When I was registering for this fall's classes last spring, I was mainly stressing about the difficulty and time demands of the lab classes I'm taking, so I added in a 2-credit Wellness and Physical Fitness class to round out my schedule. This seemingly blow-off decision has turned out to be a highly fortuitous one because I am finally, finally getting on track with my fitness and weight loss goals.
As it turns out, school is one of the few things I prioritize appropriately, so making my fitness part of a course requirement actually forces me to pay attention to what I'm doing, to treat workout sessions as assignments I must complete, and to take my reflection essays and progress seriously. Thank goodness!
A guiding philosophy
One of the best components of this class is its balanced and well-rounded approach. I had assumed, like many students, that the class would solely consist of working out in the gym once a week (since that is what most college fitness classes are), and I was feeling a little foolish for spending tuition credit on an essentially extremely overpriced gym membership. It turns out, though, that this class is structured around the ideas laid out in Dr Irwin Schwartz's The Awesome Foursome, a book I highly recommend.
The four components of wellness and fitness are addressed in tandem: sensible eating, cardiovascular exercise, stretching, and weight training. It seems dumb, but prior to reading this book, I didn't realize the connection, for example, between flexibility and toning - the more of your muscles you are able to use, the more effectively you can tone them throughout, and as a consequence, the shapelier you can become. Duh, right? And yet, I've gone almost 30 years without recognizing this relationship.
My class has so far introduced a new component each week and integrated them with the others. It was particularly eye-opening to keep a three-day food journal and perform a nutritional analysis on my caloric intake (I'll write much more about that in a separate entry). I'm glad that both the professor and this book don't embrace dieting or any gimmicky weight-loss system (I can't count the amount of fitness-minded people who have blathered on about carbs, and even this summer, I was seriously considering the Dukan Diet to try to drop weight quickly). Instead, the emphasis is on developing a balanced, sensible eating lifestyle, which has been one of my long-term goals around here for a while.
And wow, I love exercise...?
In addition to eating well and living mindfully, the major work in this pursuit is exercise, whose benefits I have long known and yet long avoided. Maybe it's just showing up at the gym in workout clothes, or having the requirement that I can't skip class and don't want to lie on my workout journals. Whatever accountability I needed, I finally have it, and I'm feeling it in my own motivation.
For example, no one will ever know about my deal with myself to take the stairs all the time, even if my class is on the sixth floor or I'm really tired and want to just get on the ferry to go home. But I know, and I've stopped accepting my own excuses. I can finally say, "You spent all that time on a treadmill and you can't walk up 20 or 30 stairs??" and by the time I've finished arguing with myself, it's done.
This week's assignment included developing a workout schedule to fit the aerobic activities, strength/endurance training, and stretching into my daily routine. I will admit: this is a task I've been meaning to do for literally years and came up with so many excuses and contingencies it's absurd. I finally sat down for about twenty minutes, armed with the schedule to a pool and the knowledge of feasibility in using the gym at my school, and I mapped out minimally six times a week that I can work out. Some were blindingly simple: stay for a half hour to 45 min after class to get in an extra workout; others required a bit of planning (go to the afternoon swimming session so I have the evening free for homework and errands). Now that I have my schedule, I need to put it on my calendar and treat it like class or a social commitment I don't want to miss - for whatever reason, if something makes it to my calendar, I'm 95% more likely to do it than if I just "mean to."
My personal challenge will be in maintaining the discipline to actually get to the pool and swim at all my scheduled times, since obviously it would be easier to nap on my couch or knit and watch TV on the internet during that same time. All my distractions and procrastinatory tasks will still be there after swimming, and I have to remember these workouts are something I'm doing for myself because I like myself and I want to be fitter.
Most of all, positivity
The most helpful thing about this class and about this particular approach to weight loss and fitness has been positivity, which I believe stems from a gradual introduction of lifestyle changes and brutal honesty with myself. In the past, I've been quickly discouraged by trying to take on too many changes at once, then abandoning them all as soon as I get stressed out. This time, I can accept that I won't get it all right and I'm bound to slip up and make mistakes, but at least for this whole semester, I am committed to sticking with it, to continuing to show up and talk about what progress I've made and what more I'm attempting.
I am able to tell myself, in almost all cases, "Hey, it's okay. You're working on it," and finally, it's the truth.
Attaining lifelong sensible eating habits and physical fitness is not something that happens overnight or in two weeks if I just start some crash diet and exercise. Yes, I want to drop a significant amount of weight, and yes, it would be terrific if it would happen quickly. But the real reward would be developing the habits of going to the gym, maintaining a schedule that includes exercise and time to take care of my body, and learning how to adjust my eating habits to a healthy but manageable "non-diet" that fits in my real life. Becoming accustomed to muscle soreness and fatigue, as a reminder of the hard work I did at the gym that day, is a real treat and something I've desperately missed since my years as an athlete.
I finally have regained the faith that slowly, eventually, and gently, I will transform myself into the fitter, healthier person I've missed so dearly, and by doing it carefully and kindly, it will become a lasting lifestyle change. I can't even begin to describe the way I am filled with happiness and enthusiasm about it.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The mind/body connection, depression, and a lengthy discussion of gastrointestinal health
Scintillating title, no? I have a lot to talk about, since I've had a lot of time to think, on account of being sick for what feels like the hundredth time this year, with another sinus infection and bronchitis (we'll talk more about that in a bit).
My Kitchen: A picture of depression
I'm spending a lot of this weekend doing massive spring cleaning. It's been slow going, both because I am sick and because I have a really lot of cleaning to do.
Looking around my apartment, I could see piles of unattended laundry, papers I've been too overwhelmed to sort, and most prominently, a disaster area of a kitchen. To put it plainly, it had become a repository for recycling and garbage. When I get very deeply depressed or consumed with anxiety, I tend not to take out the recycling, for God knows what reason, and it's... a lot right now. (Fortunately it is all bagged up and ready to bring to the recycling room in the morning, when I am not in a problematically revealing nightgown.)
The thing I realized, though, is that this kitchen (and my apartment) is literally a visualization of a depressed mind at work. When I first moved into this apartment, I was so optimistic about cooking my own meals again, chopping vegetables and using my nice pots and pans, taking pleasure in the rituals of preparing food. For the first few weeks I lived here, I made tea in the morning and sipped it out of teacups with saucers, then delighted in putting them in the dishwasher (I've never had a dishwasher in an apartment before). I cooked breakfasts, prepared lunches, and always took great care to wipe the counters and sink clean before going to bed. I have absolutely no idea when or how my life got so out of control and I lost that, but I suspect it was during the first big depression I had in October/November, which feels like a thick fog in my memory now.
A few times while cleaning the kitchen, I had the thought that I hated spending time in there. I wondered if it was because the window is jammed shut by a repair that was done to the windowsill (have been meaning to call maintenance since moving in) or that the last time I used my oven it set off the carbon monoxide detector (ditto on calling maintenance), or if it was some feng shui issue with the narrowness of the space in proportion to the ceiling height or what have you. But really, I don't think it was any of these things (at least not entirely). I didn't like experiencing a physical space where I'd let myself down, abandoned my good intentions and replaced home-cooked meals with takeout and pizza boxes. I didn't like standing around in the evidence of my mind giving up and checking out.
So tomorrow's first item on my to do list is to finish cleaning my kitchen, this time including the hands-and-knees floor scrubbing, bleaching every surface variety of cleaning. I want to get it back to the pristine, well-organized, and charming space I first set up, and I want to use it the way I did in the first month or so I lived here, as my nice adult sanctuary that let me feel in control of my life each morning and evening.
Anxiety and sickness... and am I a hostile person?
I watched another great episode of Scientific American Frontiers called Worried Sick, where Alan Alda hosts a fascinating exploration of the impact of stress, including emotional and social anxiety, on wellness.
It was startling to hear researchers confirm and explain exactly what I've known all along: the stress response halts other biological functions, including fighting infection and healing. Literally, the more stressed out you are, the less healthy you will be. It is no coincidence whatsoever that when I become utterly stressed out with exams or personal stuff, I get a terrible cold or digestive malady. While I should be a reasonably healthy person, I'm physically unable to fight off cold germs, and where my body should be able to stop things at a mild sinus infection, I more typically get terrible bronchitis and lately, borderline or full-blown pneumonia. That ain't right, and it's all me, neglecting my health, pushing my body too hard, and stressing out the whole time so it is unable to function the way it's supposed to.
The program also discussed the role personality, especially one's level of hostility, plays in the extent to which stress is experienced. I would more or less consider myself a kind, warm person, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that yeah, I can be incredibly hostile. When I am in the midst of a funk, usually brought on by some trivial emotional thing and compounded by stress from school, I become intensely misanthropic, with a short temper and feeling constantly annoyed. I try not to lash out too much at people in my daily life because obviously it's not their fault that I'm angry with a friend, but bottling it up and seething still has the same internal effect, if not worse because I'm not learning to express myself in a healthy way.
I realized that I am prone to fits of rage at people, provoked or not, if I think about them while I am in the wrong mood. When I'm not stressed out or depressed, I'm mostly fine with everyone in my life, or if I'm not, it's with a distant and fleeting sort of disinterest, as if there were a bad smell on an otherwise lovely day. When I'm down, though, everything a person has said or done is subject to mulling over and becoming a source of intense annoyance or fury. I go from basically not caring to absolute, all-consuming anger. Because I know my feelings toward people can be so mercurial, I rarely do anything active to confront others for hurtful things they've said or done, but instead decide that I am completely done with them and want no further contact ever. It's alarming how quickly and effortlessly I've cut people out of my life, and it's usually so sudden and seemingly unprovoked that most people don't notice anyway. I really don't like this about myself, and I need to figure out a more mature, healthy way to address conflict that doesn't result in the psychological equivalent of "F you, get out of my life."
Further, this tendency toward incredible and sudden anger and abandonment wrecks havoc on my system. A friend who said something carelessly unkind in February has no idea that in March I was near tears with how overwhelmingly furious I became at her for it. My stomach twisted in knots, my sleep got all messed up, and within a few days, I was in bed sick with one of a series of awful cold/flu things that I contracted this winter. Meanwhile, I never said anything to her, didn't respond to her notes that she hadn't heard from me in a while, and I wrote her out of my life. That's cruel to her and to me, and my body punished me like hell for all the stress I had over it.
Colon health and the immune response
Now, for the lengthy discussion of gastrointestinal health, which I will attempt to keep as clinical, if not entirely nonspecific, as possible. Fair warning, if you're not looking for discussions of colons and the things they do, I'd suggest skipping ahead to the next section.
I have more or less been diagnosed with colitis, which is a tricky diagnosis because it describes a number of multi-symptomatic digestive issues. I say more or less because I was hospitalized in 2006 for a massive intestinal infection, which at the time was described as colitis in the sense that my large intestine was terribly swollen and there was... blood... coming out of places it wasn't supposed to (an excruciating pain I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy). After a few nights in the hospital on IV antibiotics and a liquid diet, the infection cleared up and I was released, but I had to reintroduce foods timidly, finding that things that had never upset my stomach before suddenly did. When I talked with my doctor later, she said that colitis was most commonly caused by stress, and that while the infection may have been the instigating event, colitis could become a chronic, incredibly painful and frustrating condition. At the time I was in a really ugly, intensely stressful relationship, so her orders to relax and remove stress from my life weren't met until two years later, during which time I had all kinds of discomforts ranging from bloating or gas to full on can't-leave-the-house illness.
I also saw an alarming uptick in the frequency and duration of colds that I got during this time, which was also explained by my doctor as related to the situation with my digestive system. As I reckon everyone has learned from the marketing of probiotic yogurts and diet supplements, a significant amount of the immune system is housed in the intestines and includes the natural flora and fauna. My time in the hospital and the IV antibiotics flushed out everything good in my system, and subsequent episodes of umm, extensive involuntary purging, further assaulted the slowly remerging balance of bacteria and such.
As with many people who experience colitis or colitis-like conditions, I found that digestive sensitivity increased in direct correlation with stress levels, and I could more or less count on my system falling to pieces when I most needed to be at my best. My digestive health in shambles, it's a matter of days before I get some infectious disease that renders me incapable of functioning at all, and I retreat to the health center for orders of fluids, bed rest, and powerful antibiotics... which... you guessed it, further wreck my digestive tract.
Seeing this as a cyclical problem and knowing that the general public isn't going to stop coughing or sneezing on me no matter how much I sanitize my hands or hold my breath, I need to find a way to fix my gastrointestinal situation before it a) becomes truly chronic and b) leaves me with essentially no immune system or ability to fight disease.
I started by taking bacteria supplements about a year ago, which sounds disgusting, but actually makes a good deal of sense when you consider that the problem is all the good bacteria getting killed by antibiotics or flushed out: take a pill full of good bacteria and uhh, repopulate one's intestines, right? I also tried to eat yogurt and lots of fruits and vegetables, and for a few months, things were looking alright. Then I had a devastating romantic situation fall to pieces, fell into a lengthy, terrible depression, and predictably my digestive system fell apart again. I didn't really recover by the time I started school in the fall, and moving to a city full of sick people has made everything much worse.
Now that I am once again on a course of antibiotics (two weeks of Biaxin, ugh), my system has responded by bailing on everything, and I mean everything, to the point where I lost three pounds in one morning. I am slowly getting over the sinus infection and bronchitis, but I know that the antibiotics will leave me defenseless and sensitive. So this time I am eating probiotic yogurt and cottage cheese, and once I am off the antibiotics, I'm going to start the bacteria supplements again (that still sounds so gross). I'm going to eat tons of vegetables, drink the proper amount of water, and focus on colon health as a means to prevent sickness.
My goal is that by this time next year, I have little to no symptoms of colitis and I can regain normal digestive functioning. I have no idea if this is a reasonable goal or not because my insurance changed, I had to switch doctors, and the new one won't even talk to me about what I can do until I get a colonoscopy and see a GI specialist (which the insurance doesn't cover). I do intend to get the stupid colonoscopy to rule out cancer or any other conditions, and I will have to see a GI specialist to do so, but I want to try to get the symptoms under control on my own first. Essential to success in this is, of course, managing my stress, since, as we initially established, colitis is a stress-related condition.
And to come completely full circle, to stop stressing my body, I have to stop stressing my mind.
Natural anti-depressants
This past year has taught me two important lessons:
1) that I am emotionally still very immature, with poor coping mechanisms.
2) I really do not have my depression or mood cycling under control at all.
If you asked my mother, she would say that the second is a direct result of the first, which may be true, but I sincerely believe there is an organic component to what's going on in my brain that goes well beyond my rational control. My mom has not dealt with any type of mental illness, so she perceives depressive people as wallowing and those with mood disorders as having no impulse control. I've tried to explain to her that it's not just a decision you make one morning, that you're going to feel sorry for yourself for a while and that whenever you want, you can "snap out of it," as she believes. It feels much more like coming down with the flu, where your brain becomes a foggy and unrecognizably grim version of itself, your body becomes hopelessly exhausted and achey, the things that gave you incredible joy just days before don't even register, and you can't control your thoughts, which become increasingly morbid, angry, distraught, overwhelmed, and in the milder times listless.
I hate myself when I'm depressed, and I can never determine whether depression sets in because something bad or stressful happens in my life, or if I experience life events as terrible because my brain is cycling into depression. When I think about what I would have considered "triggering episodes" in the past, many of them seem utterly inconsequential, but it was the most important thing in the world at the moment. My brain spiraled around itself in endless rumination, and I was mentally shouting at myself to just shut up, quit obsessing, and be happy again. It feels like a fist in my chest, this tight inability to breathe or relax, and as unexpectedly as it comes on, it dissipates, usually a few weeks later. My mood comes around, I smile at something small or notice some bit of beauty, and I start to feel okay about things again. I wouldn't say the thing I smiled about got me out of the depression, so it doesn't entirely make sense to say the first thing that got me down was what caused it either.
What I do know is that while my moods will fluctuate, maybe more rapidly and inexplicably than others', I need them to not get so extreme for such long periods. Being full-on clinically depressed for two months straight is just not okay, and I need some way to pull myself out of it before it effects my health, academics, social life, and so on more than it already has.
