Apparently, I am one selfish son-of-a-biscuit-eater for no longer allowing sugary sweets in my home. You see we recently came up with some household rules to help me curb my dangerous eating habits. Well, it’s actually just one rule right now, but it’s a big one:
Rule 1: No Sweets
This includes, but is not limited to: cookies, cakes, pies, cobblers, tarts, turnovers, ice cream, scones, chocolate chip muffins, yummy fudge brownies, gooey raspberry butter cake, any form of Andy’s Frozen Custard including the diabetic coma known as the Andy’s Turtle, and any other diabetic deathtrap that is slowly but surely kicking my rear end toward an early grave.
I make concessions. We do keep sugar free treats in the home for me and I also have a nice new blender (thanks to the supportive parents) in which I can make healthy yet satisfying smoothies. We are not, however, keeping junk in the home. I can’t stay out of that tasty crap so we have to rid our home lives of them. I understand that temptations lie everywhere, but we can control what goes into our home. Sugar and junk has to go.
This rule is not going over well with my number one drug pusher and matriarch of our family – Aunt Bessie. (The name has been changed to protect the guilty from loving and caring friends and family who may seek to punish her for her evil deeds.) She has reprimanded me openly for my sugar-free decision. I’ve tried such rules in the past, you see, but she has managed to wear me down and lure me back for my drugs (chocolate and other sugary badness). Pushers do that and she has a remarkable ability to rapidly grind even the strongest rock into sand. I am much easier in that I am a bit weak when it comes to goodies. Wave them in front of me and I won’t be able to resist for long. She is nothing if not persistent – to a painful and terrorizing fault.
I am making the attempt to set the rule again in order to preserve my life. That whole fatty liver thing really isn’t a good deal. Like many times before when I have tried to do this, I received the same old speech. The cookies aren’t for me; they are for the baby. The baby, mind you, is 6 years old and doesn’t need to be hopped up on cookies or candy either. I’m sure my child would gladly give up snicker doodles to have Daddy around for an extra 10 years. And really, I don’t think it should be a big deal. A person can live a healthy life having never again eaten a piece of pie or a cookie. Not that I won’t have one now and again, but I’m just saying that it’s healthy to not have them ever again.
Nothing would do Aunt Bessie but to let me know that this decision to rid our lives of surgery sweets is “selfish” on my part. “That baby needs a little sugar,” said the former school teacher. No kidding. She actually calls me selfish and argues that my daughter needs more sugar. She also argues that I also need more sugar. It is obvious that a diabetic needs to ingest more sugar. Nine out of 10 unlicensed, third-world doctors say so.
It’s a ridiculous argument, but she makes it with fervor and intent anyway and somehow I come back feeling guilty for depriving my daughter. Not this time. This time I am mad as thunder and I have a blog.
It has been three days since my gallbladder surgery and I am recovering well. I feel good and only have moderate discomfort. My Mom has been staying with us to help out while my wife is at work during the day. Mom cooked supper tonight. Dad drove up from Branson and we invited Aunt Bessie.
She brought over food; imagine that. It’s her third grocery delivery in three days. I had to explain to my Mother that a thrice-a-week food delivery is common place. Aunt Bessie brings food at least twice a week every single week. If we are not there, she leaves food on the front porch.
One time she came by on a Saturday and we were really busy working on the chores. She was mad that we declined the food. So she left it in the garage but didn’t tell us. A week later we had this smell in the garage. I couldn’t figure out what it was. There was no trash in the garage. I thought maybe an animal got in and died. Finally I found the stashed food in a chair we have stored in the garage. It was rotting and leaking and stinking up the whole house. Just a normal week in the loving world of Aunt Bessie.
Three days after my gallbladder surgery, Aunt B made her third delivery of jellies, jams, three loaves of bread, some various other items I can’t remember, and two containers of homemade cookies. Those I remembered. I know to check the bags first thing for contraband and we found them. I asked her about the cookies and she said they were for my parents … and the baby. That part was said in muffled tones. Well she got jumped by my Dad who is trying to protect me from what he knows is bad for me. He tells her that I don’t need those cookies and that she shouldn’t bring them into the house. She is mad and puts them back in her basket, but she’s not done. There is much more drama to come. Stay tuned.
