Supermarket conspiracies

I’m sorry, but there must be some kind of conspiracy afoot.

No matter where I go, there are pictures of, recipes for or, even worse, samples of dessert or dessert like snacks.

Check the end caps in the supermarkets.

Do they have displays of navy beans? Lettuce?  Fruit?

Not a chance.

While WalMart is a prime offender — I mean just trying to walk near the check out is a seduction waiting to happen.

Even in the clothing retail areas there are intimations of sweet snacks and such.

The big guns like Wegmans are not innocent of this sin either.

I am such a sugarholic, derived, I think from a family that suffered privation during WWI and the depression.

I can so clearly hear my mother proudly telling the nun who was my teacher in the fourth grade that I was “pleasingly plump.”

Oh MY Gosh!

And it was true. While we ate weird cheap protein, the sugar component, even during the time when we had to use ration stamps for sugar, was ramped up.

There were always homemade biscuits — we didn’t have much butter and used margarine that came looking like Crisco, you had to pinch a bright orange berry like thing in the center of the package and knead it into the white grease until it looked like butter.

There were always cookies and cakes and scones and such.

When they weren’t home made, my Mom made a trip to the Day Old Bakery and bought something called a mocha cake.

It was three layers of paradise, filled with sweet, sweet frosting that made the cake over a foot tall.

Ah, I can remember it well. Probably 1,000 points a piece.

Which is why I began to diet when I was 11.

Yes,  I really didn’t know how to diet, but I was aware that I was, as my family had described me, again, “pleasingly plump.”

Time passed and somehow, between 13 and 16, I lost the plumpness and dieting was something other people did, though I was always acutely aware of excess poundage.

I wore what would be in today’s sizing about a four.

If you don’t believe me, I have pictures. Sometimes I look at these photos and sigh.

Then I went to college and read somewhere that hunger pangs go away after 20 minutes.

I used that piece of information to craft a diet that included a lunch that was exactly a quarter cup of cottage cheese and a tablespoon of jam.

I only ate dessert on Sundays.

I maintained my weight.

Other people who ate whatever was on the table also maintained their weight.

I had a sign on the lamp over my desk that said, “THINK THIN.”

It was a continuing struggle.

I figured that something must be wrong with my metabolism.

After all I didn’t exercise.

Well, walking to class on the hill five times a day and even more when I was working in the education library, did constitute considerable movement.

Adding it up, it was about 25 to 30 blocks uphill and the same number downhill daily.

Time passed again and my weight fluctuated mostly up and it reached such gargantuan  proportions in my 50s that I gave up and thought that I should just be who I was.

Then I accidentally found Weight Watchers and, over a period of a year and a half, I lost half of my body weight and had to buy all new clothes.

Gone were the tents and such.

It was a glorious heady ride, but to get there, I had to really eat only  lean protein and vegetables and fruits.

A once-in-a-while treat of cake or cookies and the scale would yell at me.

So, I kept that weight off for six years, even through chemo which had steroids attached which make you nauseous and ravenous at the same time.

So, I am back at it again, 31 lbs down and an undecided amount to go.

But I find it so hard to shop.

Have you tried to check out at one of the discount stores?

Candy and scrumptious sweet things everywhere.

Is this a conspiracy?