Puberty, Weight Loss Programs, and the New Me

Midway through my sixth grade year, Jesus saved me in a little Baptist church in the Florida panhandle.  One thing my Sunday School teacher kept emphasizing was that I should “tell my friends about Jesus.”

While that sounds great on the surface, there was a problem:  I didn’t have any friends.

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Puberty Hits

I must confess, I have told little kids to tell their friends about Jesus, too.  But right off the bat, there in Florida, I wasn’t even with my friends.  I was only there for two months during my dad’s military training, and the kids at that school were ruthless.

Going back to Iowa, I was with people I knew again, and there were a few notables, but for the most part, I seriously didn’t have many friends.  There was a kid who liked me, who showed it by pretending he was an electron and I was a nucleus, and he kept revolving around me at lunchtime.  He was short and plump and full of freckles.  He asked my mom to save me for him.  That usually doesn’t happen in 6th grade, and I wasn’t exactly willing to be put on a shelf for him!

When I was in seventh grade, we moved to Arizona, where my dad was stationed at Luke Air Force Base, near Glendale.  This was the year that all those hormones kicked in.  I started looking awkward.  The bangs were cut too short for my school pictures and I had a zit in the middle of my chin.

Not long after this picture was taken, my mom and I tried out a new product called “Tame,” one of the first hair conditioners, and I had fewer bad hair days.

I did some odd things that somehow didn’t seem odd at the time, but middle school / jr. high age kids are like that, still finding their way.  Like, I found a pink striped tie, and started wearing it with my white shirt.  It was not “in” for a girl to wear a man’s tie, but I did it anyway, along with the mandatory skirt.  I also found a chain and collected various cool charms to dangle from it, all together, all at once.  And, having a dandruff problem, I made it “snow” on my desk and played in the drifts.

I rode the bus to school every day, when I got to the bus stop on time, and wondered why no one would ever sit next to me.  I remember looking out the window at the desert going by and wondering how I could possibly obey the great commission!

By the time I was in eighth grade, I was a roly-poly child -- not obese, but just plump. Somebody sympathetically told me, “Margie, it’s too bad we girls can’t wear pants because of the school dress code.  You always look terrible in a dress.”

Here’s my eighth grade graduation dress.  What do you think?  I believe my mom made the dress, and we were able to find a pattern that didn’t need a belt.

Well, in eighth grade, I decided to run for class president, thinking, “Hey, I would do well at this!  I’m in the school band and the choir, and I’m near the top of the class academically.  I think I could give a good speech, and my Grandpa was a mayor.”

I only had to get a few signatures to qualify as a candidate.  So during lunch I tried to get those signatures.  But it just didn’t happen.  Everyone I approached ran away when they saw me coming, telling me in no uncertain terms that they did NOT want me as class president -- they were going to vote for Andrea (“Andy”).

This was very discouraging, and I don’t take discouragement well.  Eventually, I just sat weeping behind a building.  Eventually someone must have told Andy.  Somehow, she and her entourage found me out, and she bent down to tell me that she felt sorry for me.  Then she ordered several guys to sign my petition.  “But Andy, I wanted to vote for you!!” they would say.  “This is not about voting, this is a petition.  I already have enough signatures.  You sign hers!”

So, thanks to Andy, I became a candidate.  I lost by a wide margin and thought maybe I wasn’t really a natural born politician, but that was okay, at least I got to run.  And Andy got me thinking.

I decided I needed to research how one became “popular.”  How does one go about “making friends”?  What would make me more attractive to people so that I would be as well-liked as Andy?

I reasoned that this must be God’s will for my life because if I didn’t have any friends, I couldn’t tell them about Jesus.  I couldn't ask Siri, so I researched by watching people and taking notes.  I wrote a paper in my eighth grade English class about my findings, too.  They involved things like:

1. Never do anything that’s not what everybody else is doing.  Laugh at what everybody else is laughing at.  Don’t do anything that’s weird or different.

2. Never tell anybody what you’re really thinking.  Always smile and pretend everything is fine, even if you’re crying on the inside.

3. Especially, be just like Andy.

The teacher, after having graded everyone’s compositions, brought mine to my desk with an “A” on it, but he was concerned.  

“Is that what you really think?” he asked.  

“Yes, it is.”  

