I've been thinking about how and when and what I would say about my weight loss journey here for a few weeks, probably months. My goal was to reach a certain number on the scale by my 40th birthday, which has now come and gone, and then to sort of journal the journey here. Honestly, I don't think I ever wanted to say out loud to the world that I had a real goal because I've had that real goal for at least 3 years now! That's how old Harper is, so that's how long I've wanted to hit that number. It's been a LONG journey! On some piece of paper, I did write my goal or motto or whatever was FIT BY 40, a milestone birthday provided a little more motivation than some other nebulous number! And the term Fit is relative and loosely applied. Fit and Forty both start with F, so it works! If you're wondering, I did hit that number by my 40th birthday. Boom! More about that later.
But tonight, I was lying in bed thinking about my whole life as a chubby person. I had to keep from audibly snickering at some of the memories that crossed my mind as I thought about when this whole struggle with food and weight began. Bear with me as I go back 30 something years to when I was a wee one! There will be rabbit trails and hopefully these little snippets will be as humorous in writing as they are in my mind at almost 1am.
I entered this world weighing in at over 9lbs. I was a big girl! I must've popped out of the womb ready to eat and obsessed with food. I obviously don't remember much about those first years of life, but what I do remember centers on food. My dad was in the Air Force way back when and we were stationed at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX. Here's what I remember about San Antonio - Dunkin' Donuts and theater food and possibly Pancho's Mexican Buffet! Pancho's was part of life for many years, but I'm not sure if it started in San Antonio or near my aunt's in Houston. (We are going to make a special trip through Dallas-Fort Worth in a few weeks so that Jake can experience Pancho's.) I do also remember that there was a little boy named Johnny T who fell and busted his head open while we lived in San Antonio. Random, I know.
(I used to have this poster hanging on my wall!)
We left San Antonio shortly before my 5th birthday and moved north to Chip and Joanna Gaines-ville, better known as Waco, TX, where they managed a movie theater, the Ivy Twin Cinema, which was owned by the same company that owned the Westwood. Spending countless hours at a movie theater as a child was a fantastic way to live. My mom jokes often that I learned to count money and give change when I was about 5 or 6 by working concessions at the theater. I was very proficient at taking inventory of all of the candy in the stockroom. By taking inventory, I mean writing down what came in and what went out..hmm...hmm.. Let me just say that my favorite candy of all time, still to this day, is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. However, they don't last very long if you just take bites out of the whole cup. They also melt in your hands, unlike M&M's, when eaten slowly. To make my Reese's last longer while watching movies all day, I would break my two Reese's Cups into pieces and put the pieces into a drink cup, so that it would last me longer than the opening credits of a movie. My favorite drink in those days was Dr. Pepper - real, Dr. Pepper - with no ice! (Did you know that Waco, TX is the birthplace of Dr. Pepper?) To this day, I still enjoy a lukewarm soda. Jake thinks I'm crazy! However, I can't even remember the last time I had a real Dr. Pepper!
The Ivy, as we called it, was located across the street from Baylor's campus, in a strip mall with a Baskin Robbins and a 7-11 and various other businesses. You can tell where this is heading, right? After a few hours of working the ticket window or watching some totally inappropriate movie for a kid my age, I would walk 3 doors down to see my friends (truly we were friends) at Baskin Robbins. The youngest me would always get a clown cone. The older me recognized the deliciousness of Gold Medal Ribbon and World Class Chocolate. On a generous night, when I had a wad of cash, I'd get a 2 scoop hot fudge sundae. I couldn't have been more than 8 years old or so at this point. Oink, Oink! Other nights my brother and I would walk to the end of the shopping center, around a couple of dark spooky turns, to the 7-11 and get massive slurpees. (There was a game room right next door to the Ivy and we were friends with the people who worked there, too. Endless game credits. I knew how to open the games up and add credits myself. Endless game credits were great for my brother who now is a video game designer.)
Because of the crazy hours a movie theater is open and probably my dad's full time job away from the theater, I honestly don't remember my mom cooking at home often. (Sorry, mom!) What I do remember is the circuit of restaurants we frequented - - Sonic, Dairy Queen, Lone Star Tavern (not the Lone Star Steakhouse), Miller Family Steakhouse (no longer exists), Red Lobster, La Fiesta (where I learned to love queso), Bonanza, Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken (We knew the owner of Jim's fairly well and often traded buckets of chicken for movie passes. No joke!), Schlotzky's (before it became a big franchise), Tanglewood Farms and Poppa Rollo's Pizza. There was actually another pizza place we got pizza from all the time, but I can't remember the name of it. Pizza Planet, maybe? Canadian bacon and mushroom is still my favorite pizza! Seriously, when did my mother ever use her cool grill top stove and built in oven and microwave? We weren't eating grilled chicken or broiled fish or salads with lite ranch dressing at these joints! Think footlong chili cheese coney's, chicken fried steak with french fries or a big buttery baked potato, fried shrimp, juicy fried chicken, greasy pizza topped with every piece of meat available, etc. You get the picture. Calories didn't exist in my world then!