After dinner there is much cleaning up – up to five people in one kitchen. That’s too many in my kitchen mind you, but I can let that go. Aunt Bessie comes up, leans against the counter and in one breath she utters:
When the surgeon took out my ballbladder he informed my family that my liver was fatty and I needed to lose weight. He is right about that. I do and I am trying, but it’s pretty hard when my family brings over unhealthy food choices. After dinner she leaves, mad that I won’t take the cookies. Dad, being the gentlemen, escorts her to the car. In the driveway, Aunt Bessie gives him the extra package of cookies (about a dozen of them or so) and says to him:
She was refused and left in quite a huff. Dad came back in all flustered. I guess he’s in dutch with Aunt Bessie. To hear him tell it, he explained in no uncertain terms that she cannot continue to bring over junk food and sugary sweets. He refused to take the cookies back into my home. To which she replied, get this: “I can’t believe he’s punishing the baby for his diabetes.” They exchanged more words that he didn’t share, but I can imagine how it went as this isn’t the first time we’ve had an argument over this issue.
Dad didn’t intend on telling me, but I knew something was up. They were outside too long and he looked irritated when he came back in. So I persisted until he told me what happened. It hurt me at first and at last, but in all that space in the middle, it just made me furious. Somehow, in an attempt to regulate our own home and control my eating addiction, the whole thing gets turned around and we become the bad guys. Shame on us for refusing her food, even if it’s bad for me. Shame on us for making ridiculous rules that punish my child for my lack of self-control. Shame on the alcoholics for getting treatment – those selfish butt holes. Shame on my being fat.
The last time I tried to makes these rules Aunt Bessie got very angry with me. The conversation went something like this:
It will go on like this for 30 minutes or more, back and forth, the great discussion of food. And when she gets ready to leave I have to watch her. She will stash the food or try to sneak it to my daughter or my wife. My wife puts up with it, but it’s hard for her. She gets very angry over this, but she does a good job keeping her cool. Aunt Bessie is on my side of the family and so my wife restrains herself. I don’t think that’s going to last much longer as my wife has just about had her fill of it.
Now you might think that a rational compromise would be to give her a list of good, healthy food that she could deliver. You would be right in most instances, but not in this one. Aunt Bessie, like myself, is obsessed with food – addicted really. Her addiction comes in the form of feeding. I am addicted to eating and she is addicted to feeding. She loves to see people eat her food and is compulsive about it. She has some narcissistic and oppositional defiant tendencies. Telling her no, will guaranty the opposite reaction and next time it will be with more persistence and anger. It becomes a game of power and control and she will work to win.
Offering a compromise only places rules in her way and she will find ways to break those rules. She will spend weeks and months bringing over contraband just to prove that she can. God help you if you ever take it, because that means she wins and only encourages her. It’s an experience that cannot really be shard in words or conversation. It is an event that must be experienced in order to truly appreciate.
For example, if apples and fresh vegetables are on the list of compromises, she will bring a five pound bag of apples found on sale, 3 cans of apple pie filling, 2 jugs of cheap, sugar-added fruit punch, four containers of sugar added apple sauce, an out-of-date bell pepper, six onions found on sale, sweet relish, and a whole apple pie for my daughter. Her excuse will be that it is all fruit and doesn’t have any sugar in it – “not enough to hurt you.” The apple pie is for my wife and daughter, although my wife doesn’t like pie and Aunty knows that and a six-year-old doesn’t need a whole pie. She brought apples so it’s okay and I have to take everything. This will happen for each of the two to three trips she will make every week. Every single freaking week until the end of time.
The worst part is that I know there are people in this city and state who are starving. There are people who would eat every single morsel of food she brought and thank her up and down. I am thankful for my Aunt Bessie. I love her dearly and spend time with her every week, but I am a fat man. I cannot eat like someone who is starving. My problem is that too often I eat like a starving person. I have to have different rules. I appreciate the effort she puts in, but the effort is not about helping us. At the core, her drive to give goodies is about her own obsession with food and more specifically, it’s an obsession with feeding and control. She and I have some things in common as I think my eating addiction is related to control as well. It just manifests itself in other ways.
