The Secret Religious History of Thanksgiving

The “first Thanksgiving” is often traced back to Plymouth in 1621, but the history of giving thanks for the harvest runs much, much deeper. 

Most people think of Thanksgiving as an entirely secular holiday – free of both the religious connections held by holidays like Christmas and Easter, and the patriotic ties that come with events like the 4th of July and Veteran’s Day.

It’s just a day for feasting, giving thanks, and spending time with loved ones. Nothing else to see here… right?

Well, not exactly. In fact, Thanksgiving has religious roots that run deep – so deep that they’re easy to miss at first glance.

This is the story of how the pagans held the original Thanksgiving, how the Christian Church eventually coopted the holiday as its own, and how the symbolic evidence survives to this day.

Here’s everything you didn’t know about the (real) history of Thanksgiving.

Feasting With the Old Gods

Before the rise of Christianity in the western world, the holiday calendar looked a lot different than it does today. Across Europe, the pre-Christian pagans held all manner of seasonal celebrations – marking the coming of spring, for example, as well as the summer and winter solstices.

But some of the biggest festivals occurred around harvest time.

This was a time to give thanks to the gods for a bountiful harvest and to celebrate the success of another growing season.

There were many different types of harvest festivals, but the biggest three were Lammas, Mabon, and Samhain – each honoring different gods and celebrating different parts of the harvest and the changing of the seasons.  

Christians Capitalize on Pagan Festivals

All holidays adapt and evolve as time passes – it’s only natural.

However, pagan holidays have a remarkable track record of (unwillingly) becoming the basis for Christian celebrations. Again and again throughout history, the Christian Church has coopted pagan festivals for its benefit.

From Christmas to Easter, Christians who sought to supplant the pagan faith with their own mastered the technique of incorporating pagan symbols, traditions, and lore into newly-created Christian holidays – thus making it easier to convert more people to the Church.

As you may have suspected, harvest festivals are no different.

The Rise of Harvest Home

As Christianity overtook the pagan faith as the most popular religion in Europe, the celebrations of the harvest were bound to evolve, too.  

In England and Ireland, what emerged was a three-day festival called Harvest Home that featured a great feast to mark the last of the grain getting safely stored for the winter.

This modified tradition incorporated elements of pagan customs, but also had some heavily Christian influences (the festival began with a special church service, for example).  

It was this Christianized harvest festival that provided the basis for the American holiday of Thanksgiving.

And yet, there is another twist to the story.

Puritans Shun Pagan Roots

Here’s the thing: the Puritans – the first English settlers in North America – weren’t big on celebrating Harvest Home.   

In fact, they rejected this harvest festival entirely (as well as other holidays like Christmas and Easter) due to their pagan roots.

The Puritans recognized that pagan celebrations had been merged with Christian beliefs with the goal of converting people to the faith, and thus they weren’t comfortable participating.

But there were good reasons to celebrate the harvest. Starvation was a real threat for early European settlers in North America, and especially in New England, where the winter climate was fierce and unforgiving.

The First Thanksgiving

The “first Thanksgiving” is widely traced back to Plymouth in 1621, when members of the Wampanoag tribe gathered with the Pilgrims for a harvest feast (which perhaps saved the newcomers from starvation). 

We put that in quotes because this certainly wasn’t the first harvest festival ever recorded, nor the first to take place in North America.

Further, many don’t view the first Thanksgiving as an event worth celebrating at all. For people of Native American ancestry, this event marks the beginning of centuries of turmoil, death, and destruction of their lands at the hands of white settlers.  

Native American Harvest Festivals

Like the pagans of Europe, for thousands of years, Native American tribes had been holding harvest celebrations to thank their gods and spirits for the bounty of the season.

Although harvest deities varied from tribe to tribe, many Native American cultures paid homage to “creator gods” that were believed to have helped the Great Spirit complete the earth in its physical form. One such creator god was the Earth Mother, who some tribes believed was the one to bring corn – a harvest staple – to the Native peoples. 

