Many years (read decades) ago, when I lived in Hong Kong, an astrologer (Canadian, not Chinese - he'd come to me highly recommended) told me that, with Jupiter in my sixth house, I had a propensity to put on weight. At the time I was by no means overweight but, at 5'4" (164cm), when I did put on weight, it showed easily.
During my adult lifetime my top weight has been 65kg (10 stone 3 pounds). That's not including my fully pregnant weight, which topped that, but it doesn't count. I mean, I had another person in me. My bottom adult weight has been 50kg (8 stone). Presently, I weigh in at 54kg and I'm happy with that. Unlike most post-menopausal women, I have lost, rather than gained, weight.
I have never been a big eater but that's not through choice or a desire to remain thin. It is simply because I grew up with an appalling and easily upset digestive system. I was a reed thin child but, as adolescence crept upon me, I was deposited in a boarding school. The school's nutritional guidelines were disturbing to say the least. Bread with every meal and afternoon teas of cream and jam filled buns. Fat deposits began to accrue on me. Well, obviously, I needed curves, that's the point of hormones after all, among other things. Those other things included a severe case of cystic acne that lasted well into my twenties.
Nonetheless, I was never overweight, but was always conscious that I might become so because my mother had been thin when she married my father and, by my teen years, she was two sizes overweight. She wasn't fat, she just wasn't thin. I resembled her in so many ways that I decided that I would always have to watch my weight. She also wasn't a big eater and I presumed that we both had, what is termed, a slow metabolism.
Before I fell pregnant with my son, my weight had dropped to 50kg from around 61kg when I married. Post pregnancy I was 63kg and this weight would not shift until four years later when I was living in Hong Kong and it plummeted, for a number of reasons that I won't go into, down to 50kg again.
Fifty kilograms, for me, is not a natural weight. I tend to look skeletal. Nonetheless, once back in Australia I wanted to maintain my svelte appearance but, try as I may, I began to gain weight, about one kilogram (two pounds) per year. It took ten years for me to go from 50kg to 63kg. I was eating normally, which is to say, not much, and so I began to eat less but I still gained slowly and relentlessly. It seemed that the astrologer was right and Jupiter had it in for me. I had a friend at this time who was very slim and could eat two helpings of everything and not gain a thing. I believe it comes down to genes, rather than planetary alignments, but who knows?
I discovered one very important thing from trying to stay at a weight that my body didn't approve of: the body decides our ideal weight. It will more than happily let us go over it, but it won't let us stay under it. It would rather we gained fat in case of a famine and, for the same reason, will make us gain if we fall below a certain level where our fat deposits won't sustain us in a crisis. At least, that's my theory.
I think it comes down to the fact that, throughout most of human history, we have not had food readily available to us. Only in the last ten thousand or so years have we become agrarian and it's only in the last hundred or so years with the Industrial Revolution, mass global transport and trade, that most of humanity has been assured of food.
There are exceptions of course. Wars and civil wars, including tribal wars in Africa, even more than drought, are usually responsible for food shortages in these food abundant days. Our bodies genetic coding, however, is based on hundreds of thousands of years of the human experience and has programmed us to survive, even prepare for, periods without adequate sustenance. Our brains also aid in this survival mechanism and make us crave fattening foodstuffs that have allowed food chains such as McDonald's, Haagen Daz, Pizza Hut, Dunking Donuts right down to your local fish and chip shops and greasy cafes to pander to your starvation avoiding whims.
What a pity our genetic coding doesn't instill a loathing of war in us as well. Unfortunately, war probably arose out of skirmishes between people over food and hunting grounds and may be coded into us as well. We haven't outgrown what was once a survival mechanism.
I eat less than most people do. I do not exaggerate. I am known for it in my family and by our friends to whom it's a bit of a joke. I used to be able to eat more, when I was younger, although not much. I watch with barely concealed envy as my daughter-in-law and her mother (both normal sized women) make scones for afternoon tea with an assortment of jams and cream and eat them with my grandchildren. If I attempted the same, I would not be able to eat any dinner. When my partner has our friends to lunch, he will also bring out a dessert of some sort that they will scoff down joyfully. I watch in dismay and take a bite from my partner's plate just to get a taste.
My stomach has been my dictator since I was five years of age. After what it put me through in my youth due to lactose intolerance and whatever else upset it, I do not test its limits. It simply isn't worth it. How I would trade with someone else for a day just to know the pleasure of eating a decent size meal followed by cheesecake or some such, let alone to be able to consume same with a milkshake or frosty shake. However, it's just not even on the cards. I don't even want to think where that would take me.
I'm sure you're not feeling sorry for me. Most people would like to be able to curb their appetites at will but, if you have to sit at a table and watch your lunch companions eating a whole roll each, perhaps two, filled with ham, cheese, salads, mayonnaise etc., and you literally can only consume a third of what they're having without getting a stomach ache, it is just plain sad. It is only since menopause that my usual small portions have not been responsible for me slowly gaining weight, as I did in those ten years when I was younger and tried to stay underweight.
I envy people who can go to an 'all you can eat' buffet and get their money's worth. I am a huge devotee of the doggy bag when I go to a restaurant. When I asked for one at a restaurant when I was first dating my partner, he was appalled but he came to understand that it's only fair considering my inability to eat enough. I also can't eat too quickly and so, taking a doggy bag home, means I can enjoy what I couldn't eat in one go, later on.
Friends are now telling me my face is too thin. This is the result of ageing and fat deserting my face. Unfortunately, you can't stick fat back where you want it. It has to be applied all over unless you have the money for a plastic surgeon to place it artfully where it is needed. I'm not about to try eating enough to fill out my cheeks and couldn't even if I wanted to.
So, to end this blog, my advice to those of you who can eat well is, enjoy. If you need to diet, don't do crash diets. They just confuse the body because it thinks it's in a famine and you'll just end up programming it to gain. The best way to control your intake is long term discipline, something I've had to acquire thanks to my temperamental tummy. You don't have to starve yourself thin. Go about it slowly and don't develop an, "I'll binge now and diet", later mentality. Discover your body's ideal weight and work at keeping it. It's also silly to say that any particular food is bad for you or fattening. It's really all about how much of it you eat.
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