Weight
By Gene Aronowitz
I have been losing weight for almost my entire life. At nine months of age, I weighed 38 pounds and was put on my first diet consisting primarily of bananas. No kidding. Right at the gateway into my oral stage, my mother put me on bananas. Notwithstanding any psychological problems that might have stemmed from that, the diet apparently worked well because, at the age of three, I weighed 37 pounds.
My eating habits growing up were not very healthy. I remember frequently eating alone in front of the TV, generally on a large piece of paper rather than a plate because I was particularly fond of non-kosher submarine sandwiches (or perhaps you call them hoagies, heroes, grinders, or wedges).
I had no problem eating alone; I think I liked it that way, watching television, rather than talking with my parents. Not that I had anything against them. It was just that we didn’t have much to say to each other. I remember having occasional meals at the kitchen table but I can’t remember my father or mother sitting there with me. My mother would always be standing up, always with an apron, always with some utensil in her hand, always asking me if I wanted more of whatever I was eating. However, I don’t think I liked her food, which is strange, because my mother had a spectacular culinary reputation; she was considered the best kosher caterer in Wilmington, Delaware.
She was a terrific cook – everybody who remembers her remembers her that way. Even kids, who were the same age as I was, loved her food; some of my old friends still talk about it to this day. She would cater events for hundreds of people all from this little kitchen, not more than ten feet long and maybe six feet wide. The table was always covered with cooking stuff, which may account for our inability to eat there together. She was especially famous for her blintzes, which she made by the thousands. Those I ate. (Click here to read a separate memoir on how wonderful those blintzes tasted)
I loved those blintzes, but from a retrospection enriched by decades of weight problems and high cholesterol counts, I’m certain that my longing for blintzes and similar foods did me in. As an adult, my weight fluctuated like the arrival times of New York City buses. I had an exceedingly difficult time keeping my weight down, especially after I discovered my unbelievable affinity for free food, particularly on buffet tables. My low point (or high point if you want to make a graph of my weight) came at the age of 47. I was the Commissioner of Community Mental Health for Westchester County, New York, and simultaneously, the Chair of the Westchester United Way Campaign. That year, I attended three to four annual meetings or fundraising events each week and all of them had food.
Almost every event had a buffet table. Many people learn how to avoid these fattening and generally unhealthy spreads. I learned just the opposite: I was transformed into a stealth bomber. I learned how to stand by the table and shovel food into my mouth without anyone ever seeing me by developing an uncanny ability to determine if anyone was watching. At many of these events, there were no tables; the guests circulated and when speeches were made, they simply stood in place listening. I learned how to position myself at the buffet table before the presentation part of the evening was to begin unless I happened to be the speaker. This insured that all those I considered culinary competitors would be locked in place listening to speeches and, for that time, the table was mine.
At the beginning of that year, each member of the Westchester United Way Campaign Cabinet was fitted with a jacket bearing a United Way logo, courtesy of Nieman Marcus. By the end of the year, I could not fit into my jacket; I had gained more than twenty pounds. It was a bright red jacket designed to identify and call attention to the wearer. It did what it was supposed to do and by year-end, it had become an unavoidable source of embarrassment.
My weight varied a lot and I was occasionally thin. During college, I went into the Marine Corps and, as expected, looked great. At the age of 43, I took a solo 10-day bike ride and, a few years later, had a blazing but brief long-distance running career. However, the most predictable weight loss stimuli were my high school reunions, which occurred every five years. It’s never too early to start losing weight for a high school reunion.
Maintaining a desirable weight has been a punishing and demoralizing experience with some fleeting feelings of achievement but almost constant failure. I have been dieting for over 80 years. The momentary elation of a lost pound always gives way to the well-substantiated fear that I will somehow blow it later in the day. Every time I make progress, I begin to hear the incessant pleadings of all those deprived fat cells I had nurtured by the age of 9 months, urging me to be realistic, get some doggie bags, find the nearest buffet table, and dig in.