Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Fatty Fatty Two by Four

In my next life I want to come back as a naturally thin person-you know, one of those girls that can eat whatever they want and never gain weight? And I'm not talking about the ones that throw up after eating, just the naturally effortlessly thin and trim ones.
All of my life I have been overweight. I love to eat and really love to eat sweet things and bready things. One of my earliest candy memories is of sneaking into mom's change purse-sorry, mom!-when I was about 4 years old for a penny. We lived in Scotland and there was a candy truck or maybe a bakery truck or some kind of truck that came down the street like the ice cream man does that sold candy. After studying how the bigger kids did it, I learned that with one of the big English pennies-about the size of our half dollars-you could ask for a penny lolly from the truck man and get a big sweet sugary lollipop in return.
I remember having to wear dresses-no pants back in my grade school days for girls-that came from the 'chubby' department. What a horrible name for little girl's clothes! Chubbies-why not just say 'Butterballs' or something? And I remember how uncomfortable those dresses were sometimes. They were the shirtwaist style so popular in the sixties, with the big skirt, sashes, and sometimes puffed sleeves with the little bands that cut into your upper arms. I was forever ripping out the armholes of those sleeves because of my chubby butterball arms.

This picture shows the typical chubby dress that I wore.
I'm not sure when this was taken, sometime in the early
sixties. I'm the fat kid on the left with my dad and my skinny sister Donna in the picture with me. Do I look like a fat kid? Not huge, but I was what people referred to as 'pleasingly plump'. And look at that haircut! After five kids my mom didn't want to have to brush too much hair so we all had short hair. Good thing we wore dresses or people may have mistaken us for little boys!

Anyway, back to the candy and sweets thing. I loved any kind of candy when I was a kid, especially licorice but now my tastes have been refined to where if it's not chocolate candy it's just not worth eating! I also like ice cream a lot, especially if it's chocolate! When I was about 10 I got 50c allowance each week, and before that money got cold, I was on my bike riding to the drugstore that had a soda fountain and a comic book rack. I could get two comic books and a chocolate ice cream soda for that 50c! I still remember how good those sodas tasted and how much fun I had reading those comic books.

So, anyway, back to the fat issue. I did lose weight about 15 years ago with what I called the 'Ethiopia Diet'. Basically, I counted every calorie and was hungry ALL THE TIME! It worked, and I lost a lot of weight, but at a few pounds gained a year times 15 years, it's all come back. It was fun being a sort of thin person for a while and being able to shop at normal sized people's stores for once in my life. I was never smaller than a size 12 which is still considered 'plus size' but it was the only time in my life that I ever saw daylight between my thighs. If you've never had fat thighs, you've never had the pleasure of rashes between them caused by sweaty thighs rubbing together. Or heard that whuff whuff of your pants when you walk.

So, now it's time to try and lose some weight again. I just had to put on my pajamas because my pants are too tight and I just couldn't take it anymore!
I did eat a light dinner but I am STILL HUNGRY!

2 comments:

Meghan said...

I feel ya on the chubby thing... I remember when I was in 4th grade I was in a play at the performing arts studio and four of us girls all went together with our director to get our costumes (from target) All of the other girls were a year of two older than me and they all found their outfits in the girls section... I had to pick mine from the juniors section. I noticed I was bigger and it definetly got me down when I was younger. Now I am just trying to get into some shape before its too late.

Love you!

Jim and Heather on Meerkat said...

I love that picture of you three. Actually, I love your dress too. I think I got stuck with Donna's dress a few years later...
You are still beautiful no matter what size you are!
love,
HD