Something Nice

My stomach looked like a balloon when I was five. I could eat five bowls of rice when I was ten. When I graduated from the elementary school, I was only 129 cm tall. You can imagine how I looked. A perfect rolling ball, with just a slight push with your finger tip you could roll me anywhere. I was still healthy, you know children's metabolism run fast. Trust me I wanted to find a way to tie my stomach or at least tie my shoes, and curb my appetite badly. Did I make it? Sorry I didn't have enough horses to give me that kind of will power.

Food is my weakness. My mouth was not used to talk, it had only one purpose - how to get as much food as possible. I was very quiet when I was small. Do you know why? Because I found it was a good way to hook food. All my uncles wanted to cheer me up and get me to talk by luring me with bananas as if I were a monkey. My mom stored a lot of fruit in our fridge so that I wouldn't absorb too much starch and became a real elephant. That's how I fell in love with fruit.

When Chinese New Year came, my mom would buy a lot of candies because it was the tradition of her family. I alone would eat up all the candies before others laid their fingers on the jar. Candies became my 2nd favorite food. After the new year I had to beg my mom to buy candies. I was close to my big brother despite the fact how bully he was because I got rewards for running his errand, candies.

During Junior high, I had to peddle my bike to school. School was far, far away from my home. My mom was mean, she got me a very big old ugly bicycle. I had to stretch my legs very hard to touch the paddles, and I had to use a lot of energy to get the bike run fast. Miraculously I grew very fast like the bean tree in the Bean Stalk story, and I lost weight and shrank like a balloon does when it is stuck by a needle, too. Still I ate a lot. Sometimes my mom gave me money for lunch and snacks. I used most of it to buy food and ate it soon after I arrived at school. I had nothing to eat for lunch and kept an empty stomach for the whole afternoon. When riding back home after school, I would stop at the food stand and used the left money to get myself a pc. of bread or cake and a big cup of papaya milk. Pastries and papaya milk became my 3nd favorite fruit.

My forth favorite food is eggs. I ate all kinds of eggs; scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, fried eggs, salty eggs, steamed eggs, three-color eggs, thousand-year egg, braised eggs, etc. I could eat five or six eggs for a meal.

When I entered the college, the smell from the bakery after lunch was so luring that I had to buy two or three breads to eat even I already had had lunch. I gained about five kg. the 1st year and my face looked like a fat moon. No boys asked me out. The next year, I just ate bread for lunch. I had to dump some weight. A round moon is beautiful, but not a fat face.

Eating so many pastries, eggs and fat, I was examined high cholesterol when I was junior in the college. It didn't bother me. You might as well kill me if I had to give up my favorite food. But recently especially these two years, everybody is talking about healthy food, eating healthy, don't touch junk food. I feel like a rebel fighting the whole world. Well, I think I am addicted to junk food and it may not be possible for me to quit.

Anyhow, I started to wonder why I can still survive with junk food. The only explanation is that I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables and I exercise. Except all the junk food, I love fruit, my number one favorite, vegetables and exercise. Somehow they make up a little bit my bad eating habit.

You want to live longer? I think it's more practical to live happily with a smiley face and clearer mind. Fruit, vegetables and exercise is my advice. If I can't convince you, just remember fruit and exercise can never be wrong.

Trini