V day!
Yesterday, was V day with a double meaning. It was Valentine’s Day, but I also declare it Veronica day. A little history…Veronica Brock was my Health 100: Food and Your Health professor at Clark College just over a year ago. She’s the force behind me learning so much about food, how it is meant to nourish our bodies, and how the food we eat relates not only to our health, but the environment.
As I learned and blossomed she recognized the seed she planted. After completing the course we stayed in touch. She’s the force behind me authoring — Shop, Cook, Eat: Outside of the Box, how it became a REQUIRED book for the class, and how I’ve come to have the pleasure of guest lecturing at Clark College.
So yesterday for me to lecture in the very classroom with her by my side was AWESOME.
She won’t take much credit for my success. Instead, she says it my enthusiasm and determination that got me the deal. But, I argue she absolutely has to take some of the credit. She believed in me and my ideas. Thanks for putting me on V. Forever grateful.
“For Veronica — In Food and In Health.”
“…Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
Chrisetta Mosley
I am a product – and now a survivor – of childhood obesity. As a child, my family always told me that my extra weight was merely baby fat and I’d eventually grow out of it. I never did. Instead, my childhood is filled with memories of not being able to ride a bike, flattening its training wheels from being over the recommended weight, and avoiding P.E. classes by any means necessary. For years, I wore my fatness like a wounded soldier wears a Purple Heart - with pride. I owned the look. I dressed it up. I worked the room. There wasn't a skinny girl who intimidated me. I made sure my hair was laid just right. Nails polished. Outfits coordinated to the tee. Accessories to compliment every outfit. But everyone has a breaking point, and mine came in the spring of 2004 when I tipped the scale at nearly 400 pounds 388 to be exact. I was MISERABLE trapped inside of that body. I no longer wore my Purple Heart with pride. Rather, I was ashamed and frightened. Ashamed that I had allowed food to become my everything – frightened I would die because of it. Drastic times called for drastic measures... Today, I’m bound and determined to live a better, healthier, active lifestyle. I realize I’m no longer a passenger in my life, I’m the driver. I’m overcoming my inhibitions and I’m slowly but surely saying farewell to my old childhood nemesis, obesity. For once and for all, Farewell Fatso!