How Did I Get Here?: Part 2

Yesterday I left off at the food we ate as kids.  One thing we never did was go to fast food joints.  I do recall once in ‘69 we stopped at a McDonald’s, for the first time, in Florida.  We were mortified that they put both mustard and ketchup on a burger.  My mother always put mustard on her burgers and ketchup on her dogs and told us it was a ‘Pennsylvania thing”.  That was weird enough, but both!?!  Gross!  Or at least it was then.  Other than that, the fastest food we ever got was Minute Rice.  Well, that and pizza a few times a month.  Interesting how even with very limited exposure to fast food as a youth, it became such a staple, practically part of the coat of arms, of my unhealthy lifestyle.

One thing I remember about being a ‘big’ kid is being made fun of by others on occasion.  It was sometimes a weapon in sibling arguments as well, being called fatso.  I wore a ‘husky’ size in my maroon Toughskins that my mom bought at Sears and somehow knew it was not the normal size for a kid my age.  Remember those jeans in maroon or green or red or brown?  In the mid ‘70s they often went with a Qiana shirt having a wild pattern and wide collars.  What were we thinking!?!  I know that finding clothes for me was never easy for my mom.  Still isn’t for me.  I think that is in my top five of things to look forward to…clothes shopping. 

I tried out for Pop Warner football when I was a tween, much to the dismay of my mother.  I wound up quitting because I was told that if I couldn’t get down to a certain weight by game day, I would sit on the sideline with my shirt turned inside out.  I knew I could never get to that weight and I refused to be mortified by being the fat kid on the bench, underscored by my shirt of shame.  So I quit.

I recall one holiday, Thanksgiving I think, my then uncle, Jim Harper, took me aside and told me I shouldn’t eat sweets and such because of my weight problem.  He told me that, perhaps, skipping dessert would be a good idea.  I remember wanting dessert so bad that day.  There were cannolis to be had, but I was too embarrassed to partake.  Uncle Jim was on my shit list that day.  I am sure he had good intentions, but he made me feel very bad…the frig.

High school was when I really started to be aware of my corpulence and became somewhat self-conscious about it.  I say somewhat because it didn’t stop me from doing what I loved to do, perform.  In my junior year, I got the lead in the musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, on the condition I lose some weight.  I recall being around 206 then. I think I got down to 195 by opening day.  During rehearsals for that show, I went to sit down in an auditorium chair and it broke under me.  I know that at 200 lbs, it could have been any adult male that sat in that particular seat, but it wasn’t.  It was me in front of some girls in the show and I wanted to crawl into a hole.  I’ve had several chairs give way under my girth over the years.  Those $12 white plastic drug store ones shouldn’t count, but they leave an indelible tick mark on the humiliating events list.  I’ve had several die a sudden death in my wake over the years.

In 1980, I got a job as a busboy at Echo Lake Country Club in Westfield, NJ.  We wore these oh-so-snappy, royal blue polyester waist coats.  Mine was royal blue until they couldn’t get my size anymore.  Then I was the sole black coat in the joint.  Stigmatized once again.  Couldn’t have been too bad, I guess.  I stayed there on and off for ten years.  It was at Echo Lake that I think I developed a love for food and potentially cooking.  We ate our meals at ELCC after our shifts and it was almost always something rich, fried, or fatty.  Prime rib, fried chicken, heavy sauces, left over hors d’oeuvres and desserts were a steady diet four to five nights a week.  I think it was then that I started to go from a big kid to something much more.  I heard the term ‘morbidly obese’ for the first time.  Yet, with all of what should have been reinforcement to lighten my load and change my ways, it only seemed to engrain a pattern of self-abuse that has continued for years.

More next week on how did I get here.

Cya tomorrow,

M

What I ate and how I exercised today:

Breakfast ~ Kashi Island Vanilla cereal with toasted nuts, ½ a banana and skim milk

Lunch ~ Miso soup, an avocado/cucumber roll and a tuna scallion roll.  Yes, I ate the fortune cookie too.

Dinner ~ 2 Mushroom Lover’s veggie burgers on whole wheat sandwich rounds (200 calories each and delicious btw) and a few carrots with hummus. Should have had more fresh veggies today.

Exercise ~ I bought a pedometer today at the mall.  It was a cheap one and didn’t work, but in spite of that I did walk in the mall.  I estimate about a mile or so given the time I walked and the pace I maintained.  I then went to Best Buy and bought a watch with a pedometer and other bells and whistles built in so that I can monitor my progress anytime and anywhere.