One major celebration occurred around the Harvest Moon in September, when tribes would gather for a harvest feast and give thanks to the crops that brought life to the community. Festivities would often involve dancing, drumming circles, and different types of games.

Tradition Spreads Far and Wide

European settlers in North America continued this ancient tradition of giving thanks, creating their own harvest holidays to celebrate the season’s bounty (though any praise in their versions would go to the Christian God).

Different regions and religious denominations across the U.S. would develop unique versions of this seasonal celebration. However, it wasn’t until the late 19th century that the country rallied around a unified national holiday that was officially named “Thanksgiving.”

But even in this modern version of the ancient harvest celebration – many centuries removed from its pre-Christian roots – we can still see prominent symbols from other religions.

Thanksgiving Religious Symbolism

The Cornucopia is also referred to as the “horn of plenty.”

1) Cornucopia

Among the images closely associated with Thanksgiving is the Cornucopia – a horn-shaped basket that is typically depicted overflowing with foods of the fall harvest like squash, corn, and apples.

Far from a Thanksgiving creation, the Cornucopia (also referred to as the “horn of plenty”) actually traces its roots back to ancient Greek mythology.

According to myth, the she-goat Amalthea nursed a baby Zeus in a cave on the island of Crete. One day, Zeus accidentally broke off her horn. As a sign of gratitude, Zeus made sure the horn was always full of whatever goods the owner desired.

The Cornucopia later became a sacred symbol of the harvest in Celtic pagan tradition.

And today, this symbol of plenty lives on as part of the Thanksgiving holiday – in artwork, decorations, and centerpieces.

2) Turkey

It would be hard to find a more ubiquitous symbol of modern Thanksgiving than the turkey, which studies show is eaten by 90% of American households on Thanksgiving. 

But did you know its origin at the Thanksgiving dinner table likely stems from Native American tradition?

Many tribes view the turkey as a symbol of fertility and abundance. Turkey is a totem animal, and turkey feathers also carry special importance and are used in certain Native American rituals. 

Although experts disagree on whether the “first Thanksgiving” included turkey, that this large bird has become so prominently featured at Thanksgiving tables is no accident.

3) Football

Football on Thanksgiving is also a deeply rooted tradition.

And some experts suggest there’s an ancient explanation for that. 

In addition to large feasts, Celtic pagan harvest festivals often featured some sort of sporting event or athletic competition. 

One such festival was the Irish celebration of Lughnasadh, during which people would compete in events like wrestling and archery. 

In that sense, football on Thanksgiving is the continuation of a centuries-old harvest festival tradition. 

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Dr. Fulcher Jr started writing and publishing books in 1973. Since then, he has written many books on various religious topics. Listed in this post are several books that Dr. Fulcher has written over the years that have now been updated with even more information, and some updated to hard cover books and a brand-new addition. All of these books can be found on Amazon.

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All of these can be found on AMAZON by searching the book title or by Dr. E C Fulcher Jr.

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When most people think about Christmas, they think gifts, lights, and festivities. When true Christians think about Christmas, they think of paganism, going against God’s Word, and the entire chapter of Jeramiah 10.

With Christmas being such a popular holiday, so much so that people who don’t even believe in Jesus celebrate it, it’s hard for people to understand when they learn that Truth Houses don’t indulge.

Now, it’s not difficult to see that Truth House warriors come from many different walks of life. Some of which never celebrated Christmas in their life. You have some who celebrated Christmas at a young age but stopped before adulthood to be aligned with God’s Word. Then, there are others who were over 18 and had participated in the pagan ritual their entire life, who eventually learned the truth and repented.

Making a stand against Christmas and committing to staying away from the heathen holiday isn’t always easy. Some have to make a stand against Christmas at their job, school, with their family, and even at the dang grocery store.

While it’s true that everyone has their own experience when it comes to the celebration of Christmas and how they approach it, for those that attend Truth House Ministries, it’s so much more than that. It’s a revelation of Truth that must be acted upon.

