Tuesday May 9th 2006

Today's scale - 229lbs. Same as the last two days. This is when I start feeling impatient - I know I'm eating less calories then I burn - I had oatmeal & Blueberries for breakfast; raw veggies, low calorie humus, fruit and 16 almonds for lunch and 1 hamburger patty (no bun) for dinner. Plus I walked 4km at lunch and 5km after dinner.

From yesterday's post I've been thinking about my childhood. The public school I went to in the 1970's was not very friendly amongst the girls. I remember in grade 5 being chased around the playground with the girls chanting "Fatty Fatty two by four, couldn't get through the bathroom door" - we had also read the book "Blubber" by Judy Blum in our class - it was suppose to teach us tolerance - instead the girls in the class took to calling a couple of us "Blubber" instead of our names as we were not thin. In grade 8 we went down to another school for shop and sewing/cooking class. The school was about 3km away (approx). On the way back to our school after cooking class the entire class decided to play a game - hit me on the left side of my arm only - the goal was to take a swing at me, and only hit me on my left side. If I managed to turn the right side of my body towards them they would hold back, as the rules of the game where to hit me on the left side. There were about 30 kids in the class - and 50% participated, 48% watched and cheered and only 2 people were brave enough to ask me if I was okay (Cindy & Emma). When we went to the teacher about it, he told my parents "kids would be kids" - and basically I had to suck it up, bruises and all. - Most of the name calling that went on during this incident were about my weight.

I don't remember what it is like to be thin (age 7) - I've never worn a bikini - and probably never will (have stretch marks now from being larger). I am 38 years old now, and still remember the hurt and pain of those kids. I'm also an adult now. I can see many of those kids where lashing out at me as a target because I was allowing them to. One of the girls that started the "hit on left side" game, her name was Kathy. When my parents asked the school to talk to Kathy's parents, they told them they could not do so as they feared that Kathy would be hurt (physically hit) by her father. This was before the days where calling Children's Aid was mandatory for teachers. They didn't want to interfere in Kathy's life - but they didn't help her either - She must have been so afraid, so alone and lashing her anger out by creating a game to hit me was her release. Many others were going through divorces, one family was doing the "swinging" thing openly their kids, the neighbours, everybody knew about it (could you imagine being their kid - how confusing that was?). It was a very dysfunctional class, especially amongst the girls. The grade behind me did not have the same level of dysfunction - I ended up in a unique dynamics within my peer group.

Still, I know that the name calling, the physcial abuse at school helped me continue with the addiction. You would have thought that calling me names like "blubber" would have encouraged me to loose weight - but it instead encouraged me to stuff my feelings with food - go down to the local corner store and buy out their entire candy shelf with all my allowance, find a corner of the playground where nobody could find me and eat. I'd even go home and eat all the sugar out of the sugar bowl, if I didn't have any allowance left.

As I put the past together - starting from very young, I can see the patterns I am overcoming now. It's in the past - and the story has long played itself out - somehow I have hung onto my coping mechanism - sugar, pastries, breads, carbs - time to let go.

Namaste
B.