How I Got To This Point

In a nutshell, I ate too much.

But, of course, there's much more to the story. I was chubby as a kid. My dad was a circuit preacher (meaning he preached at small country churches, sometimes three each Sunday!) and each week a member of the congregation would have us over for a BIG Sunday dinner. Several kinds of meat, homemade mashed potatoes and gravy and always a yummy dessert. And I attended a lot of church suppers, which meant lots and lots and lots of good old-fashioned heavy, calorie-laden dishes - macaroni and cheese, potatoes au gratin, creamy salads, rich casseroles and an array of pies and cakes that would make Little Debbie jealous.

I wasn't a particularly active kid. Maybe it was because of the extra pounds I carried (or maybe because I'm just kind of a laid back person). During the summers when most kids were out running around the neighborhood, I much preferred hiding out in our cool basement watching awful B movies (Attack of the 30 Foot Woman and Zombies from Hell) or reading Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries. There weren't a lot of organized sports in those days . . . practically nothing for girls, which was okay by me. The one thing I would venture outside for was the ice cream truck, which made daily trips through our neighborhood. For a nickel, you could get a cold, frosty fudgebar or a sticky double popsicle. My childhood was a combination of "The Wonder Years and "My Girl." Innocent, safe, stress-free, idyllic.

In sixth grade, we moved to "the city" and sometime between seventh and eighth grade something miraculous happened. It's called p-u-b-e-r-t-y. I got taller. I got thin. And I stayed thin all through high school. I don't remember ever watching what I ate or being self-conscious about my weight. I really don't even know what I weighed, but I'm guessing it was between 120-125. I was no more active in those years than in my younger years, but I really didn't have any weight-related problems until the summer before my senior year in college.

It was 1980. My dad was running for statewide office and a sorority sister and I hit the road that summer, traveling five or six days out of the week. We'd travel to small towns all across Missouri, hitting the local radio stations, newspapers and town squares, handing out literature, making speeches and giving interviews. And we ate out three times a day. I can't even begin to calculate how many Blue Plate Specials I ate that summer. And it was mostly open-faced roast beef sandwiches with piles of meat and to-die-for mashed potatoes and gravy. I piled on about 20 pounds that summer. I think that was the beginning of the ongoing cycle of gaining/losing weight that would eventually dominate my adult years.

Next on The Egg and Eye . . . When It Got Really Bad