How Baked Goods Shaped My Childhood and Adult Health

I just woke up thinking about donuts. It’s 8 am and I wish I had some fresh ones. Particularly donut holes with powdered sugar. I remember those fondly from my childhood. My mother would get those regularly for breakfast. Come to think of it, we had donuts in the house quite often in my childhood.

At my heaviest weight, I weighed 250lbs. I often think about how a major contributing factor was replacing a father figure with baked goods, like donuts. After my sister and I came forward about the abuse we were receiving, my mother divorced our father. We were pretty young when this happened, about 4 or 5 years old at most.

A few years after my mom and dad divorced, my mother started dating this one guy. He worked at a bakery. I’m sure you can see where this is going. When he would come over to visit, he would bring donuts and cakes. Lots of donuts and cakes. Instead of looking up to him as a father figure, I think I took on the donuts and cakes as my father figure.

They didn’t date for too long, but my passion for baked goods stuck around and still lingers to this day. In my late teens, while on break at my job at Walmart, I would have a Snickers bar, rice crispy treats, or cheesecake slices. Yes, often multiple of those on a 15-minute break. Of which there were at least two 15-minute breaks a shift.

I was always a chunky kid after the divorce. That morphed into me being a “husky” teenager. Then I transitioned into being an obese adult. I remember at several points in my life being convinced I was going to be one of those people on the TV show “My 600lb Life.” I eat a lot when I’m depressed or feeling emotional. Combine that with my BPD which comes with a lot of emotional instability, and it’s easy to see how I quickly went from 180lbs in my teens up to over 250lbs in my adulthood.

There was one point in my 20s when I was exercising regularly and eating very little that my weight went down to 180lbs. After I stopped exercising and dancing, and I increased my food intake, my weight we back up to 230lbs, then up to 250lbs.

One of my goals for my weight was to get down to 150lbs which is what my BMI says I should be at for my height. It wasn’t until I started using drugs that I got down to that weight. Being that low, I realized it was too low for my body frame. I’m now around 180lbs and feel pretty good. I would like to lose maybe 5-10 lbs. This time, I want to do it healthily. When summer comes, I think I’m going to go out for exercise and try to eat fewer calories. I enjoy being thinner, I feel better and can manage things much more easily.

Alright, that’s enough about weight. I don’t want to fixate too heavily on that. Instead, let’s focus on the weather! Ugh. There’s a 2-day blizzard going through Wisconsin right now. I suppose I’ll be out quite a bit shoveling. Maybe we can get the plow working. Either way, by the end of the weekend, my back is going to be killing me. I am not looking forward to it. This is what we get for having such a mild fall and a mild first half of the winter.