13th Aug 2010
What a wonderful time Neil and I had in Mississippi! We saw so many friends and family and people we didn’t expect to see but so glad we got to! I can’t wait to go back now… There’s really no place like home…
I have been very lazy lately about posting so I’ll make no promise but I’ll try to be better. So much to say about the state of Mississippi’s health - and I mean the people who live there. I did a live radio show with Seth Kent at WONA while I was there and so I made “my” food for people to stop by and try. I had a hard time finding some things that I take completely for granted here - like low fat cheese…couldn’t find it. I needed a red bell pepper and the only way to get one was to purchase three (one yellow, one orange and one red) in a package all together.
Now I know that people don’t get fat because they are missing something like low fat cheese - but it was hard to find fat free mayonnaise and I got the very last Balsamic Vinegar. If people don’t have choices - what do they do? I can tell you that it took very little to persuade me to eat wrong. Something like - not finding pretzels would send me straight to the potato chips. I could rationalize that “at least I tried” to find the right food.
I hope anyone reading this will go to your super market and request that they stock the shelves with the items you need to make you more powerful. You can take the power food has over you back - but you first need the right food to do that with. So ask for it - WINONA!!
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16th Apr 2009
That’s why I did some of the things I did in my overweight life. Just for show..
I was standing behind an overweight man in the grocery yesterday (he was at least 400 pounds) and as he checked in his groceries I wished I could have spoken to him and given him my hand in friendship. He was buying all kinds of salad stuff and diet drinks - and this was all he was buying. This is the kind of purchase you make when you’re desperate and want to starve the weight off - which of course never works - at least not for very long.
He was breathing so hard he sounded like he’d been running before he got there but it was probably just that his heart cannot take standing up that long and carrying that much weight. What he purchased was not satisfying food at all but when you’re desperate you’ll try anything.
One way to get people to stop worrying about you is to let them think you’re finally doing something about your weight. I can’t tell you how many times I joined a gym or purchased exercise equipment - I even asked my husband to build me a swimming pool so that I’d lose weight. And I broadcast all of this each time I did it. It’s like “Look you guys and see me now. I’m going to do it this time. I promise.” Of course none of that worked. The strength to handle your food demons only comes from within you - no pool or jump rope will do.
So as I stood behind the nice man I wondered if he was going to eat all this salad stuff or was he going to drive straight to the fast food drive thru window on his way home. He got to feel good about buying what most people consider diet food. And when I did this same thing (before I was a RFP) I felt like a million bucks - I knew I was going to do it - this time. So, I’ve done this same exact thing for show - a zillion times.
If you are out there and you relate to this, just know that losing weight is like anything else that’s very hard to do. You might try and fail a few thousand times - but it’s that one time you get it right that counts. And you CAN do it. You truly can.. so never stop trying and forget about what anyone else thinks. Only YOU matter to you.
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14th Feb 2009
Three years ago this would have been a day to eat anything and everything. Holidays that revolve around food (and is there a Holiday that doesn’t??) were something I looked forward to because those were days that everyone got to overeat without guilt - including the overweight - like me.
Neil and I currently eat old fashioned oatmeal with some kind of fruit every morning of the week. But yesterday we got the wild hair to go back to breakfast we used to eat BWL (before weight loss) so I picked up sausage and real eggs and bagels to fix this morning.
WHAT A MISTAKE! I haven’t eaten anything that heavy or greasy in so long - well - I’m so sorry and it’s back to oatmeal tomorrow. YIKES!
I should know better than to eat so badly - but alas, I’m still stupid when it comes to food. I wanted the old breakfast because I remembered how it made me feel - all warm and comforted. Right this very moment - all I feel is sick.
Time for more antacid…UGH!
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31st Dec 2008
Don’t worry..I’m not gonna talk about the election or the economy or any of those trivial things that occurred in 2008. No - I’m going to review the year in “Weight”.
