![\"Sppooning\"](\"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2014\/spooning.png\")
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It all started with a spoon. I know that now. It took me decades to figure it out.<\/p>\n
I have fought a losing battle with fat my entire life. From a chubby junior high boy who wore \u201cHuskies\u201d, to the rotund man I became later in life \u2014 I\u2019m a fat man and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll always be.<\/p>\n
When I started playing in a rock band during my high school years, fat was out. If one was fat you were out. I wanted to be bigger than The Beatles, bigger than Elvis, bigger than any rock star ever. Unfortunately for me, I was fat and other than Fats Domino and Mama Cass, I didn\u2019t know of any other fat person who was even a tiny rock star let alone big rock star \u2013 no pun intended \u2013 than The Beatles or Elvis.<\/p>\n
It was in to be thin. My belly rolls, enhanced by jelly rolls and other sweet, fatty, salty treats and other bad-for-you stuff, grew bigger. Determined to become thin on the road to stardom, I discovered eggs. And that\u2019s all I ate. Eggs. I figured eggs have about 70 calories each so I could eat 20 eggs a day for 1400 calories. Twenty eggs is a lot. Of course I couldn\u2019t eat fried eggs, so I ate hard boiled eggs, and learned to love poached eggs and soft-boiled eggs \u2014 and I resisted the temptation to dip toast into the runny yellows.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, over the course of the summer my weight plummeted from over 200 pounds \u2013 Hey! I was only 14 and 200 pounds was a lot) down to a svelte 155 pounds. I\u2019m certainly rock star material now, I thought.<\/p>\n
During my years as a rock star \u2014 and I use the word star in its most liberal definition \u2013I was able to remain a fat boy who lived in a thin body. But the fat boy was alive and well inside \u2013 and I was all right with that..<\/p>\n
You know how life goes \u2014 you get married, have kids, settle in for the long haul and a lot of people, during this phase of life; life gets boring. And it\u2019s in the boredom that many people discover comfort foods. Comfort food is a nepenthe and an escape from the boredom of married life, kids, little league baseball, school plays, jobs we hate, and so forth. To escape boredom, rich people have affairs and poor folks eat Twinkies. Everyone has their own vehicle of escape from boredom. And this is regardless of how happy and fulfilled they look. You might think your neighbor\u2019s happy because he or she is always smiling, but in most cases it\u2019s a ruse, or just gas. They\u2019re not happy \u2014 that\u2019s why wife Jane is fooling around with Sam at work, and hubby Mac is out in the garage restoring a 1957 Chevy.<\/p>\n
You might think I\u2019m crazy and cynical and you may deny what I\u2019m saying is fact, but facts are facts.<\/p>\n
I digress. As the years rolled by, I became really good friends with spoons. I was so promiscuous I didn\u2019t really care which spoon, any spoon would do. I think my grandfather called is spooning but I think he meant something different.<\/p>\n
The fat guy who lived many years inside a thin body yearned to be free. It all began with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There is nothing better or easier to make than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It\u2019s fast food. It\u2019s comfort food. It\u2019s a childhood memory. It\u2019s yummy. And not only is it yummy, you can create many different varieties \u2014 I\u2019m thinking at least 1246 different combinations:<\/p>\n
Strawberry jam with creamy peanut butter on white bread
\nStrawberry jam with crunchy peanut better on white bread
\nStrawberry jam with crunchy peanut button on wheat bread
\nStrawberry jam with creamy peanut butter on wheat bread
\nStrawberry jam with creamy peanut butter on white toast
\nStrawberry jam with crunchy peanut butter on wheat toast<\/p>\n
Just to name a few. And you can further experiment with different loads of peanut butter or jelly \u2014 you know, go heavy on the peanut butter and light on the jelly or go heavy on the jelly and light on the peanut butter.<\/p>\n
And peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, while delicious, are not really all that fattening. I\u2019m guessing around 300 calories \u2013 better than a Whopper at 760 calories each \u2013 and with a lot less fat and salt. Plus Whoppers require french fries.<\/p>\n
The only problem I have with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is milk. If I am going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I have to have milk. I started innocently enough: As a child I would eat a peanut butter and jelly \u2014 usually grape \u2014 sandwich my grandmother had made for me and I would drink a glass of milk with it.<\/p>\n
When I got older and figured out how to hide things better, I didn\u2019t use a glass for the milk nor bread for the sandwich \u2013 it was the spoon that started it all.<\/p>\n
This is how spooning gets started \u2014 innocently.<\/p>\n
My recipe for fatness began with a counter, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jam or jelly, and a gallon jug of ice-cold milk \u2014 and a spoon, of course.<\/p>\n
Open the jar of peanut butter, open the jar of jelly or jam, take the cap of the ice cold milk, and grab the spoon. Now take a big spoonful of peanut butter and put it in your mouth. Then do the same with a big spoonful of jam or jelly. Repeat one more time. Now, pick up the gallon jug of milk and take a big long pull of the ice cold milk. Just be sure to lick the spoon clean between dips in the peanut butter and dips in the jelly.<\/p>\n
Now go back to the jar of peanut butter and eat a couple big spoonfuls, do the same with the jelly, then swig several huge gulps of ice cold milk straight from the jug.<\/p>\n
Just keep repeating this over and over until you are full and can\u2019t eat anymore. Always do this right before you go to bed. You will sleep better.<\/p>\n