Truth House, Lydia Dominguez, has never celebrated Christmas in anyway. Being made aware of the truth as an adolescent gave Dominguez a spiritual advantage over her peers but it didn’t make her exempt from persecution for standing on the truth. Dominguez attended private school and was homeschooled until the 5^th grade, then she entered public school. She had already got a taste of making a stand against pagan holidays when she attended private school—debating other students, but it elevated once she began public school.

“When I started public school in the 5th grade, I was alone without any siblings. That in itself was a culture shock. I was very timid and shy at first knowing I did not have anyone else in the school to back me up or lean on,” Dominguez explained. “It was always a struggle to get students and faculty to understand that I would not participate in school activities centered around Christmas. Even though my parents wrote notes every year letting the school know I would not be participating in Christmas activities, I still often had to explain to the teachers why I was not going to do an assignment.”

Growing up in Truth House and never celebrating Christmas was a little easier for Kim Shiner, since she had attended public school her entire life.

“I kind of had it easy being the middle child. My parents set the school straight when me and my sisters attended. My dad told all our teachers and faculty that his kids will not be participating in any religious holiday activities,” Shiner said. “Whenever the class had a party of some sort or activities dealing with the heathen holidays, my mom would always pick us up early from school.”

Both Dominguez and Shiner had their separate experiences and challenges when they choose to stand on Jesus’ side while in school, but for Dominguez, she says she went numb to facing her peers and faculty when displaying her unwavering commitment to God’s word. Shockingly, teachers gave her a harder time about her stand on Christmas than her school members did.

“The teachers were the worst because the assignments they would hand out around that time would have something to do with the lies of the story of Santa Clause, but they would try to pass it off as not being Christmas related.  This happened a lot. Often, they tried to convince me that it was not about Christmas, and I could just ignore the references,” Dominguez said. “That never went very far with me, as I was adamant.”

Since Shiner was the middle child, she says that not celebrating Christmas wasn’t much of battle, considering she had siblings and other church members, who stood with her.

When Christmas festivities were commencing at school, Dominguez would go into a separate room or the library, and Shiner was picked by one of her parents.

Now, truth-seeker, Tyler Tillman, who attended public school is entire life says he didn’t experience any scrutiny for not celebrating Christmas.

“I don’t think they even cared until the holiday arrived,” Tillman said.

The only time students or staff asked him why he didn’t celebrate Christmas was when the holiday came around, but even then, it wasn’t unbearable for Tillman.

“My entire school career was neither hindered nor furthered by not celebrating Christmas,” he explained.

Like Dominguez, Naomi Tamez says her teachers made it harder for to practice her religious beliefs than the students.

“When I was younger, public school was difficult because teachers made it harder for me to believe what I believed,” Tamez said. “The kids weren’t mean, just curious.”

Since Tamez grew up in Truth House and never celebrated Christmas, she didn’t have an alternate lifestyle to compare hers to, so going to school with such different religious beliefs didn’t make a difference.

“I didn’t know any difference because I had always known the truth about the holiday. I knew people knew I was different, even though I didn’t feel that different. I had no idea, and it was not a big deal to me,” Tamez said.

Of course, Tamez’s curious peers and teachers would ask questions about her stand against Christmas, and she would tell them the truth.

“I gave them my truth and I would always be very giving of information. I never tried to argue or make them believe. This is my life, not just choosing to be different. This is genuinely me. I would just give them the truth. Students were more receptive to the truth unlike the staff that were closed off and not interested in what I had to say,” she added.

God-lover Dave Macon didn’t grow up in Truth House and didn’t meet Pastor Dr. E.C Fulcher Jr. until he was an adult, but he knew Christmas was a lie since a child.

Coming from a German family, Macon says Christmas is a major celebration in that culture.

“In Germany, Christmas is huge. The German immigrants are the reason that the tree decorations were brought over to the new world,” Macon said.

