I was a slim kid until I was about 8 or 9. I don't quite remember how the transition happened. I do remember helping my friend sell girl guide cookies but I wasn't interested in eating them. I wasn't really aware that I had become a "fat kid" until one year at summer camp. Kids traded clothes back and forth and suddenly I didn't fit into anyone else's stuff.

The following year - I was 11 I think - I went on my first diet before camp and fit into everyone else's clothes again. That summer I stole candy from all sorts of kids who had it in abundance. It still embarrasses :o me to admit that - 45 years later! I was keenly aware that I was doing wrong but couldn't seem to help myself and craved sugar constantly. Of course I didn't eat dessert at mess and I bought cigarettes instead of treats when we went to the general store (yep I was trying to be cool at 11).

I still recall one kid at camp asking me if I was taking speed. I said yes, to further up the cool factor even though I had no idea what "speed" was :yikes: How dumb was that? :o

Dagmar :dizzy:

What kind of camp allowed 11 year olds to buy cigarettes?! Why were they even available!?

Occasionally I get a stark reminder of not only why I don't eat normally, that I can't even recognize normal eating. 2 book club meetings ago we all helped ourself to dinner. It was roasted pork, rice, and lentils. Usually I eat a big portion of a non-starchy veg to help fill me up at home, and seeing there wasn't one here, I tried not to be piggy with my portions. I was feeling pretty proud of my plate. It looked like everyone else's (yes, I do check other people's plates at events to make sure mine looks "normal"). The book we read was actually about an overweight woman. We talked about it and someone casually said "well we don't eat like this every night" and responses were things to the effect of "no, that meal was delicious but huge!" I was dismayed and thought to myself, no wonder I have weight problems.

Like many of you, I was always self-conscious of my weight from a very young age. (I remember when I was 6 thinking I was huge.) Looking back, yes, I was chubby, but not that huge. Why do adults have to even say things like that to make kids self-conscious? I didn't blow up until middle school.

So much for being "normal..."

Boss gave me a VERY SQUISHY frosted brownie, on premises he had already had half and doesn't want to eat more. It is sitting on my desk staring at me. I want to throw it out but he might be insulted so I think I'll hide it and give it back to him at the end of the day. My heart is RACING noticeably because of a stupid brownie.

They weren't. And we were "forbidden" to possess or smoke them. Again it was the "cool" factor. One other girl and I would run ahead (surprising since we were "smokers" - LOL) to the general store when the entire group went, and we would quickly purchase out ciggies and hide them in our shorts. Since we smoked about 2-3 per day one package went a long way. Our counsellors were young people - they didn't much care what we did so long as no one told the uber kommandant. :p

Dagmar (the life of crime started early :dizzy:)

How is everyone doing this week? Any light at the end of the tunnels?

I am feeling great today, but the crappy and weather that has been out west is heading towards us and I can already anticipate that sabotaging this good run that I am on!

Jen

Morning Jen, and anyone else that is up. I'm doing pretty good have stayed at 117.8 for the last several days that is a little bit more than I started the month with. That at is not a bad weight but of course more than my vanity weight. The only way I can control my weight is by constant effort. I have known this for a long time, but I still want to kick and scream and stamp my feet like a small child. I don't want to work at it, I want it to be easy .Hah ! If it only it were so.

+1

Occasionally I'll have a pity party, too, especially as others around me dig into their delectable desserts. But then those people are usually overweight and diabetic. It's amazing the number of people in my age group who are diabetic or prediabetic. Watching my father go through that was a real eye opener for me.

Good point, Sheila. I think in America "normal" eating has become stuffing processed crap in your mouth and becoming overweight and having health problems.

In that case, maybe I don't want to eat normally...

Jen

Another +1 to this. I want to not have to worry, I want to not go into a panic mode because I have a vendor lunch scheduled and don't know what to order, like today. After an unexpected lunch with the lawyer I met with yesterday. I ended up cancelling today - ostensibly for a business reason, but really because I didn't want to have to think about the food if I look at myself hard enough.

I have a baggie of Christmas candy hidden in my bedside table right now. And I think I'm doing better the last few years. Right. :eek:

Jen - you keep that good run going!

Krampus, I NEED CLOSURE on what happened between you and the squishy frosted brownie.

This is how abnormal I can be: I've actually picked out bite-size pieces with my fingers, one by one, and thrown them away, so that the thing looks half-eaten the next time the person walks by, as if I've left it sitting there because something interrupted my enjoyment. And then, when the person isn't looking, I've thrown out the remainder. (I mean, they don't check your trash, do they?)

I feel precarious this week, as if it could go either way, and it all depends on my getting through my new managerial duties fairly competently. I've got to sit down with each of my new direct reports and go over their performance goals for the coming year. My promotion was rushed a lot mostly so that I could participate in this process in my new role. Every day lately I feel like I'm learning a new dance and I just have to hope I'm keeping up. I always end the day feeling I haven't quite done enough and could have done even more, if I really put my mind to it.

Hey Megan, do you really know how the book club folks eat? I find that people often act as though a meal out was so different from their usual eating pattern - especially I see women do this - but do you really know how they eat otherwise?

When I go off-course (even it takes place over a course of several days), I react fairly reasonably (IMO) and can go back to eating and exercising on plan. But if I go off-course soonafter, I am LIVID with myself. It's that second time that irks me. And then I get all concerned about me regaining all the weight.

As for eating like a "normal person", that's not going to happen. I try to fake it as best as possible, but I probably fail miserably.

Oh, this behavior among women drives me crazy. I think of it as "Scarlett at the Barbeque" behavior. If you are at all familiar "Gone With the Wind," you'll recall that, early in the movie, before a big social event, Mammy counsels Scarlett to eat a hearty meal beforehand privately, so that, in public, when she takes a plate, Scarlett will only pick daintily and no one will see her displaying anything so uncouth as a hearty appetite. That attitude survives to this day. Some women are a bit too ostentatious in displaying a "ladylike" lack of appetite in public. It's the opposite of guys who claim they have the bottomless capacity of high school football players visiting an open buffet, or who pride themselves on eating food so hot and spicy that tears stream down their faces while they're chewing and swallowing.

Probably it bothers me because my mother is one of these women who exclaims over my portion size at dinnertime, when my plate is mostly heaped with vegetables. And then, an hour or two later, she's working on her second consecutive bowl of ice cream, while I've mentally closed off the kitchen to myself after dinner & will have nothing else for the rest of the night.

I mean, come on. Stop being such a lady and just be a person. A person who gets hungry and eats.

LOL at, "Scarlett at the Barbeque" - that's a new one for me.