My insurance only covers five therapy sessions per year, and I haven't found therapy helpful for treating depression in the past anyway. When I was on Zoloft, my therapy sessions became terse discussions of my sleep/wake cycle, making sure I wasn't suicidal (I would never do that), and then nagging me to talk to the receptionist about my insurance again (she was a terrible psychiatrist, I see in hindsight). I kept trying to talk to her about changes I could make to my diet to stave off the sudden weight gain (10 pounds a month for 6 months) or if maybe melatonin would be better for insomnia than the crazy coma-inducing pills she prescribed, but yeah, nothing doing. I stopped taking Zoloft without weaning myself off properly, and I've been really leery to go for any pharmaceuticals since.
I've tried a combination of St John's wort, gingko, and ginseng in the past, but I've never stuck with it enough to have a lasting long-term effect. I'm not sure if it's because I was taking too many pills at a time or if it just wasn't working, but I want to try an herbal approach again when I am done with this round of antibiotics.
The biggest and most important anti-depressant I need to implement is exercise. I know, and have always known, that exercise plays a powerful role in regulating moods, promoting healthy sleep and digestive functioning, and contributing to overall health and well-being, but in spite of all this, I avoid it like the plague. I am at something of a crossroads where I have to decide if I hate running more than I hate being depressed and having colitis all my life, and I think it's pretty easy to say no, nothing is worse than that fate, even if it's hot and I hate it and I want to cry through it.
One form of exercise that I may not find as odious as I found jogging in the winter is walking on the beach. As it is, I walk around 4-5 miles 4 times a week for my commute to school, but that's evidently not sufficient for either stress reduction or weight loss. I recently discovered that I live pretty close to a huge beach, and though I am going to be very busy taking intensive classes this summer, I want to make time to walk on the beach, preferably at a brisk pace, so I get some sunshine and exercise.
I've also found that I quite enjoy hiking, and I want to start working my way up through day hikes. Tentatively, I can make Sunday my hiking day, which means I must manage my schoolwork and personal life to keep this day available. It's a sticky wicket, but I think it will be a good reward for living my life in balance (that accomplishment alone will have to help all other matters).
Coming soon: Austerity Measures
I've started to chart out what I'm calling my Austerity Measures for the rest of the summer. Motivated equally by the desire to eat healthier and stop pissing money away on garbage food I can't afford, I'm making myself something of an un-diet plan, where I decide on certain foods that I'll eat for regular meals and sort out how to prepare them efficiently and economically.
I will confess that while getting textbooks on Amazon, I also bought a new diet book, but for the first time in my life, I'm going to read the book and think about it before half-assedly launching into the diet. The appeal of this particular diet is that people seem to lose weight on it very quickly, but it avoids the pitfalls of similar diets, particularly in regards to gastrointestinal health. I will give it a thorough read and make a decision if that's what I'm going to do, but in the meantime, I'll be charting out my Austerity Measures.
I'm going to use the end of my antibiotics course as the day when I start my un-diet in earnest. That is to say, I'm not going to buy cookies or cupcakes or junk anymore, and I will not order takeout or pizza no matter what. I'm starting to segue into it, with meals at regular times and lots of water, and over the next 10 days or so (I've lost count) I'd like to ramp up to the full plan.
I know that realistic and thorough planning will be essential to success, and I have to keep going about this with the right attitude: I am not punishing or depriving myself - I am being kind to myself and doing right by my body. I am not beating myself up to try to lose weight - I am eating right and exercising to improve my health and well-being.
I think really good things are about to come.
My Kitchen: A picture of depression
I'm spending a lot of this weekend doing massive spring cleaning. It's been slow going, both because I am sick and because I have a really lot of cleaning to do.
Looking around my apartment, I could see piles of unattended laundry, papers I've been too overwhelmed to sort, and most prominently, a disaster area of a kitchen. To put it plainly, it had become a repository for recycling and garbage. When I get very deeply depressed or consumed with anxiety, I tend not to take out the recycling, for God knows what reason, and it's... a lot right now. (Fortunately it is all bagged up and ready to bring to the recycling room in the morning, when I am not in a problematically revealing nightgown.)
The thing I realized, though, is that this kitchen (and my apartment) is literally a visualization of a depressed mind at work. When I first moved into this apartment, I was so optimistic about cooking my own meals again, chopping vegetables and using my nice pots and pans, taking pleasure in the rituals of preparing food. For the first few weeks I lived here, I made tea in the morning and sipped it out of teacups with saucers, then delighted in putting them in the dishwasher (I've never had a dishwasher in an apartment before). I cooked breakfasts, prepared lunches, and always took great care to wipe the counters and sink clean before going to bed. I have absolutely no idea when or how my life got so out of control and I lost that, but I suspect it was during the first big depression I had in October/November, which feels like a thick fog in my memory now.
A few times while cleaning the kitchen, I had the thought that I hated spending time in there. I wondered if it was because the window is jammed shut by a repair that was done to the windowsill (have been meaning to call maintenance since moving in) or that the last time I used my oven it set off the carbon monoxide detector (ditto on calling maintenance), or if it was some feng shui issue with the narrowness of the space in proportion to the ceiling height or what have you. But really, I don't think it was any of these things (at least not entirely). I didn't like experiencing a physical space where I'd let myself down, abandoned my good intentions and replaced home-cooked meals with takeout and pizza boxes. I didn't like standing around in the evidence of my mind giving up and checking out.
So tomorrow's first item on my to do list is to finish cleaning my kitchen, this time including the hands-and-knees floor scrubbing, bleaching every surface variety of cleaning. I want to get it back to the pristine, well-organized, and charming space I first set up, and I want to use it the way I did in the first month or so I lived here, as my nice adult sanctuary that let me feel in control of my life each morning and evening.
Anxiety and sickness... and am I a hostile person?
I watched another great episode of Scientific American Frontiers called Worried Sick, where Alan Alda hosts a fascinating exploration of the impact of stress, including emotional and social anxiety, on wellness.
It was startling to hear researchers confirm and explain exactly what I've known all along: the stress response halts other biological functions, including fighting infection and healing. Literally, the more stressed out you are, the less healthy you will be. It is no coincidence whatsoever that when I become utterly stressed out with exams or personal stuff, I get a terrible cold or digestive malady. While I should be a reasonably healthy person, I'm physically unable to fight off cold germs, and where my body should be able to stop things at a mild sinus infection, I more typically get terrible bronchitis and lately, borderline or full-blown pneumonia. That ain't right, and it's all me, neglecting my health, pushing my body too hard, and stressing out the whole time so it is unable to function the way it's supposed to.
The program also discussed the role personality, especially one's level of hostility, plays in the extent to which stress is experienced. I would more or less consider myself a kind, warm person, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that yeah, I can be incredibly hostile. When I am in the midst of a funk, usually brought on by some trivial emotional thing and compounded by stress from school, I become intensely misanthropic, with a short temper and feeling constantly annoyed. I try not to lash out too much at people in my daily life because obviously it's not their fault that I'm angry with a friend, but bottling it up and seething still has the same internal effect, if not worse because I'm not learning to express myself in a healthy way.
I realized that I am prone to fits of rage at people, provoked or not, if I think about them while I am in the wrong mood. When I'm not stressed out or depressed, I'm mostly fine with everyone in my life, or if I'm not, it's with a distant and fleeting sort of disinterest, as if there were a bad smell on an otherwise lovely day. When I'm down, though, everything a person has said or done is subject to mulling over and becoming a source of intense annoyance or fury. I go from basically not caring to absolute, all-consuming anger. Because I know my feelings toward people can be so mercurial, I rarely do anything active to confront others for hurtful things they've said or done, but instead decide that I am completely done with them and want no further contact ever. It's alarming how quickly and effortlessly I've cut people out of my life, and it's usually so sudden and seemingly unprovoked that most people don't notice anyway. I really don't like this about myself, and I need to figure out a more mature, healthy way to address conflict that doesn't result in the psychological equivalent of "F you, get out of my life."
Further, this tendency toward incredible and sudden anger and abandonment wrecks havoc on my system. A friend who said something carelessly unkind in February has no idea that in March I was near tears with how overwhelmingly furious I became at her for it. My stomach twisted in knots, my sleep got all messed up, and within a few days, I was in bed sick with one of a series of awful cold/flu things that I contracted this winter. Meanwhile, I never said anything to her, didn't respond to her notes that she hadn't heard from me in a while, and I wrote her out of my life. That's cruel to her and to me, and my body punished me like hell for all the stress I had over it.
Colon health and the immune response
Now, for the lengthy discussion of gastrointestinal health, which I will attempt to keep as clinical, if not entirely nonspecific, as possible. Fair warning, if you're not looking for discussions of colons and the things they do, I'd suggest skipping ahead to the next section.
I have more or less been diagnosed with colitis, which is a tricky diagnosis because it describes a number of multi-symptomatic digestive issues. I say more or less because I was hospitalized in 2006 for a massive intestinal infection, which at the time was described as colitis in the sense that my large intestine was terribly swollen and there was... blood... coming out of places it wasn't supposed to (an excruciating pain I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy). After a few nights in the hospital on IV antibiotics and a liquid diet, the infection cleared up and I was released, but I had to reintroduce foods timidly, finding that things that had never upset my stomach before suddenly did. When I talked with my doctor later, she said that colitis was most commonly caused by stress, and that while the infection may have been the instigating event, colitis could become a chronic, incredibly painful and frustrating condition. At the time I was in a really ugly, intensely stressful relationship, so her orders to relax and remove stress from my life weren't met until two years later, during which time I had all kinds of discomforts ranging from bloating or gas to full on can't-leave-the-house illness.
I also saw an alarming uptick in the frequency and duration of colds that I got during this time, which was also explained by my doctor as related to the situation with my digestive system. As I reckon everyone has learned from the marketing of probiotic yogurts and diet supplements, a significant amount of the immune system is housed in the intestines and includes the natural flora and fauna. My time in the hospital and the IV antibiotics flushed out everything good in my system, and subsequent episodes of umm, extensive involuntary purging, further assaulted the slowly remerging balance of bacteria and such.
As with many people who experience colitis or colitis-like conditions, I found that digestive sensitivity increased in direct correlation with stress levels, and I could more or less count on my system falling to pieces when I most needed to be at my best. My digestive health in shambles, it's a matter of days before I get some infectious disease that renders me incapable of functioning at all, and I retreat to the health center for orders of fluids, bed rest, and powerful antibiotics... which... you guessed it, further wreck my digestive tract.
Seeing this as a cyclical problem and knowing that the general public isn't going to stop coughing or sneezing on me no matter how much I sanitize my hands or hold my breath, I need to find a way to fix my gastrointestinal situation before it a) becomes truly chronic and b) leaves me with essentially no immune system or ability to fight disease.
I started by taking bacteria supplements about a year ago, which sounds disgusting, but actually makes a good deal of sense when you consider that the problem is all the good bacteria getting killed by antibiotics or flushed out: take a pill full of good bacteria and uhh, repopulate one's intestines, right? I also tried to eat yogurt and lots of fruits and vegetables, and for a few months, things were looking alright. Then I had a devastating romantic situation fall to pieces, fell into a lengthy, terrible depression, and predictably my digestive system fell apart again. I didn't really recover by the time I started school in the fall, and moving to a city full of sick people has made everything much worse.
Now that I am once again on a course of antibiotics (two weeks of Biaxin, ugh), my system has responded by bailing on everything, and I mean everything, to the point where I lost three pounds in one morning. I am slowly getting over the sinus infection and bronchitis, but I know that the antibiotics will leave me defenseless and sensitive. So this time I am eating probiotic yogurt and cottage cheese, and once I am off the antibiotics, I'm going to start the bacteria supplements again (that still sounds so gross). I'm going to eat tons of vegetables, drink the proper amount of water, and focus on colon health as a means to prevent sickness.
My goal is that by this time next year, I have little to no symptoms of colitis and I can regain normal digestive functioning. I have no idea if this is a reasonable goal or not because my insurance changed, I had to switch doctors, and the new one won't even talk to me about what I can do until I get a colonoscopy and see a GI specialist (which the insurance doesn't cover). I do intend to get the stupid colonoscopy to rule out cancer or any other conditions, and I will have to see a GI specialist to do so, but I want to try to get the symptoms under control on my own first. Essential to success in this is, of course, managing my stress, since, as we initially established, colitis is a stress-related condition.
And to come completely full circle, to stop stressing my body, I have to stop stressing my mind.
Natural anti-depressants
This past year has taught me two important lessons:
1) that I am emotionally still very immature, with poor coping mechanisms.
2) I really do not have my depression or mood cycling under control at all.
If you asked my mother, she would say that the second is a direct result of the first, which may be true, but I sincerely believe there is an organic component to what's going on in my brain that goes well beyond my rational control. My mom has not dealt with any type of mental illness, so she perceives depressive people as wallowing and those with mood disorders as having no impulse control. I've tried to explain to her that it's not just a decision you make one morning, that you're going to feel sorry for yourself for a while and that whenever you want, you can "snap out of it," as she believes. It feels much more like coming down with the flu, where your brain becomes a foggy and unrecognizably grim version of itself, your body becomes hopelessly exhausted and achey, the things that gave you incredible joy just days before don't even register, and you can't control your thoughts, which become increasingly morbid, angry, distraught, overwhelmed, and in the milder times listless.
I hate myself when I'm depressed, and I can never determine whether depression sets in because something bad or stressful happens in my life, or if I experience life events as terrible because my brain is cycling into depression. When I think about what I would have considered "triggering episodes" in the past, many of them seem utterly inconsequential, but it was the most important thing in the world at the moment. My brain spiraled around itself in endless rumination, and I was mentally shouting at myself to just shut up, quit obsessing, and be happy again. It feels like a fist in my chest, this tight inability to breathe or relax, and as unexpectedly as it comes on, it dissipates, usually a few weeks later. My mood comes around, I smile at something small or notice some bit of beauty, and I start to feel okay about things again. I wouldn't say the thing I smiled about got me out of the depression, so it doesn't entirely make sense to say the first thing that got me down was what caused it either.
What I do know is that while my moods will fluctuate, maybe more rapidly and inexplicably than others', I need them to not get so extreme for such long periods. Being full-on clinically depressed for two months straight is just not okay, and I need some way to pull myself out of it before it effects my health, academics, social life, and so on more than it already has.
My insurance only covers five therapy sessions per year, and I haven't found therapy helpful for treating depression in the past anyway. When I was on Zoloft, my therapy sessions became terse discussions of my sleep/wake cycle, making sure I wasn't suicidal (I would never do that), and then nagging me to talk to the receptionist about my insurance again (she was a terrible psychiatrist, I see in hindsight). I kept trying to talk to her about changes I could make to my diet to stave off the sudden weight gain (10 pounds a month for 6 months) or if maybe melatonin would be better for insomnia than the crazy coma-inducing pills she prescribed, but yeah, nothing doing. I stopped taking Zoloft without weaning myself off properly, and I've been really leery to go for any pharmaceuticals since.
I've tried a combination of St John's wort, gingko, and ginseng in the past, but I've never stuck with it enough to have a lasting long-term effect. I'm not sure if it's because I was taking too many pills at a time or if it just wasn't working, but I want to try an herbal approach again when I am done with this round of antibiotics.
The biggest and most important anti-depressant I need to implement is exercise. I know, and have always known, that exercise plays a powerful role in regulating moods, promoting healthy sleep and digestive functioning, and contributing to overall health and well-being, but in spite of all this, I avoid it like the plague. I am at something of a crossroads where I have to decide if I hate running more than I hate being depressed and having colitis all my life, and I think it's pretty easy to say no, nothing is worse than that fate, even if it's hot and I hate it and I want to cry through it.
One form of exercise that I may not find as odious as I found jogging in the winter is walking on the beach. As it is, I walk around 4-5 miles 4 times a week for my commute to school, but that's evidently not sufficient for either stress reduction or weight loss. I recently discovered that I live pretty close to a huge beach, and though I am going to be very busy taking intensive classes this summer, I want to make time to walk on the beach, preferably at a brisk pace, so I get some sunshine and exercise.
I've also found that I quite enjoy hiking, and I want to start working my way up through day hikes. Tentatively, I can make Sunday my hiking day, which means I must manage my schoolwork and personal life to keep this day available. It's a sticky wicket, but I think it will be a good reward for living my life in balance (that accomplishment alone will have to help all other matters).
Coming soon: Austerity Measures
I've started to chart out what I'm calling my Austerity Measures for the rest of the summer. Motivated equally by the desire to eat healthier and stop pissing money away on garbage food I can't afford, I'm making myself something of an un-diet plan, where I decide on certain foods that I'll eat for regular meals and sort out how to prepare them efficiently and economically.