Though Macon wasn’t taught the truth as a child, he often wondered what trees had to do with Jesus being that Jesus lived in the desert.

“I wondered what rabbits had to do with Jesus’ resurrection,” he added.

Macon had attended public school his entire life and seen Jewish children make a stand against Christmas, so it wasn’t a shock when Macon saw a student not participating in Christmas festivities in middle school.

“I understood, I just thought it was unusual,” Macon said.

According to Macon, he was always in trouble with his parents, so he read a lot and studied mythologies from around the world.   

“I pieced together how the modern incarnation of Christmas comes from Norse Mythos. Santa Claus is Thor,” he confirmed.

Although he made his parents aware of the falsities about Christmas, they discounted his beliefs which only alienated him a little bit more.

“I looked into other religions that didn’t celebrate Christmas, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Macon said.

Macon had no idea that the student he knew in middle school, who stood against Christmas and the research he had done of Christmas would all collide when he began attending Truth House Ministries Church.

Once there, he noticed Chris Moffet, the same middle schooler he knew in band class, who wouldn’t celebrate Christmas years prior.

Moffet, who never celebrated Christmas, says he didn’t remember Macon but his unwavering dedication to the word would be something that solidified Macon’s belief in the predestination of his own life. 

From what Moffet remembers, he didn’t have any issues with students regarding his religious beliefs—it was more the faculty that weren’t accepting.

“Instead of them being understanding of my religious beliefs and working around it, they would just lower my grade by one letter because I would not participate in their holiday activities,” Moffet said.

It seems like children are more accepting and open to understanding the Truth about Christmas than adults. As Truth Houses have mentioned above, it wasn’t their peers who gave them difficulties in school. It was the grown adults—who you’d think would have a more logical, mature way of thinking.

It’s sad that adults are content with believing a lie and teaching it to children, who they’re supposed to be raising to be stand-up, truthful men and women. Sad!

As stated previously, everyone approaches the Christmas holiday differently, the fact remains that God is about truth and Truth Houses stand on God’s side—staying far away from that which doesn’t please Him.

The Truth About Christmas – Kindle edition by Fulcher Jr, Dr E C. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

-Charlene Mayo

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       It seems in today’s world, everyone not only desires to be a victim but works hard at being one.

Let’s talk about victims. A victim, as the dictionary would define, is a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. A victim is also a person who is tricked, duped, and/or a living creature killed as a religious sacrifice.

Those three definitions cover a lot of territory. A person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident or other events pretty much includes us all.  We may not have been killed as a result of a crime or accident, but in the end, we will all be killed by something called life.  We were all born to die.  Shake it off and get real.  No one is getting out of this life alive.  (Well, almost no one.)  Therefore, the vast majority of us are victims of life. 

Don’t think so?  Just look at the definition—a person who is tricked or duped.  You don’t think you’ve been duped by life?  Think again!

 Henry David Thoreau nailed it in WALDEN when he said:“The mass of men leads lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats,” Thoreau said. “A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” 

Look at the people around you.  To a man or woman, they are all leading shallow, inauthentic lives dominated by competition for wealth, success, or the struggle of survival.  They live their lives to be seen of others, to be judged by which car they drive or where they live or which school they attended.  Their success or failure is not based on anything they have done, but on how others have perceived what they have done. 

Dr. E.C. Fulcher Jr. has a marvelous teaching on just this point.  It’s called “IS THAT ALL THERE IS?” 

To paraphrase what Fulcher mentioned:  It’s Monday, 5AM.  You get up, get dressed and go to work.  You do your job; you handle the problems that come up; and some you delay for a future time.  Then, quitting time comes around.  With a sigh of relief, you punch out (or whatever you do) and drive home.  At home, you make dinner, settle back to relax and watch 911 and 911-Lone Star. Then, you go to bed because on Tuesday, the alarm rings at 5AM and you get up to go work. 