2008 had everyone talking about how Kirsty Alley had gained her weight back, Valerie Bertinelli wrote a book about her weight loss (although I read it and that only comes at the end) and the Style Network raked in the dough with a show about an overweight woman named Ruby who is struggling with her weight. Just another year for the weight loss industry to capitalize on all of us again. They make BILLIONS on people just like me who thought for years there was a “cure” for this. And I must say that it astonished me, once I finally lost weight, to find out that I still had all the same urges that made me fat. I had some ridiculous notion that once I lost weight I was going to be “normal” and all those crazy things I think about food would go away. Well, that didn’t happen and I have come to grips with the fact that I will always have a part of me that is quite literally crazy about food.
I saw where Oprah is going to start all over again on Jan 5th with a new “Live Your Best Life” series and part of it is devoted to her weight gain. She always has the best and brightest come and share advice..but what she hasn’t understood yet is that none of these experts can cure her. We are all (all of us in the overweight community) looking for that elusive (nonexistent) CURE! And the sad fact is, there isn’t one. Ever. Period. Oprah will lose weight again and she’ll help millions do the same thing - and that’s a good thing, but until she and all she leads understand that once the camera is off and the show ends those food demons (I call mine Fat Kitty) will jump right back on her. They know where she lives and they know ALL of her weaknesses.
I wish you the best Oprah. I see in your face the same look I have shown on my on face for years. I want this to go away and not be the ‘thing’ that dominates my life. So far that hasn’t happened but accepting that has made it easier for me. I hope you see this too. I wish I could come cook for you for a month. I could change your life.
My recipes could help anyone. I DO eat right 90% of the time. And I eat fruits and veggies and baked fish and chicken.. BUT there are times that I WANT and NEED FRIED CHICKEN! I can’t explain it and refuse to feel guilty and bad about it ever again.
When Fat Kitty comes callin’ I just look up a favorite junk food recipe and go to town eatin’ on it. And I will NEVER be fat again. (I hope)
So 2008 was a great year for me. I didn’t gain weight and I ate like there was no tomorrow (at least 2-3 times a week). I wish I knew Kirsty Alley. I could help her. I wish I knew Oprah. She helps so many people in so many ways..I wish I could cook for her in her house for a month. She’d be changed forever and she’d never gain her weight back.
Who knows? Maybe 2009 is the year we’ll meet!
Happy New Year to everyone out there who struggles with this issue. We are all in this together; whether you’ve lost weight, just beginning to lose weight or if you cannot lose anything and/or choose to stay the way you are. You are all beautiful.
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31st Oct 2008
..they say is one way not to repeat it. It’s amazing how quickly I’ve gotten used to the new me and taken for granted how I used to live.
I was thinking this morning about crazy things that used to be embarrassing - like the first time Neil and I went to the Hollywood Bowl. One of my dearest friends David and his partner Ricky had gotten Neil and I tickets and invited us to come with them to see a show there. I’d never been so didn’t know what to expect. Well, they have one of those turn-style things that you have to pass through, like you see in a NY Subway or at Disneyland.
I’ve never gotten stuck in one but it was a real squeeze for me to get through and I knew it, but I just went on through and stood on my tiptoes so my gigantic stomach would be above the arm of the dang thing and I could come out on the other side. I notice stuff like that now. Sunday Neil and I went to the movies down in Hollywood and as I got out of the car to walk to the Arclight Cinema I did something I NEVER do, but I guess I will now. I walked in between cars. Now that might sound like a little thing to some of you, but if you’ve lived a lot of your life afraid that if you walk between cars you’ll set off a car alarm because you can’t help but touch the car, then you know what I’m talking about. I do not need to explain anything.
I got up this morning and I LOVE getting dressed now. Everything in my closet fits me. I no longer have eight differnt sizes of clothes that I’m keeping because I will be all of thoses sizes again at some point. It’s easy to forget just how hard it was to get here. And I’m here right now - who knows what tomorrow will bring. But if I can keep remembering the past maybe I won’t relive it.
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22nd Oct 2008
Who got me into trouble on a nonstop basis.
One thing that Fat Kitty would do (and if you’re ever done this maybe this will help you admit it to yourself and then stop) is stand at the kitchen window in my house and look out to the street to make sure no one was coming that would interrupt whatever binge I was participating in at the time. I would stand there and literally cram food in my mouth until it made me sick or I ran out of it.
