By: René Steelman

Since I am a person born in the fifties, I had the experience of eating dinner at the table with the entire family every evening. I grew up “setting” the table before we ate and asking to be excused before I got up to leave. My mother made dinner every evening and shopped for the weekly menu once a week, with a list. She canned food, had a garden, used a pressure cooker, and knew how to combine leftovers.

My mother had seven siblings and grew up on a farm. They milked cows, plucked chickens, and grew food. I am old enough to remember the introduction of TV dinners, snack foods, and one of the first Burger Kings in Illinois. By the time I was a teenager, we ate at McDonalds or Burger King once a week.

I came in to adulthood during the seventies just when the fitness craze began and being skinny was the thing to be. I suffered with “hip huggers” before the term “low rise” was part of the vernacular. Technology had just given us polyester and Twiggy was the icon. My after-school snack was white bread spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar.

My mother was beginning to see changes in her twenty-inch waist and so she ate “aids,” little chocolate nuggets “guaranteed” to make her fit and healthy. She attended Weight Watchers and brought home artificial sweeteners. One of her favorite breakfasts was cottage cheese on toast, sprinkled with saccharin and broiled. She and her best friend drank gallons of diet soda and went out to lunch after the weekly weigh-in.

In my mind, I was always ten pounds over weight. The US Navy confirmed that belief and told me I had to lose ten pounds before going active duty. I had seven months to do that. Instead of dieting for the first time in my life, I lost the weight by falling in love and dating! I also started riding my bike. No car for me!

After bearing six children, I was proud that I still weighed what I weighed in high school, but remember the government told me I was ten pounds overweight. I knew I’d feel better ten pounds thinner and clothes would be easier to fit as I’m not that tall. Since Paleo is the recent diet craze, I tried it. I liked it. I lost weight eating an entire chicken on the way home from Whole Foods in the car, scrambling eggs for breakfast, and grilling tilapia for lunch.

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