Hey guys, in this thread I talked about my mom - a naturally skinny person. Robin had some interesting clarifying questions, so I got my mom on the phone today and just flat out asked her about her weight (something I had never done in 39 years!).
So, my mom is named Ann. She's 63 years old and lives in Kerrville, TX. My entire life, she has been a vivacious, glamorous woman with a knockout bod. She has smoked since she was 17 (which I asked her for the first time today!) and she got breast implants when she was around 40 (she went from an A cup to a C cup).
Per my mom on the phone today, she never thought about her weight, rarely weighed herself, never considered food in relation to her weight. She is 5'4" and her weight has only deviated twice (besides pregnancies, of course). Except for these 2 exceptions, she weighed 110 lbs her entire adult life.
Exceptions:
1. During an unhappy time in her life when she was about 30, she was so depressed she couldn't eat and ended up weighing 90 lbs. She said this was one of the few times she ever got on the scale, she was so horrified at how much weight she had lost. She told me she regained weight by eating 2-3 pieces of cinnamon toast with butter after dinner every night. She said it took about 4 months to regain the weight.
2. After she turned 60, she gained 20 lbs. This was the ONLY time in my life I've ever heard my mom comment negatively on her weight or her body (she gained everything in her tummy). She said today on the phone she has been trying to lose weight by making sure she eats breakfast everyday and cutting back on portions (she says she eats little meals all day). She said she lost 10 lbs in 2 years without trying that hard and she's pretty happy at 120 lbs.
She said she doesn't eat for comfort, when she's depressed she wants to smoke (which is a whole other issue). She confirmed she's always been an active person, but has never done any organized exercise. She said she rarely ate breakfast, but is making more of an effort now. She also reminded me she never really liked soda and never drinks it (we never had it in the house growing up - it was milk, water or iced tea).
Her story is consistent with my memories, she ate what she wanted, when she wanted and has always loved food. I never saw her turn down dessert, but a lot of times I saw her do stuff like eat one graham cracker or 2 nuts or 2 wheat thins. Who eats 2 wheat thins? My mom!
I'm going to visit her on November 12th (her birthday). I told her about this thread. If you guys have any specific questions for mom, I plan to sit her in front of the PC and let her respond herself! Might be a little more meaningful than the original thread which really wasn't an interview with anyone who was naturally thin.
I was bigger than my mom by high school, I thought I was HUUUUGE. I was about 140 in high school at 5'7". I was jealous of my mom's effortless slenderness, which is probably why we have NEVER discussed her weight. It would have been a discussion of her weight in relation to mine, I guess.
Her weight has only changed significantly once (excepting three pregnancies) and that is when she was put on steroids before having a hysterectomy where she gained about 20 pounds.
She weighed roughly 115 pounds when she met my dad and between having me and my three sisters went up to about 120 pounds where until the above mentioned incident she has remained her whole life.
She lost the steroid weight over a period of about 18-24 months through eating sensible amounts and taking a walk with my dad in the evenings.
She doesn't smoke but does like to drink the odd beer or glass of wine. She never says no to any food that I know of...we always had cakes, slices, desserts, home made chips etc growing up which she also ate.
The only difference I realise now is that like your mum she can and does only eat one biscuit, a small serve of dessert, a light salad after a heavy dinner etc.
Oh, and she too has always been active - sporty through school, running around after us and then working in childcare where in her words she "spends all day running around the paddock after 4 and 5 year olds"
She is 50 years old and 5'7 and at the moment weighs 120 pounds.
My sisters and I did not inherit her body type...sadly lol. We're all much bigger boned (mum has a tiny skeleton!) and more prone to building muscle...me especially! Ah well, luck of the genetic draw lol.
Very interesting Glory. Thanks for sharing that. Speaking of sharing, your Mom and I share the same birthday!
I do wonder though, had your Mom not been a smoker would things have been different ? Of course there's no way on earth to know this and of course there are many overweight "smokers". It might not have changed things one iota.
Got me to thinking about my Mom. Maybe we should make this a separate thread actually.
My mother fluctuated a lot. She was a smoker up until her mid - late thirties, I believe. She was pretty thin til thin, although she did have some kind of bulemia thing going on. We didn't know that's what it was called at the time, but I have memories of her "giving up her dinner" almost nightly.
We never had fruit in the house or much veggies. Mom's idea of vegetables was canned creamed corn. We did have the occassional cantalope every now and then, but that's about it. Funny, I had my mom and dad and sister over about a month ago and I served raspberries. Could you believe my sister never even tried one? That just amazed me.
We really didn't eat well. Fried chicken cutlets were a staple. Chinese food take out very often. But there was never regular soda in the house. Never. Always diet.