So here I am. I have an eating addiction on one hand and an aggressive pusher on the other and I don’t know what to do about it. After last night’s cookie fiasco, my wife cleaned out the fridge and freezer, ridding us of all the junk that Aunt Bessie has brought over – sugary treats, junk food, food that is expired to begin with, junk that is near rotten when it arrives, or food that no one in our home will eat. All in all it ended up to be three trash bags and three grocery sacks full of food that is either inedible at the best or killing me at worst. Some can be shared with neighbors, but I must confess that it’s hard for me to reject food being brought into my home only to turn around and force it on others.
Rule 1: No Sweets
This includes, but is not limited to: cookies, cakes, pies, cobblers, tarts, turnovers, ice cream, scones, chocolate chip muffins, yummy fudge brownies, gooey raspberry butter cake, any form of Andy’s Frozen Custard including the diabetic coma known as the Andy’s Turtle, and any other diabetic deathtrap that is slowly but surely kicking my rear end toward an early grave.
I make concessions. We do keep sugar free treats in the home for me and I also have a nice new blender (thanks to the supportive parents) in which I can make healthy yet satisfying smoothies. We are not, however, keeping junk in the home. I can’t stay out of that tasty crap so we have to rid our home lives of them. I understand that temptations lie everywhere, but we can control what goes into our home. Sugar and junk has to go.
This rule is not going over well with my number one drug pusher and matriarch of our family – Aunt Bessie. (The name has been changed to protect the guilty from loving and caring friends and family who may seek to punish her for her evil deeds.) She has reprimanded me openly for my sugar-free decision. I’ve tried such rules in the past, you see, but she has managed to wear me down and lure me back for my drugs (chocolate and other sugary badness). Pushers do that and she has a remarkable ability to rapidly grind even the strongest rock into sand. I am much easier in that I am a bit weak when it comes to goodies. Wave them in front of me and I won’t be able to resist for long. She is nothing if not persistent – to a painful and terrorizing fault.
I am making the attempt to set the rule again in order to preserve my life. That whole fatty liver thing really isn’t a good deal. Like many times before when I have tried to do this, I received the same old speech. The cookies aren’t for me; they are for the baby. The baby, mind you, is 6 years old and doesn’t need to be hopped up on cookies or candy either. I’m sure my child would gladly give up snicker doodles to have Daddy around for an extra 10 years. And really, I don’t think it should be a big deal. A person can live a healthy life having never again eaten a piece of pie or a cookie. Not that I won’t have one now and again, but I’m just saying that it’s healthy to not have them ever again.
Nothing would do Aunt Bessie but to let me know that this decision to rid our lives of surgery sweets is “selfish” on my part. “That baby needs a little sugar,” said the former school teacher. No kidding. She actually calls me selfish and argues that my daughter needs more sugar. She also argues that I also need more sugar. It is obvious that a diabetic needs to ingest more sugar. Nine out of 10 unlicensed, third-world doctors say so.
It’s a ridiculous argument, but she makes it with fervor and intent anyway and somehow I come back feeling guilty for depriving my daughter. Not this time. This time I am mad as thunder and I have a blog.
It has been three days since my gallbladder surgery and I am recovering well. I feel good and only have moderate discomfort. My Mom has been staying with us to help out while my wife is at work during the day. Mom cooked supper tonight. Dad drove up from Branson and we invited Aunt Bessie.
She brought over food; imagine that. It’s her third grocery delivery in three days. I had to explain to my Mother that a thrice-a-week food delivery is common place. Aunt Bessie brings food at least twice a week every single week. If we are not there, she leaves food on the front porch.
One time she came by on a Saturday and we were really busy working on the chores. She was mad that we declined the food. So she left it in the garage but didn’t tell us. A week later we had this smell in the garage. I couldn’t figure out what it was. There was no trash in the garage. I thought maybe an animal got in and died. Finally I found the stashed food in a chair we have stored in the garage. It was rotting and leaking and stinking up the whole house. Just a normal week in the loving world of Aunt Bessie.