I will confess that while getting textbooks on Amazon, I also bought a new diet book, but for the first time in my life, I'm going to read the book and think about it before half-assedly launching into the diet. The appeal of this particular diet is that people seem to lose weight on it very quickly, but it avoids the pitfalls of similar diets, particularly in regards to gastrointestinal health. I will give it a thorough read and make a decision if that's what I'm going to do, but in the meantime, I'll be charting out my Austerity Measures.
I'm going to use the end of my antibiotics course as the day when I start my un-diet in earnest. That is to say, I'm not going to buy cookies or cupcakes or junk anymore, and I will not order takeout or pizza no matter what. I'm starting to segue into it, with meals at regular times and lots of water, and over the next 10 days or so (I've lost count) I'd like to ramp up to the full plan.
I know that realistic and thorough planning will be essential to success, and I have to keep going about this with the right attitude: I am not punishing or depriving myself - I am being kind to myself and doing right by my body. I am not beating myself up to try to lose weight - I am eating right and exercising to improve my health and well-being.
I think really good things are about to come.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Mind Over Fatter: Attitudes Toward Weight
As the stress of this semester is mounting relentlessly, I realize that I have slipped back into atrocious habits and predictably, my weight is creeping back up. I am always somewhere between 180-184, and 185 is my mental cut-off for when I seriously have to get back on track, but it bothers me that I'm eating in such an unhealthy way that I can walk several miles and burn 400 or more calories 5 times or more per week, yet still not lose weight.
I watched a great episode of Scientific American Frontiers from 2003 (worth it for the nostalgia alone) called "Losing It," where Alan Alda joins a small group of New Englanders trying to lose weight and keep it off through a variety of methods. As they were clear to point out, following dieters for 6 months cannot comprise a scientific study, but by having the subjects keep video diaries and discuss their struggles, they hoped to gain some insight into the psychological process of the weight loss challenge.
(I've embedded it above, and you can watch it on Hulu here.)
This program was made before The Biggest Loser or the host of weight-loss reality shows that cropped up in the years since, and I liked that it followed normal people in their everyday lives. They still had to go to work, pay for the food themselves, wear their own dumpy clothes instead of getting celebrity makeovers, and so on. It had a level of authenticity that I found much more relatable, since most people trying to lose weight don't have eight hour blocks of time to go to the gym every day between filming confessionals and endorsing sponsored products with debatable subtlety.
I also enjoyed examining the different weight-gain scenarios that had gotten the participants to this place in their lives and the different diet and exercise options they attempted. I was amused, for example, by a woman scrolling through eDiets and saying that no, peanut butter and jelly probably wouldn't go over well with her family for dinner, having had that exact struggle when I lived with a resistant boyfriend. I got to see what Weight Watchers meetings might be like and consider if the communal aspect was a good one, and I also saw people who followed more generalized diet plans, like eating Mediterranean style foods or pursuing a modified Atkins (does this sound familiar?).
Alda and the filmmakers explored some of the science behind weight gain, hunger, and the struggle for weight loss, and they revisited some of the discoveries I've made along the way, such as the myth of low-fat foods. They didn't tread any particularly revolutionary ground for me, but in addition to being entertaining, it gave me a good opportunity to think about what I've been doing and why.
A problem well-stated...
One of my favorite (and probably overused) expressions is, "A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved." So often we are able to identify what is wrong or what we'd like to change, but until we pinpoint why and how this problem came to be, the course of action to solve it remains vague and tenuous.
In my case, I am keenly aware of my bad habits, and one would think all I'd have to do is list them out, then put a big "STOP" before each one et voilà, problems half-solved.
Obviously it's a bit more complex, so I've started to consider more specifically why I have the bad habits that I do.
The behaviors behind the bad habits
Constant Vigilance and the End Game
Having addressed a handful of my more warped behaviors, I come to an observation of sorts about weight loss. Alan Alda mentioned in "Losing It" that to maintain his weight loss, he could no longer mindlessly shovel food into his mouth or drink wine without considering its caloric impact. He said that it became something he had to think about all the time, remaining constantly on the defensive against the weight creeping back on, and I realize that this is one of the massive challenges many dieters face. Being on a diet is not fun. No matter the health benefits or amazing increases in happiness that come with losing the weight, people who have had to lose a significant amount of weight will usually gain at least some of it back because they don't naturally eat that way.
By way of analogy, my brother used to work with drug and alcohol rehabilitation patients, and one of the more surprising treatment concepts is that the client is always an addict, even after quitting the problematic addictive behavior. Much of rehab is to do with replacing the addiction to a given substance with a new addiction, to being sober, which is why the meetings, counseling, and ritualistic behaviors are so key to a client's continued success.
In a similar way, I think that overweight people often remain overweight in their minds for long after they've physically lost the weight. The behaviors and issues that caused the weight gain in the first place are still there, just like an addiction, and replacing the relationship with food to a fervent relationship with dieting seems often to have only limited or short-term success.
As an example, I've been struggling with someone who isn't really a friend anymore, but used to be. Part of why she's not my friend anymore is that she's inordinately self-centered and unkind, but it's taken me a while to recognize this fact about her. She used to be morbidly obese, and her selfishness took the form of gluttonous binge-eating and materialism, splurging on decadent treats and all kinds of expensive "stuff" to fill the emotional and personal voids in her life. At one point she and I were out for a hike, which we had to cut short because she was so tired and hungry. She started whining about food and fretting that she wouldn't have time to get lunch before getting on her train home, and I promised her I'd get her to a sandwich place before putting her on the train. This thought became all she was thinking about, and she started mumbling to herself that she was going to have a big sandwich and an iced tea and some cupcakes and later after work, she'd get ice cream, and so on, planning out the binge that was going to soothe her. I tried to distract her and talk about what a beautiful day it was, or reassure her that the hike wouldn't be much longer, but she not only started getting angry with me, but started crying as she lashed out for making her exercise when she was this hungry (it wasn't really my fault - we were a certain distance into the woods, and I had no control over how far it was back to the car).
When we got to the parking lot, we drank a lot of water, and I tried to cheer her up a little as I let the car air out to cool down. She was furious with me, sat down sweaty on the hot seat, and closed the door. I started getting annoyed at this point, since we're both adults and there was no reason to take it out on me, when a very handsome bicyclist came over and started chatting. We talked about what a beautiful day it was, how it was hot on the trails but the breeze kept it pleasant, and he was getting to the "Do you come here often?" phase when I noticed my whole car was shaking with my friend's thrashing around as she tried to give me pointed looks and indicate that she wanted to leave. I realize that she expected me to get right in the car and tear off just as she did, but we're talking about 30-45 seconds of conversation, which I then had to cut short by saying, "I'm sorry, my friend is really impatient, I guess she's got a train to catch."
When I got in the car, I snapped at her a little. "You'd rather sit in the hot car sweating on my upholstery than cool off?" She folded her arms and stared at the windshield. "Too bad," I continued, "that was actually a really nice, handsome guy," and I tried to get her to look out her window as he drove by and waved. After refusing to look, she turned to me with hot anger, seething, and grunted, "I don't care, he's not a sandwich."
It was at this point that the depths of her food issues started really coming clear, and I wanted to believe she had some sort of wake-up call afterwards because she went on a massive diet (albeit an unhealthy one).
I saw her a month or two later (I needed a break), after she had been obsessively dieting and lost 15 or 20 pounds. I saw a huge boost to her confidence, to the point where she started treating me poorly because she intended to diet down to a smaller size than me. Once she lost enough weight to get within 30 pounds of my current weight (however, she is still much bigger because she has almost no muscle tone and now resembles a misshapen deflated fat person), she started getting just plain cruel. She concluded that guys hadn't paid attention to her before because she was heavy, but now that she was thin, she was entitled to all their attention. I tried gently pointing out that it's not just your appearance, but your personality and what's inside you that attracts people to you, when she turned and said, "Well guys like you because you're slutty and put out." I was stunned and appalled. She is a virgin, so she has never had a sexual relationship, but one would hope that even she could recognize the difference between having a lot of casual one-night stands versus long-term committed sexual relationships with a boyfriend. (For the record, I don't sleep with people when I'm not in monogamous, romantic relationships).
I don't just mean to air my dirty laundry with this friend - I'm actually coming roundabout to a point.
She replaced her addiction to food and unhealthy behaviors with an addiction to carb-free eating and going to hot yoga classes five times a week. The commitment involved to that level of dieting and exercise made it that she doesn't pursue most of her other interests anymore, and in conversation, all she has to talk about is food and exercise. Before I decided I didn't want to be her friend anymore, she started picking on me and my behaviors, constantly offering unsolicited advice or suggestions to do just as she did. I tried hard to remain supportive and say I appreciated her concern, but that excluding carbs from my diet caused a lot of gastrointestinal problems for me, or that I worried about my skin and hair suffering if I tried to lose weight too rapidly, and she shrugged it all off, smugly saying her hair was nicer than mine now anyway (it wasn't, at all).
Obviously this friend has a number of personality defects, so she might not be the best example of diet-obsessing, but I've noticed it in surprising places as well.
A cousin who had been overweight her whole childhood went gung-ho on Weight Watchers, and now she's a meeting leader. I was really happy for her when she started, and it's been great seeing how happy she is now that she's reached her goal weight and succeeds in maintaining it. But... that's all she talks about. She used to have funny, interesting things to say on Facebook, and her statuses started to read more like weigh-ins and mantra recitations. Eventually, she stopped posting anything at all, and it made me realize how much I miss my funny, interesting cousin, instead of the WW After poster child she had become.
One of my brother's ex-girlfriends has had a lot of weight fluctuations and yo-yo dieted her whole life, but eventually started obsessive dieting and marathon training. More than half of her profile photos are side-by-side comparisons of her at her heaviest with her at her current weight. I get so sad seeing them, because I never thought of her as an unattractive fat person - she was always this lovely, happy girl. Now she looks strained and a little crazy-eyed, tensing her neck and trying so hard to look thin that I wonder where all the joy has gone from her life. My take-away thought wasn't "Wow, she looks great now!" so much as "hmm, I didn't realize she was that overweight back then."
Lastly, even my mom, who is usually my measure of sanity and reasonable behavior in the world, has started dieting because she's going on a vacation over the summer and wants to be fitter and thinner for it. She is nowhere near as obsessive as the other ladies I've mentioned, but I notice increasingly that when we talk on the phone, she gives me lists of what she's eaten and the exercise she's done that day. We've talked about how people have to focus so much energy on weight loss that they get obsessed and it becomes their only topic of conversation, and while I know my mom isn't going to become one of those people, I have to say, I don't want to hear any more stories that start with, "Well we were at dinner, and I had only had two Slim-Fasts, some carrots, a yogurt, and an orange that day..."
I don't want to be that type of dieter...
As I'm sure is clear, I do not want to be the type of dieter described above. I know what level of attention and commitment it takes to stay on a diet, but to me, that's as private and uninteresting to others as say, my skin care regime. Or... whether or not I'm doing Kegel exercises. Now maybe, if I lose a lot of weight and someone asks what I've been doing, I'd consider sharing, but I never, ever want to be like my former friend, who spends an entire meal going on and on about how she could never eat what I'm eating, or how she spends her yoga classes staring at her fat angrily in the mirror and thinking "Die fat, die!"
I never want to have side-by-side photos of myself where I show off how much weight I've lost. That seems so mean to yourself and such a badge of insecurity and desperation. I never want to brag to people that I dieted and exercised and am however many pounds from my goal weight. I will never, ever post my weight on Facebook as an accomplishment.
Mostly, it's because I do not want to be Vicki, that Girl Who Used to Be Fat and then Lost 80 Pounds. That's a repulsive oversimplification of who I am. I would be so insulted if someone reduced me to the amount I'm overweight now, so I refuse to ever do that to myself.
I keep this blog anonymously so that I don't talk about all this stuff with everyone in my daily life. When I want to obsess about issues related to being overweight, I compartmentalize it here. I have resisted sharing the URL with friends or family because I don't want knowledge of their possible readership to influence how honest I am with myself. I know that this could be a handwritten paper journal or a computer file, but even with some anonymity, I feel a sort of accountability by publishing a record of what I'm doing, and without trying, I found amazing support from strangers who stumbled over here. I also hope, since I'm going to be writing all this stuff down anyway, that putting it in a public place could help others who are going through the same things as I am, just as the dieters in "Losing It" and countless other essentially anonymous bloggers or people on TV have helped me by sharing their stories.
...because I don't want to diet.
The other big reason I don't want to focus on "becoming an After" is because I don't want to lose the weight by dieting. I don't want to replace my unhealthy behaviors with addictions to dieting and losing weight because I will never make lasting changes that way.
If I set rules for myself, I will fail, and not only will I gain whatever weight I lose back, but my self-esteem will take a hit for failing at dieting too.
I want to make deep lifestyle changes, gradually, incorporating healthier eating and exercise into my daily habits and routines. I want to explore healthier cooking not because it is what The Diet Commands, but because I want to find recipes I enjoy, to replace the take-out and gross stuff I eat now. I want to enjoy exercise as a fun activity that relieves stress and improves my health, and while I realize it will require discipline to stick with it, I need to do it for me, in a positive way, not because I'm punishing myself for being fat.
I realize, in examining my behaviors and attitudes toward my weight, that I will never succeed if I am negative or pessimistic about it. The only way I can ever hope to change my life for the better is to be nice to myself and improve my lifestyle because I deserve to be happy and healthy.
The water drinking, of course, will just have to be something I force myself to do.
I watched a great episode of Scientific American Frontiers from 2003 (worth it for the nostalgia alone) called "Losing It," where Alan Alda joins a small group of New Englanders trying to lose weight and keep it off through a variety of methods. As they were clear to point out, following dieters for 6 months cannot comprise a scientific study, but by having the subjects keep video diaries and discuss their struggles, they hoped to gain some insight into the psychological process of the weight loss challenge.
(I've embedded it above, and you can watch it on Hulu here.)
This program was made before The Biggest Loser or the host of weight-loss reality shows that cropped up in the years since, and I liked that it followed normal people in their everyday lives. They still had to go to work, pay for the food themselves, wear their own dumpy clothes instead of getting celebrity makeovers, and so on. It had a level of authenticity that I found much more relatable, since most people trying to lose weight don't have eight hour blocks of time to go to the gym every day between filming confessionals and endorsing sponsored products with debatable subtlety.
I also enjoyed examining the different weight-gain scenarios that had gotten the participants to this place in their lives and the different diet and exercise options they attempted. I was amused, for example, by a woman scrolling through eDiets and saying that no, peanut butter and jelly probably wouldn't go over well with her family for dinner, having had that exact struggle when I lived with a resistant boyfriend. I got to see what Weight Watchers meetings might be like and consider if the communal aspect was a good one, and I also saw people who followed more generalized diet plans, like eating Mediterranean style foods or pursuing a modified Atkins (does this sound familiar?).
Alda and the filmmakers explored some of the science behind weight gain, hunger, and the struggle for weight loss, and they revisited some of the discoveries I've made along the way, such as the myth of low-fat foods. They didn't tread any particularly revolutionary ground for me, but in addition to being entertaining, it gave me a good opportunity to think about what I've been doing and why.
A problem well-stated...
One of my favorite (and probably overused) expressions is, "A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved." So often we are able to identify what is wrong or what we'd like to change, but until we pinpoint why and how this problem came to be, the course of action to solve it remains vague and tenuous.
In my case, I am keenly aware of my bad habits, and one would think all I'd have to do is list them out, then put a big "STOP" before each one et voilà, problems half-solved.
Obviously it's a bit more complex, so I've started to consider more specifically why I have the bad habits that I do.
The behaviors behind the bad habits
- Ordering Take-Out or Eating Convenience Foods - This is by far one of my most egregious diet sabotage maneuvers, as no matter how terrible I know it is for my health, I find myself ordering pizza or Chinese take-out way too frequently. I don't even want it, often, or enjoy it once I get it, but it's more about avoiding cooking or going to the store than craving that particular type of food. When I do go to the store, I am full of ambition and make healthy choices, but then I find most of the vegetables rot in my fridge and I only eat the prepackaged, unhealthy convenience foods.
