How Did I Get To Sumo Weight?

Mt. Fuji, Japan, September 2006

HOW DID I GET TO SUMO WEIGHT?

I was not used to being at a sumo wrestler weight.  I was a track athlete in high school.  In college, I walked on the football team for one semester.  After graduation, I stayed active by playing basketball.  But in my early to mid-40’s, I got bigger and bigger.

Well to put it bluntly, I ate, then I ate, then I ate some more.  Oh yeah, I sat at my desk in the daytime & on the couch at night.  Here’s a summary…

Breakfast:

I ate when I was hungry, which started as soon as I work up.  So I’d usually eat pancakes and bacon.  Or maybe a bacon, egg & cheese sandwich (I used to make those back in the day when I worked at a fast-food joint).  Or maybe grits, eggs, and bacon.

Then about an hour or two after breakfast, I would be hungry again.   Usually, I couldn’t find anything to eat, so I’d have to “suffer”  another hour until lunch.

Lunch

So lunch was usually dinner leftovers, or fast food, or hot dogs & chips, or a ham & cheese/turkey & cheese sandwich.  Of course, if I had fast-food, I had to get a milk shake!   About an hour later, my sweet tooth really kicked in.  I needed a sugar fix.

Afternoon Snack

This is where my chocoholic kicked in.  Can anybody relate?  Sometimes I would eat an entire bag of Hershey’s Kisses.  Or I’d buy one of those giant Hershey’s or Nestle’s chocolate bars.  I would usually catch them on sale for 99 cents.   Also, the Dove candies.  Sometimes I’d catch Kit Kats, or 3 Musketeers on sale.

Other afternoon snack faves where milk shakes.  I considered myself a conniseur of fast-food vanilla shakes.  I loved the ones that were advertised as being made with real ice cream.  Oh yeah, egg nog shakes and mint shakes – when in season, were better than vanilla.

If I had dessert after dinner the previous night, I would sometimes have that in the afternoon instead of the aforementioned snacks.

Dinner

I don’t think it was about what I ate, I think it was more about how much I ate, what I drank during the meal, and what I ate afterwards.

Dinner consisted of a meat, a vegetable and a starch.  Meats were usually steak, chicken, hamburger (spaghetti), pork chops.

Veggies were usually broccoli, spinach, green beans, sometimes salad, mixed veggies (lima beans, corn, peas, carrots), cauliflower.

Starches were corn, rice, potatoes, and lots of bread.  My family probably went through a loaf of bread every 2 days!

My deal was that I could easily eat 2 plates full at each dinner – because I felt I was hungry.  I’d usually wash it down with something sweet: koolaid especially, juice cocktail, or soda.

Then after dinner, I almost always had to have dessert.  Chocolate cake & vanilla ice cream was the dessert of choice!  Also in the top five was banana pudding, vanilla pudding,  jello, cookies (homemade & store bought), and graham crackers.

About 3 hours after dinner, I was hungry again.  So sometimes, I would make another (but smaller) dinner plate.

So can you imagine this “cycle” going over and over and over again for like at least 2 or 3 years? 

I got tired very easily.  It was hard for me to play with my kids.  I always knew in the back of my mind I wanted to do something to lose weight.  My motivation was to be and feel more healthy for my family.   But for years I didn’t do anything, even as the pounds started piling on…