Three days after my gallbladder surgery, Aunt B made her third delivery of jellies, jams, three loaves of bread, some various other items I can’t remember, and two containers of homemade cookies. Those I remembered. I know to check the bags first thing for contraband and we found them. I asked her about the cookies and she said they were for my parents … and the baby. That part was said in muffled tones. Well she got jumped by my Dad who is trying to protect me from what he knows is bad for me. He tells her that I don’t need those cookies and that she shouldn’t bring them into the house. She is mad and puts them back in her basket, but she’s not done. There is much more drama to come. Stay tuned.
After dinner there is much cleaning up – up to five people in one kitchen. That’s too many in my kitchen mind you, but I can let that go. Aunt Bessie comes up, leans against the counter and in one breath she utters:
“We need to do something about this liver … what did he call it … this fatty liver. You have got to get that weight off.”
When the surgeon took out my ballbladder he informed my family that my liver was fatty and I needed to lose weight. He is right about that. I do and I am trying, but it’s pretty hard when my family brings over unhealthy food choices. After dinner she leaves, mad that I won’t take the cookies. Dad, being the gentlemen, escorts her to the car. In the driveway, Aunt Bessie gives him the extra package of cookies (about a dozen of them or so) and says to him:
“Here, take these cookies back in there.”
She was refused and left in quite a huff. Dad came back in all flustered. I guess he’s in dutch with Aunt Bessie. To hear him tell it, he explained in no uncertain terms that she cannot continue to bring over junk food and sugary sweets. He refused to take the cookies back into my home. To which she replied, get this: “I can’t believe he’s punishing the baby for his diabetes.” They exchanged more words that he didn’t share, but I can imagine how it went as this isn’t the first time we’ve had an argument over this issue.
Dad didn’t intend on telling me, but I knew something was up. They were outside too long and he looked irritated when he came back in. So I persisted until he told me what happened. It hurt me at first and at last, but in all that space in the middle, it just made me furious. Somehow, in an attempt to regulate our own home and control my eating addiction, the whole thing gets turned around and we become the bad guys. Shame on us for refusing her food, even if it’s bad for me. Shame on us for making ridiculous rules that punish my child for my lack of self-control. Shame on the alcoholics for getting treatment – those selfish butt holes. Shame on my being fat.
The last time I tried to makes these rules Aunt Bessie got very angry with me. The conversation went something like this:
Says Aunt Bessie: “Take this, eat this, try this, keep this,” or some other variation.
“No thanks, Auntie B. I can’t have that.”
“It’s not for you; it’s for the baby,” she will say.
“No thanks, Auntie B. We don’t keep that kind of food in the house.”
“Well I don’t see why.”
“Because it’s bad for me and I can’t keep out of it.”
“It’s not for you; it’s for the baby. She can have it.”
“Aunt B, I can’t keep out of it, so we don’t keep it in the house. Besides, the baby doesn’t need it either.”
“Everyone needs a little sugar everyday. She needs some sugar. You have to have a bit of everything.”
“We have decided not to have this kind of food in the house anymore. It’s not good for us.”
“Well you are being selfish, not letting that baby have this. She needs it.”
It will go on like this for 30 minutes or more, back and forth, the great discussion of food. And when she gets ready to leave I have to watch her. She will stash the food or try to sneak it to my daughter or my wife. My wife puts up with it, but it’s hard for her. She gets very angry over this, but she does a good job keeping her cool. Aunt Bessie is on my side of the family and so my wife restrains herself. I don’t think that’s going to last much longer as my wife has just about had her fill of it.
Now you might think that a rational compromise would be to give her a list of good, healthy food that she could deliver. You would be right in most instances, but not in this one. Aunt Bessie, like myself, is obsessed with food – addicted really. Her addiction comes in the form of feeding. I am addicted to eating and she is addicted to feeding. She loves to see people eat her food and is compulsive about it. She has some narcissistic and oppositional defiant tendencies. Telling her no, will guaranty the opposite reaction and next time it will be with more persistence and anger. It becomes a game of power and control and she will work to win.
Offering a compromise only places rules in her way and she will find ways to break those rules. She will spend weeks and months bringing over contraband just to prove that she can. God help you if you ever take it, because that means she wins and only encourages her. It’s an experience that cannot really be shard in words or conversation. It is an event that must be experienced in order to truly appreciate.
