A History of Fatness

As I stated in my first post, I have a few ideas about how I became a fat person.

No, they're not excuses. I'm sure that to the perpetually thin people of the world, everything sounds like a fucking excuse. Hey, thin people: you're just metabolically lucky. I've been alive long enough to know that life isn't fair, and some people have to work harder and deny themselves more just to not be hugely fat. Yes, some people are pigs, but not every lardass you see on the street got that way from eating ice cream and 15 lbs of mashed potatoes and gravy every day.

So the story goes, that I was born prematurely; I'm not sure Mom was truthful about this. I was born 44 weeks after my sister, and I've heard that Mom arrived home from a doctor's appointment 6 weeks after my sister was born, in tears, because she was pregnant again. This was back in the 1960's, long before EPTs existed. Since Mom once told me her "due date" for me was June 14, and I was born on May 22, I wasn't born that prematurely.

Her doctor advised her to leave me in the hospital to gain a little weight. Mom said she took one look at the dirty nipples on the bottles said, "no thanks," and took me home. She was worried that I slept too much, so sometimes she woke me up to feed me. She found out, years after the fact, that while I was an infant, my father habitually came home from his nightshift job for lunch, would hear me fussing, change my diaper and give me a bottle and put me back to bed. She thought I was just a good baby, and probably didn't realize how worn out she was. How she missed my Dad's expert diapership, I don't know.

Within a few months, my dzia-dzia told Mom that I was the fattest baby he'd ever seen. This from a man who had 11 children and at least 20 grandchildren before I was born.

Thus, I started out with a fat disadvantage.

My family wasn't poor -- more like working-class -- but money was a bit tight, since the parents had 7 kids and ended up with a grandkid living with them, too, when their own youngest was 5. We didn't eat much fast food. Mom used to make meals that would stretch the expensive meats, such as chili with a high ratio of beans, or gawumpki with more rice than beef. She baked chicken, always. She cooked hamburgers in the oven, on a broiler pan, that were loaded with bread crumbs and onions and a lot of the fat got drained away. We had meatless meals. She made stews and pot pies. They weren't low-fat meals, but they weren't high-fat meals, and we got vegetables. Mom portioned meals onto plates and handed them out at dinner; there was no putting everything out on the table for the kids to help themselves. There weren't a lot of leftovers. Guess who was the only fat kid? My parents used to "set the buzzer" for the bad eaters, but that never happened with me -- not because I always ate everything on my plate, but because I was fat enough that they never made me finish what was on my plate. I probably usually did.

In my teens, I started walking a lot. Once my best friend, Lisa, dumped her boyfriend (she was way too young), she often joined me, and we walked at least a couple of miles a day. I slimmed down.

Lisa died, and I went to college. The campus wasn't exactly sprawling, but it was hilly, so I had lots of steps to traverse, up and down, several times a day. And I got to choose when, what, and if I would eat. This is the only time in my life I was thin. My freshman year, I was not healthy. After a very light period, and then missing one, I knew it was my diet since I wasn't sexually active. Sure enough, after gaining 10 pounds, my periods returned. Subsequently, I'd gain 10 - 12 pounds each school year, then lose it over the summers when I worked full-time at a pizza place.

After getting my degree, I started working desk jobs. I gained weight. When I worked as a tax auditor, I was required to travel I don't know, 10 - 12 weeks per year or something. Every time I went somewhere, I gained weight. A one-week trip meant I'd gain 4-5 pounds. I'd work on losing it, but it mostly accumulated. Once, I went on a 2-week trip to Ft Myers Beach with 3 co-workers. It was a good trip, in that we had full kitchens in our hotel rooms, and we cooked fresh seafood instead of eating at restaurants for all of our meals. The beach was great for walking on, because sand is much harder to walk on, and I think I got good exercise there. When we got back home, I had only gained 4 pounds on that trip, and I was fucking proud of that. Upon telling one of the guys from the trip, he asked me what the hell I was doing, eating candy bars in my room? He couldn't understand why I gained weight when I ate less than he and the other man and woman did, and got more exercise than they did. We drank a lot on that trip, too, so there's some beer to blame.

Somewhere around 1995 I had a job working as a cashier at a convenience store, on the 10pm to 6:30am shift. I never packed a lunch. On my breaks, I'd eat half or all of a $3 bag of Lay's or Ruffles, dipping them in queso. Because hell, with my on-the-clock discount, that would cost me about $2. In my first 3 months there, I lost 30 pounds. I was on my feet for the most part 8 hours at a time. Often paired with a fat slow co-worker, I ended up doing most of the parking lot sweeping and oil-drying.

So, what has my history taught me?

1 - I don't get enough exercise. THIS is my biggest problem.
2 - I can eat better.
3 - I can control what I eat. I do have willpower, but I'm often too lazy to exercise it.HA!

Love,
Suzy