In The Beginning....

In the beginning, there was me, and I was fat, but it was OK, because I was a baby. Then I got older....

I was skinny as a kid. I didn't start to chunk out till puberty, but when the hormones kicked in, whoo buddy...I got big. Not just kind of pudgy big, no we're talkin' had to shop at Layne Bryant at 14 big. I came by it naturally, my Mum is big (she's fought it all her life), my Dad is moderately big, both sets of grandparents were big (though Mum's Mum really is just kind of soft, you know the way a grandma is supposed to be). One aunt is big, but the other is skinny (both are on Mum's side, but Darla was always a little strange, so I'm not truly convinced that she really belongs to us....).

When I was younger, I did all the diets with Mum, Weight Watchers, low-fat this, no sugar that, and cheated the whole time. I was constantly sneaking the things she would buy for the boys. Ice cream, two bowls a day; fudgecicles or pudding pops, four at a time; any time I was given money (birthdays, Christmas, random trip to Grandma's house) I would buy chocolate bars, Milky Way and Three Musketeers were my usual, but then I discovered the ultimate...ice cream candy bars. Vanilla ice cream where the nougat was in a regular candy bar. I still remember the first time I saw one....

I was riding my bike to school, because I couldn't stand the torment that went along with riding the bus, and every morning I would stop at the Country Fair on the corner for a soda (yeah, a soda at 6:30 in the morning, it's no wonder I was fat). One morning there was a new cooler by the register, so I looked inside. Ice cream Snickers and Milky Way. The picture on the package had caramel softly oozing between the peanuts and over the ice cream. Of course, I bought one. It was soooo good. The next day and every day after that I bought two. Some days I bought three, but only if it was cold. They would melt too fast if it was warm.