Sugar

My excessive body weight has been …………that’s how I was going to start this article. The simple, abbreviated fact is I am FAT!  When I am mobile, I’m carrying over 50 excess pounds of body weight. Imagine having to carry that same weight in the form of a concrete block every time you move. That’s what my muscular/skeletal system has adjusted to over the years.  This article will expose those forces which made me “fat”.

Around the age of 9, our household was comprised of 11 people — Mom, Dad, 8 siblings, and me. At that time, there was insufficient food for all of us. I’m guessing, but for about 2 years we went to bed hungry. Thank God for Quaker Oats —– filling and tasted great with lots of sugar, of course. We couldn’t make that large pot full fast enough first thing in the morning. You never forget hunger. To this day, my appetite is always in overdrive. 

Use your google machine and check out this zippy little tune “Sugartime”. The first 3 lines —“Sugar in the morning, Sugar in the evening, Sugar at supper time” doesn’t literally refer to eating sugar, but it might just as well since we, the USA, consume the most sugar per person — 120 grams/day —than any other country. That’s about equal (oxymoron alert!!!) to 26 teaspoons of sugar per day.

Clothing manufacturers and retailers enable fat people like me with their euphemisms for fat people. I once was at a point — 30 pounds heavier than I am right now —– had to have a ring cut off my finger.  Couldn’t find clothes that fit so, I tried the “Big and Tall” section. Felt guilty. I’m not Tall. Very expensive clown clothes. Nothing wrong with the Big and Tall concept but, you shouldn’t be allowed in there unless you’re TALL.

Type 2 diabetes as a “disease” does not exist.It’s a highly profitable hoax which pharmaceutical companies love. Type One, yes, two, no. If my physicians over the past decades had told me I’m fat because I’m eating crappy food and I’m lazy, I would’ve been much more likely to change my behavior. Instead, the harshest comment I ever heard from a doctor about my physical fitness was “You need to watch your weight.” I watch it constantly but, it doesn’t change. While treating me for back pain, an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Lim (no B), recently asked me, here’s the actual quote — “Bob, have you thought about losing weight?”Of course, I’ve thought about it — every time I try to button the top button on a dress shirt. Thinking about it doesn’t work, Doc. Tell me specifically what I need to do.

IT’SUGAR is a novelty chain of candy stores with attitude. It’s Sugar! Deal with it! Get over it! When they first popped up at our local mall several years ago, I just had to check it out. I was thoroughly disappointed. No root beer barrels or Good ‘N Plenty. Right now, a victim of Covid, IT’SUGAR is in bankruptcy. However, candy sales nationally are holding up just fine. Just not in the malls. I’m doing my part with a large cannister of chocolate covered raisins on the kitchen island and a couple of containers of an oatmeal raisin snack appropriately named “Junk Food”.

I’m fat. My dear wife is overweight. She wears it so much better than I. She has no intention of adopting a rigorous fitness life style. I’ve actually strategically laid Keto, and Mediterranean style cookbooks around the house hoping she might change the menu. Nope! Her cooking skills are awesome. She feeds the beast (me) very well every day.

With these formidable obstacles in my way, I will stay fat. I will focus my dietary concerns more toward finding the most awesomest (new junk word) burgers and cheesecake,