TBT

One day many years ago I was watching Oprah Winfrey on TV. If I remember correctly, she was visiting Durham, NC and filmed her program from there. I surely do hope she does not see this and take me to task over it, but I do remember that the program was about weight. During the program she, or someone on the show, made a remark about how blind people can be overweight easily because they cannot see how they look. At the time I wanted to talk with her about that remark. However, of course I never tried, probably because I knew my comments would never reach her... and because at the time, this blind person was overweight.

It is amazing to me how soon in life food seems to have a viable part of all we do. As a small child, I just knew that food was something you ate three times a day. Once I attended the NC School for the Blind in 1950, I learned it was something you did three times a day... like it or not. I was so small that my bottom lip fit right underneath the plate on the little table. We were supposed to eat everything on the plate. If I raked the food off the plate with my fork it would land right in my mouth. Once there, I would chew it up if I liked it, or if not, would swallow it whole, pushing it down without tasting it with a big swallow of milk. Of course all of us, when we were children heard the story of all the hungry children in the world who had nothing to eat. All of us probably like me, said at least one time, “Please send them this.”

Okay, before everybody in America and beyond starts bombarding me with books, supplements, drinks, newest diet fads, programs, sports equipment, apps, advice and then some, let me just say that this is only a fun blog, and at this time I am doing well with changing my life style and realizing its necessity, and the fact that it is not just a change for today, but for always. Please just send me your sincere prayers that I will remember. I just want to share a few dieting adventures.

Most of us have done all kinds of diets, including starvation ones when we believed we had learned just how the hungry children must feel. I have done liquid diets which only gave me bad breath, chicken diets where you eat chicken every day and come to meetings where you make faces to keep wrinkles at bay. Those faces probably gave a whole new meaning to a chicken dance. There have been package food diets I sold at a yard sale. Once I even did a diet through my church which might have worked except I knew if I messed up God would forgive me. I do not know if Oprah is thin or heavy at this time since I cannot see her, but I know how heavy I was at the beginning of my journey to a new life style. This silly little poem was written maybe thirty years ago, but it could well have been written today. Hope you enjoy it with me.  

TEMPTATION

The devil appears to me wearing a coat designed by Hershey’s to …

Take the knowledge of taste right to my waist.

“Aha!” I laugh; “I know who you are,

and my God is bigger than a chocolate bar!”

So he sends out his workers.

They arrive with the heavenly taste and crackling crunch

Of a potato chip.

“Now, retaining fluid is nobody’s fault,”

they tell me from under their blankets of salt.

“I recognize you—every one!”

And I send them away—

And I think that I’ve won.

Then comes the weekend.

Oh no!  Right in the middle of my garden of Eden has

sprouted up a Pizza Hut!

“with mushrooms, pepperoni, sausage and lots of extra

cheeze—please!”

“Oh, God,” I complain;

“All Eve had to turn down was one little old dumb apple.

Why do you allow the enemy to tempt me with pizza?”

“Maybe they were BIG apples,” He gently says.

“Maybe they were Granny Smith’s or Red Delicious.”

“Well, God,” I protest, “I can turn down barrels full of all

kinds and sizes of apples.”

“Perhaps not,” He gently reminds me:  “Not if you thought

the recipe for pizza was inside one of them.”