I remember my Mom went through a Haagen Daz Vanilla Cordial Cherry Ice cream kick for awhile. Had to have it every night.
We were a very sedentary bunch. Never did any formal exercise or informal exercise for that matter either.
My mom got failry heavy at one point, only to get rail thin in her late 40's, she's 68 now. She didn't stay that way for too long. I can't recall how long though. She is pretty heavy now.
With all of Mom's bad habits and no real great nutrition going on in our house, I didn't get morbidly obese while living at home. I was overweight, in the high 130's, but that's as bad as it got. I waited til after I left home to do that.
Gosh, I wish I could remember more about our food environment, but I can't. Must have blocked it out. Maybe it will come to me. I tell you just thinking about all this gives me some creepy feelings. I wonder why.
My mom has also always been thin (5'4" and under 110 pounds). She smoked for a few years in her early twenties. She is now 74. She always ate breakfast, lunch and dinner, wine on occasion. We never had soda, candy or junk food in the house when I was living at home, it was outright forbidden. Lot's of fresh fruit and vegetables. She was (and still is to the extent that she can be) very active: hiking, running, skiing, square dancing and folk dancing. She took up weight lifting about 10 years ago.
Part of her thinness can be attributed to Celiac's disease, which was undiagnosed for years. More important, she continues to eat an extremely healthy diet, and is an extreme whole food proponent.
She doesn't think so much about her weight, but about her exercise and food quality.
Wow. Some people can think of food in such a non-obsessed, healthy way. These healthy Moms seem to have a naturally balanced relationship with food. I relate it to how I think about socks. SOCKS???? Yep. I appreciate that they keep my feet warm and dry, I briefly think about them every day, I consider my sock needs and then forget about them and go on with my day. On special occasions, I break out the fancy socks or sparkly hose, then go right back to the cotton guys the next day. I do not change them multiple times a day, unless they get dirty or wet. If only food were this easy for me, and that eating and hunger were really just another physical need. I think that some people's emotional attachment to food is so important to them, that it can become all consuming (pun intended). Add in factors like sugar addiciton and binge eating, and you can easily see how unbalanced a relationship with food can become. But really, do I want my relationship with food to become as blase as the one I have with my socks? I really like thinking about food. I like nutrition, and research about how my body and mind hadle food issues. I'm a food geek. That's just me! Oh, and I have on bright pink chenille socks, if anyone would like to know. Hey, they're warm, soft, and pink, and that's all that matters, right?
My mom was 5ft.5in. until she was very old and weighed about 125. She never really dieted though she talked like she did. She could way out eat me. She was a pretty healthy eater but I think we had fried chicken once a week growing up. I only have one brother and he only had one period of weight gain and I can't remember why but it was very short. He really does take after my mom. My mom didn't exercise until she was very old, maybe 75. She did a lot of walking then and was still walking a half mile at her death at age 90. Mom did gain at menopause but never got over 140. When she first came to live with me a year and a half before she died she decided she only wanted to eat 2 meals but she did a lot of snacking. She got down to about 115 in her later years but also lost height. She really was a naturally thin person and always worried about me. After my 5th child was born she was coming for a visit and I was worried what she would say. I weighed about 165 at the time and told myself I had to quite worrying about it or I would drive myself nuts. I lost 10lb in the next 3 months but was put back on prednisone and gained about 20 lb in 4mo.
Circebee - I somehow feel like if I thought about food the way I think about socks, I would be losing a great source of happiness in my life! Sure it would be great for my weight, but how sad would it be to only enjoy good food as much as I enjoy warm socks? (By the way, I have on a pair of thick wool socks!)
This is an interesting mom thread. My mom has been unhappy with her weight as long as I can remember, up until the past couple years. She dieted a lot -- usually SlimFast or the like -- when I was a kid, but more often she just made a lot of negative comments about her body. Every so often she'd try to pick up exercising (I remember doing Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons videos with her) but it would only last a couple weeks.
My mom was thin up until she married my dad. You wouldn't believe how many times I have been told that my mom was 120lbs when my dad met her (she's about 5'5" or 5'6"). Of course, she also smoked back then (quit before I was born though). My dad was overweight when they met and has been his entire life since. My mom also didn't go out to eat much if at all growing up -- her family did not have a large amount of money (her dad drove a Sears delivery truck).
In any case, when I was a kid, my mom cooked for us at home on weeknights. She was a dietician before I was born (kept up her RD until I was in high school though), then a SAHM until I was about 6, then a part-time teacher's aide at the local elementary school, and then a teacher when I was in high school. Most of the food she cooked at home was pretty balanced, at least in that we had a starch, a couple vegetables, and some sort of meat at every meal. Sometimes the meat was fried or smothered in cheese, but it wasn't always unhealthy.