“Okay, but if you ever need to talk …"

I don’t remember whether I talked to him, but if I did, I must have told him I was confident I could do this.  I threw away the charm necklace and tried very hard to fit in.  But I realized I would have to lose some weight.  I was too fat.

My little brother -- we called him “Junior” -- reminded me of that pretty often, calling me mean names like “Smat” which was his made-up word for “smart” and “fat.”  Mom would only say, “But it doesn’t mean anything.”  And then I would say, “Just because it isn’t in the dictionary, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean anything!”  His relentless teasing and my lack of any kind of popularity at the school made me pursue a weight loss program.

Weight Management

I’ve been concerned about obesity over the years because my mom was hypoglycemic, which later blossomed into diabetes. Being overweight can be a determining factor, and the last thing I need is the hassle of diabetes. Furthermore, when I read about it, I am aware that it’s not really just that it’s a hassle.  Who needs those kinds of ongoing health problems, anyway?  

Back then, I really thought if I could lose weight, I’d have more friends. But even now, my self-esteem is inversely proportional to the weight on the bathroom scales.  Mirror images are probably the most-often viewed pictures in our lives.  Camouflage clothes are a huge industry, not for hiding from an enemy in a jungle or desert, but for hiding our midriff from close scrutiny by friends.

I haven’t been under 110 lb. since I was in the Air Force, when there was a threat of being on the “Fat Girl” program. Back then, I did what I had to do, or I could have been discharged from the Air Force.  So I lost 30 lbs.

Then I lost another large amount about 28 years ago, when I tried “Fit for Life.”  That was a popular book that described healthy eating patterns and weight loss without counting calories!!  You just had to follow the food combining rules and eat a lot of fruit.  Yes, I made all our kids be on that diet too, because it’s a pain in the neck to cook several different menus for each meal.  I think it was good for them, but they didn’t appreciate it because none of their friends ate like we did.

About five years ago, I lost 40 pounds … again. Half of that is back.  Sometimes I envision a little demon encouraging me to just eat one cookie.  That’s all, for now.  It’s just one cookie!  (Sinister laugh.)  But one additional cookie a day adds up to many pounds in a few years.

Currently, I’m trying NutriSystem, because I’ve seen it work for other people.  If they can do it, so can I.  I’ve got a ways to go, and I probably won’t keep on this program for very long.

But that first time, during my freshman year of high school back in 1970, Mom and I both had ongoing weight problems so she was going to Weight Watchers meetings and eating their menus. She offered to share her foods with me ... till I found out they involved liver … always … in any form, but once a week.  So I tried it for a while, choking down some chicken livers fried in olive oil with garlic, but I gave it up quickly.

Instead, being very short and small (5 foot and half-an-inch) I dieted by counting every single calorie that entered my body and using a little chocolate candy called “Ayds” with a hot drink.  I had no access to a FitBit, a smartphone, or any kind of digital tool.  I had a tiny paperback Pocket Calorie Counter, and I had to look up everything in the charts and keep lists.  At night, I tallied up the day’s total, and if I had stayed under 900 calories, I rewarded myself with 7-calorie jelly beans to make up the difference.  We also had mandatory PE that year and I was in the school marching band.  

Slowly but surely, I shed 30 pounds, going from a plump 133 lbs to 103, where some were even concerned that I was too skinny, although, like Karen Carpenter, I wasn’t convinced that I wasn’t still fat. 

My sister and I got new bathing suits:

But then, some people started to take notice of me ...

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It is tough to navigate through the rapids of puberty.  You’re usually desperately in need of some good advice, but end up with something that doesn’t really help.  Like, my dad used to tell me to study Don Rickles, a sarcastic comedian, who skillfully insulted people.  If you tried that on a real person, it wouldn’t get you any brownie points.

Girls, it is not as important as it seems, to make yourself look like a fashion doll, to wear the nicest clothes, or to have guys winking at you.  You don’t have to show your cleavage, you don’t have to wear skirts and shorts that show more of your legs.  And in the end, if you do that, you risk attracting the wrong types and distancing yourself from the right types.  It’s okay to lose weight, but you don’t need to be sexy.

Instead, you need to believe that you are special because you are created in God’s image.  This makes you a treasure.  Anyone who takes you out on a date or is thinking of marrying you needs to understand that you are a treasure, and you are not giving out free samples.  You are way too valuable for that. Here is what the Psalmist says about God's loving care in making us who we are:

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.

My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.

~Psalm 139:13-18