I am sick of the constant impulses to eat. All day, every day, the impulses keep badgering me like piranhas going after their prey. I must fill my mind with more important, more inspiring ideas. I must squelch that unbidden “Ah! What goody could I make?” thought. I must smother the “Mmmmm, wouldn’t a McMuffin be delicious right now, as I am driving right past McDonald’s?” idea before it has a chance to blossom… or to make me blossom. (McMuffin! What a dumb name. But they make it sound so cute, so McEatable.)
I am sick of those constant thoughts. I have to learn to ignore them. I must have a reason-to-diet inspirational thought on the tip of my tongue, immediately ready to replace the seductive thought of food. I have no choice. I must be mentally prepared, or the ugly face of fat will be forever staring back at me from the mirror.
If only I had practiced a tiny bit of self-control about what went into my mouth as a child. But I was inadvertently taught that treats cured every “ouch,” candy soothed every hurt feeling. And if one cookie made you feel good, five made you delirious with joy!
If you want to witness total, 100 percent lack of control, come with me on a childhood excursion to the movies. The movies. Now, there’s a place to really pig out. It’s dark. You feel completely safe opening and eating as many candy bars as time will allow. And that is exactly what I did as a child. I find myself shaking my head even as I write this. How could we Linds do it to our own stomachs?
When we would go to summer matinee movies, my sister Rebecca would buy ten boxes of Flicks chocolate drops. She would eat every last one. She made it clear that they were hers: she alone bought them, she alone would eat them. Ten boxes —for a single feature!
I am mortified to admit that I also bought ten candy bars for a single feature. I recall carefully analyzing this horrendous amount of chocolate in my hands, mentally measuring how long each bar would last. I had to have enough for the whole movie. The whole movie! Yup, folks, that’s what limited my chocolate intake, not the fact that I was eating too much sickening fat and sugar, but the fact that the movie had an end. I wanted something sweet in my mouth through the entire film.
I shudder to think of that now, yet I never sit through a film as an adult without my mouth watering for some chocolate. I think of it almost constantly, from the moment the lights first dim. There in the back of my mind, like a dormant volcano, that memory, that desire, sits. It smolders a little, it spews forth smoke from time to time, and then… full-blown eruption. I can’t concentrate on the movie. I think of possible ways to get out and sneak some candy. I begin to hate Allen, who sits there totally oblivious of my growing desire, totally free of the compulsion for a candy bar.
October 4, 1991. Last night, I was reminiscing with Barbara and Rebecca about this very issue. We were laughing about our childhood moviegoing practices. Among the three of us, there has to be at least 200 pounds of extra fat. And we were laughing about still craving enough candy in a movie to have something in our mouths from curtain opening to closing. What’s the problem here? Are all members of my family afraid they will somehow lose their eyesight and hearing in a theater if they are not moving their jaws?
Barbara said she remembers bringing Jujubes to chew on as long-lasting fillers. Of course, she would bring a couple of good chocolate concoctions, too. But they went so fast.
Rebecca confided, “All right, I’m going to tell you something, and [smiling at me] you can quote me on this. A half pound of peanut Me3M’s will last through a single feature. You put two at a time in your mouth and suck on them till the chocolate candy coating dissolves. You chew the peanuts, then pop in two more. Now if you go to a double feature, you will need a whole pound of peanut Me3M’s. And it really is preferable to bring a three-quarter-pound bag for a single feature. Then you’re sure to have candy till the end of the movie. A pound will last through a double feature because you can’t help slowing down toward the end of a pound of chocolates… and by then you are so sick that you swear you will never do that again!”