Have you ever wondered, “If my life were a movie, who would
play me?” Well if you’re me, you think
about this all the time. My friends and
I always believed when we were in college that we would have made an amazing teen
drama or reality show. Right now, I
would wholeheartedly cast Melissa McCarthy to play myself. I think she is the epitome of humor. I honestly think we would be best friends IRL
(in real life, duh). She’s fearless and
doesn’t apologize for being herself. It
would be easy for me to forget my life and cast some skinny bitch but that
wouldn’t be real. Someone who would need
to play the struggle that is being fat all your life would need to know the
struggle that is being fat. Sorry,
Melissa, overweight.
That’s right, kids, I’ve been overweight my whole life. I honestly don’t remember what it’s like to
weigh under 200 lbs. I can remember
being weighed in the 5th grade…side note, why do they do this every
year? They call you in and take your
stats down and the worst is they weigh you in front of everyone! Well, in the 5th grade, I remember
tipping that scale over the 150 lb. mark.
Reminder, in the 5th grade you’re eleven. I wasn’t a heavy
baby at birth. I was a very normal 8
lbs. 4 ounces, which was a miracle as my older brother, Chris, was a butterball
at 11 lbs. 7 ounces. We come from big
genes. My mom and I have had many
conversations about me being an overweight child. She once started to blame herself and her
serial dieting. She was on one where she
didn’t eat solid foods for nearly a year when I was 3. She said if she wanted to eat the cookie she
would give it to me instead. This is
where baby Melissa, I mean Sarah, would be fed an Oreo cookie out of the Winnie
the Pooh cookie jar while my mother, as played by Ina Garten, looks on with
jealousy. I know what you’re thinking, Ina
would never feed her kid Oreo cookies.
They would be homemade chocolate chunk cookies with browned butter and
sea salt. Yum. Seriously though, Ina Garten, Sarah? But trust me, she and my mom could be
doppelgangers. There were no limits on
food in my house growing up. We ate
family dinners with a meat, vegetable, starchy side and bread and of course
dessert every night. Whoever was the
last to finish the Kool-Aid was in charge of making the next batch (brother
always threw in extra sugar!). I used to
eat frozen TV dinners if I had a babysitter and I was always allowed to pick
out whatever I wanted at the grocery store.
I can remember eating buttered white bread as a snack. Mom says I used to lick off all the butter
and come back for more. My favorite meal
was homemade chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and green beans. I remember getting so excited when I saw mom
break out the deep frying skillet for the nuggs. There was never a shortage of food or treats
in our house and there certainly weren’t any limitations.
Another contribution to my expanding waistline is that my
dad is in the restaurant business so we dined out for a living. I remember ordering off the adult side of the
menu from the time I could read. Chicken
Parmigana when dad worked at Olive Garden was my favorite! It’s a tool of his trade to know what’s going
on in the biz so when we vacation we travel around food. Oh, we’re going to NYC we gotta go to Shake
Shack. Oh, we’re going out tonight as we
haven’t been to check out Emeril’s Tchoup Chop and I’ve heard good things. I know this sounds like I’m blaming but I
promise I’m not. I loved growing up
without aversions to food and I’ve been an adult for quite some time now with
the ability to change my habits on my own.
While I am relatively tall for my age now, I was very tall
as a child. I’ve been 5’10” since the 7th
grade after which I stopped growing, length
wise. I’ve been able to ride roller
coasters since I was 4 years old because I met the height requirements. Being tall is never an excuse for being a
heavier weight but that’s how I rationalized it as a kid. I remember in the 3rd grade being
the secret weapon on my class’ field day team.
I was going to be first on the tug-of-war line. Normally, someone of my stature would serve
as the anchor but my teacher believed that the strength was needed up front to
pull the other team directly into the mud.
She was right! We creamed every
team that day and were the champs. I
finally felt like I was useful at something.
I can honestly remember thinking to myself that I didn’t want to lose
weight because I didn’t want to lose my strength. Oh, silly, little Sarah.
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