Losing Weight and Dr Oz. Part One
Without Prejudice
I never lost weight by any method given out by Dr Oz, my weight was stubborn. No Acai Berry or plantain from Outer Mongolia was going to shift it. No pineapple shaped bitter tasting fruit was going to take all that padding on my hips, buttocks, thighs off. I had given up smoking, biting my nails and other unhealthy pursuits. I had given up alcohol too. Still a big 84 kgs on a short frame of 5' and nearly one inch. My weight was me.
As a Child I was no bigger than a matchstick. I swam competitively, I ran with my siblings to places that we all shared. An old water tank became our amusement as we climbed inside it as it lay on its side. We rolled it over the empty wasteland, our bare feet hardened, and made ourselves sick from it going around and around.
It was our cubby house, our meeting place, a Secret Seven or Famous Five place. A Pirate Ship, a haven when the rains fell and a hell when it was hot with it's corrugated iron construction. We swung off Weeping Willow branches into the cold Belabula River, icy from its sojourn down from The Snowy River up near Mount Kosciusko. Where the Man From Snowy River came from. His mad dash down the slopes on a " small and weedy beast ", the stuff legends were made of.
We joined the Brownies and Guides, Boy Scouts and camped over night beside the chattering river running over pebbles, making damper on, called Twisties, sticks which we held to the fire and ate with melting butter and jam. We haunted the pool all Summer, buying hot meat pies with tomato sauce and as many " Jubblies" as we could afford. If not it was doorsteps of bread and butter with Devon meat and thick butter. I never had ready sliced bread until I was 9 or so.
The new miracle sliced bread was the taste and consistency of school paste, Clag and it was so thin and squishy it left imprints of your fingers in its whire slices. If we wanted sweets we ate oats with sugar from a cup, raw potato as we sliced them for tea, raw veggies were delicious we thought. We had sauce sandwiches, H.P. And tomato sauce sandwiches and weirdest of all, sugar with butter sandwiches. Mum might add a hard boiled egg to our lunches or a tomato, a little twisted paper of salt on the side.
High days and holidays meant we could buy soup from the school canteen or cocoa, bitter and sweet all at the same time. We ate pigs trotters, my Sister ate brains as a treat, shudder and Mum and Dad loved Tripe which looked as evil as it sounded. They also ate tongue and said it tasted like Ham. I was never to find out and still haven't to this day. I never tasted corn on the cob until I was 10 and it was one of the most delicious things I had ever eaten.
Salmon out of a tin with it's soft bones, there was no fast food, no take away, except for fish and chips, but they were only for high days and Holidays as well. Chips hot, out of packets of newspaper creating the saying, today's news, tomorrow's chip wrapping. Big jam buns with fresh cream and raspberry jam, Cottees the brand of course. So was Cordial which came in little bottles of concentrate that turned your pee green or orange or worse red if drank undiluted.
It was diluted with a pound of sugar and about ten gallons of water and poured into jugs. There was no such thing as ready made ice cream unless you went to the Greek cafe and had a scoop or two, decorated with crushed nuts, topping and malted milk powder. Mum made our ice cream in little trays that stayed in the tiny freezer part of the fridge and it tasted like milk powder and ice crystal. I hated ice cream for years after that.
We ate as much as we could being growing children but it was mainly starch, bread and jam, bread and dripping, Scottish Tablet which is a dry fudge made from heaps of sugar, best butter, condensed milk and stirred for what seemed like hours. My Mother was an indifferent cook, the truly great thing she made, Steak and Kidney pie. Her cabbage was watery and came in thick slabs, carrots almost hard, peas the same. I packed up and left home once because of her cabbage, refusing to eat it. I was 8.
We were poor, poverty struck and Parish damned, we had chicken once a year at Christmas and that was after Ian chopped it's head off and Mum plucked it. Much swearing from the steaming laundry
that day.
I never lost weight by any method given out by Dr Oz, my weight was stubborn. No Acai Berry or plantain from Outer Mongolia was going to shift it. No pineapple shaped bitter tasting fruit was going to take all that padding on my hips, buttocks, thighs off. I had given up smoking, biting my nails and other unhealthy pursuits. I had given up alcohol too. Still a big 84 kgs on a short frame of 5' and nearly one inch. My weight was me.
As a Child I was no bigger than a matchstick. I swam competitively, I ran with my siblings to places that we all shared. An old water tank became our amusement as we climbed inside it as it lay on its side. We rolled it over the empty wasteland, our bare feet hardened, and made ourselves sick from it going around and around.
It was our cubby house, our meeting place, a Secret Seven or Famous Five place. A Pirate Ship, a haven when the rains fell and a hell when it was hot with it's corrugated iron construction. We swung off Weeping Willow branches into the cold Belabula River, icy from its sojourn down from The Snowy River up near Mount Kosciusko. Where the Man From Snowy River came from. His mad dash down the slopes on a " small and weedy beast ", the stuff legends were made of.
We joined the Brownies and Guides, Boy Scouts and camped over night beside the chattering river running over pebbles, making damper on, called Twisties, sticks which we held to the fire and ate with melting butter and jam. We haunted the pool all Summer, buying hot meat pies with tomato sauce and as many " Jubblies" as we could afford. If not it was doorsteps of bread and butter with Devon meat and thick butter. I never had ready sliced bread until I was 9 or so.
The new miracle sliced bread was the taste and consistency of school paste, Clag and it was so thin and squishy it left imprints of your fingers in its whire slices. If we wanted sweets we ate oats with sugar from a cup, raw potato as we sliced them for tea, raw veggies were delicious we thought. We had sauce sandwiches, H.P. And tomato sauce sandwiches and weirdest of all, sugar with butter sandwiches. Mum might add a hard boiled egg to our lunches or a tomato, a little twisted paper of salt on the side.
High days and holidays meant we could buy soup from the school canteen or cocoa, bitter and sweet all at the same time. We ate pigs trotters, my Sister ate brains as a treat, shudder and Mum and Dad loved Tripe which looked as evil as it sounded. They also ate tongue and said it tasted like Ham. I was never to find out and still haven't to this day. I never tasted corn on the cob until I was 10 and it was one of the most delicious things I had ever eaten.
Salmon out of a tin with it's soft bones, there was no fast food, no take away, except for fish and chips, but they were only for high days and Holidays as well. Chips hot, out of packets of newspaper creating the saying, today's news, tomorrow's chip wrapping. Big jam buns with fresh cream and raspberry jam, Cottees the brand of course. So was Cordial which came in little bottles of concentrate that turned your pee green or orange or worse red if drank undiluted.
It was diluted with a pound of sugar and about ten gallons of water and poured into jugs. There was no such thing as ready made ice cream unless you went to the Greek cafe and had a scoop or two, decorated with crushed nuts, topping and malted milk powder. Mum made our ice cream in little trays that stayed in the tiny freezer part of the fridge and it tasted like milk powder and ice crystal. I hated ice cream for years after that.
We ate as much as we could being growing children but it was mainly starch, bread and jam, bread and dripping, Scottish Tablet which is a dry fudge made from heaps of sugar, best butter, condensed milk and stirred for what seemed like hours. My Mother was an indifferent cook, the truly great thing she made, Steak and Kidney pie. Her cabbage was watery and came in thick slabs, carrots almost hard, peas the same. I packed up and left home once because of her cabbage, refusing to eat it. I was 8.
We were poor, poverty struck and Parish damned, we had chicken once a year at Christmas and that was after Ian chopped it's head off and Mum plucked it. Much swearing from the steaming laundry
that day.
