I’ve fought it, given in to it,cursed it and adored it.
Rarely has it been my friend.
Only recentlyhave I made peace with it.
Iced cup cake decorated with rose buds, close-up
We’ll have to wait andsee.
I took from my own bag my container of orange juice.
I wasn’t like the rest of the kids.
At 5, I was ignorant of cholesterol and calories, but I knew aboutfat.
My uncle was fat, and people were always telling him to eat celeryinstead of cookies.
So, with a child’s logic, I reasoned that I must befat, too.
My future looked dim.
For 50 years, people saidI had “such a pretty face.”
I was that kind of fat.
While World War II raged, I cursed myplus-sized outfits and powered down another amphetamine.
At bedtime,unable to sleep, I tossed back a Seconal, also courtesy of my father.
I was cut off and forced to go cold turkey.
Poke to check that all surfaces are submergedin oil.
When golden, remove.
My God, they were good.
For supper, I performed what my son, Andy, came to call the SwansonShuffle.
From there, he says, I’d call out, “What’ll it be?
Roast Beef and Macaroni?”
We were stylin', my little boy andIat least that’s what I told myself.
Over the next decade or so, I gained 100 pounds, gradually eating my5-foot-3-inch self up to 232.
As for the rest ofme, I wore muumuus to hide the evidence of my appetite.
Being fat becamemy shield.
I ate my way into celibacy; no man would even think aboutbedding me, which was fine.
Sex during my marriage had not beenniceneither loving nor frequent.
Giving it up was not a problem.
I remained faithful tosinglehood, my son and fatty foods.
I knew I had unladylike sexual feelings,feelings that weren’t proper, feelings that frightened me.
For more than10 years, my weight protected me from having to act on them.
Then, in1983, I turned 50.
Friends threw me a party.
One took a lot ofphotographs and gave them to me.
There I was: a muumuued mountainhelping herself to heaping portions of cake.
I looked like hell.
And ifI faced facts, I felt like hell, too.
The shell I’d built to protect mefrom sexfrom lifewas cracking.
It was time to take somerisks.
Before any great life change, a singular event occurs.
Finally, I had to admit that if I did not gethealthy, I would die.
I needed to learn how to become a person who couldget beyond dieting.
I turned my life savings$1,800over tocounseling, nutrition and fitness.
My new best friends became thehugely fat people who sat around with a (skinny) therapist.
We talkedabout being fat and about why we were going to stop being fat.
I beganto run, first alone, then in races.
I said farewell to fried potatoesand hello to greens.
Let’s do it another time," I’d say.
As for men, they wouldhave to wait.
I decided to eat5 pounds back on.
So was this it?
Could I count on wearing a size 8 forever?
I’m relatively normal.
I have accepted these facts andhave sought to replace yearning with self-acceptance.
Once Ilost all that weight, the mighty demon surfaced and the unladylikefeelings returned full force.
I was hungry again and not simply forfood.
I highly recommend themall.
If he says it, he’s probably talking about sex, not aboutfood.
Why do we women put a moral yoke around our neck?
Even at myadvanced age, I hear my inner voice scold, “Naughty, naughty!”
wheneverI approach the dessert tray.
Eating has nothing to do with morality, sowhy do we berate ourselves as if we were children?
So now I venture to say to myself, Enough of thischildish behavior!
When I’m able to listen, the world of foodlooks less threatening and more appealing.
We have learned a lot since I was in kindergarten, when choices werefew and accurate nutritional information scarce.
Yet what seems to haveremained constant is the difficulty many women have separating food fromemotion.
I might even have learned to cook something besides friedpotatoes.
But I have changed, too.
I only wish I hadn’tgotten such a late start.
I hid from it all for far too long.
One day I might be ableto enjoy food in moderation without thinking about it.
Until then, lifeis good, and I plan to keep it that way.
