“The meal is not over when I’m full, the meal is over when I hate myself,” jokes Louis CK in his stand-up special Chewed Up. He then compares himself to “normal people,” who eat only until they’re full, whereas he eats until he’s doubled over, feeling like he has maple syrup for blood, asking himself why he’d ever eat so much.
Not true that he’s not normal. The bit illustrates the hilarious self-deprecation that pervades CK’s persona, but it also nicely condenses the psychological realities of contemporary American eating life that existential psychologist Kima Cargill describes in her academic crossover book The Psychology of Overeating.
Neurologically and nutritionally, Louis CK probably finds it difficult to stop eating because his food contains enough refined sugar to throw off his brain’s ability to determine when his body is full (see Cargill’s chapters on sugar and “hyperpalatable” and “ultraprocessed” foods). Nature never gives us sugar without a large amount of fiber, which slows down the body’s ability intake and absorb sugars. Our refined sugars are absorbed and stored more quickly than we can use their calories, so we get fat…
