For as long as I can remember I've been on a diet.  Growing up my mother was always on a diet and my grandmother had a life-long obsession with eating healthy.

As a kid we never had Coke in our fridge, instead we had Tab. My experience with sugar sodas was so limited that to this day that non-diet sodas taste like sucking on a sugar cube to me.  I can almost feel the grit of the sugar in my mouth.  My after-school snacks usually featured Tab and Wheat Thins.  I think my mother assumed that since the Wheat Thins were small crackers they were some how less fattening than the chocolate chip cookies and milk snacks that my friends got to have.

 My mother was never much of a cook so my brown bag lunches were never gourmet, but it was a clear indication to me in 5th grade that she thought I could use to lose a bit of weight when she started packing plain tuna, carrots and celery in my bag instead of PB&J.  I would eye the lunches of the kids whose mothers packed them chips or cookies for dessert as I crunched my tasteless veggie snacks.

I've never been one for vegetables.  I don't like the taste or texture of most of them.  My step-father (who was a psychotic ass of epic proportions) would get so infuriated at me during our evening meals together because I would simply push the veggies around the plate trying to make it look like I had eaten them.  One night he flew into a blistering rage because I flat-out refused to eat my cooked carrots.  He hauled me out of my chair by my hair and dragged me onto the back porch and shoved my plate into my hands informing me that if I was going to behave  like an animal, I could sit in the yard like a dog and eat my dinner. Furthermore,  I was not to come back in until I had finished all my carrots.  Fuming to myself I sat on the porch for a good 20 minutes before it dawned on me that I could just dig a hole in the yard and bury them.  I suspect there's a nice little vegetable patch along the side of our old house.

In the 1970's when it was all the rage, much as it is today, to eat "health foods", my mother jumped on the bandwagon with gusto.  What few sugary treats we had were replaced with carob snacks and all white sugar was replaced with Turbinado.  This threw my sister Parrish and I into a complete tailspin. We would routinely sneak out of my bedroom window and ride our bikes into town to the pharmacy where we would spend all our allowance on as much candy as we could get our hands on.  We would then consume the whole lot, lest we be caught with contraband, before we had completed the one mile trip home.  To this day I can inhale a pack of M&Ms in 10 seconds.  I can get a whole licorice rope in my mouth at one go.  I suggest you watch your fingers around me in a candy shop.

Whenever I would go to friends houses I would gorge myself on the treats they had on hand.  My friend Johanna had a glass cookie jar filled with Oreos, and I would dunk one after another in milk and cram it into my mouth.  Then there was Evelyn whose mother, despite regular trips to the Schick center for shock therapy with a bag of Cheetos to keep her own eating issues  in line,  kept a jar of jelly beans, color coordinated to match her living room decor, and I would scoop handfuls into my mouth and be dizzy with a sugar rush.  Her house had the huge commercial refrigerators and freezers and the latter was always stuffed with frozen fully baked chocolate chip cookies.  A weekend at Evelyn's house was nirvana.

My mother's obsession with health food was really my grandmother's doing.  In the 1970's she flew regularly to San Francisco to meet with a Dr. Dong who was the leading authority on diet and arthritis and had my grandmother on such a strict regime that dinner at Grandma's was more of a culinary nightmare than a treat.  My grandmother grew her own sprouts in the fridge and dehydrated God only knows what in a container on the back porch. Her house smelled less like a gingerbread house than a health food store.  You know the smell?  It's that pungent mix between cooked kale, mixed nuts, tofu, spoiled milk, tea tree oil and a strong refusal to wear anti-perspirant.  Next time you go to Whole Foods (when you're done boycotting that is) take a good long deep breath.  You'll smell what I'm talking about.

As an adult, from time to time, I toy with the idea of getting healthy.  One of the problems I have is that I have little or no self-control or will power, and I still don't like vegetables.  When I go on a diet, I generally wind up looking for the old-fashioned quick fix.  I sign up with Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem, or fill my freezer with Lean Cuisine.  All processed, freeze dried, non-digestible carbohydrate filled meals.  Despite my desire for self-improvement I can't bring myself to eat green leafy vegetables, barley, lentils, or any form of soy.  Another problem I have is that I live with a man who can eat anything and not have to worry about his weight.  Heart disease is a whole other kettle of fish, but I digress.  Our cupboards are filled with Cheetos, Doritos,  and Ben and Jerry's.  He grabs his lunches at Wendy's, Taco Bell, and Mickey D's. I'm a professionally trained chef and regularly whip him up spectacular meals and baked goods.  Most of which I only try in small bites stolen off his plate as I solemnly eat my Lean Cuisine and drool with envy.

My goal, as lowly as it may seem, is to some day wake up, no longer give a shit, and eat my fill of Velveeta, Pringles, Twinkies, Ho-Hos, Big Macs, and pizza with extra cheese.  I am without apologies, a card carrying junk food junkie.