My Squirrel Mentality

Many people ponder the how's and why's of their weight gains. I have pretty much traced mine to my childhood. When I was a kid, I was VERY skinny. We were kind of poor for a fairly long stretch. During that time, food wasn't available in abundance. Although I can't remember a time when the cupboards were completely bare, I wasn't able to cook and couldn't get into the sparse supply of food that was available then either. Saying that, I guess that we did have food for most meals. I did not hale from Ethiopia or anything like that, but I do remember going without at times. Although a small part of this was me having the usual dislikes or possibly getting tired of eating the same food many nights of the week (my mom would try to combine meats with pasta/rice for cheaper cooking and would do only a couple deviations on that--I don't remember NOT eating the duplicate foods ever but may have done that so wanted to make sure I included that too for the sake of a fair accounting), there were times when there just wasn't really anything to eat. I remember coveting Ramen noodle soup packets (which are like 10-25 cents a pack now) and any kind of sandwich. I loved any snack available too. I would raid relatives' and friends' houses when visiting. I would hoard food and eat it later if I could bear to wait to eat it.

From what I remember, my family was always possessive when it came to food during that time too. I remember my dad putting a colorful note on an item he was reserving for himself in the frig. Evidently one of my grandparents had even put a chain and lock on their refrigerator when my dad was young (although the grandparents were all always generous to us). I hope that I am not like that with my children, but it does scare me a little.

At any rate, I guess that is the background from whence my eating addiction emerged. I have a sister who is just a couple years older than me who went through this as well. She also has weight issues now. I would like to tell her about the band--would really like to tell her--but she has already said negative things about WLS and cannot keep a secret to save her life (with a family that has also pegged WLS as 'bad').

In addition to my older sister, I have a sister who is ten years younger than me who is thin as a rail (literal Size 0) who never went through these times at all (in fact, though we all have the same parents, my dad has pretty much been out of the picture her whole life, and my stepdad has helped my mom raise her). To me, that just kind of goes to show that there is something to the root of mine and my older sister's eating issues and with our squirrel or hoarding mentalities (disclaimer: I am no psychologist; this has just been me thinking these things through over the course of the last few years :) ).