Some of you are probably thinking that my blog entries are too long. I know, writing for me is a lot like eating popcorn, I can’t stop until the bowl is empty. One of my college professors told me I should try to write more like Hemingway and less like Dickens, but you know what? I really don’t like Hemingway all that much. Most of the time, I want to know more, not less, so if you can only skim my articles, that’s okay, or try my foodie blog, those posts are shorter. : -)
I wish I were thinner. I know we all think that, but every year, at every milestone, I think, “next year will be better.” The problem is that in two years I will be 50, and I am still trying to accomplish that which I started before age 30…..
My family is divided on the issue of weight, oh what the heck, let’s just call it what it is, fat! My mother is a little bitty thing and was obviously selfish with those genes. My father was tall and broad, but not fat, in fact as a young man, he was very skinny (think Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld); however, I got my body genes from my father’s mother. She died five years before I was born, but in her pictures she is short and wide with a built in shelf, just like me. My oldest brother was skinny when he was young and most of the time now, he is just a little pudgy. He is one of those people who can stop eating ice cream for a month and lose weight. My other brother is like me. He was once very athletic, but after starting an office job, developed a weight problem. And like me, right now he is on the “up” side. We have both tried every reasonable diet and a few unreasonable ones, yet we always come back to the same point, needing to lose more weight. We were talking the other day and I made the comment that I thought I would have an easier time recovering from an alcohol addiction than a food addiction. He agreed, having spent several months avoiding alcohol, but still not losing more than 15 or 20 pounds in the process. He said not drinking was way easier than trying to eat less food.
I wasn’t always fat. In fact, when I was sixteen I weighed 125 and at 5’5” that was the perfect weight for my frame. I can’t remember my exact age, but I remember the conversation well. Our family doctor told me that I was fat. I may have been a little pudgy around the middle, and of course the girls had made their debut in the 5th grade, making me top heavy, but he had no reason to call me fat. My already shredded self image was completely destroyed. I made my mother buy clothes that were too big for me, especially tops, and I refused to tuck my shirts into my pants because I was too fat. I started skipping lunch at school, eating Nabs or nothing at all. I was setting a dangerous pattern for my health. Throughout college, my weight fluctuated 1o to 15 pounds, and I started my adulthood around 140, a little heavy, but not even enough to worry about, that is if you were a normal person. I was so obsessed with losing those 15 pounds that my weight was up and down constantly. I was either starving myself to death or I was eating whatever I wanted, there was no happy medium for me. Once I started working in an office, my weight started to creep upward, so I continued that good/bad cycle for years.
I would like to someday resolve this issue, but I don’t know how. At this point, I have so much weight to lose (sitting around in a hospital or rehab for weeks and months didn’t help either) that I don’t know if I will ever lose anything significant. I am searching for something, the right thing to help me. I’ve prayed many times for God to take this addiction away from me. I don’t know if He is saying, “no”, or “not now”, but I am anxiously awaiting a resolution. I often wonder how things would have been different for me if that doctor had never called me fat.
I wish I were thinner. I know we all think that, but every year, at every milestone, I think, “next year will be better.” The problem is that in two years I will be 50, and I am still trying to accomplish that which I started before age 30…..
My family is divided on the issue of weight, oh what the heck, let’s just call it what it is, fat! My mother is a little bitty thing and was obviously selfish with those genes. My father was tall and broad, but not fat, in fact as a young man, he was very skinny (think Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld); however, I got my body genes from my father’s mother. She died five years before I was born, but in her pictures she is short and wide with a built in shelf, just like me. My oldest brother was skinny when he was young and most of the time now, he is just a little pudgy. He is one of those people who can stop eating ice cream for a month and lose weight. My other brother is like me. He was once very athletic, but after starting an office job, developed a weight problem. And like me, right now he is on the “up” side. We have both tried every reasonable diet and a few unreasonable ones, yet we always come back to the same point, needing to lose more weight. We were talking the other day and I made the comment that I thought I would have an easier time recovering from an alcohol addiction than a food addiction. He agreed, having spent several months avoiding alcohol, but still not losing more than 15 or 20 pounds in the process. He said not drinking was way easier than trying to eat less food.
I wasn’t always fat. In fact, when I was sixteen I weighed 125 and at 5’5” that was the perfect weight for my frame. I can’t remember my exact age, but I remember the conversation well. Our family doctor told me that I was fat. I may have been a little pudgy around the middle, and of course the girls had made their debut in the 5th grade, making me top heavy, but he had no reason to call me fat. My already shredded self image was completely destroyed. I made my mother buy clothes that were too big for me, especially tops, and I refused to tuck my shirts into my pants because I was too fat. I started skipping lunch at school, eating Nabs or nothing at all. I was setting a dangerous pattern for my health. Throughout college, my weight fluctuated 1o to 15 pounds, and I started my adulthood around 140, a little heavy, but not even enough to worry about, that is if you were a normal person. I was so obsessed with losing those 15 pounds that my weight was up and down constantly. I was either starving myself to death or I was eating whatever I wanted, there was no happy medium for me. Once I started working in an office, my weight started to creep upward, so I continued that good/bad cycle for years.
I would like to someday resolve this issue, but I don’t know how. At this point, I have so much weight to lose (sitting around in a hospital or rehab for weeks and months didn’t help either) that I don’t know if I will ever lose anything significant. I am searching for something, the right thing to help me. I’ve prayed many times for God to take this addiction away from me. I don’t know if He is saying, “no”, or “not now”, but I am anxiously awaiting a resolution. I often wonder how things would have been different for me if that doctor had never called me fat.
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