Why am I so loathe to cook? It's actually embarrassingly simple. My kitchen is usually incredibly messy. The less I cook, the worse it gets, until that whole room becomes little more than a repository for pizza boxes and take-out trash. I seem to fall behind on dishwashing way too easily, even with a dishwasher, and especially since I made an effort to reduce the amount of pots and pans and kitchen stuff I have, it feels like I never have anything clean to cook in. I can't count the amount of times I've wiped out and reused the same crepe pan to make grilled cheese sandwiches, rather than take the few minutes to properly wash my cutting boards and pots to prepare the more balanced dishes I planned.
I would say, in truth, that the messy kitchen is probably one of my biggest healthy eating deterrents at this point, and I need to commit a window of time where I get my whole apartment in order so I can live more productively here. - Not Drinking Enough Water - I know that my health will vastly improve if I replace the crazy amount of Diet Coke I drink with water. The truth is, I hate drinking water, but when I start, I tend to gulp it down by the liter because my body is so dehydrated. My system responds problematically to water initially, with a bloated, excessively full and sloshy feeling, and then of course, I have to pee thirty five thousand times an hour, which is usually what causes me to go back to sweet, dehydrating soda.
Further, water does not have the caffeine on which I seem to depend, and because I don't drink coffee and rarely drink tea, I sip diet soda as a gradual pick-me-up throughout the day. On particularly bad days, I take caffeine pills too, so I don't actually *need* the caffeine from soda, but I feel more awake by sipping it.
I know that if I want to feel more awake and alert, I need to get a good night's sleep, which comes from a healthy diet, exercise, and drinking plenty of water. Vicious cycle, but a conceptually simple one. I also know that I will not always feel sloshy and like I'm about to wet my pants once my body unshrivels from its Diet Coke snare and reestablishes a more hydrated equilibrium.
Bonus (and this is something I do know from chemistry): by adding more solvent (water) to my system, the metabolic reactions necessary to provide energy, and eventually lose weight, can proceed more readily and efficiently than they do now. Which is to say nothing of the gastrointestinal benefits I'm sure to experience with proper hydration. - Indulging in Sweets - I have a massive sweet tooth. I always have, and I tend not to feel satisfied after meals unless I have something sweet. More problematically, though, I use sweets to comfort myself and feel better if I'm having a bad day, scarfing down cookies, jelly beans, candies, little cakes, and suchlike with abandon. The more stressed I am, the more thoughtlessly I add "treats" to my shopping baskets, and at several points this semester, I found myself with several bags of Easter candy floating around my apartment. I recently got in a car accident and bought so much candy while I was upset that I've had an unopened bag of Oreos on top of my fridge for two weeks.
The obvious solution seems to be to never buy this stuff in the first place. It's not like I'm going to leave my apartment and walk to the store to buy a bag of cookies, but if they're on top of my fridge, I will eventually eat them all. It's more than that, though, since replacing the processed garbage sweets with healthier alternatives like yogurts and fruit doesn't help - it all just rots in my fridge or on my counter, and I feel sad and deprived. I need to address the emotional difficulties in my life in a way that's healthier and more constructive than binge-eating. My stress response may seem physically demanding, but it certainly doesn't require 3500 calories at a time. - Body Image - I would be lying if I didn't admit that the biggest reason I want to lose weight is to be more attractive. I am painfully aware of the health concerns and risks associated with being overweight, but at age 29, I'm more upset about looking bad in my clothes and not getting the right kind of attention from guys. The flip-side is that because I am on this cusp between overweight and officially capital-O Obese, I can tell myself it's not as serious as it is. When I allude to my need to lose weight, basically everyone in my life looks perplexed and says something like, "But you're not obese - what are you talking about??" I know I have kind friends, but in a crowd, I don't usually come off as that big fat girl, so much as an average-weight woman. Some of it is that I am proportionately fat over an athletic build, and I'm a pretty careful dresser, so while I may come off pudgy or a little round in the face, I don't think people see just how much fat I've got to lose.
The problem with this is that it lets me make excuses for myself. I may be disgusted, but if I can still cover it up with the right cut of clothing, I act as if the problem's not there. Like many overweight women, I can still look very sexy and put-together in a nice dress because I'm very aware of my body and know how to accentuate curves, and I don't have as many moments of horror as I should, for example, when I look at photos of myself with my average-weight friends and I look the same or a little smaller than them. My body isn't making its decision about heart disease based on whether or not I'm the fattest in a group, though, and I need to recognize that until I am at a healthy weight, this is always, constantly a problem.
Constant Vigilance and the End Game
Having addressed a handful of my more warped behaviors, I come to an observation of sorts about weight loss. Alan Alda mentioned in "Losing It" that to maintain his weight loss, he could no longer mindlessly shovel food into his mouth or drink wine without considering its caloric impact. He said that it became something he had to think about all the time, remaining constantly on the defensive against the weight creeping back on, and I realize that this is one of the massive challenges many dieters face. Being on a diet is not fun. No matter the health benefits or amazing increases in happiness that come with losing the weight, people who have had to lose a significant amount of weight will usually gain at least some of it back because they don't naturally eat that way.
By way of analogy, my brother used to work with drug and alcohol rehabilitation patients, and one of the more surprising treatment concepts is that the client is always an addict, even after quitting the problematic addictive behavior. Much of rehab is to do with replacing the addiction to a given substance with a new addiction, to being sober, which is why the meetings, counseling, and ritualistic behaviors are so key to a client's continued success.
In a similar way, I think that overweight people often remain overweight in their minds for long after they've physically lost the weight. The behaviors and issues that caused the weight gain in the first place are still there, just like an addiction, and replacing the relationship with food to a fervent relationship with dieting seems often to have only limited or short-term success.
As an example, I've been struggling with someone who isn't really a friend anymore, but used to be. Part of why she's not my friend anymore is that she's inordinately self-centered and unkind, but it's taken me a while to recognize this fact about her. She used to be morbidly obese, and her selfishness took the form of gluttonous binge-eating and materialism, splurging on decadent treats and all kinds of expensive "stuff" to fill the emotional and personal voids in her life. At one point she and I were out for a hike, which we had to cut short because she was so tired and hungry. She started whining about food and fretting that she wouldn't have time to get lunch before getting on her train home, and I promised her I'd get her to a sandwich place before putting her on the train. This thought became all she was thinking about, and she started mumbling to herself that she was going to have a big sandwich and an iced tea and some cupcakes and later after work, she'd get ice cream, and so on, planning out the binge that was going to soothe her. I tried to distract her and talk about what a beautiful day it was, or reassure her that the hike wouldn't be much longer, but she not only started getting angry with me, but started crying as she lashed out for making her exercise when she was this hungry (it wasn't really my fault - we were a certain distance into the woods, and I had no control over how far it was back to the car).
When we got to the parking lot, we drank a lot of water, and I tried to cheer her up a little as I let the car air out to cool down. She was furious with me, sat down sweaty on the hot seat, and closed the door. I started getting annoyed at this point, since we're both adults and there was no reason to take it out on me, when a very handsome bicyclist came over and started chatting. We talked about what a beautiful day it was, how it was hot on the trails but the breeze kept it pleasant, and he was getting to the "Do you come here often?" phase when I noticed my whole car was shaking with my friend's thrashing around as she tried to give me pointed looks and indicate that she wanted to leave. I realize that she expected me to get right in the car and tear off just as she did, but we're talking about 30-45 seconds of conversation, which I then had to cut short by saying, "I'm sorry, my friend is really impatient, I guess she's got a train to catch."
When I got in the car, I snapped at her a little. "You'd rather sit in the hot car sweating on my upholstery than cool off?" She folded her arms and stared at the windshield. "Too bad," I continued, "that was actually a really nice, handsome guy," and I tried to get her to look out her window as he drove by and waved. After refusing to look, she turned to me with hot anger, seething, and grunted, "I don't care, he's not a sandwich."
It was at this point that the depths of her food issues started really coming clear, and I wanted to believe she had some sort of wake-up call afterwards because she went on a massive diet (albeit an unhealthy one).
I saw her a month or two later (I needed a break), after she had been obsessively dieting and lost 15 or 20 pounds. I saw a huge boost to her confidence, to the point where she started treating me poorly because she intended to diet down to a smaller size than me. Once she lost enough weight to get within 30 pounds of my current weight (however, she is still much bigger because she has almost no muscle tone and now resembles a misshapen deflated fat person), she started getting just plain cruel. She concluded that guys hadn't paid attention to her before because she was heavy, but now that she was thin, she was entitled to all their attention. I tried gently pointing out that it's not just your appearance, but your personality and what's inside you that attracts people to you, when she turned and said, "Well guys like you because you're slutty and put out." I was stunned and appalled. She is a virgin, so she has never had a sexual relationship, but one would hope that even she could recognize the difference between having a lot of casual one-night stands versus long-term committed sexual relationships with a boyfriend. (For the record, I don't sleep with people when I'm not in monogamous, romantic relationships).
I don't just mean to air my dirty laundry with this friend - I'm actually coming roundabout to a point.
She replaced her addiction to food and unhealthy behaviors with an addiction to carb-free eating and going to hot yoga classes five times a week. The commitment involved to that level of dieting and exercise made it that she doesn't pursue most of her other interests anymore, and in conversation, all she has to talk about is food and exercise. Before I decided I didn't want to be her friend anymore, she started picking on me and my behaviors, constantly offering unsolicited advice or suggestions to do just as she did. I tried hard to remain supportive and say I appreciated her concern, but that excluding carbs from my diet caused a lot of gastrointestinal problems for me, or that I worried about my skin and hair suffering if I tried to lose weight too rapidly, and she shrugged it all off, smugly saying her hair was nicer than mine now anyway (it wasn't, at all).
Obviously this friend has a number of personality defects, so she might not be the best example of diet-obsessing, but I've noticed it in surprising places as well.
A cousin who had been overweight her whole childhood went gung-ho on Weight Watchers, and now she's a meeting leader. I was really happy for her when she started, and it's been great seeing how happy she is now that she's reached her goal weight and succeeds in maintaining it. But... that's all she talks about. She used to have funny, interesting things to say on Facebook, and her statuses started to read more like weigh-ins and mantra recitations. Eventually, she stopped posting anything at all, and it made me realize how much I miss my funny, interesting cousin, instead of the WW After poster child she had become.
One of my brother's ex-girlfriends has had a lot of weight fluctuations and yo-yo dieted her whole life, but eventually started obsessive dieting and marathon training. More than half of her profile photos are side-by-side comparisons of her at her heaviest with her at her current weight. I get so sad seeing them, because I never thought of her as an unattractive fat person - she was always this lovely, happy girl. Now she looks strained and a little crazy-eyed, tensing her neck and trying so hard to look thin that I wonder where all the joy has gone from her life. My take-away thought wasn't "Wow, she looks great now!" so much as "hmm, I didn't realize she was that overweight back then."
Lastly, even my mom, who is usually my measure of sanity and reasonable behavior in the world, has started dieting because she's going on a vacation over the summer and wants to be fitter and thinner for it. She is nowhere near as obsessive as the other ladies I've mentioned, but I notice increasingly that when we talk on the phone, she gives me lists of what she's eaten and the exercise she's done that day. We've talked about how people have to focus so much energy on weight loss that they get obsessed and it becomes their only topic of conversation, and while I know my mom isn't going to become one of those people, I have to say, I don't want to hear any more stories that start with, "Well we were at dinner, and I had only had two Slim-Fasts, some carrots, a yogurt, and an orange that day..."
I don't want to be that type of dieter...
As I'm sure is clear, I do not want to be the type of dieter described above. I know what level of attention and commitment it takes to stay on a diet, but to me, that's as private and uninteresting to others as say, my skin care regime. Or... whether or not I'm doing Kegel exercises. Now maybe, if I lose a lot of weight and someone asks what I've been doing, I'd consider sharing, but I never, ever want to be like my former friend, who spends an entire meal going on and on about how she could never eat what I'm eating, or how she spends her yoga classes staring at her fat angrily in the mirror and thinking "Die fat, die!"
I never want to have side-by-side photos of myself where I show off how much weight I've lost. That seems so mean to yourself and such a badge of insecurity and desperation. I never want to brag to people that I dieted and exercised and am however many pounds from my goal weight. I will never, ever post my weight on Facebook as an accomplishment.
Mostly, it's because I do not want to be Vicki, that Girl Who Used to Be Fat and then Lost 80 Pounds. That's a repulsive oversimplification of who I am. I would be so insulted if someone reduced me to the amount I'm overweight now, so I refuse to ever do that to myself.
I keep this blog anonymously so that I don't talk about all this stuff with everyone in my daily life. When I want to obsess about issues related to being overweight, I compartmentalize it here. I have resisted sharing the URL with friends or family because I don't want knowledge of their possible readership to influence how honest I am with myself. I know that this could be a handwritten paper journal or a computer file, but even with some anonymity, I feel a sort of accountability by publishing a record of what I'm doing, and without trying, I found amazing support from strangers who stumbled over here. I also hope, since I'm going to be writing all this stuff down anyway, that putting it in a public place could help others who are going through the same things as I am, just as the dieters in "Losing It" and countless other essentially anonymous bloggers or people on TV have helped me by sharing their stories.
...because I don't want to diet.
The other big reason I don't want to focus on "becoming an After" is because I don't want to lose the weight by dieting. I don't want to replace my unhealthy behaviors with addictions to dieting and losing weight because I will never make lasting changes that way.
If I set rules for myself, I will fail, and not only will I gain whatever weight I lose back, but my self-esteem will take a hit for failing at dieting too.
I want to make deep lifestyle changes, gradually, incorporating healthier eating and exercise into my daily habits and routines. I want to explore healthier cooking not because it is what The Diet Commands, but because I want to find recipes I enjoy, to replace the take-out and gross stuff I eat now. I want to enjoy exercise as a fun activity that relieves stress and improves my health, and while I realize it will require discipline to stick with it, I need to do it for me, in a positive way, not because I'm punishing myself for being fat.
I realize, in examining my behaviors and attitudes toward my weight, that I will never succeed if I am negative or pessimistic about it. The only way I can ever hope to change my life for the better is to be nice to myself and improve my lifestyle because I deserve to be happy and healthy.
The water drinking, of course, will just have to be something I force myself to do.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Ego preservation and the fat girl's Catch-22
I have been thinking a lot about dating and relationships, in part because I'm still struggling to get over something that ended months ago, and mostly because I like to make sure I have something to fret about at all times.
As I've been mulling over the connection between my weight, my body image, and my receptiveness toward romance, I saw this card posted on this week's Post Secret, and I felt like I could have written it:
I was stunned because yes, that's exactly what I feel whenever I'm getting down on myself and thinking I seem all but transparent to men my age. I think delusional things like, "If I were as thin and fit as I used to be, these same guys would be falling over themselves to talk to me," or I try to rationalize that in a way, being overweight is a good filter for guys who are shallow and only concerned with looks.
The reality is that I am the one rejecting guys, not the other way around. It's not so overt as them coming over to talk to me and me laughing in their faces, but I repel people by making myself unapproachable. When guys are friendly - and even flirtatious with me - I find myself so wary of feeling foolish that I scoff at any possibility that they'd find me attractive. I assume that they're bored, that they're trying to find an in with my more attractive friend, that I'm standing between them and something they need so they're trying to be polite about getting me out of the way, or that they may seem nice but probably have girlfriends who will show up at any second. And so on and so forth. I can imagine an infinite array of possibilities and alternate realities, while believing that a guy would find me attractive and engaging and actually want to talk with me is utterly impossible.
My body language tends to be haughty and almost smug sometimes, rolling my eyes at guys' feeble efforts to show off or not even looking at them, as if I'm above these things and impossible to please. Other times, I act like I am trying not to be seen, hiding behind headphones and a sketchbook, keeping my head down and averting my eyes, doing whatever it takes to avoid even a casual friendly encounter.
I don't really know why I'm like this. It's not the end of the world if I am open, smile, even have some friendly conversation, and then it turns out the guy's not at all interested, has a girlfriend, or wasn't even smiling at me in the first place. Is my fear of appearing foolish or overeager so powerful that it's worth being alone with my defense mechanisms the rest of my life?? I would be the first to criticize people who are afraid of putting themselves out there and interacting with others, yet I find myself doing it all the time lately.
Another maddening aspect of this behavior is that I'm not naturally like this. I'm ordinarily a very warm, approachable, friendly, funny, and outgoing person. I talk with people all the time, eliciting genuine laughs and thought-provoking exchanges. I'm charming, considerate, and once I am talking with just about anyone except a male of datable age, I am the essence of a confident woman wholly at ease with herself and the world. So why do men my own age turn me into a nervous wreck?! Why can I have many-hour conversations with guys a little older than me that cause them to declare they wish they could have found a girl like me when they were my age, yet anyone between 25-39 is some sort of foreign, terror-eliciting species to me?