At work, the problems that you didn’t take care of on Monday, quickly rear their heads and you must handle them before you can get to Tuesday’s problems.  But you hunker down and continue with your work.  The boss calls you in and hands you a special task.  Now, you have even more to do than you normally would, but you don’t complain to him. (You might complain to some of your fellow workers, but you remember that in your last job, anything you say can make it back to your boss and cause you no end of troubles.)  So, you hunker down and try to get everything done, only you can’t in the time allowed; so, you put in a little overtime. Finally, you get to go home.  It’s late, so you pick up something from a fast-food place and make it back just in time to catch Superman and Loison the TV.  After the show, you clean up a little around the apartment or house, and eventually go to bed because now, it’s Wednesday.

The alarm rings a 5AM.  You get up, have breakfast and go to work.  You are feeling a little better because it’s Wednesday, hump day—only two more working days until the weekend.  So, you go through the motions and get your work done.  You handle the problems and listen to your other co-workers’ complaints around the water cooler or in the break room.  Finally, quitting time comes around and you go home.  You cook dinner, clean up and sit down to watch Riverdale and Nancy Drew.  Then, you go to bed because on Thursday, the clock rings you awake at 5AM for you to get up and go to work. 

You do your job, you take your breaks, and you start making plans in the back of your mind for the weekend.  Quitting time rolls around and you head home to dinner and the new Walker and Legaciesbefore going to bed.  Your head hits the pillow and before you know it, the alarm rings and it’s 5AM and time to go to work.  Only it’s Friday, the last day of the week, just 8-hours away from a couple of days of freedom.  You do your job, and the day drags with anticipation. Quitting time does not get there fast enough and when it does, you rush out to the parking lot and drive home because now, you have a choice. The first real choice of the week:  you can either go home and watch the new Hawaii Five-0or you can head out to the Tavern, shoot a couple of game of pool and drown your frustrations from the week in a couple or three Pabst Blue Ribbons. 

So, you head out to the bar and too many Pabst Blue Ribbons later, you have missed Hawaii Five-0, lost a couple of dollars playing Eight-Ball but you head home feeling somehow relieved.  Saturday morning, you wake up with a slight hang over and start your weekend tasks: clean the home or mow the lawn or fix the thing-a-ma-jig that broke on Tuesday that you didn’t have time to get to because of your work. 

Then comes Saturday night and you have another choice: you can either go out or maybe catch a baseball/basketball/hockey game on the T.V.  You decide to stay in and watch a Cubs Game off the Super Station.  After the game, you go to bed and wake up on Sunday to putz around the house/apartment and watch T.V because you know that tomorrow is Monday and at 5AM the alarm will ring. Is this all there is? 

Unless you possess wisdom, as Thoreau called it, yes, that is all there is.  You are a victim of life. A life, that we’re supposed to be passing through to ultimately get into the realm of eternal life to be in the presence of the ultimate victim, who transcended into a survivor: Jesus Christ.

Now, let’s talk about survivors. A survivor is a person who survives, especially a person remaining alive after an event in which others have died. It also means, the remainder of a group of people or things, a person who copes well with difficulties in their life—joint tenant who has the right to the whole estate on the other’s death.

Jesus Christ was the ultimate sacrifice, a victim, remember—a victim, as the dictionary would define, is a person harmed, injured, or killed because of a crime, accident, or other event or action; as well as a person who is tricked, duped, and/or a living creature killed as a religious sacrifice—and has become the first fruits of all survivors with His resurrection.  Jesus was both a victim and a survivor, which means that we can also be if He is in us.  We are not just joint tenants but we are also joint heirs to the kingdom. Romans 8:17 says, “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” Remember, a survivor means joint tenant who has the right to the whole estate on the other’s death; as well as a person who survives, especially a person remaining alive after an event in which others have died. It also means, the remainder of a group of people or things, a person who copes well with difficulties in their life.