My favorite binge food is an ice cream sandwich. They create no smell so no one will walk in the room (where I’d been binging) and say -”What’s that smell?” so that was good. They also hardly require any chewing. If I got them soft enough I could almost swallow them whole with very little effort especially if I was in a hurry becasue I had to finish a whole box (I never ate less than one whole box) before Neil came home. And if someone did drive up to my house unexpectedly I could swish water through my mouth and get all the chocolate sandwich part off of my teeth so you’d never know I had over eaten anything. I was just a regular person just like whoever showed up at my house. That person never having a clue to the madness they almost caught me doing.
So when you hear me talk or write about Fat Kitty - that pesky friend of mine that simply will not leave me alone - that’s the kind of friend she is. She’s a temptress in a teapot. (and I do mean TEMPTRESS)
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20th Oct 2008
Go hand in hand - right?
When you think of Halloween, things like scary costumes, pumpkins and trick or treating come to mind. That is if you have normal feelings about food, this is what comes to mind.
For me Halloween used to mean that I could go into any grocery story with all the mountains of bagged candy stacked to the sky and buy as many bags of the stuff I wanted and it just looked like I was buying candy for trick or treaters. This was a time of year that I could hit every store and buy a couple of bags of (snickers and butterfingers were my favs) candy and I didn’t feel like judgemental eyes were on me thinking “Well, no wonder she’s fat - look at her buying all that candy!” I just bought candy because I was getting ready for Halloween night, just like all the normal people out there. I mean fat people have trick or treaters too.
The truth is, I live in a condominium complex and I’ve never even had one young person come by in a costume during Halloween. I just bought the candy for myself. I’ve even bought enough so that I could spread out eating it over a couple of months. I’ve hid candy all over my house - in my underwear drawer, in my closet and yes - between my mattress and box springs. I didn’t care if a snickers was smushed flat - I just cared that I had one to eat.
I just spoke with my husband about this to see if her ever found food that I hid. He said he didn’t but he’s not the kind of guy who would look. He said he trusted me - WRONG MOVE! I can’t be trusted when it comes to food. I’m the best most convincing liar you’ll ever meet. Why I hid food from him I’ll never know. He never has said one derogatory thing about my weight, so I could have probably eaten anything I wanted in front of him and he would have never judged me. And yet I still hid food (not just candy). I guess since I hid it I knew in my heart I was doing the wrong thing. If you’re hiding food think about why.
I think stores know this type of food addiction buying occurs and they push our addiction right in our faces. They are in the business of selling that candy (and chips and ice cream sandwiches, etc.)- and the more they sell the better. I can’t fault them, but I understand them better now.
Stores have all kinds of ways that they sell to all of us in the overweight community. If you understand that’s what is going on you can turn the other cheek. There will always be mountains of candy during Halloween, but you can choose to walk by it or stop.
And this is just the beginning - Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. I’ve bought a zillion boxes of candy canes for the Christmas Tree that never made it home, or if they did they went into my stash.
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13th Oct 2008
are wonderful things. They can be bad but I guess one reason I got so overweight in the first place was because i stuck my head in the sand and refused to remember bad memories. They say we’re doomed to repeat things we don’t want to remember.
I was watching HBO last night (Little Britain) and in this segment a man who had walked on the moon hired a repair man to fix his radiator. The segment was funny but I lost track of what was going on because I remembered something I did in (I think) the Third Grade that involved a radiator.
I don’t know what possessed me to do this but my 3rd grade classroom had a radiator to heat the room. I grew up in Mississippi and while it is rarely freezing cold for long periods of time, it does get cold and it does snow there on occasion.
One day I brought to class the top of a bottle of orange juice. It was metal and had raised edges. I used it like a skillet and poured popcorn kernels in it and set it on top of the radiator. I guess i thought I was going to pop me some popcorn or something. I don’t remember if I told anyone I was doing this or not, but I think I just snuck in with all this and set it up on the radiator and hoped for the best.
Well, the popcorn didn’t pop but I also forgot about it until just now. I hope the Winona School system has upgraded to something better than radiators for heat, but in case they haven’t would someone please check whatever room was Mrs Whitehead’s 3rd Grade class room and make sure there’s not petrified popcorn sitting on a radiator waiting to pop.
All of my memories have a food element. Either I’m eating food, preparing food or dieting and trying NOT to eat food. This is the only one I can think of that I forgot about food.
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