I think the biggest change in my mom's eating habits and those of the whole family came when she started working full-time the same year I started high school. She was working at the elementary school teaching all day, then going to classes nights and weekends to get her teaching certification. Dinner was either at a restaurant or my dad's cooking pretty much every night from that point on. My dad always cooked Chinese food (they have this really old cookbook called "Madame Wong's Chinese Cooking"), which for him usually involved battered, fried chicken. We went to restaurants a huge amount too -- on the weekend, we often went out for breakfast, and usually had fast food for lunch. We probably had dinner out about 4-6 days a week.
We also always had desserts and snacks around the house. We had plenty of fruit around too -- when I was little the rule was that we had to eat fruit before we were allowed to have dessert. When I was in high school though I would be home alone when I got home from the bus stop around 4:30, and I'd always eat donuts or chips or something.
My mom gained weight during that time, and was pretty upset about it. I gained a lot of weight too (about 10lbs/year). I think when I was in college she weighed around 170.
In any case, once I started losing and managed to keep it off, I think she was inspired. That, plus she was diagnosed with borderline type II diabetes, and breast cancer, both of which she attributed largely to her weight. She started walking and eating healthier (as much as possible with my dad around), and now she weighs about the same as me, although of course it is distributed differently on her frame since she's 60 and has had two kids and I'm 26 and have never been pregnant.
I think it's fascinating to compare our stories. Some of us grew up in overweight/obese families, and some grew up with "naturally thin" parents, but we all have a lot of the same issues with food.
My mother has a bad relationship with food and so did my grandmother. I'm talking about extreme dieting and the like. I have forbidden my mother to talk about fat or thin with my children. I laid down this law when they were infants. She still blunders but I remind her and she tries to change her conversation. Weight, eat too much or too little too fat or too thin. This is her obsession.
My growing up consisted of her cooking and baking and serving lavish meals regularly. She would insist I taste her cooking ( by sticking her fingers holding food into my mouth) then tell me I should stop eating because I was too fat.
-lots of therapy here. I'm trying to change the pattern.
My mom always fought with her weight but of course she grew up in the 60s where chubby was 'fat'. I see photos of her in high school and I don't see her as fat. She has fluctuated a lot, up/down all her life and I think the smallest she has ever been is somewhere around 130 (5'1'). I don't know where she is now but she told me she is wearing a size 12 which is pretty small for her. A couple years ago, she was wearing 18s. She never went into plus sizes though. When she was young, my grandmother took her to various doctors to find out how to get her to lose weight which includes taking prescription speed. Its kind of interesting that we shared a similar fate where she took me to doctors concerned about her weight, just like her mother did to her.
My grandma on the other hand (and her mother for that matter) seemed to be always concerned about her weight but not really with what she ate. She'd eat smaller portions of whatever she wanted. This includes things like lard laden tamales, lard laden tortillas (you see a theme here?), cheese, etc. Vegetables and fruit were common in gardens and commonly eaten but zucchini makes wonderful zucchini bread.
I have 3 aunts. Two of them (twins), have always been thin and have gone from a bit too thin for even themselves to having a small pot belly that concerned them. I think their highest weight (not including pregnancy), is probably around 125. They eat small portions and have always been picky eaters. Although they are the first ones to pick up the butter to go with their bread. One of my aunts started gaining weight from eating out way too much and very fattening foods, where she reached her higher weight. She scaled back on the eating out and went back to a comfortable weight for herself.
My other aunt has always been thin and also always concerned about her weight. My grandma and her are very similar. She generally ate whatever she wanted but would have smaller portions especially if her clothes were getting tight. She never really mentioned issues with weight until she reached the late 50s/60s and has only now talked about diet/losing weight.
My grandma had about 6 sisters (I can't count but thats a good estimate). All of them were very similar to my grandma, only one of them ever became what you'd consider chubby. Of course I only really knew them later in life and if you see pictures of their early years, they were all tiny.
Of course that is all my moms side, on my dads side, its a different story with obesity but I don't know that side that well.
Glory, your mom sounds like mine (and Kerrville! We used to spend Christmas there when I was little!). Always smoked and very tiny. My mother never fought with her weight until she got older and that was due to phsyical disabilities and other issues. Growing up, she always appreciated food and indulged, but she never over indulged. Until her health issues, she went through her entire adult life being 5'1 and 95-105 pounds. I'm certain she never participated in any sort of intentional exercise. Ever.
All of her people were smaller than average height and string beans. However, over the past 10-15 years, I can only think of one aunt who is not overweight (this includes cousins, too). The cousins were all raised on the same diet in smoking households, but most -if not all- are now overweight. The practices that our mothers exercised years ago simply do not work in today's culture of huge portions and no activity. Also, I am convinced that had my mother involved herself in some exercise throughout her youth or younger adult life, she may have had a fighting chance against her disability. So while she never struggled with food issues or her weight, she's certainly at a disadvantage for the lifestyle she lived. When her body gave out (at a young age- late 40's), she had no clue how to respond.