I started to wonder if it's because I have a good deal of male friends my own age who share their feelings about women with me, perhaps to excess. I see how shallow, emotionally stunted, self-involved, and often cruel they can be, and I assume that all guys their age must be the same. When I talk with strangers at concerts or in bars, I can almost hear them going home and telling their me-equivalent friends that they met a pretty smart, funny, and interesting girl, but they didn't bother following up because she was fat. I can literally hear them saying what one of my particularly unkind friends once said, "If she's let herself go this badly by the time she's 29, I can't imagine what she'd become if I started dating her," followed by the aside, "nice tits, though, for a fat girl."
When I am out with girlfriends and two guys approach us, I assume I am the "landmine" or the fat friend who has to be amused so the more attractive guy can talk to my friend. That's not often the way it works out, and on more than a few occasions, both guys talk to me and ignore my friend, but I am so trained to believe that at the end of the night, they're going to ask for the thinner girl's number that I don't really bother getting my hopes up anymore.
I know that my cynicism comes from years of bad relationships, just as I know that men don't mistreat me because I'm overweight - they treat me badly because I let them. It does seem easier to scornfully call me a "fat bitch" than it should, but when I was in shape, it was "dumb bitch" or "crazy bitch" or any other modifier they could imagine. The point is that the men who are inclined to call me names and treat me like garbage were going to do it anyway, regardless of my weight. And if I put up with ugly treatment, then that's what I should expect.
This brings us full circle in a way, as my weight does repel men who are shallow and only looking for someone with a super gym body who dresses like a stripper. If someone shows interest in me, it's more likely they're actually looking at my face and listening to my words, or that they're looking for something more substantive than a hottie they can take home that night. That is, in some cases. I still do occasionally encounter a baffling variety of man who seeks out the "low-hanging fruit" of heavier, less attractive girls because he assumes, as a particularly misogynistic friend of mine put it "that they're so desperate to get laid, they don't care what I say or do." Apart from an astonishing lack of insight about women, I find that debasing kind of attitude essentially inhuman (and rooted in transparent, ugly insecurity), but I still get wary whenever someone seems a little too assured of himself without displaying genuine confidence. As if I'm supposed to be the one he's settling for.
Recently a friend broke up with his girlfriend after realizing that he didn't love her and was starting to find her annoying. He said he found her completely vapid and boring to be around, save for the fact that she had an amazing body and was always willing to do whatever he wanted in bed. While I was suggesting that staying in the relationship (especially when he was considering cheating on her) wasn't fair to either of them, I felt that it had to be pointed out that part of why he found her boring to talk with is because all she did in her spare time was go to the gym and shop. "How do you think she gets that amazing body?" I asked, "by sitting around reading about physics and current events?" He tallied up the amount of hours she needs to spend at various fitness classes and working out with her trainer, and he recognized that that was the same time he and I spend pursuing degrees in science, reading, and engaging in a whole host of hobbies and fascinations that make us diverse and (I hope) interesting people. He realized that he never asked her about her day anymore because there are only so many times that a person can tell you about working out, shopping, and watching television before you find them utterly insipid and tedious to talk to.
So, like many women my age and weight, I am in a bit of a Catch-22. I want men to find me attractive for my personality, for my heart and my mind. I want them to listen to what I have to say and enjoy me for the substance of who I am. Yet, men my age are unlikely to give me that chance because they are still looking for the girls who spend all day perfecting their bodies and fussing with hair and clothes and makeup. I worry that if I make myself more physically attractive and act more approachable, I will attract the wrong kind of guy, who would mistreat me either way, but I also know that if I do nothing, I won't attract any kind of guy.
I don't know the solution. I want to say All Things in Moderation, since that seems to be my mantra lately. It's possible to be of a healthy weight and fit without spending all my time at the gym taking spinning classes. I can even work hard at it and develop a really great figure, but still dress like a lady and be myself. I can try having some confidence in men that they're not all pigs and believe that some of them might be looking for the same kind of connection I am?
I just really don't want to be wrong, work my ass off to get fit with the expectation that men will treat me better, and find they are even crueler to thin girls. But I guess if I am wrong, I'll still have my personality?
As I've been mulling over the connection between my weight, my body image, and my receptiveness toward romance, I saw this card posted on this week's Post Secret, and I felt like I could have written it:
I was stunned because yes, that's exactly what I feel whenever I'm getting down on myself and thinking I seem all but transparent to men my age. I think delusional things like, "If I were as thin and fit as I used to be, these same guys would be falling over themselves to talk to me," or I try to rationalize that in a way, being overweight is a good filter for guys who are shallow and only concerned with looks.
The reality is that I am the one rejecting guys, not the other way around. It's not so overt as them coming over to talk to me and me laughing in their faces, but I repel people by making myself unapproachable. When guys are friendly - and even flirtatious with me - I find myself so wary of feeling foolish that I scoff at any possibility that they'd find me attractive. I assume that they're bored, that they're trying to find an in with my more attractive friend, that I'm standing between them and something they need so they're trying to be polite about getting me out of the way, or that they may seem nice but probably have girlfriends who will show up at any second. And so on and so forth. I can imagine an infinite array of possibilities and alternate realities, while believing that a guy would find me attractive and engaging and actually want to talk with me is utterly impossible.
My body language tends to be haughty and almost smug sometimes, rolling my eyes at guys' feeble efforts to show off or not even looking at them, as if I'm above these things and impossible to please. Other times, I act like I am trying not to be seen, hiding behind headphones and a sketchbook, keeping my head down and averting my eyes, doing whatever it takes to avoid even a casual friendly encounter.
I don't really know why I'm like this. It's not the end of the world if I am open, smile, even have some friendly conversation, and then it turns out the guy's not at all interested, has a girlfriend, or wasn't even smiling at me in the first place. Is my fear of appearing foolish or overeager so powerful that it's worth being alone with my defense mechanisms the rest of my life?? I would be the first to criticize people who are afraid of putting themselves out there and interacting with others, yet I find myself doing it all the time lately.
Another maddening aspect of this behavior is that I'm not naturally like this. I'm ordinarily a very warm, approachable, friendly, funny, and outgoing person. I talk with people all the time, eliciting genuine laughs and thought-provoking exchanges. I'm charming, considerate, and once I am talking with just about anyone except a male of datable age, I am the essence of a confident woman wholly at ease with herself and the world. So why do men my own age turn me into a nervous wreck?! Why can I have many-hour conversations with guys a little older than me that cause them to declare they wish they could have found a girl like me when they were my age, yet anyone between 25-39 is some sort of foreign, terror-eliciting species to me?
I started to wonder if it's because I have a good deal of male friends my own age who share their feelings about women with me, perhaps to excess. I see how shallow, emotionally stunted, self-involved, and often cruel they can be, and I assume that all guys their age must be the same. When I talk with strangers at concerts or in bars, I can almost hear them going home and telling their me-equivalent friends that they met a pretty smart, funny, and interesting girl, but they didn't bother following up because she was fat. I can literally hear them saying what one of my particularly unkind friends once said, "If she's let herself go this badly by the time she's 29, I can't imagine what she'd become if I started dating her," followed by the aside, "nice tits, though, for a fat girl."
When I am out with girlfriends and two guys approach us, I assume I am the "landmine" or the fat friend who has to be amused so the more attractive guy can talk to my friend. That's not often the way it works out, and on more than a few occasions, both guys talk to me and ignore my friend, but I am so trained to believe that at the end of the night, they're going to ask for the thinner girl's number that I don't really bother getting my hopes up anymore.
I know that my cynicism comes from years of bad relationships, just as I know that men don't mistreat me because I'm overweight - they treat me badly because I let them. It does seem easier to scornfully call me a "fat bitch" than it should, but when I was in shape, it was "dumb bitch" or "crazy bitch" or any other modifier they could imagine. The point is that the men who are inclined to call me names and treat me like garbage were going to do it anyway, regardless of my weight. And if I put up with ugly treatment, then that's what I should expect.
This brings us full circle in a way, as my weight does repel men who are shallow and only looking for someone with a super gym body who dresses like a stripper. If someone shows interest in me, it's more likely they're actually looking at my face and listening to my words, or that they're looking for something more substantive than a hottie they can take home that night. That is, in some cases. I still do occasionally encounter a baffling variety of man who seeks out the "low-hanging fruit" of heavier, less attractive girls because he assumes, as a particularly misogynistic friend of mine put it "that they're so desperate to get laid, they don't care what I say or do." Apart from an astonishing lack of insight about women, I find that debasing kind of attitude essentially inhuman (and rooted in transparent, ugly insecurity), but I still get wary whenever someone seems a little too assured of himself without displaying genuine confidence. As if I'm supposed to be the one he's settling for.
Recently a friend broke up with his girlfriend after realizing that he didn't love her and was starting to find her annoying. He said he found her completely vapid and boring to be around, save for the fact that she had an amazing body and was always willing to do whatever he wanted in bed. While I was suggesting that staying in the relationship (especially when he was considering cheating on her) wasn't fair to either of them, I felt that it had to be pointed out that part of why he found her boring to talk with is because all she did in her spare time was go to the gym and shop. "How do you think she gets that amazing body?" I asked, "by sitting around reading about physics and current events?" He tallied up the amount of hours she needs to spend at various fitness classes and working out with her trainer, and he recognized that that was the same time he and I spend pursuing degrees in science, reading, and engaging in a whole host of hobbies and fascinations that make us diverse and (I hope) interesting people. He realized that he never asked her about her day anymore because there are only so many times that a person can tell you about working out, shopping, and watching television before you find them utterly insipid and tedious to talk to.
So, like many women my age and weight, I am in a bit of a Catch-22. I want men to find me attractive for my personality, for my heart and my mind. I want them to listen to what I have to say and enjoy me for the substance of who I am. Yet, men my age are unlikely to give me that chance because they are still looking for the girls who spend all day perfecting their bodies and fussing with hair and clothes and makeup. I worry that if I make myself more physically attractive and act more approachable, I will attract the wrong kind of guy, who would mistreat me either way, but I also know that if I do nothing, I won't attract any kind of guy.
I don't know the solution. I want to say All Things in Moderation, since that seems to be my mantra lately. It's possible to be of a healthy weight and fit without spending all my time at the gym taking spinning classes. I can even work hard at it and develop a really great figure, but still dress like a lady and be myself. I can try having some confidence in men that they're not all pigs and believe that some of them might be looking for the same kind of connection I am?
I just really don't want to be wrong, work my ass off to get fit with the expectation that men will treat me better, and find they are even crueler to thin girls. But I guess if I am wrong, I'll still have my personality?
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Walk walk walk walk walk
It's been seven weeks since I've started wearing my pedometer to keep track of how much I am walking. I had a few setbacks, most notably another serious case of bronchitis that developed into pneumonia, condemning me to more than a week of bed rest.
However, I've done alright in keeping up a certain amount of activity and mileage, summarized by week below:
I've averaged 23.84 miles per week, 4.3 hours at a moderate pace, burning 2302 calories. The total mileage I've walked since the beginning of this semester is about 166.93 miles (obviously this doesn't include the negligible days when I don't wear the pedometer around my apartment).
So I guess I am doing something, even though it's not necessarily the aggressive amount of exercise I'd like (yet).
So what have you got to show for it?
In addition to keeping a spreadsheet of my pedometer data, I've kept one of daily (or at least semi-weekly) weigh-ins. There are a lot of fluctuations, but in January, I was 183.5, and this morning I weighed 180. There have been points where I've dipped down to 179 or lower, but also times where I've jutted up to 184 or 185.
The thing I've noticed, though, is that while the scale may remain stubbornly stuck at 180, there have definitely been improvements to the distribution of fat around my body. My arms are still gigantic and disappointing, but my waist and midsection is definitely slimming down a bit. I've been able to wear a number of fitted blouses, dresses, and jackets that had been getting snug, and they've fit better than when I first got them. The particularly gratifying aspect is that those clothes are all size 12, when I've been wearing a size 14.
I have a lot, and I mean a lot of work to do before I'm going to start feeling like I've lost any weight, but it is good to feel like I am heading in the right direction. I know that I have several boxes of really cute spring and summer clothes in my parents' attic, and it would be splendid to be able to wear them again by the time the weather warms up.
I am optimistic that my lungs will have cleared fully enough that I can try jogging tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, and I'm hoping to really give my metabolism a kick by making running a regular part of my days. I did actually run a few times in February when the sidewalks were clear enough of snow and ice, and it felt terrific. I think that even though all this walking may not have as significant an impact as I might like on losing weight, it's definitely helping my leg muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness.
I'm encouraged that if I can get a big jump on the fat, I'll really get the ball rolling on my goals for the spring and summer. Naturally, I'll keep this blog posted if (should I say when?) I do.
However, I've done alright in keeping up a certain amount of activity and mileage, summarized by week below:
| Week | Steps | Moderate | Time Mod. | kcal | Miles |
| 1 | 64,548 | 31,795 | 272 | 2432 | 25.59 |
| 2 | 55,302 | 22,464 | 189 | 2032 | 21.52 |
| 3 | 86,245 | 39,919 | 332 | 3333 | 35.13 |
| 4 | 71,113 | 40,186 | 336 | 2700 | 28.21 |
| 5 | 61,530 | 36,419 | 301 | 2536 | 24.46 |
| 6 | 43,067 | 24,577 | 208 | 1667 | 17.32 |
| 7 | 38.046 | 20,157 | 168 | 1417 | 14.7 |
I've averaged 23.84 miles per week, 4.3 hours at a moderate pace, burning 2302 calories. The total mileage I've walked since the beginning of this semester is about 166.93 miles (obviously this doesn't include the negligible days when I don't wear the pedometer around my apartment).
So I guess I am doing something, even though it's not necessarily the aggressive amount of exercise I'd like (yet).
So what have you got to show for it?
In addition to keeping a spreadsheet of my pedometer data, I've kept one of daily (or at least semi-weekly) weigh-ins. There are a lot of fluctuations, but in January, I was 183.5, and this morning I weighed 180. There have been points where I've dipped down to 179 or lower, but also times where I've jutted up to 184 or 185.
The thing I've noticed, though, is that while the scale may remain stubbornly stuck at 180, there have definitely been improvements to the distribution of fat around my body. My arms are still gigantic and disappointing, but my waist and midsection is definitely slimming down a bit. I've been able to wear a number of fitted blouses, dresses, and jackets that had been getting snug, and they've fit better than when I first got them. The particularly gratifying aspect is that those clothes are all size 12, when I've been wearing a size 14.
I have a lot, and I mean a lot of work to do before I'm going to start feeling like I've lost any weight, but it is good to feel like I am heading in the right direction. I know that I have several boxes of really cute spring and summer clothes in my parents' attic, and it would be splendid to be able to wear them again by the time the weather warms up.
I am optimistic that my lungs will have cleared fully enough that I can try jogging tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, and I'm hoping to really give my metabolism a kick by making running a regular part of my days. I did actually run a few times in February when the sidewalks were clear enough of snow and ice, and it felt terrific. I think that even though all this walking may not have as significant an impact as I might like on losing weight, it's definitely helping my leg muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness.
I'm encouraged that if I can get a big jump on the fat, I'll really get the ball rolling on my goals for the spring and summer. Naturally, I'll keep this blog posted if (should I say when?) I do.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Doing what I can
To start, I was happy to weigh-in this morning at 182.5, which is down 1 pound from last Sunday.
I know that it is almost certainly water weight fluctuation and so on and so forth, but I'll take it. My challenge is to get down at least another pound (if not more) by next Sunday.
I've restarted the One Hundred Pushups program this week, and today was day 2 of week 1. Already I saw that the pushups were much easier to do on day 2 than they were on the first day (which was actually on Wednesday - I procrastinated). I noticed that by Friday, my arms and abs were very pleasantly sore, which is a good reminder to myself to keep an eye on what I eat.
And perhaps most significantly today, I hula-hooped for 30 minutes straight. I found a few different figures for the amount of calories burned in 30 min, but the average seems to be 350-400 calories for 30 min with a weighted hoop. My hoop is 5 pounds, and of course I am a heavier person moving myself around, so that figure may be slightly more or less, but it's a great thing to have done either way.
