Thin Lies Within

Before getting to the heart of my approach for reaching optimal weight and fitness, I would like to tell you a little bit about my life and how my work has evolved. You and I are much more alike than we are different; our only difference resides in the reality that my story is my story and yours is yours. Just as friends get to know each other by sharing their life experiences and discoveries, I’d like to tell you something about mine and perhaps you will see some of your own story reflected in my tale.

I grew up in a small farming community where life was centered on two things: family and food. Much of our time in the summer was consumed by the garden...planting, weeding, feeding, de-bugging, watering, harvesting, and storing. Because we had no restaurants, except a small café and a drive-in, we cooked nearly all our meals. Breakfast, dinner, and supper, as we called them, were the things that you could look forward to three times a day, and on weekends they involved the gathering of family members for card-playing Saturday night or Sunday dinner after church.

Many of my fondest childhood memories revolve around the hours I spent in the kitchen with my grandmothers. Their style of food preparation I suppose could have been characterized as country cookin’. I jokingly like to say that in my family “if it was meat, we fried it; if it was green, we creamed it; and gravy was considered an essential food group.” But the reality was that we found a way to fry nearly everything: bologna, sausage, okra, chicken, morel mushrooms, fritters, donuts, potatoes, and even green tomatoes. And then from the residual grease and morsels of meat that remained in a pan after frying, we would add flour to make a rue, then pour in whole milk, season with salt and lots of black pepper, and stir while simmering to make gravy. The fat rendered from bacon, called bacon grease or drippings, was considered a precious commodity. It was saved in a prized container, otherwise known as a coffee can, in the refrigerator where it would later season-up and fatten-up some otherwise nutritious dish, like green beans. You just haven’t lived until you’ve had garden-fresh okra, rolled in corn meal, and fried in bacon fat.

Our lives revolved around food as surely as the earth revolves around the sun. It was an experience that punctuated each day, a celebration of a passing birthday, recognition of a holiday, a church gathering, and an excuse to be with family and friends. We just ate the way we ate, without giving it much thought. We savored everything in its season and delighted in sharing recipes for a new cake, cookies, casserole, or salad, never realizing or understanding anything about nutrition and its impact upon our health.

As childhood passed and I reached my early teens, I took my first job at the local burger ‘n fry drive-in. My love for food that had been cultivated at my grandmothers’ knees burgeoned as I learned to prepare and serve fast food to the public...french-fried Suzie-Q potatoes, hamburgers, onion rings, pork tenderloin sandwiches, foot-long chili dogs, sodas, malts, and sundaes. With the availability of such fine, fattening food and the good country cookin’ at home, my pubescent hormone-filled physique blossomed with proliferating fat cells.

About the time I entered high school, I began to get a little self-conscious about my weight. If a boyfriend slipped his arm around my waist, I would quickly sit up straight to elongate my torso and prevent him from feeling the roll of fat that bulged out between my bra and the elastic around the top of my panties. I knew the roll well because I had been eyeing it in the mirror everyday after my bath. When I looked to my mother, asking for verification about my body weight, “Am I too fat?” was always answered with a reassurance that I was merely “pleasingly plump.”