For example, if apples and fresh vegetables are on the list of compromises, she will bring a five pound bag of apples found on sale, 3 cans of apple pie filling, 2 jugs of cheap, sugar-added fruit punch, four containers of sugar added apple sauce, an out-of-date bell pepper, six onions found on sale, sweet relish, and a whole apple pie for my daughter. Her excuse will be that it is all fruit and doesn’t have any sugar in it – “not enough to hurt you.” The apple pie is for my wife and daughter, although my wife doesn’t like pie and Aunty knows that and a six-year-old doesn’t need a whole pie. She brought apples so it’s okay and I have to take everything. This will happen for each of the two to three trips she will make every week. Every single freaking week until the end of time.
The worst part is that I know there are people in this city and state who are starving. There are people who would eat every single morsel of food she brought and thank her up and down. I am thankful for my Aunt Bessie. I love her dearly and spend time with her every week, but I am a fat man. I cannot eat like someone who is starving. My problem is that too often I eat like a starving person. I have to have different rules. I appreciate the effort she puts in, but the effort is not about helping us. At the core, her drive to give goodies is about her own obsession with food and more specifically, it’s an obsession with feeding and control. She and I have some things in common as I think my eating addiction is related to control as well. It just manifests itself in other ways.
So here I am. I have an eating addiction on one hand and an aggressive pusher on the other and I don’t know what to do about it. After last night’s cookie fiasco, my wife cleaned out the fridge and freezer, ridding us of all the junk that Aunt Bessie has brought over – sugary treats, junk food, food that is expired to begin with, junk that is near rotten when it arrives, or food that no one in our home will eat. All in all it ended up to be three trash bags and three grocery sacks full of food that is either inedible at the best or killing me at worst. Some can be shared with neighbors, but I must confess that it’s hard for me to reject food being brought into my home only to turn around and force it on others.
Pictured above: The food that we purged just from our freezer. The majority are items that
Aunt Bessie has brought over, but are
out-of-date or just foods that we don't eat. Three
trash bags and three shopping bags full.
I don’t need lectures about my fatty liver. I have all kinds of fatty things on or in my body. I don’t need those close to me purposefully being stumbling blocks. I just need some support from those who love me and maybe some ground rules. So I guess in the end we have formed two rules that are related to one another:
Rule 1: No Sweets
Rule 2: Do Not Accept Groceries From Other People
We’ve tried everything. I’ve talked to Aunt Bessie. The surgeon talked to Aunt Bessie. Mom and Dad have talked to Aunt Bessie. We scolded, we’ve begged and pleaded, and we’ve been rude. Nothing seems to work.
So I’m writing her a letter and I told my Dad so. He’s scared of the fall out and so am I, but I don’t know what else to do with her. She just won’t listen to anyone. She won’t concede and she won’t give in. her relentless pursuit of a empty stomach has always stopped with me and today I am taking a stand. I say no more food. We’ve cleaned our appliances out, arranged the cabinets and battened down the hatches. We are prepared for war against all those who seek to inject me with deep fat fried snicker’s bars and home made cobblers. (Oh God, those sound so good.)
I am a food addict and I am tired of sitting down in front of the hog trough to feast on my own slow, buttery death. I am comfortable with a grey world, but in this instance I am taking a more black and white approach. I’m sticking to these two rule like barbecue sauce to ribs.
I wrote the letter the day after the cookie incident. I typed it, signed it, sealed it, stamped it and put it out at the mailbox before I could change my mind. I don’t know that it will do any good, but I have to try. Besides, writing about it makes me feel better. Here is the letter I sent to Aunt Bessie:
Rule 1: No Sweets
Rule 2: Do Not Accept Groceries From Other People
We’ve tried everything. I’ve talked to Aunt Bessie. The surgeon talked to Aunt Bessie. Mom and Dad have talked to Aunt Bessie. We scolded, we’ve begged and pleaded, and we’ve been rude. Nothing seems to work.
