Things I managed not to learn

I learned a lot from my grandmother - Mamaw as we called her. I learned to sew and to cook and that boys were a dime a dozen and if one went away another would come along. That last one is pretty good advice for girls in high school. Not that all boys are replaceable, but she taught me that any boy who couldn't see my value wasn't worth my time and those kinds of boys were easily replaced. She had a lot of spirit. Could be grouchy and a bit nuts, but she had spirit. 

I also learned what NOT to do for weight management. Looking back I'm kind of glad that I didn't follow her examples because I would be all sorts of a mess today. My grandmother had an hour glass figure and spent all of the time I knew her battling her weight. I take after her except that the sand keeps settling in the middle. LOL 


Things Mamaw and her friends did to lose weight that were kind of insane. 

There were the basic diets where you only ate one type of food. Forget balanced meals. Eat only cabbage or turnips - whatever the fad of the moment was. 

Diet pills. They never took them the way the doctor told them to. Nope, they traded them, took a handful and just generally abused the heck out of them. 

Exercise. Why work when you can slip into a sauna suit? 

They had a club. Groups can be very supportive and helpful when you are struggling. Sparkpeople, My Fitness Pal & Daily Mile being a wonderful examples of that. Not their grop. If you gained weight the entire group stood up and oinked at you. Yep, they oinked like a pig to remind you that you were a big pig with no self control. After meetings they would all go to the local pizza joint for the buffet. For some reason the pizza consumed after meetings didn't have calories. 

Diet pills not working? That's why God invented laxative pills. 

Big event coming up? Never ever eat more than 400 calories a day if you plan to fit into that dress. 

That was their way of staying in shape. Scary now to look back and think about some of the crazy stuff they did and told me to do. Tried the sauna suit once. Gross. I did not like wearing pools of my own sweat. I could not have handled being oinked at and I was too young for diet pills. Thankfully none of their lessons ever took with me and while I got very fat (much to the dismay of Mamaw and her friends) I have been able to find better, healthier ways to handle it.