I eat a lot of food. I mean, a lot of food. I always joke that, while I don’t think I could win an eating contest, if there were a ’24 hour total’ competition, where the winner was the person who consumed the most calories in a single 24 hour stretch, I could easily crush all comers. There’s no meal so large that, two hours later, I couldn’t sit down and eat the same thing again.

This is particularly odd given that, by any account, I’m not very large: 5’6″, 140 pounds. At that size, even using equations that incorporate my high activity level, I should need to consume somewhere around 2100 calories daily.

Usually, that’s what I consume by lunch.

Honestly, I don’t know where the food goes. Maybe I have a tape worm.

Over the years of running companies, my eating has been the butt of ongoing jokes: “Do we need to stop in at Subway and feed Newman before the meeting?” “I don’t know, it could last as long as an hour; can he go that long without food?”

And, of course, it jacks up my grocery bill unbelievably; I can easily eat my way through $150 of supplies within a seven day span, without even counting the numerous business breakfasts, lunches, and dinners intermixed therein.

But, mainly, all that eating garners from friends and family of all ages dire warnings about the inevitable, impending slowdown of my metabolism, and of a consequent slow ballooning into late-twenties obesity.

People tell me about their friend, or child, or husband, or self, who used to be thin as a rail, until he hit 27, when all of a sudden, his metabolism slowed and he porked up.

And they tell me this as though I’m eating every half-hour because I don’t have anything better to do. But, really, trust me, if my calorie needs dropped, if I could somehow eat a normal number of meals a day instead of having to constantly stuff my face, I’d be thrilled – thrilled! – at the time and money saved.

Until then, however, the eating continues. Literally, as I’m off to cook up a second breakfast.

Bon appetit.