Job 28:28 says, “And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

Life imbues you with a negative mentality, so much so, that people have made millions writing books on how to have a positive attitude.  If the positive attitude were the norm, no one would be writing about it.  Most people do things, say things to incur the empathy of others.  You know the old saying: “Misery loves company.”  That is so true.  There is the need to perceive the harm as undeserved, unjust and immoral, an act that could not be prevented by the victim. 

There is the great scene in the movie UNFORGIVEN when Eastwood’s character had brought Hackman’s character down and Hackman calls out, “I don’t deserve this.  I’m building a house.”  It’s a classic victim response to a perceived undeserved and unjust act.  How many people out there do you know who think that their lives are beyond their control?  Or that they deserve sympathy because of all the crap that rains down on them?  Or go out of their way to have their “victimhood” recognized and affirmed by others?

But how many of us deserve the unjust life described by Dr. Fulcher in his: “IS THIS ALL THERE IS?”sermon or by Thoreau in WALDEN.  The answer is in the Bible:  We have all fallen short: Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”and Romans 3:10 says “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:”With the fall of Adam, we all passed into the realm of the underserving. Which brings me to an interesting observation.

Did you know that the word “victim” and all its variations does not appear even once in the Bible?

Neither does the word “survivor”.

Which got me to thinking: what’s the difference between a victim and a survivor?  Nothing.  You can’t be a survivor without first being a victim.  There are two sides of the same coin.  First, you are the victim.  Then you learn to accept it and grow past it.  You use it as a learning experience. You don’t wallow in it. 

Mostly everyone wallows in life.  They accept their “victimhood” and keep repeating the same thing day after day, almost without realizing it.  After all, it is life, is it not?  It’s what you are supposed to do.  They have the “life owes me” attitude and they keep waiting to get paid back.  Really? Like 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

Truth seeker, Seretta Williamson has also been tricked by life—a victim, who blossomed into a God-loving survivor.

Starting from childhood, Williamson had to deal with bullies and family members physically violating her. Not letting that consume her, she fought for herself and learned to accept things that could not be changed. Despite learning early to be a survivor, it still didn’t holt her from falling into life’s obstacles.

Drugs, prostitution, stripping, and violence resulting in a bullet to the jaw are all included in the obstacles mentioned above.

However, Williamson survived it and “just keeps living.”

“I’ve learned from my chapters, and I’ve accepted it. I don’t keep re-reading my chapters over and over. I refuse to be stuck in pain. I’m stronger than that,” she continued. “I keep growing! I’m a strong tree that keeps growing! Nothing stops me. From bullying to bullets, nothing, period.”

Job, who revered God, was extremely tortured by satan, with God’s permission. Job lost everything, after having it all. And yet, he never wallowed in that negative place and served God more than before. As Job 1:22 says “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.”

Life doesn’t owe you squat.  Life is what you make it, not what it gives you.  But to make it something, you have to have wisdom.  You must have the wisdom to know what life really is.  Look at that great Psalm 23:4, which says “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”  Our lives end with death. 

Therefore, life is nothing more than that valley between birth and death that we have to walk through.  There are numerous promises that this valley will be turned in to a garden, as long as we have God before us. Therein lies the key to both being a survivor and having wisdom.  You need God before you. 

Isaiah 45:22 says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.”

No longer victims, but survivors by the grace of God!

Written and edited by Charlene Mayo and Tanya Tillman

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My name is Eric Ruark and this is the story of my journey how I learned of Dr. Atkins and where it led me. I want to extend a huge Thank You to Dr. E C Fulcher Jr for allowing me to share my story on his site regarding Health and Wellness. There are so many different options out there and many ways that help people every day, this is just my story of what helped me then, and when I am focused, continues to help me currently.

At 72 (almost 73) years old, I can actually say that I have had a weight problem almost all my life.  And I have proof.  Many years ago, I discovered an unlabeled tin with a reel with an 8mm film inside.  Since I happened to own an 8mm projector (we are talking about sometime in the early 1970s), I fed the reel into the projector and discovered that it had been taken by my father in 1949.  It was easy to date.  It was a film of ME coming home from the hospital for the first time. 

