The Sin of Eating

When I was a child, I was less than a 90 lb weakling. For most of my first 17 years of existence, I was freakishly thin - so ungainly that I was actually required to take remedial P.E. in grade school in order to learn proper balance (not that I was complaining ;) I was never much of an athlete in grade school. I played soccer and I could run and dart with the best of them. I set scoring records all over the young Viking league, but soccer wasn't a cool sport like kick ball. When I was 7, I discovered that I liked to run and after my very first race (of 7 Miles, no less) I recieved a trophy for youngest runner to complete the race, and I was hooked. From the age of 7 until the age of 17, I ran pretty much every day in some form or another. This, as you might imagine, did not make me any fatter. Being that thin, I was not considered beautiful, or good, or normal, or righteous in any way - I was just considered weak and pathetic.

No matter what I ate I couldn't put on the weight. Really, I stopped caring what other people thought. My metabolism was so fast that if I ate a five course meal, I'd be ready to go running ten minutes later. I remember in Jr. High, where I was one of the five least popular kids in school, we had a pizza day and everyone was supposed to partner with someone. Nobody wanted to partner with me. So, to spite them all, while they were all sharing small pizzas and looking hungry, I ordered a large pizza and ate the whole thing in front of them by myself. I'm sure that only made me look even more like a freak, but, as I said, I didn't care. I ran home after class, ten minutes later.

My diet was tempered by what my family could afford. We were never a live on the streets homeless family, but we weren't much better off. We always seemed to just scrape by with enough money for rent, expenses, and a little left over for food. Which isn't to say that I went hungry... at least not on purpose. There is no amount of hunger that can make Lamb Blocks, Acorn Squash, Lima Bean Surprise, or Googly Bacon taste good. And there are only so many cookies and junk food you can eat to replace the lack of good tasting food. When reading "Call of the Wild" where it describes the affliction of those people who have nearly starved to death, a near maniacal obsession with food, a constant hunger. I never really fell that far, but I can say that for the first few years on my own, I never missed a meal and never missed a chance to eat my fill.

So, what happened? Its the classic story of DNA. My obsession with food and my inability to ever get enough to eat eventually ran into the reality of the genes in my body. Like a carbon copy of my Dad, at the age of 19, my super hot fast running metabolism slowed down. It didn't die out completely at first, but just enough to allow me to start gaining weight. When I graduated from high school, I weighed 140lbs - most of that swimming and cross country muscle. When I left boot camp, I was down around 130 lbs - a lean mean fighting machine. I went off to Intelligence School and in the snow and winter of Virginia Beach, I spent 10 to 12 hour days learning skills for my Navy career, stopping only long enough to eat. I gained 30 lbs in Virginia Beach. In Hawaii, I worked long nights doing my Naval job. I spent my days off playing beach volleyball and racquetball with my friends (Oh, and a little drinking as well ;) But long hours in a building with no windows and the constant fuel needed to stay awake and alert during the Gulf War pushed my weight up another 30 lbs. I was pushing 200 lbs when I left the Navy. No longer lean and mean, but not entirely chubby yet either. I blew out my knee playing volleyball in college. I still managed to play Intramural Basketball, Softball, Football, Baseball, and go scuba diving, hiking, and other activities. I was well on the road to recovery when I blew out my other knee while working for the US Naval Reserves. Things slowed down for me after that. I started hiking in 1998 again and was pretty active with it for years. But then I started the Novel and my weekends turned into descents into a written world. I consciously sacrficed my body for my writing. I gained the last bit of weight I carry during this period. And now I am not just overweight, I am fat.

Fat. Obese. Terrifyingly disgustingly huge. I am a monster, a sinner, and someone who should be mocked and destroyed because of my extra pounds. I am apparently stupid as well. Moronic in my obsession for food. I eat all day, stopping only to sleep, and such things as you can't imagine - whole chickens, five dozen eggs, an entire slab of ribs with lots of extra barbeque sauce, four pound boxes of Sees candies, girl scout cookies up the wazoo, McDonalds for every meal and twice for dinner, late night snacks of Doritos and cokes and nacho cheese by the gallon. I am clearly a sinner and less than human - just take one look at me and you'll know its true.

I can not justify my fatness anymore than I could justify my skinniness before. Some people are just what they are - black, white, green, brown, male, female, gay, straight, tall, short, skinny, or fat; we are what we are because that's the way God made us. I didn't do anything to create my freakish metabolism when I was a kid and I didn't do anything to shut it down either. I have been at both ends of the spectrum now and I can tell you this, my weight is not my obsession. My weight may be your obsession, but your obsessions have nothing to do with me. Where it becomes an issue to me is when it starts to interfere with my love of the outdoors, of sports, and of my life. I was perhaps foolish to let my health go while I wrote the Novel - I will pay for it in the very near future - but that was my choice. Now that I am ready to regain control of my body, I am doing so not out of any sense of being too fat for human kind to accept me, but out of a desire to be active again. There's only so much time a person can spend in front of a computer visiting imaginary worlds with their fingers and a keyboard. However, that being said, and my righteousness aroused beyond reason, I must say that I understand that fair or not, that is the way of the world - and my bitching about it will never change a thing.

It was refreshing to read Sue's comments yesterday because some people are afraid to point out the elephant in the room. She is absolutely right that how you look plays a huge part in how you are perceived in the real world. I don't think this is right and I can wail about the injustice of it all, but it is true. It doesn't matter whether I am kind, or good with children, or smart, or funny, or trustworthy, or rich, or succesful, because all people will see is that I am fat. That is the blunt, honest, truth. And I've known this all my life because before I was fat, I had the exact same qualities as now, but I was too skinny, and THAT was all people saw.

So, I can't control how people will perceive me. I don't even try. I can only control how I perceive myself, and so, as a result, I con no one but me. If I am overweight but don't think of myself as gross, then perhaps the only one who is fooled is me. If I am guilty of the sin of eating, but I don't choose to see it as wrong, then I only ignore what is obvious to everyone else.

I will remain dedicated to getting my body back in shape. I will remain dedicated to hiking again and swimming and doing all the sorts of things that I like to do. But I am not going to set an artificial goal to please people I have never even met because of their arbitrary decision on what looks good. And that is, perhaps, the single biggest reason I will win this bet. If you still think I am wrong, who is conning whom?

P.S. I wouldn't normally blunt my own blog post with an apology, but I'm afraid I must. Its easy to be on a pedastal and write bombastically about justice and fairness and other such lofty goals, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. I am sorry if this posting offends you. I was trying to get you to think from my perspective, but that isn't always an easy thing to do. The part I regret the most about my life is that I used to think as many of you do now. I remember laughing at people who couldn't even touch their toes, when it was SOOOO easy. I have since learned a great deal of humility and am writing this article from a place in the middle of the argument. If I haven't swayed you with my words, or my passion behind them, I am sorry. Please comment and let me know how I am wrong. May God bless you and keep you.