Marge & Dad: A Love Story from Wright's Gourmet

 

Mrs. Wright was the woman who ran the deli in South Tampa where everyone knew you got the best sandwiches. She was tough, like the soup nazi, you braved her shop to savor the flavors found in the delicious combination of mayo-mustard slathered on sandwiches piled high with Roast Beef or Turkey. She would throw the menu at you if you asked the question, "Whats on it?", or some other stupid question about the food.

 Once, she waited and eyeballed me and I could tell something rude was coming my way. I dared to stand my ground and said something defiant right back at her like, "I'm not ready"...or something slightly rude. Mrs. Wright actually seemed to respect insubordination, because she eyed me on that day with a hint of  new-found grudging respect. That was my Fathers secret in dealing with "Marge", as only he got away with calling her.

He took guff from no-one and Marge loved that. That was their bond.

 She would keep his sandwiches cold in the fridge, and cut them in quarters just the way he liked. To understand my Dad’s non-gourmet but slightly neurotic food obsessions, you must understand his passions about people. He had such idiosyncrasies that it seemed many were out to “get” him if he didn’t see things going his way.

For example, once I sat with him at a charity trade show booth. For lunch, he had his prized Wright’s sandwiches ready to go. I heard this passionate exclamation, “Those bastards! I couldn’t imagine what calamity had occurred, but I should have known. I said, “Dad! What is it?”

“They didn’t cut my sandwich into quarters.”…That was that.

He was not a gourmand, but his peculiarities extended to the ritual of sandwich rites of passage. There was a “wet” sandwich, which consisted of a turkey salad with mayonnaise. The “dry” sandwich was the plain turkey slices on the same bread. So “wet” and “dry” combined for the perfect palette of gastronomic delight in Dad’s world.

Marge understood my Dad. She “got” him whereas there were many who just couldn’t fathom him. She was one of a kind as was my old man. They were simpatico on the sandwich front and they spoke the same language. It was the language of love for the minutiae of food. That was the secret bond they shared.

 

 

That Dirty Little Secret Called Maintenance...

Weight Watchers Lifetime Members Keychain

 *The stats are out there. In 1960, the average woman weighed about 130 pounds. And the man in the Insurance Actuaries weighed about 180. Now the average woman weighs 160 pounds. Is she really that much taller?

 Some women are very tall. But most of us are simply fatter. Women have become much larger, and so have the men. We are a nation of obese people.  So what are we going to do about it? We can all take a page from Oprah’s book, and join Weight Watchers.

 I’m not being facetious. I actually did, about five years ago. And it worked, too. You gain lots of remarkable knowledge if you simply stick to the plan. But the mystery of it all is not found in the loss of the weight.

 It’s found in this ugly little term that gains very few supporters. It’s called Maintenance. Maintaining weight loss is not a glamorous business. You use a scale and measuring cups, and what my father liked to call “Won’t Power.” Meaning that by sheer force of will, you won’t return to the habits of mindless eating that led to the inevitable weight gain from the time you left college till the day you suddenly turned fifty and realized you were about twenty or thirty pounds overweight.

 The pounds pile on mysteriously through the years. And in middle age, suddenly we want to regain our youthful figures with diets that claim you can lose all that weight in thirty days. It’s an illusion. Or it’s just delusional thinking, because nothing like that happens overnight. In my case, it took me about a year to lose the weight I wanted to lose.

 But the trick is that it is only the beginning. You have to learn to keep the weight off. You have to adopt a dieter’s mindset. That doesn’t mean that you can’t indulge in a dessert, or deprive yourself of a favorite food. It means you have to pay the piper.

 When you do overindulge, you have to work it off the next day. You have to cut back, and learn to eat mindfully. Never again can you simply “let yourself go” unless you are prepared to train to run marathons. And even then, discipline is required to fuel your body with energy, and not empty calories.

 That is the dirty little secret of success for all long-term losers. You must learn the habits of mindful eating. And then you have to continue to work every day to maintain your goals. This dirty little secret was revealed recently in a diet book I read. The bottom line proved that each and every day of our lives, we are dieting. For good and for bad, we eat to our goal weights.

 Life intrudes. We go on vacation, we go out to dinner, and we celebrate the good times with our friends by consuming good food and drink. And sometimes we eat to mask pain and sorrow and grief and all other emotions. These are all taken into account while we are losing the weight. When we maintain, we are expected to maintain it all…. And I confess, that hasn’t always been easy for me.

 I’m sure there are others who feel the way I do. Exercise helps, but it can only go so far.  When you reach your goal weight, you are expected to become a “Lifetime Member” who maintains, and if you slip off the wagon, you are again a Weight Watcher who has slid. But to be a member of the group that has maintained, and maintained and is ready to maintain some more…

 
It’s not as glamorous nor as fun as the dieters group. There is no magic bullet to weight loss.  Sometimes going back to the group does help you to connect. But the most important times are those monthly weigh-ins where you can see the tangible results of your accomplishment. It is simply a small slip of paper given to those of us who maintain our goal weight. And you record it in a book from month to month, and from year to year.

Long live the lifetime members who are out there every day struggling to maintain and to be heard. We are all accountable to each other, but we know what counts the most-becoming accountable to yourself. In the end, that’s the only way to survive the battle of maintenance.