So I’m writing her a letter and I told my Dad so. He’s scared of the fall out and so am I, but I don’t know what else to do with her. She just won’t listen to anyone. She won’t concede and she won’t give in. her relentless pursuit of a empty stomach has always stopped with me and today I am taking a stand. I say no more food. We’ve cleaned our appliances out, arranged the cabinets and battened down the hatches. We are prepared for war against all those who seek to inject me with deep fat fried snicker’s bars and home made cobblers. (Oh God, those sound so good.)
I am a food addict and I am tired of sitting down in front of the hog trough to feast on my own slow, buttery death. I am comfortable with a grey world, but in this instance I am taking a more black and white approach. I’m sticking to these two rule like barbecue sauce to ribs.
I wrote the letter the day after the cookie incident. I typed it, signed it, sealed it, stamped it and put it out at the mailbox before I could change my mind. I don’t know that it will do any good, but I have to try. Besides, writing about it makes me feel better. Here is the letter I sent to Aunt Bessie:
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Dear Aunt Bessie,
I love you and I need your help.
I am overweight and it is doing my body harm. I know my gallbladder surgeon told you as much, referring to my fatty liver. He wants me to undergo radical weight loss surgery (gastric bypass) in order to control my weight. I am considering the weight loss surgery option, but first I am trying to lose the weight on my own.
That is where I need your help.
I am struggling to lose weight and control my eating. It is a very difficult road for me as I love to eat. My problem is made worse when other people bring food into my house that is bad for me. Cookies, cakes, cobblers, pies, turnovers, tarts and other sugary treats are tasty but they are slowly killing me. Those foods are making my diabetes worse and pushing me toward an early death. I don’t want to end up like Uncle Jerry and die in my 60’s, leaving a wife and young adult behind. Yet, that is what is happening.
I love you very much, but when you bring these things into my house you are being a stumbling block to me. I stumble enough on my own and I don’t need others to trip me up. I need my family to support me. That means I need your help.
I appreciate your help and sometimes I need your help, but in this case I have to tell everyone around me not to bring me food. I am asking everyone – my friends and family – to stop bringing me food of any kind. It seems to be the only way that I can control the food in my home. People have trouble determining what is the right type of food to bring me. So I ask that they bring nothing.
I know you have objections to me not allowing sugary sweets in my home. I know that you believe me to be selfish by insisting that our home is sugar-free. I acknowledge that you feel that I am punishing my wife and daughter for my diabetes. You have made those concerns perfectly clear to me on more than one occasion.
However, I have spoken to my wife and daughter about your concerns. We had decided, as a family, to rid our home of these treats that tempt me and fuel my eating obsession. Therefore, I am asking that you no longer bring any food to my home. It is too hard for me and I don’t want to worry about it any longer.
I know you love me and my family dearly. We love you very much too. You have been so helpful to us over the years. You fed me in college and have helped us with so many things throughout our marriage. I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me and my family. We sincerely appreciate what you do for us.
I have to ask you to do something else. It will be hard, I know. It will be hard for us to. But if I am to get my weight under control so that I can live healthier and longer, then there must be sacrifices. I have to make sacrifices; my wife and daughter must make sacrifices. My entire family must make a few sacrifices. Not bringing food to my home must be one of those sacrifices. There may be others that I ask of you later on. I don’t know. But I ask you now to pray for me, and help me by making this change and also being willing to make other changes later on, if it’s required.
My family and I are ready to make changes and try our best. There may be times that I am very successful and there may be times that I am not successful. But I cannot have people who love me tempting me. Just because I run into unsuccessful times does not mean I wish to give up. You may or may not see me losing weight, but that does not mean that I am not trying. You may witness me making a poor choice someday. That does not mean that I have given up or that it’s okay to bring food into my home again. The Japanese have a saying: Even monkeys fall from trees. That will happen to me. But please be strong for me and remember not to tempt me by offering me treats or bringing food into my home.
You are the matriarch of our family and you set the tone of the family. People watch what you do and follow your lead. If you bring me food or offer sugary treats at family functions, then others will do the same. If you follow Christ and do not tempt me then others will do as you do. I need you to set the example by which the rest of my family should act.
I need you to help me because I cannot seem to do it alone. I ask you to pray about this and pray for me. I love you very much and I need your help. Please do not bring food to our home.
With the deepest love and sincerest appreciation:
Jack
No comments:
Post a Comment