The irony was not lost on me that as I was hooping, I was watching an episode of Chopped on my computer. I love cooking shows, and ordinarily when I'm watching them, I knit or draw or do some sedentary thing. I was happy, this time, to have spent the first 12 min doing my pushups, then the next 30 hula-hooping. I feel like that was time well spent.
I've made plans to go ice skating again this coming weekend, actually with the friend to whom I've been enviously comparing myself. I figured it would be good karma to stop being jealous of her weight loss and instead to start doing healthy activities together. She is not my enemy - my own unhealthy lifestyle is - and allying myself with someone going through the same process as me can only benefit us both. Plus, she's just as excited about ice skating as I am, so it should be a great time!
I know that it is almost certainly water weight fluctuation and so on and so forth, but I'll take it. My challenge is to get down at least another pound (if not more) by next Sunday.
I've restarted the One Hundred Pushups program this week, and today was day 2 of week 1. Already I saw that the pushups were much easier to do on day 2 than they were on the first day (which was actually on Wednesday - I procrastinated). I noticed that by Friday, my arms and abs were very pleasantly sore, which is a good reminder to myself to keep an eye on what I eat.
And perhaps most significantly today, I hula-hooped for 30 minutes straight. I found a few different figures for the amount of calories burned in 30 min, but the average seems to be 350-400 calories for 30 min with a weighted hoop. My hoop is 5 pounds, and of course I am a heavier person moving myself around, so that figure may be slightly more or less, but it's a great thing to have done either way.
The irony was not lost on me that as I was hooping, I was watching an episode of Chopped on my computer. I love cooking shows, and ordinarily when I'm watching them, I knit or draw or do some sedentary thing. I was happy, this time, to have spent the first 12 min doing my pushups, then the next 30 hula-hooping. I feel like that was time well spent.
I've made plans to go ice skating again this coming weekend, actually with the friend to whom I've been enviously comparing myself. I figured it would be good karma to stop being jealous of her weight loss and instead to start doing healthy activities together. She is not my enemy - my own unhealthy lifestyle is - and allying myself with someone going through the same process as me can only benefit us both. Plus, she's just as excited about ice skating as I am, so it should be a great time!
Walking and skating
I've started keeping a spreadsheet of my pedometer data and adding up the totals week by week. As a reminder, my pedometer generates the following information, approximated from my height and weight:
When entering this data, I keep mental asterisks, such as the other day, when I wore my pedometer at a weird angle on my hip and it recorded what I know to be a 2-mile walk as less than a mile. I also know that it doesn't give me a caloric boost when I take the stairs instead of the elevator, or when the steps I'm walking are uphill (in the snow!).
But to get a general idea of where I stand, it's a good gauge.
Week One
Total Walked: 64,548 steps
Moderate Pace: 31,795 steps
Moderate Time: 272 min (4.5 hours)
kcal Burned: 2432
Distance: 25.59 miles
Week Two (so far)
Total Walked: 54,972 steps
Moderate Pace: 22,464 steps
Moderate Time: 189 min (3 hours, 9 min)
Calories Burned: 2027 kcal
Distance: 21.41 miles
My Week Two totals lack Sunday's data, but to be honest, I doubt they will be too impressive, as I have a ton of schoolwork to do.
Week Two also deserves an asterisk for real, as I went ice skating on Friday. I wore my pedometer out of habit, so some of my calories and steps are based on that data, but I was actually skating for about 2 hours. I read online that for a 180-pound person, ice skating burns 572 calories/hour, which would have meant I burned 1144 calories Friday night. If I add that to my total for the week, I'm a lot closer to the 3500 I would have needed to burn a pound of fat this week, though still distressingly far away.
More importantly though, ice skating was great fun, and it felt terrific to use my body to do something I love. I was incredibly pleased to find my form had held up after so many years of not skating, and that my legs were strong enough to skate at a pretty decent pace, but stay in control as I dodged less experienced skaters and show-offs who were weaving and buzzing through the crowd. The outdoor rink stays open through the end of this month, so I'll have to get there again soon.
Now How About Calories?
Depending on the source, I've read that an overweight adult should exercise anywhere from 150-300 minutes (2.5-5 hours) per week to lose weight. I don't actually know if the "moderate" pace on my pedometer counts as moderate exercise, or if that 150-300 minutes should be like, running on a treadmill. Usually when I'm looking at my pedometer data, I'm focusing on the time spent at a moderate pace and the caloric estimate, since those are the likeliest indicators of weight loss efficacy.
Where it gets slightly complicated for me is that looking at the time, I should be set, as last week I was at a moderate pace for 4.5 hours and this week it was minimally 3. Calorically, though, the amount I'm exercising seems nowhere near the amount I'd need to burn a pound of fat, without even considering the way I'm eating (i.e. all this exercise must be off-setting calories taken in if I'm to lose weight).
Speaking of Weight
A second page of my spreadsheet has a list of my daily weigh-ins, which I take each morning as I'm getting ready (time permitting). I don't know if it's healthy to weigh oneself every day or not, but it's become a habit over the past few years. I'm aware that the daily fluctuations are most likely to do with water weight and digestive speed more than actual measurable weight losses and gains, but I would like very much to see an overall loss each week.
This week, it's been:
Mon: 182.5
Tues: 183
Wed: 182
Thurs: 184.5
Fri: 182.5
Sat: 182
Last Sunday, I weighed 183.5. I'll have to check in the morning to see if there was a net loss, but as I see between Wednesday and Thursday, it's totally possible for my weight to fluctuate by 2.5 pounds and mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I have to remember that my goal is not just to lose weight. I want to be fitter, more active, and to eat better because it's healthier and will let me live a longer, happier life. It's not the fat that is making me unhealthy - it's the poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and other unhealthy behaviors themselves that are destructive. Being overweight is merely a symptom of an unhealthy lifestyle, and I can't treat just that symptom, but rather must address the whole lifestyle if I want to overcome it.
I'm really happy that I went ice skating this week. I'll be happier if I can fit it in again, along with some other exercise this coming week. I persist in the belief that if I make my lifestyle healthier, I will eventually see results toward my weight loss goals too.
- total steps walked
- number of steps at a moderate pace
- minutes spent walking at a moderate pace
- kcal burned by walking
- distance travelled (in miles)
When entering this data, I keep mental asterisks, such as the other day, when I wore my pedometer at a weird angle on my hip and it recorded what I know to be a 2-mile walk as less than a mile. I also know that it doesn't give me a caloric boost when I take the stairs instead of the elevator, or when the steps I'm walking are uphill (in the snow!).
But to get a general idea of where I stand, it's a good gauge.
Week One
Total Walked: 64,548 steps
Moderate Pace: 31,795 steps
Moderate Time: 272 min (4.5 hours)
kcal Burned: 2432
Distance: 25.59 miles
Week Two (so far)
Total Walked: 54,972 steps
Moderate Pace: 22,464 steps
Moderate Time: 189 min (3 hours, 9 min)
Calories Burned: 2027 kcal
Distance: 21.41 miles
My Week Two totals lack Sunday's data, but to be honest, I doubt they will be too impressive, as I have a ton of schoolwork to do.
Week Two also deserves an asterisk for real, as I went ice skating on Friday. I wore my pedometer out of habit, so some of my calories and steps are based on that data, but I was actually skating for about 2 hours. I read online that for a 180-pound person, ice skating burns 572 calories/hour, which would have meant I burned 1144 calories Friday night. If I add that to my total for the week, I'm a lot closer to the 3500 I would have needed to burn a pound of fat this week, though still distressingly far away.
More importantly though, ice skating was great fun, and it felt terrific to use my body to do something I love. I was incredibly pleased to find my form had held up after so many years of not skating, and that my legs were strong enough to skate at a pretty decent pace, but stay in control as I dodged less experienced skaters and show-offs who were weaving and buzzing through the crowd. The outdoor rink stays open through the end of this month, so I'll have to get there again soon.
Now How About Calories?
Depending on the source, I've read that an overweight adult should exercise anywhere from 150-300 minutes (2.5-5 hours) per week to lose weight. I don't actually know if the "moderate" pace on my pedometer counts as moderate exercise, or if that 150-300 minutes should be like, running on a treadmill. Usually when I'm looking at my pedometer data, I'm focusing on the time spent at a moderate pace and the caloric estimate, since those are the likeliest indicators of weight loss efficacy.
Where it gets slightly complicated for me is that looking at the time, I should be set, as last week I was at a moderate pace for 4.5 hours and this week it was minimally 3. Calorically, though, the amount I'm exercising seems nowhere near the amount I'd need to burn a pound of fat, without even considering the way I'm eating (i.e. all this exercise must be off-setting calories taken in if I'm to lose weight).
Speaking of Weight
A second page of my spreadsheet has a list of my daily weigh-ins, which I take each morning as I'm getting ready (time permitting). I don't know if it's healthy to weigh oneself every day or not, but it's become a habit over the past few years. I'm aware that the daily fluctuations are most likely to do with water weight and digestive speed more than actual measurable weight losses and gains, but I would like very much to see an overall loss each week.
This week, it's been:
Mon: 182.5
Tues: 183
Wed: 182
Thurs: 184.5
Fri: 182.5
Sat: 182
Last Sunday, I weighed 183.5. I'll have to check in the morning to see if there was a net loss, but as I see between Wednesday and Thursday, it's totally possible for my weight to fluctuate by 2.5 pounds and mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I have to remember that my goal is not just to lose weight. I want to be fitter, more active, and to eat better because it's healthier and will let me live a longer, happier life. It's not the fat that is making me unhealthy - it's the poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and other unhealthy behaviors themselves that are destructive. Being overweight is merely a symptom of an unhealthy lifestyle, and I can't treat just that symptom, but rather must address the whole lifestyle if I want to overcome it.
I'm really happy that I went ice skating this week. I'll be happier if I can fit it in again, along with some other exercise this coming week. I persist in the belief that if I make my lifestyle healthier, I will eventually see results toward my weight loss goals too.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
It seems unfair
Since finally getting over the back-to-back cold, bronchitis, flu triple whammy of my winter break, I've returned to my daily commute to school. I had estimated the walking portions as being about 2-3 miles, though I'm not sure what the basis for this estimate was. It turns out my walk is actually more like 4 miles, which I recently confirmed both by wearing my pedometer last week (I finally changed its battery) and checking the walking distance on Google Maps in case I was wearing the pedometer in the wrong place or making some kind of error.
This means that on an average day (of which I have at least four per week this semester), I walk 4 or more miles, usually about an hour of which is at what the pedometer considers a moderate pace. That translates to roughly 400 calories burned (and possibly more, since I am carrying a heavy backpack, negotiating hills and stairs, and so forth). On other days, I've walked 8 and a half miles or more. One would think the weight would come ripping off.
And yet, I must be doing something terribly wrong with my diet if my weight won't budge.
Some Math
To lose one pound of fat, a person must net a loss of 3500 calories. That is, the amount of calories eaten less one's basal metabolic rate and those burned through exercise must together tally up to 500 less per day if one wishes to lose one pound in a week.
For my height, weight, age, and sex, my basal metabolic rate (BMR) is approximately 1611 calories. (You can calculate yours here.)
If I am burning 400 calories a day, yet staying the same weight, I must be eating minimally 400 calories more than that 1611, which puts me at 2000 calories a day or more.
When I did that math, I blinked, dumbfounded. Can that possibly be right??
Examining Thoughtless Days
Since cutting out all take-out and fast food, I would say I eat a fairly healthy diet. I've been resisting actively dieting because I have too much on my metaphorical plate already, and I assumed that getting the grossly unhealthy foods off the table would take care of the situation.
Yesterday, here is what I ate, with approximate times of day:
- 10:00 am: 1 SlimFast meal replacement bar
- 1:15 pm: a second SlimFast bar
- 5:00 pm: a ham and cheese sandwich, on multigrain bread
- 9:00 pm: 2 mint Oreos
- 11:00 pm: half a bag of frozen cauliflower, with a pat of SmartBalance butter spread, salt, and pepper
- 12:30 am: a small handful of raisins
- 1:30 am: instant Ramen, beef flavor
I wouldn't have said that was such a bad day, in so far as I didn't eat a formal "dinner," but I thoughtlessly snacked on the equivalent of a dinner and then some. I've been eating those SlimFast bars because they fit in my purse and I have ten minutes between my morning and afternoon classes, but then when I came home I was so hungry I had a sandwich. That would be fine if that were my dinner, but I had a second dinner through grazing.
Here was Monday, a less typical day when my mom came to the city:
- 9:00 am: SlimFast bar
- 3:00 pm: street vendor hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard
- 7:00 pm: fried rice chip things with peanut sauce, 1.5 curry puffs, large serving of green curry with beef over jasmine rice, big slice of chocolate mousse cake
- 11:00 pm: 2 mint Oreos
Again, I would have said that while I had a huge meal with my mom at dinner, the rest of the day wasn't so bad. Yet the hot dog was a much bigger meal than it seemed, calorie-wise, and I had the same calories in the SlimFast bar as in two Oreos (why do I even have Oreos in my apartment?!).
In my delusional thinking, I've been "pretty good" this week, but clearly I have slipped up a number of times and probably do so every day.
I read suggestions for how to cut calories from one's diet, and they're always absurdities like "Instead of having an egg McMuffin with cheese for breakfast, have a bran muffin!" or "Trade your 600-calorie Starbucks drink for a 200-calorie hot chocolate!" It's always struck me as a little ridiculous, since I am already eating the bran muffins and having neither lattes nor hot chocolate, but calorie-free diet soda instead. I already eat fat-free dressings and a minimum of condiments and sauces, I use SmartBalance cholesterol-reducing spread instead of butter, I eat whole grains, and I've even started drinking water (ugh). More than a few times, I've lamented, "What am I supposed to cut? Real food??"
Well yes, that is precisely what I have to do. I act like I am eating a basically healthy diet, but I sneak treats in. Dessert at dinner, packages of Oreos hanging around the apartment, appetizers instead of salads at dinner, cocktails and beer. When you add up all these little treats, they are precisely the extra calories that my minimal activity can't offset.
So what do you do about it?
I am still endlessly frustrated by the friend of mine who keeps dropping weight by doing Atkins. She's doing it wrong, essentially cutting all carbs from her diet (as in the induction phase) and not reintroducing them or learning how to eat properly. She's also doing minimal exercise (yoga once a week or so), yet she's steadily losing weight, and it drives me nuts. Then again, she has a lot more weight to lose, and after dieting for the past 6 or 8 months, she's only just reached the weight at which I freaked out and decided an emergency intervention was necessary to get my weight under controlled.
I know that I have to stop comparing myself to her because I've already decided that I don't want to lose weight that way.
I also know that I don't have the time or wherewithal to succeed at a formal diet right now. I can try smaller portions and healthier choices, continue eschewing fast food and take-out, resisting desserts and appetizers, drinking more water, eating more vegetables, and so forth.
And that leaves me with a dramatic increase in exercise.
Where I'm at right now, I will basically maintain my weight, give or take, by walking to and from school and not suddenly increasing my calories. My body has established an equilibrium around 180, and if I want to change that without appreciably changing my caloric intake, I need to introduce a big shock of exercise.
Choosing a More Active Lifestyle
When I was young, I never had trouble with my weight. At times, I actually struggled to keep weight on, and for a brief while I was clinically underweight. I know that my metabolism was much higher because I was younger, but more than that, I was an athlete and when I wasn't in training, I had a very active lifestyle.
When I was 14 or 15, my favorite activities were rollerblading, bicycling, playing tennis, swimming, and so forth. A typical spring or summer day would include rollerblading across town to meet up with friends, play tennis, then maybe rollerblade to the beach for a swim. When I was in training, I would make time for 5-mile runs, weight-lifting, and random calisthenics throughout the day. The first time I ever gained weight was when my friends started driving (they were all a year or two older than me) and they no longer wanted to rollerblade or bicycle places, but rather drive to a movie or sit around in basements and drink.
Living in a city, my lifestyle is a sort of hybridization - I walk everywhere now, yet I am walking to sedentary activities or drinking. I walked 9 miles the other day, but I was walking from a restaurant where we had pizza dinner to a bakery where we had cupcakes (it was my friend's birthday). Other days I'll be good all day (like actually good, not delusional good), then blow it with two beers, a bacon cheeseburger, and fries with a friend.