It was early March.  I had been “from my mother’s womb untimely ripped” at around 8 am on a Friday in late February.  The film showed me being passed around for all the relatives to handle and cuddle.  I look like a normal baby.  Then the film cuts to someone feeding me.  AND I’M FAT.  Fatface, still too young to feed me and obviously not wanting the food that was being forced into my mouth.  Every spoonful that went in, most of it was spit out and rolled down my chin.  Then there was the obligatory shot of the naked baby laying on the changing table.  At that time, I am so fat that I cannot pick my fat jowls up off the table.  I’m surprised I didn’t die in my crib for being too fat to roll over.

The problem is that I have never thought of myself as FAT.  When I look in the mirror, I do not see a fat person.  I see ME.  It’s hard to explain, but I have been fan/thin all my life.  Although I have been fat, I don’t remember myself as fat.  I remember seeing a picture of myself sitting in my grandmother’s black cherry tree and I’m not fat.  There was another photo of me wearing my Davy Crockett coonskin cap (courtesy of Walt Disney ca. 1956) and I’m not fat.  Yet, there is also a photo of me in the Meteorological Club as a freshman at Prep School (1962) and I am the big-bellied little kid on the left side of the line.  Also, there is the memory of being singled out by the football coach in grade school (along with Hemmy and Phil) as being the “cannon fodder” for the practices because the three of us were fat.  I distinctly remember being 136-pounds in the sixth grade (1960).  It was something about the sixes that stood out in my mind. 

Fat/thin has never been important to me because there is a ME that I see when I look into a mirror that is “perfect”.   If I gain or lose weight, I do not notice it.  I notice it only in the way my clothes fit (or don’t) or the way that people treat me.  I have been picked on when fat.  I have been bullied when I was fat.  I had the worst first senior prom imaginable, and I was thin.  (I attended two, but that story doesn’t belong here.) My weight always seemed to be other people’s problems, not mine.

The person who had the most problem with my weight was my mother, a realization that has led me to consider myself an abused child.  After all, she was the one who “made” me fat to begin with as a means of control.  (I told you this was a personal odyssey.) 

Around 1965, I hit 220-pounds.  At that time, my mother was bemoaning my weight to her BFF, Bibbi, who was married to a prominent New York Attorney.  Bibbi told my mother about a doctor in NYC that was having remarkable success in helping people lose weight – a man named Dr. Robert Atkins.  So, my mother got me an appointment.  In retrospect, I think that this was a put-up or shut-up moment.  Bibbi called Mom’s bluff.  If he has a weight problem, then do something about it, kind of thing.  (Bibbi’s family had that kind of effect on my mother’s family.  It caused the death of my grandfather, but my mother and grandmother never held Bibbi’s family accountable.)

Now, my going to see Dr. Atkins was not a simple thing.  I was in a New England boarding school with rules and regulations out the wahzoo.  These were old school rules, from our 6:35 am rising bell to only being allowed off the school property only three times a month.  So, for me to go to Dr. Atkins required a whole bevy of hoops to jump through.  Also, I was in school in Connecticut and Dr. Atkins was in New York City.

Well, all the i’s were dotted, and my father drove me down to NYC to see the doctor.  And with that first appointment began my education about foods, which ones our bodies need, and which ones are bad for us.  Dr. Atkins was very forthcoming about his theories and the research he and his fellow doctors were doing.  And with that began a sustained program that literally took me out of the school dining hall and placed me in the infirmary kitchen cooking my food separate from the rest of the school body.  There were some meals I could eat with my classmates, like bacon and eggs in the morning.  But on those mornings when the school was serving pancakes or French toast, I was over in the infirmary cooking my Canadian bacon and frying my eggs.  (There is a photo in my prep school yearbook of me cooking some lamb chops in the infirmary.)

