My Love Affair with Sugar

When I was a child... right up until I was in my early forties.. I could eat anything that I wanted and I didn't gain weight. I was so skinny when I was 10 that my mother decided to supplement my diet, or lack of diet, with an interesting concoction called beef, liver, and wine. A spoonful a day was supposed to increase one's appetite. Unfortunately, it had the reverse effect on me. It basically made me spew out what little food I had in my stomach to begin with.

Now, I was a very healthy and happy child. I was a grazer rather than a meal eater and I really didn't seem to require much food. I loved spaghetti and ice cream. That was about it.

My mom came from a long line of nurturers. We had constant visitors at our house. My aunts and cousins always stopped by with casseroles and desserts in hand. At that point, my mom would start the endless kettle boiling and large quantities of soup, stew, chowder, and corn on the cob would appear like magic. Thus, my family lineage was on the more than slightly pudgy side.

It really didn't help my case any that two of my closest cousins were very squeezable babies. They were the classic Gerber babies with round faces and plump little legs. I was allergic to breast milk and cows milk, and so I was raised on goats milk. Plus, I seemed to be a virus magnet and I had scarlet fever and a few other nasty little ailments before I was a year old. So... I basically looked like a half starved, gangly, and very pale golem. After that initial first year, I was healthy enough. I just stayed bean pole skinny.

My mother was raised on a farm in the 1930s. Her mom passed away when she was three, so she was raised by her grandmother. She grew up cooking and eating a farmer's diet of mashed potatoes, beef or chicken with lots of gravy, and bread at every meal... richly spread with fat laden butter.

My dad was raised in Boston. He grew up in a world of baked beans and brown bread. Plus he had a real fondness for fried liver. Basically, I was doomed right from the start.

I didn't get a lot of sugar during my formative years. Once in a great while my mom would get ice cream or a relative would bring me a candy bar. I discovered that I honestly LOVED sugar.

I started babysitting when I was 15 and a whole lot of that money would be spent on sugar laden goodies. I treated myself often and well to banana boats at the local Dairy Queen. While the other girls my age were complaining about getting fat due to puberty, I was blissing out on candy bars.

My love affair with sugar lasted through four pregnancies. I gained a lot of weight, but I also lost it almost immediately after giving birth. I didn't have a clue how blessed I was until I hit menopause.

I started the process of menopause in my early forties. It wasn't a pretty process. I was getting a divorce and moving back to Connecticut from Maine. Thank heavens most of that time is just a foggy memory now. I do remember going to a new male gynecologist who informed me, as he gazed into my inner depths, that he might have to pull the spark plugs and engine if I didn't stop bleeding. I never went back to him, and eventually I stopped bleeding.

My body turned against me at that point. Every morsel of sugar that I put into my mouth resulted in another five pounds on each thigh. I ballooned up to almost 200 pounds and I was totally miserable.

I read everything I could find on dieting and finally settled on eating a salad with light dressing, non fat yogurt, and a little hummus and crackers everyday. Plus I took up weight training, which actually was just me trying not to drop five pound weights on my feet as I jumped and jogged with a weight loss video.

The diet worked and I managed to lose almost 75 pounds. I looked great in my clothes, my friends were jealous, I was getting some serious male attention. And yet, I missed my best friend. I missed my sugar.

I would wander out late at night to a little bake shop in a nearby village and press my nose against the glass. I could just imagine the taste and texture of that cake or that wonderful little lemon tart. But, I didn't give in. Birthdays were always celebrated in my work place, and seeing that birthday cake, my favorite treat, on that table just about killed me. I was good for about 10 years.

However, when I turned 62 and retired, I had an epiphany. I looked a lot more closely at the woman in the mirror and realized I didn't care a fig if my hair was thinning, my teeth were fake, and my body looked like the typical wiggly jiggly Goddess figure. It was time to reawaken my love affair with sugar. I only have about 20 years left on this earth and I don't want to spend it sipping water and eating salad.

I happily indulge these days. I go to picnics and eat anything that calls my name. I wolf down hamburgers on sour dough rolls, lobster rolls dripping with butter, and best of all... cakes, ice cream, pies, tarts, Ring Dings, Devil Dogs, and whoopie pies.

In all honesty, I do still watch my weight, and when that scale starts to rise to a level that makes me break out in hives, I slow down my meetings with my sugar. However, this time we will be together until death do us part. So might it be.

Life is Good!