There were also the countless fast food meals from Jack in the Box, Wendy's, McDonald's, Long John Silvers (extra crunchies, please!), and Taco Bueno. These were all in close proximity to the theater. Jack in the Box was closest so we'd (my brother and I and whatever friends tagged along that day) walk under the I-35 and University Parks Dr. overpass to get some food and venture back to the theater. All this walking down memory lane makes me think my parents were the poster parents for free range parenting!
As I was thinking about this extensive list - I'm sure I could come up with more - I thought about what my brother called a salad. Back then, I get older by the minute, the salad bar came with whatever meal we ordered at most of these places, except the one place kid meals didn't get a salad because the price of lettuce was apparently astronomical. Anyway.. when our salads were included and it was fix your own at the salad bar, my brother would get his salad bowl and fill it with chocolate pudding. He'd cover the pudding in bacon bits and croutons and call it a salad. I mostly remember this concoction happening at Bonanza because I can see it in that little brown wooden bowl.
Back to the theater childhood and inappropriate movies, and food, of course - - - On Friday and Saturday nights, we were the only place in town that did midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you know nothing of Rocky Horror, move along because this won't make any sense! I knew every audience participation line, bad words and all. I knew every time something was supposed to be thrown or sprayed. I knew how to do the Time Warp - "Let's do the time warp again!" I am pretty sure I used the words Sperm Perm in a sentence to my parents in the car once. I'm sure they laughed their butts off when I was out of sight! (Remember, I was less than 10 years old)
On the frequent nights that I ended up staying with my mom at the theater for the midnight show, after all the college students and Rocky Horror groupies had left we'd have to clean the theater so it would be ready for whatever movie started first the next morning. By cleaning, I basically mean taking a yard blower and blowing trash (pieces of toast, rice, rolls of toilet paper, newspapers, etc.) from the back of the theater to the front and sweeping it into great big trash cans and then mopping between all the aisles of seats. (And my kids complain about swiffering a 10x10 foyer!) When the cleaning was over, we'd often load up and meet at I-Hop for a very early morning snack. Think hot chocolate and silver dollar pancakes at 3 or 4 in the morning. Glad Facebook wasn't around back then because I'm sure my parents would've been shamed for allowing their two young-ish kids, and maybe a friend or two, to be at I-Hop at 4 in the morning - let alone the barrage of inappropriate we had already witnessed!
On those rare occasions when I was home or after my mom moved on from the movie theater gig, probably late elementary aged or early middle school, I had some other food obsessions! I loved mac and cheese, but ONLY Kraft Mac and Cheese. No store brands. No Velveeta - only the blue box! One of my brother's friends found out one afternoon just how passionate I was about my mac and cheese when he decided to fix himself a box while he waited at our house for his mom to get off work. Don't mess with my blue box! One of my kids will only eat Kraft mac and cheese if the noodles are something other than elbow noodles - sponge bob, star wars, ninja turtles. She says it tastes different! (insert eye roll)
Our house was about a mile or so from a convenience store that sold pints of Blue Bell for 99 cents. It was less than a mile if I climbed over the privacy fence and walked between the trailers on the street behind our house. That wasn't very convenient if I was on a bike, though. Back to Blue Bell...Several times a week, I would venture into the convenience store, dig through the Blue Bell freezer for a pint of Tin Roof Sundae, pay the clerk my $1 and be on my merry way. Often my pint would only last one sitting, but some times if I was unknowingly being frugal or practicing self control, I'd save some for later. Blue Bell truly was the best ice cream in the country back then! Moo!
As I was thinking about the absurdity of some of these memories, I thought about what I often took as a sack lunch for field trips. You know, those mornings when your mother wakes up and remembers you are required to take only items in your lunch bag that can be thrown away? As a mother I forget these things frequently and have resorted to always making the kids buy the school's sack lunch! I digress...Thank the Lord for that convenience store! Not only did it sell pints of Blue Bell, it also sold beef sticks/jerky, Grandma's chocolate brownie cookies, chips and soda! (Remember wrapping a can of soda in a paper towel and tin foil to keep it cold?) Michelle Obama would've put the beat down on my mother for the very healthy lunches I took on field trips! My mom also used to pack small containers of Nestle Nesquik powder for us so we didn't have to drink plain milk at school, obviously back before elementary aged kids have 10 different drink choices with their school lunches!
It really is amazing that I didn't weigh 250 pounds by my freshman year of high school. Thankfully, before my senior year of high school, my mom and I set sail on the low-fat ship and helped me undo a little of the damage all those pints of Blue Bell and plates of chicken fried steak had done to my chubby body!
Stay tuned for the next installment of Fit by 40....