With the weight loss, several things changed.  I became more active.  As a fat kid, I managed the school’s sports teams.  As someone losing weight, I began to play them, specifically ice hockey and lacrosse.  When I graduated and headed to college, I took up rowing and ended up on the Varsity-8.  I even rowed against the East Germans in the Cherry Blossom Regatta in Washington, D.C.   I had a 48-inch chest and a 19-inch waist.  (Apparently, my kidneys are higher in my body cavity than in most people.)  But, again, looking in the mirror, I didn’t see a difference in who I was.

I started to gain weight again, after college when my first wife got pregnant.  I gained weight right along with her.  I stopped following the Atkins regimen and just bean eating and drinking whatever I wanted.  With marriage and three kids, I got fat again.  The divorce didn’t help matters.  After my divorce, I tried Atkins again, but it wasn’t working.  I contacted Dr. Atkins again, and he immediately saw me.  As I got older, my metabolism was changing, and he tried to get me back into the sink of things.  But I lost interest.  I had nothing and no one to succeed for including myself.  Since I never saw a difference, I figured, why bother.  And then came 1989.

In 1989 I probably weighed in the vicinity of 300-pounds, and my gallbladder went south and I developed gall stones.  Only, my gall stones were not the usual “stones” but were the size of coffee grounds and they plugged the channel that allowed my pancreas to release digestive acids into my intestines.  The end result was that my pancreas blew up like a balloon and ruptured spilling the digestive acids into my body.  When that happens, you basically get cut in half by your own body from the inside out.  If the doctors catch it early enough, they put you in a medically induced coma and tie you down to the hospital bed to allow the acids to eat their way out of your body without destroying any major organs and drain into a rubber sheet.

In most cases, it’s a death sentence, but mine was unique in that the acids did not “turn on” and were caught by the caul that surrounds the pancreas.  I had to have several painful procedures to have the caul drained.  And in order to keep the pancreas from producing digestive juices, my entire digestive system had to be turned off.  For over 40-days, I was not allowed to eat or drink.  I had a tube running down my nose into my stomach in order to suck up any fluids that got down my throat.  To make a long story short, I miraculously healed.  My doctor said that if I hadn’t been fat, I would be dead.  I lost close to half my body weight and by the time I got out of the hospital (off and on I spent close to 4-months flat on my back) I was thin.

Because both my gallbladder (which had been removed) and because my pancreas had been damaged, my diet was severely limited.  But the strange thing was that my limited diet was practically hardcore, Atkins.  So, for three years, I was a good boy.  And, then I got complacent.  I began doing things that I should not have done, eating and drinking things I should have avoided, and I began to gain weight again.

In 2016, I noticed that my waist was 54-inches and I began a concentrated effort to lose weight.  I went back on Atkins and dropped 14-inches. (I don’t own a scale.)  And then once again, I got complacent.  Remember, all this time, whether fat or thin, I only see ME.  I don’t see myself as fat or thin.  My waist got down to 40-inches and I got complacent again and started not watching what I was eating.  I gained 8-inches on my waist.

Then came January 2021 when my Pastor said that I should think about getting back into acting.  The next day, I received a promotion for headshots out of the blue.  It was a scam, but one that I knew I could take advantage of.  So, I did.  When I saw the headshots, I did not like the way I looked.  To me, I looked fat.  So, I decided to do something about it… again… and went back on the Atkins regimen.  Once more, I am losing weight and inches.  And thanks to my Pastor’s suggestion I have been in a movie that has won two international awards including one from the coveted Cannes Film Festival.

I am also more concerned about my health than I ever was.  I recently changed my insurance policy and because of that, I had to get a whole battery of tests.  My blood pressure is slightly elevated and because it was slightly elevated, it brought my cholesterol into question.  So, now I am on blood pressure medication and a statin for my cholesterol.  It is my hope that by continuing on Atkins, I will be able to stop all medications since, back in the day, Dr. Atkins got my diabetic grandmother off all her meds and controlled her blood pressure and insulin production using diet only.  I know what to do.  I just have to decide to do it.

Written By Eric B. Ruark

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