How did I
get here…and what’s with this hand basket?
We’ve already established a bad pattern that was borne out of growing up during the dawn of
highly processed foods and my introduction to fine fattening cuisine at Echo
Lake Country Club. It was off to college
without a clue on what I wanted to do with my life. I did think about cooking school, but, instead,
opted for a music education major. Hell,
I saw what my teachers did in high school.
I could do that. I had
talent. Why the hell not? Easy, right?
Nope.
I was SO
not into my then chosen career path.
I struggled with piano lessons. Struggled is too kind a word. My left hand and my right would bicker about which
would play the right notes. I was
downright spastic when it came to playing the piano. How could I be a choral
director without playing piano? Everything
else fell apart from there. Rather than
go to class and actually learn something in school, I hung out at the student
center, ate junk food, played video games and shot pool. Basically I waited for my friends/fraternity
brothers to get done with their learnin’ so we could hang out and have some
beers or go the cafeteria and eat high-calorie, high-fat slop. I remember the name of the firm that had the
cafeteria concession, The Freshie Company.
HA! The food was anything
but. Because I commuted two of the three
semesters I went to college, the days that weren’t spent eating at school with
my chums were spent back at ELCC eating the high-class chow that would turn
almost anyone’s blood into 10W40 viscosity Pennzoil.
I left
school in December of 1983 to pursue any endeavor that didn’t waste my time and
money like being a professional slacker at Montclair did. I got a real job as a headhunter and made
decent money for a twenty-year-old. Enough
to get my own place and be an adult.
Living on my own, my diet basically consisted of Chinese food (I
literally ate sweet and sour chicken with fried rice four to five nights a week
for a year) or frozen Swanson dinners.
Lunch was always eaten out at the Menlo Mall since my office building
was attached to it. I seem to recall my weight
growing to the area of 275 lbs. or so by September of 1988.
The eighties
was a time when I was trying to find myself.
Cliché I know, but I was, indeed, without a purpose. Adrift without a rudder as it were. I was bored, somewhat lonely and my recreation
was watching TV and eating. I was
self-conscious of my body and my weight and didn’t really make solid attempts
at wooing the opposite sex. I was embarrassed
by the way I looked, despite being told how ‘handsome’ I was time and
again. I wanted to be fit, but did
nothing to that end. The addiction to
food had already taken hold and it had a firm grasp on me. It wasn’t letting go.
I do recall
one year for Christmas my aunt and uncle gave me a check for a gym
membership. It was something like
$300. Back in the mid-eighties that was
a fortune. A $300 Christmas gift?! The gesture melted my heart and to this day I
am truly grateful that they would be so unselfish with their hard-earned money as
to try and help me get myself on track. On
the second visit to the gym I had my first back injury. I was in agony. Unfortunately, I never went back. I have always felt guilty about wasting the
money they so generously gave me. Sorry,
H&C. It would be many years before I
could make a valid attempt to break free from food’s clutches. The gesture was immense, but my need to feed
was greater.
More on this
subject tomorrow.
Cya then,
M
What I ate
today and how I exercised:
Breakfast ~ Kashi Island Vanilla cereal with vanilla
almond milk and fresh blueberries. Fresh
fruit salad with fresh blue berries and one whole grapefruit.
Lunch ~ A Chesapeake crab roll and a
shrimp spring roll at Wegman’s
Afternoon
snack ~ ½ of a
Peanut Butter Chocolate protein bar.
While shopping today I was feeling like I could go off the rails a
bit. I grabbed this protein bar of 200
calories and decided to eat half.
Dinner ~ Today was the wife’s
birthday. She asked me to make a vegan
sweet potato gnocchi recipe I had come across online. I made it and a salad (pictured here). I
thought it was just okay. She LOVED
it. Mission accomplished, I guess. My estimate is that the price of the meal for
me was around 550-600 calories. Pleasing
the wife on her birthday…priceless. Forget about it being vegan. It was good. Here's a link to the recipe:
Exercise ~ I'm a bit pissed that I didn't plan my day better. Work and cooking dinner coupled with writing this blog left me no time. I'll be up early tomorrow morning walking and perhaps again in the afternoon.
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