My challenge, I know, is to mitigate socializing with healthier eating. As an example, last week rather than meeting up to sit and drink, I suggested that my friend and I spend the evening at an art museum (obviously this was mainly because I was more interested in art too). We walked all around, then walked between the museum and dinner, which I can only hope offset the drinks and meal a little. I've asked that same friend if instead of meeting for dinner and drinks this weekend, we can go ice skating at a park in the city. Obviously there will be drinking and dinner as well, but I have to think that a couple hours of ice skating are better than a couple hours sitting at a barstool.
The weather here has been so bad that my plan to force myself to "go jogging no matter what" can't get off the ground. It's one thing to force oneself out in the cold or light rain, but it's quite different to try to jog on sidewalks with feet of snow or treacherously slippery ice.
That leaves me with things I can do in my apartment.... hula hooping, push-ups, sit-ups, and miscellaneous calisthenics. I have several books of workouts that can be done indoors, including the New York City Ballet Workout and the College Dorm Workout. I vaguely remember how to do yoga, and I could probably find a DVD I've bought at some point.
It still seems unfair
The point, I guess, is that I really need to do something and it seems unfair that I can't just eliminate carbs and solve all my problems. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason I want to lose weight primarily through exercise is because I need to develop a healthy lifestyle. That means activity, finding ways to incorporate exercise into my day, and discovering things I can do to offset the calories from occasional treats.
I have held, in the back of my mind, the excuse that I gained all this weight at once when I first went on antidepressants many years ago. While that may have been true at the time, I haven't addressed the problem and I am obviously eating in a way that sustains 180 pounds of me. I don't want to feel fat and ashamed of my body anymore, and it doesn't really matter how legitimate I think my excuse for gaining was, I am still fat and it's not going to go away on its own. I don't know if it would feel better to have gotten this fat by pigging out on cupcakes and drinking to excess, or like my friend, to have always been obese. I imagine not.
Though it seems a crutch at times, the most powerful weapon I have in my fight to lose weight is the fact that I used to be really fit. I know what my body can be like and how it feels to enjoy it, and the struggle is to get back in touch with that, rather than grasp flailing at some tenuous and imagined abstraction.
This means that on an average day (of which I have at least four per week this semester), I walk 4 or more miles, usually about an hour of which is at what the pedometer considers a moderate pace. That translates to roughly 400 calories burned (and possibly more, since I am carrying a heavy backpack, negotiating hills and stairs, and so forth). On other days, I've walked 8 and a half miles or more. One would think the weight would come ripping off.
And yet, I must be doing something terribly wrong with my diet if my weight won't budge.
Some Math
To lose one pound of fat, a person must net a loss of 3500 calories. That is, the amount of calories eaten less one's basal metabolic rate and those burned through exercise must together tally up to 500 less per day if one wishes to lose one pound in a week.
For my height, weight, age, and sex, my basal metabolic rate (BMR) is approximately 1611 calories. (You can calculate yours here.)
If I am burning 400 calories a day, yet staying the same weight, I must be eating minimally 400 calories more than that 1611, which puts me at 2000 calories a day or more.
When I did that math, I blinked, dumbfounded. Can that possibly be right??
Examining Thoughtless Days
Since cutting out all take-out and fast food, I would say I eat a fairly healthy diet. I've been resisting actively dieting because I have too much on my metaphorical plate already, and I assumed that getting the grossly unhealthy foods off the table would take care of the situation.
Yesterday, here is what I ate, with approximate times of day:
- 10:00 am: 1 SlimFast meal replacement bar
- 1:15 pm: a second SlimFast bar
- 5:00 pm: a ham and cheese sandwich, on multigrain bread
- 9:00 pm: 2 mint Oreos
- 11:00 pm: half a bag of frozen cauliflower, with a pat of SmartBalance butter spread, salt, and pepper
- 12:30 am: a small handful of raisins
- 1:30 am: instant Ramen, beef flavor
I wouldn't have said that was such a bad day, in so far as I didn't eat a formal "dinner," but I thoughtlessly snacked on the equivalent of a dinner and then some. I've been eating those SlimFast bars because they fit in my purse and I have ten minutes between my morning and afternoon classes, but then when I came home I was so hungry I had a sandwich. That would be fine if that were my dinner, but I had a second dinner through grazing.
Here was Monday, a less typical day when my mom came to the city:
- 9:00 am: SlimFast bar
- 3:00 pm: street vendor hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard
- 7:00 pm: fried rice chip things with peanut sauce, 1.5 curry puffs, large serving of green curry with beef over jasmine rice, big slice of chocolate mousse cake
- 11:00 pm: 2 mint Oreos
Again, I would have said that while I had a huge meal with my mom at dinner, the rest of the day wasn't so bad. Yet the hot dog was a much bigger meal than it seemed, calorie-wise, and I had the same calories in the SlimFast bar as in two Oreos (why do I even have Oreos in my apartment?!).
In my delusional thinking, I've been "pretty good" this week, but clearly I have slipped up a number of times and probably do so every day.
I read suggestions for how to cut calories from one's diet, and they're always absurdities like "Instead of having an egg McMuffin with cheese for breakfast, have a bran muffin!" or "Trade your 600-calorie Starbucks drink for a 200-calorie hot chocolate!" It's always struck me as a little ridiculous, since I am already eating the bran muffins and having neither lattes nor hot chocolate, but calorie-free diet soda instead. I already eat fat-free dressings and a minimum of condiments and sauces, I use SmartBalance cholesterol-reducing spread instead of butter, I eat whole grains, and I've even started drinking water (ugh). More than a few times, I've lamented, "What am I supposed to cut? Real food??"
Well yes, that is precisely what I have to do. I act like I am eating a basically healthy diet, but I sneak treats in. Dessert at dinner, packages of Oreos hanging around the apartment, appetizers instead of salads at dinner, cocktails and beer. When you add up all these little treats, they are precisely the extra calories that my minimal activity can't offset.
So what do you do about it?
I am still endlessly frustrated by the friend of mine who keeps dropping weight by doing Atkins. She's doing it wrong, essentially cutting all carbs from her diet (as in the induction phase) and not reintroducing them or learning how to eat properly. She's also doing minimal exercise (yoga once a week or so), yet she's steadily losing weight, and it drives me nuts. Then again, she has a lot more weight to lose, and after dieting for the past 6 or 8 months, she's only just reached the weight at which I freaked out and decided an emergency intervention was necessary to get my weight under controlled.
I know that I have to stop comparing myself to her because I've already decided that I don't want to lose weight that way.
I also know that I don't have the time or wherewithal to succeed at a formal diet right now. I can try smaller portions and healthier choices, continue eschewing fast food and take-out, resisting desserts and appetizers, drinking more water, eating more vegetables, and so forth.
And that leaves me with a dramatic increase in exercise.
Where I'm at right now, I will basically maintain my weight, give or take, by walking to and from school and not suddenly increasing my calories. My body has established an equilibrium around 180, and if I want to change that without appreciably changing my caloric intake, I need to introduce a big shock of exercise.
Choosing a More Active Lifestyle
When I was young, I never had trouble with my weight. At times, I actually struggled to keep weight on, and for a brief while I was clinically underweight. I know that my metabolism was much higher because I was younger, but more than that, I was an athlete and when I wasn't in training, I had a very active lifestyle.
When I was 14 or 15, my favorite activities were rollerblading, bicycling, playing tennis, swimming, and so forth. A typical spring or summer day would include rollerblading across town to meet up with friends, play tennis, then maybe rollerblade to the beach for a swim. When I was in training, I would make time for 5-mile runs, weight-lifting, and random calisthenics throughout the day. The first time I ever gained weight was when my friends started driving (they were all a year or two older than me) and they no longer wanted to rollerblade or bicycle places, but rather drive to a movie or sit around in basements and drink.
Living in a city, my lifestyle is a sort of hybridization - I walk everywhere now, yet I am walking to sedentary activities or drinking. I walked 9 miles the other day, but I was walking from a restaurant where we had pizza dinner to a bakery where we had cupcakes (it was my friend's birthday). Other days I'll be good all day (like actually good, not delusional good), then blow it with two beers, a bacon cheeseburger, and fries with a friend.
My challenge, I know, is to mitigate socializing with healthier eating. As an example, last week rather than meeting up to sit and drink, I suggested that my friend and I spend the evening at an art museum (obviously this was mainly because I was more interested in art too). We walked all around, then walked between the museum and dinner, which I can only hope offset the drinks and meal a little. I've asked that same friend if instead of meeting for dinner and drinks this weekend, we can go ice skating at a park in the city. Obviously there will be drinking and dinner as well, but I have to think that a couple hours of ice skating are better than a couple hours sitting at a barstool.
The weather here has been so bad that my plan to force myself to "go jogging no matter what" can't get off the ground. It's one thing to force oneself out in the cold or light rain, but it's quite different to try to jog on sidewalks with feet of snow or treacherously slippery ice.
That leaves me with things I can do in my apartment.... hula hooping, push-ups, sit-ups, and miscellaneous calisthenics. I have several books of workouts that can be done indoors, including the New York City Ballet Workout and the College Dorm Workout. I vaguely remember how to do yoga, and I could probably find a DVD I've bought at some point.
It still seems unfair
The point, I guess, is that I really need to do something and it seems unfair that I can't just eliminate carbs and solve all my problems. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason I want to lose weight primarily through exercise is because I need to develop a healthy lifestyle. That means activity, finding ways to incorporate exercise into my day, and discovering things I can do to offset the calories from occasional treats.
I have held, in the back of my mind, the excuse that I gained all this weight at once when I first went on antidepressants many years ago. While that may have been true at the time, I haven't addressed the problem and I am obviously eating in a way that sustains 180 pounds of me. I don't want to feel fat and ashamed of my body anymore, and it doesn't really matter how legitimate I think my excuse for gaining was, I am still fat and it's not going to go away on its own. I don't know if it would feel better to have gotten this fat by pigging out on cupcakes and drinking to excess, or like my friend, to have always been obese. I imagine not.
Though it seems a crutch at times, the most powerful weapon I have in my fight to lose weight is the fact that I used to be really fit. I know what my body can be like and how it feels to enjoy it, and the struggle is to get back in touch with that, rather than grasp flailing at some tenuous and imagined abstraction.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Worth the Effort
Continuing some of the ideas from my last post, I read a wonderful Jonah Lehrer article on Why Making Dinner is a Good Idea. Lehrer is a brilliant neuroscientist, who writes fascinating pieces that break down concepts of how the brain/mind works and explains what that means in terms of everyday experiences (among other things).
In this article, he describes an experiment to do with the amount of effort it takes to earn a food reward, as it relates to the enjoyment of it. The study found that mice who did more work (by lever-pushing) to get food then enjoyed it substantially more than food for which they didn't need to work as much. Lehrer then discussed another paper where it was observed that obese individuals got less satisfaction out of food and that overeating is not so much a matter of gluttony, but an issue of needing more food or drink to achieve a satisfying effect. (Definitely read the article - he says it much more articulately).
These ideas relate directly to one of my recent resolves, to put effort into cooking real food for dinner. Over the fall semester, I fell into a worrying pattern of ordering pizza or Chinese takeout most nights of the week, supplemented with food that took a minimal effort to cook, like prepackaged macaroni and cheese or canned soups purchased at the corner store. I don't imagine I need to elaborate on how disastrously unhealthy that's been. Further, I reckon it's at least as expensive, if not much more expensive, than planning meals, buying groceries, and taking some time to cook with fresh foods.
It is encouraging, therefore, to know that the increased satisfaction I get when I take the time to cook isn't simply a virtuous sense of accomplishment, but an actual mechanism of my brain working to reward the effort. And when you add the two ideas up, being more satisfied with something because I've cooked it also suggests I will not need to eat as much to really enjoy it. Win win, right?
In pursuit of this goal, while I've been visiting my parents over break, I've talked a lot with my mom about weeknight meals that she used to prepare for our family, copying down some of her recipes and brainstorming other ideas that work. I know that before I worry too much about "dieting" in the strictest sense, I need to get back into the habit of preparing balanced meals that take a bit of work. I need to plan menus for the week and sort out how my leftovers will work so that I don't find myself making large pots of pasta and mindlessly scooping out bowls of it all week. I also have to work grocery shopping back into my schedule so that I don't find myself with no food in the house and the inclination to plug my credit card number into a pizza delivery website so I can get back to my homework.
As I get back into the cooking groove, I urgently need to get an exercise plan in place as well. For the entire fall semester, I "meant" to sort out what I would do for fitness and never really got around to it. Initially, I figured that if I did nothing else, I was still walking at least 3 miles a day over the course of my commute, with several minutes of steep hills on each end. Unfortunately, even with a heavy backpack, I don't think I'm getting anywhere near an aerobically effective pace (though I bought a new battery for my pedometer, so I will check), and I doubt any amount of walking could make a dent in the awful eating habits I'd developed.
Like I've said before, I want to earn my weight loss and fitness. I know I will be so much happier with myself if I can do it by healthy eating and developing the discipline to exercise even when I'd rather crash in front of my computer and waste hours on the internet. I know that the approach I must take is not that I am dieting or working out to try to lose weight, but that I am changing what my life is like, so that eating healthy and exercising are as much a part of it as the other things I do. The resulting healthy body and mind are the rewards of literally becoming a healthier, fitter person on the inside, and that's the real goal.
In this article, he describes an experiment to do with the amount of effort it takes to earn a food reward, as it relates to the enjoyment of it. The study found that mice who did more work (by lever-pushing) to get food then enjoyed it substantially more than food for which they didn't need to work as much. Lehrer then discussed another paper where it was observed that obese individuals got less satisfaction out of food and that overeating is not so much a matter of gluttony, but an issue of needing more food or drink to achieve a satisfying effect. (Definitely read the article - he says it much more articulately).
These ideas relate directly to one of my recent resolves, to put effort into cooking real food for dinner. Over the fall semester, I fell into a worrying pattern of ordering pizza or Chinese takeout most nights of the week, supplemented with food that took a minimal effort to cook, like prepackaged macaroni and cheese or canned soups purchased at the corner store. I don't imagine I need to elaborate on how disastrously unhealthy that's been. Further, I reckon it's at least as expensive, if not much more expensive, than planning meals, buying groceries, and taking some time to cook with fresh foods.
It is encouraging, therefore, to know that the increased satisfaction I get when I take the time to cook isn't simply a virtuous sense of accomplishment, but an actual mechanism of my brain working to reward the effort. And when you add the two ideas up, being more satisfied with something because I've cooked it also suggests I will not need to eat as much to really enjoy it. Win win, right?
In pursuit of this goal, while I've been visiting my parents over break, I've talked a lot with my mom about weeknight meals that she used to prepare for our family, copying down some of her recipes and brainstorming other ideas that work. I know that before I worry too much about "dieting" in the strictest sense, I need to get back into the habit of preparing balanced meals that take a bit of work. I need to plan menus for the week and sort out how my leftovers will work so that I don't find myself making large pots of pasta and mindlessly scooping out bowls of it all week. I also have to work grocery shopping back into my schedule so that I don't find myself with no food in the house and the inclination to plug my credit card number into a pizza delivery website so I can get back to my homework.
As I get back into the cooking groove, I urgently need to get an exercise plan in place as well. For the entire fall semester, I "meant" to sort out what I would do for fitness and never really got around to it. Initially, I figured that if I did nothing else, I was still walking at least 3 miles a day over the course of my commute, with several minutes of steep hills on each end. Unfortunately, even with a heavy backpack, I don't think I'm getting anywhere near an aerobically effective pace (though I bought a new battery for my pedometer, so I will check), and I doubt any amount of walking could make a dent in the awful eating habits I'd developed.
Like I've said before, I want to earn my weight loss and fitness. I know I will be so much happier with myself if I can do it by healthy eating and developing the discipline to exercise even when I'd rather crash in front of my computer and waste hours on the internet. I know that the approach I must take is not that I am dieting or working out to try to lose weight, but that I am changing what my life is like, so that eating healthy and exercising are as much a part of it as the other things I do. The resulting healthy body and mind are the rewards of literally becoming a healthier, fitter person on the inside, and that's the real goal.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Types of Fat and Thin
There is almost no way to talk about the following subject without offending someone, in some way. Everyone has some arbitrary definitions of "fat" or "unhealthy," their cut-off points between curvy and huge, and their concepts of what makes for an attractive body type of not.
An Interjecting Anecdote
Because I love interrupting myself, I'm gonna throw out this experience to illustrate my point.
