Overcoming Gluttony

Ever since I was a boy, I have always had a proclivity for gluttony. I vividly remember competing with my brothers (Joe, Bob, Paddy & Symo) in 1993 on who would gormandize the most number of chapattis - my favourite meal which we cooked once in a week. (By the way, I still love chapattis, especially when I take them with lentils stew.)

When we went grazing cattle, Paddy, Symo and I would beg for chapattis from our neighbour named Mrs. Memia - a kind and generous lady who has long since emigrated to Great Britain - whenever we smelled the sweet aroma of chapattis drifting from her house. And we would probably have continued begging her for chapattis had our mother not intervened by scolding us for spoiling our family's reputation.

Then I carried that kind of gluttony to Fr. Nyamiti's residence when we visited him once in a while in the late '90s. (See photo above.) Though we visited Fr. Nyamiti to listen and gain an appreciation of classical music, my best part of the visits were the self-service mid-morning tea and lunch we had at his residence. I would greedily feast on a wide variety of meals and hot-drinks with no one to stop me. Like for the mid-morning tea, I would first take instant coffee, then chocolate on my second-helping.

And then I carried that kind of gluttony to Starehe Boys' Centre where I was fortunate to be admitted in 2002 for my high school education. During my first years at Starehe, I developed the habit of "combining" food in the dining hall. ("Combining" was Starehe's code-name for eating extra food on the table.)

I would probably have continued with that "combining" had my poor eating habits not been brought to my attention by my housemates. Leon Osumba, who oriented me to the Starehe way of life when I joined the school in January 2002, was the first one to point it out by remarking to my housemates with whom we were seated with in the dining hall, "This Thuita doesn't chew his food!"

Then the school magazine raised the issue a notch higher when it named me something like "Combiner of the Year" in a 2004 edition of the magazine.

'Sir' Emmanuel Karanja, a brilliant housemate who inspired me to learn computer-programming, moved in to save my reputation by advising me during one meal in the dining hall, "Thuita, resist the urge to over-eat, especially in front of people. Wise and intelligent people don't do that. Look at a person like George Waithaka - do you ever see him eating a lot like you do?"

George Waithaka, if you wish to know, was another brilliant housemate of mine who was among the four students selected in 2003 to represent Starehe at a conference in South Africa. He emerged as the fourth best student countrywide in '04 KCSE exams. His exemplary character and brilliance must be the reasons he was awarded a scholarship to pursue a post-high school diploma at Aiglon College in Switzerland from where he was accepted at the highly-esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.

Those incidences in which my housemates brought my gluttony to my attention, embarrassing though they seem, compelled me to overcome my gluttony in the Starehe Boys' dining hall. I eventually ceased "combining" food in the dining hall during my senior years at Starehe. And that didn't affect my vigour and vitality. In fact, I grew healthier because I didn't get frequent colds and coughs in my senior years at Starehe like I used to do in my junior years. So the notion that "the more you eat, the healthier you become" is a fallacy.

Abduba Dida, a presidential candidate in 2013 Kenya's General Elections who once took me to an office in downtown Nairobi, was therefore on point when he counselled Kenyans not to stuff their stomachs with solid food and instead spare some space for water and air. He was on point for shizzle.

But you know what? Over the past few months, I have again become gluttonous by putting too much sugar in my tea and by waking up in the middle of the night to gobble on whatever meal that was left over after supper - the kind of lupine behaviour I would hate to carry into marriage life. As a result, I have gained weight.

Since I have never liked being plump, I have resolved to put my gluttony to a stop. I have therefore instructed my prefrontal cortex (PFC) - the decision-making part of the brain - to stop the bad habit I have of putting too much sugar in my tea and of waking up in the middle of the night to gobble on food. Adieu!