My mother is also naturally thin. At 5'9" she probably never weighed more than 140. When she was pregnant with me (I'm the 3rd and last child) she gained so little weight that no one knew she was pregnant (it was also winter so heavy clothes camouflaged it a lot). She's now probably 5'5" (osteoporosis) and is 84 years old and maybe weighs 115 pounds.
My Mom never scrimped on what she wanted. She ate ice cream daily (but not huge amounts). She had a cocktail every afternoon with a small treat--5 or 6 crackers or a handful of peanuts. She always made delicious, healthy meals, although most had some kind of gravy. We almost never had fast food (and when we did it was McDonald's plain hamburgers and the whole family would share 2 small fries).
We often had soda in the house, but it was almost always diet soda. If we went out to eat, it was almost always this one Chinese restaurant on a Sunday afternoon.
She never did any kind of regular exercise. We belonged to a club one year and we went to the pool daily and she might have swam a lap or two, but that was all. She'd ride a bike here or there, but more for pleasure than for exercise. She did all the housework and did a lot of the gardening.
These days she struggles to keep the weight on. She drinks ensure with every meal for the extra calories, but has such a small appetite and gets so tired eating that she eats only a portion of her meal.
My sisters and I did not inherit her body type...sadly lol. We're all much bigger boned (mum has a tiny skeleton!) and more prone to building muscle...me especially! Ah well, luck of the genetic draw lol.
Ah, see, I *would* consider that luck . I build muscle reasonably well myself, and I'm very glad about that.
Wow, this is a very interesting thread about moms! It's amazing how many of our moms are naturally thin and just don't think about food.
My mom (58 years old now) was naturally thin in her teens, twenties, and early thirties (but according to my dad, she still obsessed over her body and wondered if she was flabby! ) up until she got diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at 33. Her weight then skyrocketed from 115-120 to 135-140 (still a normal, healthy weight for 5'4") and then up to 170, which she maintained throughout most of my life. She ate mostly healthy foods(lots of fruits and veggies, little to no soda, light dressings, small portions of dessert on occasion), but a lot of her weight was a combination of sclerosis and side effects from the medication she was taking. One time, while fed up with her weight, she went on a crazy salad crash diet for two weeks and lost 15 pounds. It made her sick, though, and she ended up gaining the weight back. Then, her doctor made her go on a diet based on the principles of a book called "Fat Free, Flavor Full" which is basically a low fat, lower calorie, moderate protein, moderate to high (complex) carb diet. I thought the recipes were rather bland and took no part in her diet, but now she has become much better at cooking in that style - the last time I made a trip up to visit my family, I found her cooking to be much more edible than I previously remembered. She has gotten down to 135-140 and is much happier with herself.
Before my mom got diagnosed with MS, she went jogging a few times a week but did no other routine exercise. Now, she makes a point of going for walks every day and using light free weights to both keep her in shape and keep her MS under good control.
Now, my AUNT (on my mom's side, too - 61 years old but looks 40!) is and has always been a naturally thin woman much like many of the ones described above - she enjoys cocktails, desserts, snacks, and never thinks anything about food except for acknowledging what she enjoys and being happy to have it. She isn't an overeater at all and does not eat if she is not hungry. She doesn't follow an exercise regimen, but she has a very busy life.
Last edited by NightengaleShane; 10-28-2008 at 04:43 PM.
"Interview" with my mom - a naturally thin woman
? Of course there's no way on earth to know this and of course there are many overweight "smokers". It might not have changed things one iota.
. I build muscle reasonably well myself, and I'm very glad about that.
) up until she got diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at 33. Her weight then skyrocketed from 115-120 to 135-140 (still a normal, healthy weight for 5'4") and then up to 170, which she maintained throughout most of my life. She ate mostly healthy foods(lots of fruits and veggies, little to no soda, light dressings, small portions of dessert on occasion), but a lot of her weight was a combination of sclerosis and side effects from the medication she was taking. One time, while fed up with her weight, she went on a crazy salad crash diet for two weeks and lost 15 pounds. It made her sick, though, and she ended up gaining the weight back. Then, her doctor made her go on a diet based on the principles of a book called "Fat Free, Flavor Full" which is basically a low fat, lower calorie, moderate protein, moderate to high (complex) carb diet. I thought the recipes were rather bland and took no part in her diet, but now she has become much better at cooking in that style - the last time I made a trip up to visit my family, I found her cooking to be much more edible than I previously remembered. 