There’s a Dog in Your Head Asking for Snacks: Part 1

It is my pleasure to introduce you to the Chonky Corgi (AKA Chonk). Chonk’s sole purpose in life is to make sure we eat, and every element of his anatomy supports that mission.

Chonk’s special skills include: remembering everywhere he has ever eaten something yummy, finding free food, and inventing new food-related holidays.

His weaknesses include: gauging appropriate portion sizes, turning down seconds, and fitting into non-stretchy pants.

I hope you’ll agree, he’s a pretty cool guy.

He performs lots of services to keep us well-fed, and he works hard to make eating FUN!
Being an A+ guy, he likes to go above and beyond at his job. He has lots of ideas about how to eat MORE food, MORE often, and how to make food MORE yummy (that’s his grammar, not mine). His goals are simple:

1. Maximize calories per mouthful
2. Never risk being hungry
3. Prevent starvation by any means necessary

Our bodies use a combination of pleasant and unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and sensations to compel us to do what’s necessary to survive and reproduce. Eating is critical to survival, so we feel things like hunger, craving, pleasure, and satiety to regulate food intake. This is Chonky Corgi’s domain. He spins our pain and pleasure dials to get his job done. (You can read more about how Chonk uses pleasure and pain to get you to eat here link article.

Let’s see what it looks like when Chonk is sending you messages.

Chonk makes full use of all your physical senses to compel you to eat: smell, taste, touch, sound, and sight.

Let’s practice spotting Chonk at work throughout your fancy monkey body.

Case Study: Mission Eat the Cake

In It Was Me All Along, a memoir that chronicles the author’s struggle with binge eating, Andie Mitchell recounts eating an entire chocolate cake on her 20th birthday:

“I can remember carving the first slice, taking the first forkful. The rush of whipped sugar speeding through my bloodstream. It felt like teetering on the ledge on the roof of a skyscraper, exhilarating and terrifying. The split-second decision between balance and oblivion.

What I cannot remember, however, is the exact moment I made the decision to eat the whole thing.”

She goes on to write in excruciatingly vivid detail the full play-by-play. When you know the Chonky Corgi’s tactics, how he hijacks all of your senses to compel you to eat, it’s easy to spot him at work in Andie’s life.

Spot the Corgi

“Scraping the sides of the mixing bowl, I began to notice just how satiny the fudge batter was.”

Chonk uses his snack spotters to help you see how delicious foods look. Look at that yumminess, Andie!

“In transferring heaping spoonfuls of espresso-hued chocolate cream to the cake tins, I reveled in the lightness of texture, the airiness of what I was working with.”

You bet your buns he forces you to notice nice food textures. He wants you craving with not just taste, smell, and your visual field, but also touch. Imagine how wonderful that will feel in your mouth, Andie.

“A scoop in the pan, a scoop in the mouth.”

Great idea, Chonk! Score!

“Ten minutes into baking, the air in my apartment was so saturated with the aroma of chocolate that I lost the ability to focus on anything but that cake.”

Attraction to yummy smells is one of his most powerful tools. Good luck resisting that, Andie!

“Though I had already eaten lunch and cake batter, a new hunger appeared, unexpected and urgent, the kind that forced me to stop whatever I was doing and tend to it.”

Yep, good ol’ hunger—oldest trick in the book. Sorry Andie, but Chonk wants MORE.

“It was the kind I couldn’t ignore, the one that wrestled away my power, every hidden weapon of will, and thrust me into the kitchen, where it always seemed I’d run out of milk and self-control.”

Chonky Corgi LAUGHS in the face of self-control. Will power? Hahaha, silly humans.

“While the cake cooled, I bided my time making the frosting, following the same rigorous taste-testing protocol I had with the cake.”

I mean, obviously. Just following (Chonk’s) protocol.

“Once my mixing bowl was full of glossy stiff peaks, I iced both layers. I carved one perfect slice, dragging my index finger along the flat side of the knife to collect any wayward fudgy crumbs, and brought it to my mouth for a thorough licking.”

Oh boy, here we go! About to seal the deal.

“I ate the slice of cake with fervor, as if intensely pursuing something.”

Mission accomplished. Nice work, Chonk.

Oh, wait…

“I devoured a second slice, and then a third, trailed hastily by another three.”

Ummm, Chonk? I think we’re good here.

“I carved one more, reasoning that would just about do it,”

Okay, Chonk – that’s enough buddy.

“but, oh-look at the crooked edge I’d produced with my shoddy knife skills. A sliver more would straighten it.”

Very sneaky one, Chonk. But seriously, enough is enough.

“I whittled away frosting, and, finally sure that enough was enough, I walked away from the cake and laid my fork and knife in the sink. I turned back to the cake stand and, in one painful glance, saw all that remained. A single slice.”

Why, Chonk? Why!?!

We just witnessed how Chonk demolished Andie’s willpower using the five basic senses for Part 1 of our series on how Chonk does his job of getting you to eat. In Part 2 we will zero in on another tool Chonk uses liberally: thoughts.

But first, let’s practice spotting Chonk at work in our own lives.