This is called spooning and it\u2019s extremely addictive. Do not try it at home or you\u2019ll be sorry.<\/p>\n
You are probably thinking I\u2019m making this up; nobody would ever do something like that\u2026but you\u2019d be wrong, because spooning has been a way of life for me for more than 1000 nights of my life \u2014 and what\u2019s more, I\u2019ve been known to do this before bed and then again if I happened to wake up in the middle of the night. And all of it because of my addiction to spooning.<\/p>\n
But at least I was in harmony. A fat guy in a fat body again. But I could only be a happy fat guy until I got to a point where I couldn\u2019t fit in my fat clothes anymore \u2014 the point where I couldn\u2019t button my pants and had to wear my shirttail out to cover up the unbuttoned condition of my over-sized pants.<\/p>\n
You think I\u2019m joking but I\u2019m not. Spooning my friends, is a very addictive thing.<\/p>\n
When I got to the point when even my big old fattest pants could no longer be buttoned, I would feel bad that I had allowed the fat guy that I am, ruin the thin body he once lived in. So, like my high school days, I went on a diet of one thing only \u2014 one time it was spaghetti, the next time I ate nothing but cheese and meat, the next time nothing but grains\u2026.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an example: Eight years ago I weighed 230 pounds \u2013 most of those pounds the result of spooning, so I went on the Adkins Diet and lost weight because you can\u2019t spoon on the Adkins diet. But I soon got sick of all the meat, cheese and stuff like that. So I switched to a low-calorie diet. I got down to 157: Everyone told me I looked sick.<\/p>\n
I had a hard drive with the spooning withdrawal. The jar of Jiff kept calling my name, and Smuckers stared at me each time I opened the refrigerator.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, spooning got me again. Eventually I was back to the peanut butter, jelly, and milk bedtime routine. Spooning. During my last plumping period, I woke up in the middle of the night and ate an entire half-gallon of Breyer\u2019s vanilla ice cream. When I awoke in the morning, I was sure I had only dreamed that I ate that half gallon \u2014 until I looked in the sink and saw the empty carton.<\/p>\n
The fat guy I really am, won again. And once again I had gotten so fat that I couldn\u2019t button those 44 waist pants \u2014 I covered up my gaping pants with shirts with long tails. I really didn\u2019t want to slip into the 46-inch-waist-pants club. I felt guilty and fatter than ever. A fat guy in fat body should be congruously harmonious \u2014 but I was a blubber mass and getting sicker.<\/p>\n
The onset of true self-awareness can come suddenly \u2013 like a bolt of lightning. Stepping on the scale is a no-no if you know-know you\u2019re too fat. I guess seeing my weight on the scale is harder than not looking at my fat naked body in a mirror. I decided to buy another new scale (I threw the last two out for not being very good friends.) I stepped on my brand new digital scale and it said 215.4 . I thought to myself \u2014 thank goodness I\u2019m not the whale I was the last time I got fat \u2014 I\u2019m a full fifteen pounds \u201cthinner\u201d.<\/p>\n
What motivated me to buy a scale? If you must know \u2013 a baptism, OK? I was supposed to dress up nicely \u2014 you know, church and all. But nicely is hard when you\u2019re fat. None of my clothes fit right so I was basically living in sweatpants -extra large \u2013 and sweat shirts \u2013 extra-extra large. So to the baptism I wore a big oversized button-down collar shirt hanging out over some elastic-waisted dress pants \u2013 size 44.<\/p>\n
All this because of a spoon.<\/p>\n
The fat guy was getting sicker and sicker and I was growing even sicker of diets. There must be a way to be a fat guy inside a slimmer body without going on a diet. A lifestyle change is what I needed. The spoon had to go.<\/p>\n
The morning after the baptism \u2014 my fat-aware epiphany \u2014 I decided that I would never drink an ounce of milk again. I don\u2019t need it. And without milk there would be no peanut butter, no jelly or jam, no cakes, pies, Twinkies, cookies, etc.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been eleven months since that fat-awakening. And I haven\u2019t had any milk since. I haven\u2019t starved myself \u2014 I\u2019ve been eating well. The things that I associated with milk have been eliminated from my diet and supplanted with strawberries and\/or blueberries, almond milk, club soda, whole-grain pastas etc.<\/p>\n
Nah! I\u2019m not going to write a diet book \u2014 but now that 215.4-pound fat guy weighs around 160. And I got there without dieting.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still a fat guy, but I\u2019m a fat guy in a slimmer body. And if I ever get fat again, I\u2019ll blame it all on a spoon. But i do know it\u2019s not really because of a spoon that I blubber up \u2014 it\u2019s because I fell in love with spooning.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll always be a fat guy, but I\u2019m going to try to remain a fat guy trapped in a slimmer body. And if I do that, I will have to give up spooning the rest of my life.<\/p>\n
No more spooning for me.<\/p>\n
I hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It all started with a spoon. I know that now. It took me decades to figure it out. I have fought a losing battle with fat my entire life. From a chubby junior high boy who wore \u201cHuskies\u201d, to the rotund man I became later in life \u2014 I\u2019m a fat man and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll always be.\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7449"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7452,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7449\/revisions\/7452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}