I am a fat woman. I know that my friends try and be nice and say "No, you're not. You're fine the way you are." They're good friends. I love them. Even my customers are great like that. Sadly, I know they're just trying to be nice when they really want to slap me for being self deprecating. It's a bad habit.
So, my journey begins in childhood. I was a tall, thin, athletic kid. I was stronger than everyone else my age no matter their gender. I could run fast, even while carrying another child on my back and won several piggy back races. My little brother was a weaker, but faster version of me. We were almost like video game characters. Choose your pros and cons! Good times.
I ate your average, standard American diet. I loved chicken nuggets, dry cheeseburgers, hot dogs, cheese products, broccoli smothered in more cheese food than there was broccoli. Don't even get me started on mac and cheese. The more processed the cheese... stuff... the better! When I was old enough to boil my own water and strain my own pasta, I literally ate a box of mac and cheese as a meal.
Don't judge me. I know I'm not the only one.
I grew up hating vegetables unless they were smothered in overly processed tastiness. I hated salads and could barely stomach them even when they were smothered the fattiest ranch dressing possible. I hated beans. Still do, actually, but I do make a mean split pea soup now (and I will never, ever buy canned stuff again. Did that once and it was so gross). I didn't eat onions or mushrooms, and I was dubious of garlic unless it was in powdered form, and overly refined white bread was where it was at... or yeast rolls smothered in gobs of butter.
Needless to say... I lived like any Texan. I ate deep fried meats, pasta, potatoes in every form, steak, and anything smothered in cheese (and not real cheese either. I hated that stuff.). Oh, and pizza. I lived for pizza.
And that was all fine and well.. until I was 8, and my hormones went crazy as my body made the transition from child to adult. I started to gain weight, and that isn't because I wasn't physically active. I lived outside, and when my weight started to get out of control, my father took me to aerobics class twice a week and then I had to go to the gym and walk on the treadmill forever. My parents even tried to restrict my caloric intake. It didn't help because we were a busy family and my culinary skills were limited. I made half the meals in the family since both of my parents had to work, and the meals were really simplistic. Spaghetti and meat sauce, some sort of meat pan fried or broiled with instant mash potatoes some canned vegetable that I could stand. Corn was a vegetable to me. I had a lot of corn.
On top of that, my family was descending farther and farther into debt. We didn't live ostentatious lives. We rented, bought used cars after our old ones were dead. We live in Texas, and cars are pretty much required for almost every livelihood. My dad's job depended on private transportation... and my area didn't have any sort of public transportation at all. My clothes were pretty much all hand me downs from my older brother until I out grew him (which I am taller than him and neither of us our getting any taller), and my little brother got what clothes that survived me. Our jeans, when we ripped out the knees climbing trees and falling while rollerblading, were turned into cut off shorts, and I always seemed to have the cheapest shoes ever. We weren't exactly poor, but we weren't wealthy enough to even have heard of "organic" food, and we were definitely all sold on the "More out than in" angle to weight loss.
By the time I was a sophomore in high school I weighted a whopping 250 lbs. I hated my body. I hid it behind clothes too big for me and hid my fat, bloated face behind my hair. I didn't believe anyone could find me pretty or attractive. Pure misery. On top of that, my family was telling me I needed to lose weight as well. I had moved from my friendly neighborhood to an isolated one and only went outside to walk my dogs... or be walked by my dogs, if we're going to be literal. I lost myself in roleplaying games online and I read and wrote. Anything to escape my own hideousness.
Then, in my junior year I made friends with several seniors. We ate out a lot, but despite that, and unbeknownst to me, I was slowly shedding weight. By the time I had graduated high school I guess I had lost about 30 pounds and still hated myself. My freshmen year in college I ate a little better and worked out almost every day with my best college friend. I also walked to every class and rode horses... all with a broken foot. Then that summer vacation I lost 30 pounds doing weight watchers with my parents... my entire family was doing it, including my extended family. I lifted weights with my dad, did cardio, and ate better than I had in my entire life.
I managed to keep the weight off until I got engaged. Then the weight crept on, and 6 years and a baby later I'm just as fat as I was in high school and hating myself again.
Now, however, I like more things and instead of processed cheeses I eat real cheese. I have pretty much lost all my taste for soda.. which happened right after high school. I drink water. I love water, and will take it over any other beverage any day (except for when I'm in Florida or west Texas).
So what is a girl to do?
I started watching documentaries on Netflix. Most of them are... dumb. They are pointless and trying to sell some off the wall world view. So I cycled through a few until I fell on "Forks over Knives". As I watched it, I thought, "Man, this makes sense." And if they feel as good and have lost as much weight as they have on this whole plant based food diet than I thought, "Can't I?"
So, after a rather one sided discussion with my husband who just agreed with me to shut me up, I flew pretty much right into it. It wasn't horrible, but it was far from great. Everything I made tasted terrible. I couldn't get into it no matter how positive I tried to be, and my husband sure as hell wasn't into it. He'd rather starve and so would my daughter. On top of that, I was researching the program as I went along. I was reading testimonials and even those of whole food vegans.
And I read so many things that told me why people stopped. Yeah, it worked for a while, but then the people who did it got sick. Some of their bodies couldn't process the B12 supplements they were taking and their stores from their omnivore days were depleted. Their teeth and hair were falling out and their kids were the first to become lethargic and sick. I couldn't bear the thought of that happening to my daughter.. and since I didn't have any moral objections to eating meat...
I heard a lot about the "Paleo Diet" from people expressing support to people that started eating meat again. Now, it's not something I had ever heard of before, so I looked it up. It isn't affordable to someone like me. Not in its pure form anyway, but I'm sure I can figure it out. I want to give it the best shot my working class self can give. It's definitely something my family can get behind. No grains, legumes, sugar, or dairy? I think I can hack that.
