Always plenty to eat

Cliff and I were both poor, growing up.  We stayed pretty poor most of our married life, too, although I was always sure not to call us "poor", even in my thoughts; honestly, I didn't often even feel poor.  People who go around talking about being poor have a bad case of what I call "poor-mouth", a condition that creates a feeling of inferiority, as well as a feeling that the rest of the world owes you something.  Just my opinion.  If you talk poor, you're going to feel poor.

My mother often talked about how poor everybody was during the depression, but she never gave me any sense that our family was poor at any time after I was born.  In rural Iowa, although there were some pretty big-time farmers, the kids at Skinner School all dressed the same:  boys in overalls, girls in home-made dresses.  Nobody seemed more prosperous than the others.  We moved to Eagleville when I was in the third grade, and everybody seemed equal there, too.  

I've said before that when I was a child, I ate what I wanted, when I wanted.  Mother was a wonderful cook, but she only made big meals on Sunday, when we usually had company.  We didn't have meat often, except for the fried chicken on Sundays and once in a while, some hamburger.  Daddy never was crazy about meat anyhow.  In fact, he wasn't too worried about a big fancy meal.  We usually had Cheerios or Wheaties around for breakfast.  I guess Mother cooked dinner and supper, but I didn't always eat what she cooked.  One evening after supper she overheard me talking to neighbor kids about our evening meals.  They told me they had pork chops... that I remember... and named off whatever other two or three items they'd had.  I told them we had bread and gravy.  When I went inside, Mother took me aside and informed me we'd had about five different dishes on the table at supper, including mashed potatoes.  I had simply chosen to eat what I loved best:  bread and gravy.  She was embarrassed that the neighbors would think she only cooked gravy for supper.   

Like all kids sometimes do, I'd tell my mother there wasn't anything to eat, and she'd go into the same routine, every time:  "Lands sakes, there's milk in the refrigerator, and we have crackers and bread and graham crackers!  Eat some bread-and-milk or crackers-and-milk."

Back then, my choice of the things she always suggested was graham crackers and milk, followed by toast and milk with sugar sprinkled over it.  I still love graham crackers soaked in milk, and lately I've indulged several times.  Those graham crackers turn to mush in a bowl of milk, and taste better than any kind of pudding, in my book.  One day at dinner when the kid was here, I had some for dessert.  She's always been pretty choosy about eating unfamiliar things.  But for some reason, she wanted a bite of my soggy graham crackers.  The minute it hit her tongue, her eyes lit up, a smile broke over her face, and she gave me two-thumbs-up.  Since then, not one day at my house has gone by without her having graham crackers and milk.  She also loves fresh home-made bread, so I try to make bread on days she'll be here to have a slice or two.

I may have eaten some strange things throughout my life, but I was never forced to eat something I didn't like, and I've never been hungry.  

Cliff and I have always enjoyed good home-cooked food, and we've yo-yo dieted most of our lives:  Lose 20 pounds, gain back thirty.  We'll throw the small sizes away, just knowing we'll never have the fortitude to get thin enough for them again, and six months or a year later we're losing weight and wishing we'd kept them.  We both shed a lot of weight and kept it off after his heart bypass, but after two years we started slipping and before you know it, we'd gained all the weight back.

We're on a different track now.  Last summer I was having some stomach problems.  I'd been to our nurse-practitioner, but none of the anti-acid solutions helped me a bit.  On my birthday, July 7th, I was sitting on the back deck watching the world wake up and scolded myself for going to the doctor for a stomach problem that was most likely caused by what I was putting into my body.  I made some changes.  Within a week I was feeling better.  On my birthday I told Cliff I was cutting back on a lot of things and would try to cook appropriate meals.  I told him I was going to stop buying ice cream, but if he wanted some we could keep it out in the big freezer so it wouldn't tempt me.  "No," he replied, "I need to get rid of this gut."

He weighed 272, I weighed 167.  We had both been heavier than that at other times... I've gotten perilously close to 200 in the distant past... but my goal was to feel better, more than to lose weight.  We gradually shed pounds.  We weighed every weekday, leaving weekends for eating out, or having more calorie-laden meals.  The only exercise we can either one do is ride the stationary bike for short periods, but we did that sometimes.  

In October we were 252 and 153.  From there on, we... especially Cliff... would lose weight nicely all week, then we'd weigh on Monday and he might have gained anywhere from two to five pounds!  But overall, we were maintaining.

In mid-January I was 151; Cliff weighed 245.  All this time I had only been cooking one meal a day, two if we had a breakfast that needed to be cooked.  I was making the old-fashioned stuff we liked.  Not so healthy, perhaps, but we neither one felt cheated.  Cliff had been eating a salad most nights.  I didn't have any supper.  Oh, I was eating something:  Sometimes one piece of bread with peanut butter, sometimes a boiled egg and a string cheese, or a banana.  Usually nothing that added up to more than 300 calories.  Cliff was still regaining a bunch over the weekend, then spending the whole week taking it back off, eating his salad at night.  I was pretty much where I wanted to be, eating anything I wanted but watching portions.

I told Cliff, "You know, if it wouldn't bother you to do as I do in the evenings, I'll bet you'd lose more weight.  I'm not sure if you could do that, though.  You never liked to skip a meal."

"Well, I'll try it," he said.

I'm still at 151, sometimes ducking below 150 and back.  Cliff, this morning, was 238.  Maybe we've found something that works for us.  

And I've still had plenty to eat.  

Peace.

P.S.  I came in here at 3:30 and started this entry.  With very few interruptions, it's taken me over two hours to get to this point.  Between changing words and phrases, re-arranging paragraphs, and thinking about what comes next, it takes a lot longer to create this drivel that it takes for you, my dear followers, to read it.  I think that's a lot of the reason I don't blog as much these days... each entry is such a commitment!   And I babysit most weekdays.