'm 100% full, I will literally have no room left for dessert (hint: this is basically how I eat). Now, if you're the kind of person who likes dessert, you might only eat until you're 90% full, so that you've got a small portion of your stomach left for sweets. It's all pretty straight forward; this is a classic percentage problem.
By this logic, it should be impossible to ever go above 100%. After all, full is full. The trick that people with dessert pockets pull isn't that they somehow violate the laws of math, it's that they shift their scale. Say someone starts their scale at 50%. You can still eat 100%, but now your scale has shifted from 50% to 150%. Sure, that sounds like verbal slight of hand, but hear me out. Your brain is wired to stop at 100%, or what you consider 100%, no matter what. So it doesn't matter if you started at 0, 30, or 70. You still stop where you think 100% lies.
And that's precisely the trick here. If you start your scale higher than 0%, you haven't actually eaten your full ration when you hit 100%. You can physically eat more, but your brain put a limit on where you should stop. You hit the 100% mark, but you've only eaten whatever part it took for you to get up to 100%. Ergo, you have a dessert pocket.
That's it, that's the magic. It all boils down to some simple math and pop psychology. The beauty of this scheme is that it explains everything from how a dessert pocket exists to why I can't do the same thing myself. Given that it does such a good job of explaining the world around me, I think I'm going to adopt this as my world view. I'm going to have to start dubbing people 30%-ers or 70%-ers to put this to use.
For some people, this falls somewhere between shocking and sacrilege. They simply don't understand how I don't want to eat ice cream (or whatever the dessert happens to be). This is also where the fact that I eat a lot comes into play. If I eat so much anyway, surely I must be able to sneak in some ice cream into my stomach. Besides, they argue, I must surely have a dessert pocket in my stomach.
It's a discussion I've had quite a few times, so it's no longer a surprise when it comes up. I've learned to accept that other people have this mysterious space for dessert that manifests itself even after they can't eat any more of their meal. However, I recently heard a very interesting description of this phenomenon that seemed to make a lot of sense. It doesn't quite have the ring of truth, but it's really close.
First off, I'm going to discount the basic difference in appetite sizes. Some people simply eat more than others. That doesn't account for the dessert pocket, though. If I eat two slices of pizza and you only eat one, that doesn't change the fact that we're both full. Full is full.
That said, someone recently described the difference between someone who eats like I do and someone with a dessert pocket is simply a shift in the full scale. Let me explain. Say that at the beginning of the meal, I am 0% full. That means that I have 100% of my stomach available to me, and I can eat until I hit the 100% mark. If I eat so much pizza that I'm 100% full, I will literally have no room left for dessert (hint: this is basically how I eat). Now, if you're the kind of person who likes dessert, you might only eat until you're 90% full, so that you've got a small portion of your stomach left for sweets. It's all pretty straight forward; this is a classic percentage problem.
By this logic, it should be impossible to ever go above 100%. After all, full is full. The trick that people with dessert pockets pull isn't that they somehow violate the laws of math, it's that they shift their scale. Say someone starts their scale at 50%. You can still eat 100%, but now your scale has shifted from 50% to 150%. Sure, that sounds like verbal slight of hand, but hear me out. Your brain is wired to stop at 100%, or what you consider 100%, no matter what. So it doesn't matter if you started at 0, 30, or 70. You still stop where you think 100% lies.
And that's precisely the trick here. If you start your scale higher than 0%, you haven't actually eaten your full ration when you hit 100%. You can physically eat more, but your brain put a limit on where you should stop. You hit the 100% mark, but you've only eaten whatever part it took for you to get up to 100%. Ergo, you have a dessert pocket.
That's it, that's the magic. It all boils down to some simple math and pop psychology. The beauty of this scheme is that it explains everything from how a dessert pocket exists to why I can't do the same thing myself. Given that it does such a good job of explaining the world around me, I think I'm going to adopt this as my world view. I'm going to have to start dubbing people 30%-ers or 70%-ers to put this to use.
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