A New Me

On January 1 this year I weighed 292 lbs. When I moved to SC from Atlanta, I weighed 189, so that was a substantial gain in only seven years. A lot of it came on when I was working as a debt collector. The worst time for binge eating was just before Cameron's hip surgery, when I would often stop at Bloom for fudge.

Because I didn't eat the whole thing at once, but over several days, I told myself it wasn't the same as binging. Truth was, I was consuming too many calories. And each bite prevented me from dealing with whatever emotion was in front of me.

About mid January, I decided things had to change. I couldn't afford to wait any longer. The heal plantar fasciitis had mostly healed. My knees hurt every day. It's time. I had dreamed of putting myself on NutraSystem, but financially, that wasn't option.

Mamaw always wrote on the back of pictures. On this one
she wrote: "Rosemary Modesitt. Sept 1985. Cindy had just
given Rosemary a Mary Kay facial." I would have been 22,
and she would have been about 66. She was a size 14.

This is where the journey gets a little weird. I channeled my grandmother instead. My grandmother was food for me. As a kid, when my mother slipped away in her schizophrenic craziness and wasn't feeding me enough, we went grandma's every day. I never went hungry at grandma's. She was a rather difficult woman to approach emotionally. But when I was about nine, Grandma Haynes, who lived next door, told me the secret. Mamaw showed her love with action. And love was food. She made all my favorite foods and made sure I never went hungry. She controlled portions and calories, while still making things YUM. If I wanted both kinds of pie, she cut portions into slivers and I got both.

Mamaw grew up during the depression. Her family were poor dirt farmers. I remember going the farm until I was about nine, and having to go out to the pump for water. I dreaded the outhouse. She managed to go live with an aunt when she graduated from high school. In exchange for caring for her aunt, she received enough money for tuition, and went to college where she majored in Home Economics. She taught HomeEc until she was 62 when she took early retirement.

So I've been shaping my cooking around what she would have done. I get a desert every day (2 chocolate chip cookies only have 180 calories!). A couple of days a week I have a New Castle (140 calories). We've taken a page from Montel William's book, and drink Green Drinks all day long. Funny how they slow caffeine withdrawal. I only had 4 sodas yesterday instead of six. May eventually be able to get off them all together!

I've started a private journal at livestrong.com so I can track calories taken in and calories burned, as well as fitness. I'm doing Richard Simmon's Sweatin' to the Oldies more days than not. And it's working. When I weighed at work this week on the digital scale, I was down to 276 lbs.

And I'm in the kitchen thinking of my Mamaw. I miss you Grandma Rose Mary. I know you'd be proud.