Photo Images: ©MELANIE NEER
1). Me at about five years old dressed as a "ballerina" for Halloween.
2). Me at 16--still have those "Twiggy legs"
3). Me only a few years ago
(This article was originally written on March 11, 2014 and was published at Bubblews, a website that no longer exists. Have made some edits from the original to update)
At the risk of people wanting to throw wet noodles at me, oh, and I'll take that with Alfredo Sauce by the way, when I tell people I wouldn't mind gaining a bit of weight, this doesn't go over to well. I'm all too well aware that many of my on-line friends struggle with the opposite, that is the constant quest to lose weight, so when I tell people I want to gain weight, I'm pretty sure people are thinking…shut up! I'm almost 61 years old now, around 99 pounds, and wear a size four. (Hears the unmistakable grumbles and mutterings from people).
I've been rail thin all my life. Chalk it up to genetics. The common joke of the family was that my mother and grandmother could gain weight just by looking at food, while my father's side could eat a whole cow at every meal and not gain an ounce. Guess which side I inherited?
I happen to have a good number of photos of myself as a child, and one can't help notice my sticks for legs and arms. At one point as a child my mother even dragged me to our family doctor to see if there was a medication to help me gain weight. Well, yes I was given something but it most apparently didn't work since I remained thin. My mother on the hand was on a life long quest to lose weight and tried every cockamamie fad diet going; name the diet, she was on it. She even went to a diet doctor for help. That turned out to be a disaster as the doctor gave her glorified amphetamines. Talk about mood swings and always being on edge!
I really don't have any special "secrets' in how I've stayed thin all my life, that is diet wise. As a child, my teen years and a bit beyond, I pretty much ate the typical "American" type diet. Yes, I ate those greasy hamburgers and fries, drank sodas, ate sweets, salty snacks and so forth. Yet I still remained thin. Somewhere along the line later in life I did become more conscious of what I ate, not of course to lose weight, but if anything to just plain eat healthier.
I actually do have a very healthy appetite and eat small mini meals literally day and night; I even have a light meal a little before going to bed, which of course, is considered one of those "taboo" things to do, yet hasn't affected me as far as weight gain. However, I am more mindful of exactly what I eat and no longer eat most of the "junk" most people do. Since I do love to cook, what I eat is mainly home-cooked meals, and while it's nearly impossible to avoid all processed foods, I do refrain from relying on too much on them. I haven't had sodas now of any kind for decades, haven't eaten at fast food restaurants since the 1980s. I also refrain from eating too sweet or too salty foods, as well as heavily fried foods.
I'm also an ingredient label reader when I do buy processed foods: if it has HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup), or any soy or corn product, back the food goes since unless it's organically grown soy or corn, it's Monsanto GMO, or frankenfoods as I call them. As a by the way, 90% of all soy and corn grown in the USA is GMO, and think of all the corn products out there alone: HFCS, corn oil, corn syrup, cornstarch, cornmeal, farm factory raised animals are also fed GMO corn.
Just for one's knowledge, if you don't know what Monsanto GMOs are, there are tons of information one can read up on the subject on the internet, and believe me, none of it positive. Monsanto is the same company that concocted up DDT, Agent Orange, and the still popular pesticide Roundup. Many countries outside of the USA are outright banning GMOs all together, and/or if GMO seeds are still grown, the GMO ingredients are clearly on the labels of foods. The USA remains the only country that doesn't indicate that GMO ingredients are in foods thanks to the stranglehold Monsanto has.
Anyway, so going back to my being thin all my life. When I mention what and how I eat, I often get kidded and told, don't' eat so healthy! I really wouldn't mind gaining a few pounds here and there and trying to figure out how. So please don't hate me for being thin and wanting to gain weight. It really is just as hard to gain weight as to lose.
(Now dons armor and helmet waiting for those wet noodles flung at me).