A little while back, I had been casually dieting and trying to exercise more, though not in a particularly formal way. My family started to notice a difference, and I myself knew that I was developing shapelier muscles and losing fat in significant places. I had to travel to a conference for work, and it occurred to me, as my clothes were all feeling really loose (and looking pretty unprofessional), that I might have dropped down a size.
I was pretty stoked to be a size 12 after years as a 14, and to even have some skirts fit in 10s. I was able to wear a lot of my pre-grad-school "business casual" clothes, as well as a whole bunch of new ones that fit spot-on, if not slightly loosely. I was feeling good, but I still needed to find a dress to wear to a formal event at the conference, so I headed to one more store to try on fancy dresses. Emboldened by the clothes I had just bought and the way they flattered my figure, I looked at styles with more plunging necklines or higher hems, thinking "yeah, this one could show off my legs" or "ooh, this nips in at the waist, that'd be nice..."
With an armful of size 12 dresses, I turned around a crowded rack to move toward the dressing room, where a mother and her college-aged daughter were looking at dresses on the other side. They were both dressed as if they were going to a gym, but in that mall-fashion Juniors way, sporting fake tans, too much makeup, and so forth. They were yammering resentfully about having to shop for some other young woman they knew (I think a cousin?) in the Misses department and wondering what size she might be.
After some debate, the mother squawked, "Listen, she's really, really huge. I think she might even be a twelve!!!"
In that moment, I turned the corner, holding my size 12 dresses and saw that they had one of the ones in my armful (about which I'd been the most hopeful) pulled off the rack as an object of disgust, the way people in weight loss commercials hold out their gigantic pants.
I looked at them, then at the dresses in my arms, with the size labels clearly visible, and we all stood there uncomfortably, a saleswoman less than a foot away saying nothing. I'm not sure why I expected anyone to say anything, like how it's pretty rude to make fun of sizes in the middle of a department store, but because she was silent, I deliberately put all of my dresses back on the rack and made a beeline for the door.
I wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear, and it was a lot of restraint to keep from bursting into hot, mortified tears as I walked to my car. I felt like such a monster, and an oversensitive one at that. "Look at that fatty getting offended when someone points out her fatness," I thought to myself, and I felt especially dumb for the confidence boost I had gained just minutes earlier because I was finally down to this abominably "huge" size 12.
I couldn't help noticing that even though these women were probably of a much smaller clothing size than me, they had flabby arms and disproportionately large butts. They were also really ugly, both in the face, and in their personalities... but that didn't really mean anything as a discount to their behavior.
The thing that stuck out most to me was that it was a reality that many people would hear size 12 and think "huge," just as when I admitted my weight to a friend who said I could stand to lose 30 pounds, he exclaimed "Wow, I knew you'd gained weight, I didn't realize you'd gotten enormous!"
The other point that bothered me was that I might not have been so offended had the woman said a size 16 or a size 20. In my mind, I had an arbitrary measure of where "huge" began, and it was somewhere beyond 14 and up to infinity. If I were talking about myself, I might say "it's not like I'm a triple-XL," without considering that this statement would be incredibly hurtful to someone who had just lost 50 pounds to get down to the XXXL. I would probably even rationalize, "Oh come on, she's got to know that's a huge size," the same way that to these women, I was just obviously "huge."
Types of Fat
So establishing that everyone has a different conception of what's fat and what's not, I've been thinking about body types (probably more than is healthy, but I've been really sick since Christmas) and trying to clarify for myself what that means for my own goals.
The first type of fat is one that's really common among my friends and family, the Formerly Fit. This type applies to women who were formerly athletic and toned, then slowly started getting a little softer and flabbier around the edges. I consider myself to have this body type, and I think it's the only reason I can still trick myself into believing I'm attractive (in the right clothes and light).
I will admit, I'm mildly smug about this type because I know that under the fat are well-developed muscles, I still have tapered ankles and wrists, I've only ever had one chin (with a bit of unwelcome softness, but not a roll yet). I am able to run, hike, swim, kayak, and do some pretty impressively athletic things, just with extra weight.
The second type is the Formerly Thin, which is the descendant of girls who are Skinny Fat. You know the types of people who are not fat, but not toned either, who have never worked to be thin but just are that way, and who as a consequence of being naturally thin, never developed healthy eating habits or discipline about exercise. At some point those girls start drinking more or getting hit with life's stresses, or their metabolism just plain slows, and they get that doughy, shapeless sort of fat where it seems as if they're lacking underlying structure.
I will also admit, I'm not particularly kind to this body type, and it doesn't help that one of my exes is currently dating a girl like this.
Another type of fat I observe very commonly is the Never Been Thin, for whom I have deep and unending sympathy. I have friends and family in this category, who were chubby children, grew into obese adults, and seem to just keep getting fatter every time you see them. Unlike people who were formerly athletes, people with this body type have no idea what they might look and feel like fit, and I imagine that must really effect their self-concept and attitude toward the plausibility of weight loss.
There are, naturally, many nuances and gray areas, but for practical purposes, these three types are generally how I classify overweight women, and I apply my own biases accordingly. Now obviously, someone could be 500 pounds overweight and I wouldn't be able to discern if they were ever fit or not, but for the generally overweight (like 10-100 pounds over), I can almost always tell.
How Body Type Influences Weight Loss
This leads me to another observation: just as there are types of fat, there are types of people who have lost weight. This section is possibly the likeliest of everything I've said to offend, but bear with me.
1. The Return to Fit
This body type is achieved gradually, through a balance of diet and exercise. It usually follows the Formerly Fit fat type, as it is a matter of losing the weight and reconditioning an already athletic physique. Return-to-Fitters seem to show up one day looking amazing and healthy, but because they lost weight healthfully over a matter of time, you don't see them as formerly fat people, just "wow, so-and-so really got in shape."
2. The Still Kinda Big
This type makes me sad because it seems to follow from the Never Been Thin category. People who have naturally larger, bulkier body types can lose every spare molecule of fat in their bodies, but they will still look a little chunky. I don't fully understand this type because, for example, Star Jones was able to completely change body types when she lost weight, yet I know people who do everything healthfully but still have broad hips and thick limbs.
3. The Deflated Fat Person
I notice that this type seems to follow weight loss exclusively through dieting or low-impact exercise and is most common for the Formerly Thin fat type. I also notice it is most common with people who lose weight at a dramatic speed, through gastric bypass surgery, medication, or drastic diets. It's something to do with losing fat before the skin can regain elasticity, or dieting and exercising to become "thin" but never developing muscles. This type tends to retain indicators that they used to be much bigger, especially neck rolls, and while they may be a sliver of their former body, they still don't look healthy, so much as thin.
Why I Want to Lose Weight Slowly
The temptation when facing a large amount of weight to lose (I'd currently like to lose about 60 pounds) is to do something dramatic and sweeping. A friend of mine who has been overweight all of her life started Atkins over the summer and has dropped over 50 pounds now. I think to myself that I could do Atkins for a few months, lose all the weight I'd like to lose, and then I'd be thin and beautiful.
The thing is, though, I don't want to become a Deflated Fat Person. I don't want to lose weight quickly at the price of loose skin or a baggy neck to broadcast to the world that I used to be much heavier.I don't ever want to be just "thin," if it didn't include being fit, toned, and healthy too.
The only body type I'd be happy with is the Return to Fit, which is to say, fit. I am actually happier being a size 14 than I would be as a flabby, saggy size 4 because if you squint, I still look athletic and have an hourglass figure, with a little extra sand in the glass. I would like to get down to a smaller, healthier size, but I don't want to get there by any shortcuts.
I am taking a Tortoise approach here, trying to lose the weight by changing my lifestyle. I am trying, hard, to resist the idea that I could just rip all the weight off quickly and stay thin (because I know that I would just gain it all back, plus some, if I didn't work hard to earn and sustain the loss). I am trying to incorporate my other goals, for improving my nutrition, digestive health, skin, hair, sleep, and emotional well-being. Thin is not the end goal... healthy is.
Patience and integrity will be the biggest challenge on this path, but I know it's the only one that will lead to a lifetime of health and fitness. (And the only one that will keep my boobs up where they belong). I don't want a big "ta-daa!" moment where I reveal how much weight I've lost. I want to just show up looking and feeling really amazing one day.
An Interjecting Anecdote
Because I love interrupting myself, I'm gonna throw out this experience to illustrate my point.
A little while back, I had been casually dieting and trying to exercise more, though not in a particularly formal way. My family started to notice a difference, and I myself knew that I was developing shapelier muscles and losing fat in significant places. I had to travel to a conference for work, and it occurred to me, as my clothes were all feeling really loose (and looking pretty unprofessional), that I might have dropped down a size.
I was pretty stoked to be a size 12 after years as a 14, and to even have some skirts fit in 10s. I was able to wear a lot of my pre-grad-school "business casual" clothes, as well as a whole bunch of new ones that fit spot-on, if not slightly loosely. I was feeling good, but I still needed to find a dress to wear to a formal event at the conference, so I headed to one more store to try on fancy dresses. Emboldened by the clothes I had just bought and the way they flattered my figure, I looked at styles with more plunging necklines or higher hems, thinking "yeah, this one could show off my legs" or "ooh, this nips in at the waist, that'd be nice..."
With an armful of size 12 dresses, I turned around a crowded rack to move toward the dressing room, where a mother and her college-aged daughter were looking at dresses on the other side. They were both dressed as if they were going to a gym, but in that mall-fashion Juniors way, sporting fake tans, too much makeup, and so forth. They were yammering resentfully about having to shop for some other young woman they knew (I think a cousin?) in the Misses department and wondering what size she might be.
After some debate, the mother squawked, "Listen, she's really, really huge. I think she might even be a twelve!!!"
In that moment, I turned the corner, holding my size 12 dresses and saw that they had one of the ones in my armful (about which I'd been the most hopeful) pulled off the rack as an object of disgust, the way people in weight loss commercials hold out their gigantic pants.
I looked at them, then at the dresses in my arms, with the size labels clearly visible, and we all stood there uncomfortably, a saleswoman less than a foot away saying nothing. I'm not sure why I expected anyone to say anything, like how it's pretty rude to make fun of sizes in the middle of a department store, but because she was silent, I deliberately put all of my dresses back on the rack and made a beeline for the door.
I wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear, and it was a lot of restraint to keep from bursting into hot, mortified tears as I walked to my car. I felt like such a monster, and an oversensitive one at that. "Look at that fatty getting offended when someone points out her fatness," I thought to myself, and I felt especially dumb for the confidence boost I had gained just minutes earlier because I was finally down to this abominably "huge" size 12.
I couldn't help noticing that even though these women were probably of a much smaller clothing size than me, they had flabby arms and disproportionately large butts. They were also really ugly, both in the face, and in their personalities... but that didn't really mean anything as a discount to their behavior.
The thing that stuck out most to me was that it was a reality that many people would hear size 12 and think "huge," just as when I admitted my weight to a friend who said I could stand to lose 30 pounds, he exclaimed "Wow, I knew you'd gained weight, I didn't realize you'd gotten enormous!"
The other point that bothered me was that I might not have been so offended had the woman said a size 16 or a size 20. In my mind, I had an arbitrary measure of where "huge" began, and it was somewhere beyond 14 and up to infinity. If I were talking about myself, I might say "it's not like I'm a triple-XL," without considering that this statement would be incredibly hurtful to someone who had just lost 50 pounds to get down to the XXXL. I would probably even rationalize, "Oh come on, she's got to know that's a huge size," the same way that to these women, I was just obviously "huge."
Types of Fat
So establishing that everyone has a different conception of what's fat and what's not, I've been thinking about body types (probably more than is healthy, but I've been really sick since Christmas) and trying to clarify for myself what that means for my own goals.
The first type of fat is one that's really common among my friends and family, the Formerly Fit. This type applies to women who were formerly athletic and toned, then slowly started getting a little softer and flabbier around the edges. I consider myself to have this body type, and I think it's the only reason I can still trick myself into believing I'm attractive (in the right clothes and light).
I will admit, I'm mildly smug about this type because I know that under the fat are well-developed muscles, I still have tapered ankles and wrists, I've only ever had one chin (with a bit of unwelcome softness, but not a roll yet). I am able to run, hike, swim, kayak, and do some pretty impressively athletic things, just with extra weight.
The second type is the Formerly Thin, which is the descendant of girls who are Skinny Fat. You know the types of people who are not fat, but not toned either, who have never worked to be thin but just are that way, and who as a consequence of being naturally thin, never developed healthy eating habits or discipline about exercise. At some point those girls start drinking more or getting hit with life's stresses, or their metabolism just plain slows, and they get that doughy, shapeless sort of fat where it seems as if they're lacking underlying structure.
I will also admit, I'm not particularly kind to this body type, and it doesn't help that one of my exes is currently dating a girl like this.
Another type of fat I observe very commonly is the Never Been Thin, for whom I have deep and unending sympathy. I have friends and family in this category, who were chubby children, grew into obese adults, and seem to just keep getting fatter every time you see them. Unlike people who were formerly athletes, people with this body type have no idea what they might look and feel like fit, and I imagine that must really effect their self-concept and attitude toward the plausibility of weight loss.
There are, naturally, many nuances and gray areas, but for practical purposes, these three types are generally how I classify overweight women, and I apply my own biases accordingly. Now obviously, someone could be 500 pounds overweight and I wouldn't be able to discern if they were ever fit or not, but for the generally overweight (like 10-100 pounds over), I can almost always tell.
How Body Type Influences Weight Loss
This leads me to another observation: just as there are types of fat, there are types of people who have lost weight. This section is possibly the likeliest of everything I've said to offend, but bear with me.
1. The Return to Fit
This body type is achieved gradually, through a balance of diet and exercise. It usually follows the Formerly Fit fat type, as it is a matter of losing the weight and reconditioning an already athletic physique. Return-to-Fitters seem to show up one day looking amazing and healthy, but because they lost weight healthfully over a matter of time, you don't see them as formerly fat people, just "wow, so-and-so really got in shape."
2. The Still Kinda Big
This type makes me sad because it seems to follow from the Never Been Thin category. People who have naturally larger, bulkier body types can lose every spare molecule of fat in their bodies, but they will still look a little chunky. I don't fully understand this type because, for example, Star Jones was able to completely change body types when she lost weight, yet I know people who do everything healthfully but still have broad hips and thick limbs.
3. The Deflated Fat Person
I notice that this type seems to follow weight loss exclusively through dieting or low-impact exercise and is most common for the Formerly Thin fat type. I also notice it is most common with people who lose weight at a dramatic speed, through gastric bypass surgery, medication, or drastic diets. It's something to do with losing fat before the skin can regain elasticity, or dieting and exercising to become "thin" but never developing muscles. This type tends to retain indicators that they used to be much bigger, especially neck rolls, and while they may be a sliver of their former body, they still don't look healthy, so much as thin.
Why I Want to Lose Weight Slowly
The temptation when facing a large amount of weight to lose (I'd currently like to lose about 60 pounds) is to do something dramatic and sweeping. A friend of mine who has been overweight all of her life started Atkins over the summer and has dropped over 50 pounds now. I think to myself that I could do Atkins for a few months, lose all the weight I'd like to lose, and then I'd be thin and beautiful.
The thing is, though, I don't want to become a Deflated Fat Person. I don't want to lose weight quickly at the price of loose skin or a baggy neck to broadcast to the world that I used to be much heavier.I don't ever want to be just "thin," if it didn't include being fit, toned, and healthy too.
The only body type I'd be happy with is the Return to Fit, which is to say, fit. I am actually happier being a size 14 than I would be as a flabby, saggy size 4 because if you squint, I still look athletic and have an hourglass figure, with a little extra sand in the glass. I would like to get down to a smaller, healthier size, but I don't want to get there by any shortcuts.
I am taking a Tortoise approach here, trying to lose the weight by changing my lifestyle. I am trying, hard, to resist the idea that I could just rip all the weight off quickly and stay thin (because I know that I would just gain it all back, plus some, if I didn't work hard to earn and sustain the loss). I am trying to incorporate my other goals, for improving my nutrition, digestive health, skin, hair, sleep, and emotional well-being. Thin is not the end goal... healthy is.
Patience and integrity will be the biggest challenge on this path, but I know it's the only one that will lead to a lifetime of health and fitness. (And the only one that will keep my boobs up where they belong). I don't want a big "ta-daa!" moment where I reveal how much weight I've lost. I want to just show up looking and feeling really amazing one day.
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