What I've Learned From Ignoring My Body

Dear Imogen Lamport:

I know you don't run in my circles.  You don't seem to have run into Health At Every Size, or eating disorder recovery. Clearly you don't read Dances With Fat.  So when I read your seemingly random discussion of weight loss on your usually fashion- and style-oriented blog, I thought it was out of place, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt for the moment.

You are absolutely correct, you know.  Most people have to stay hungry to sustain weight loss.  They have to know hunger and embrace it and move through it.  For some people, it might just be the edge of hunger.  For others, it might be more.  You're also correct that our bodies don't understand that we generally have access to more food than any ten of our distant ancestors ever saw in their lives.  More food, safer food, it's lovely.  What a wonderful world.

However. I'm here to remind you that hunger is an important signal to the brain.  Hunger, pain, anger, sadness, sleepiness, these are all things we need to pay attention to.  Yes, as adults, it's important to be able to accept them at times, to learn ways to deal with them when we can't or shouldn't do anything about them.  Just as adults don't burst into tears in public unless they have absolutely reached their limits, we don't find ourselves binge eating unless something has gone haywire.  And powering through these very important signals is a fantastic way to take us to haywire, to take us beyond our limits.

Diet gurus- excuse me, lifestyle change gurus- champion willpower.  Even if in the beginning, as you said about your client's diet, they claim we won't be hungry, in the end they always circle back to "Just do it!"  But willpower is a two-edged sword.  Willpower is fuel for eating disorders, with the perverse pride that people get from doing what they know from experience sickens them.  Willpower is one of the things that keeps people with mental illness from getting help until their internal signals are on Red Alert and they're to the point of breaking down and hurting themselves.  Willpower must be tempered with wisdom to be worthwhile.

I know you didn't mean for your client to scream "THIS IS SPARTA!" and dive into eating disorders.  But your advice was dangerous.  I won't speak to your choices: you are the boss of your underpants, and that's fine.  (Although I will point out that putting "500 calories" and "not a starvation diet" in the same sentence will make nutrition nerds laugh at you.)  But advising a woman on a diet who's struggling with her hunger to embrace it is a hard thing.  She's at high risk of falling face first off that stupid, expensive diet into a bowl full of pie and ice cream and shame, and that isn't a healthy place to be at all.  That's not a place where she can nourish her mind and body. (Please note, I fully support pie and ice cream.  Just not garnished with tears.) Not to mention that you don't know her body: you don't know her medical conditions, her hunger, or whether she's actually getting the nourishment she needs from this one-size-fits-all deal.  If she needs food and she's not getting it, that needs to be addressed. But you're not her doctor; you're not her nutritionist; you're just shaming her for being naturally hungry.

And what does that make you?

I hesitate to answer that with anything other than, "A blogger with one less follower."

Two weeks in

So I began eating my new way on Saturday, September 22nd and it's now Sunday, October 7th.  Two weeks and one day.  I managed to sneak into my mom's house yesterday and weigh myself, and I rang in at 288 lb.  I'm not gonna lie, I was a little disappointed.  But then I weigh that against the fact that I didn't have a "starting weight" because I didn't have a scale, and I refocus on the fact that health is my priority, not just weight loss.  I do know that my high point, as far as I know, was 293 lb according to my doctor's scales last month.  I'm also focusing on muscle gain, so weight in and of itself will not be the best measure.  (I am also measuring myself with a measuring tape, but I felt it would be better to wait till next week to remeasure due to confuddledness.)

So, let's tally up the good so far:

I'm sleeping better.
I have more energy.
I am eating less- I feel genuinely hungry before most meals.  In a good way.
I'm eating a much bigger variety of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis.
I have completely cut high fructose corn syrup, as well as other added sugars, completely out.
I have cut out grains.*

* I have been tested for gluten intolerance, and I essentially came out a gluten-lovin' chick.  I cut these out not because I think they are bad for me, but because they tend to come with a lot of extra processing and sugars and crud.  Also because I'm doing a low-moderate carb diet here.  If/when I add them back in, it'll probably involve a lot of planning.

Anyway, I feel like I'm ready for more physically.  (Slow more!)  I'm applying for financial assistance with the YMCA and the JCC, both gyms I know very well and both gyms I enjoy.  (And they both have swimming pools, a big thing for me!)  I just feel like more vigorous exercise would suit me pretty well, physically and mentally, although I know that it's gonna be tough.

Yesterday I took my dog to the river, which was amazing and very strenuous.  I had a big bag of picnic stuff, towels and water, and in the other hand I was managing my 65 lb, excited dog, so it was pretty demanding for my arms and shoulders- not to mention that my long-suffering sandals broke about a quarter-mile in to my roughly 2 mile hike.  Thank goodness I brought my water shoes!  But we had a blast, I got some sun and today I had a pleasant soreness in all my major muscle groups.  I don't mind a little soreness- it just means that I'm doing things!

Fatties in the public view

Let me start out by stating the obvious: in American culture, it's not okay to be fat.  It's considered gross, ugly, lazy, unhealthy and a burden on the public aesthetically and financially.  If I'm fat, I'm offending people around me. Fat people- particularly fat women- are second class citizens.  (Although fat men have their own set of social obstacles, especially the notion that fat is feminizing.  Ah, sexism!)

I've been very lucky when it comes to meeting this stigma head on.  Although my family disapproves of fat, my mom, when trying to get me to slim down, encouraged me to enjoy movement and food.  I really appreciate especially that she never mentioned my weight as a child, but only tried to step in when I was nearly an adult and when I gained 100 lb in a year, clearly because of depression.  She also explicitly told me that I was beautiful the way I was and I didn't need to try to meet others' expectations, some really healthy advice!

What's more, in my social circles, there's not a lot of negative body talk.  We celebrate our own and each other's bodies, we make food together and run races together and don't cotton to the self-hatred that seems so common in other groups.  That's a real gift.

I also have had less public comment on my body than some other fatties have had on theirs.  (I hesitate to think about the online discussion on Janie Martinez's gold bikini.  She is amazing!)  I don't know why, but I suspect that it's largely because I'm just lucky- I live in a pretty progressive city.  I wonder if it might also be due to my attitude, although that's dangerous speculation- I do tend to flaunt my fat, wearing bright colors, sleeveless or strapless tops and other clothing reserved for skinny women.  I guess it could go either way- I could be avoiding public comment because the people who would want to comment would give me up as a bad job, or I'm extra lucky because noncompliant fatties might draw more comment, to force them to comply.

The worst I've had is when I was living in downtown Richmond, out for a jog with Andy.  We were crossing Belvidere, and some dude from the backseat of a car yelled, "Run, fat bitch!"  I completely ignored him- it's my first instinct- but it hit me like a sledgehammer, how vicious and violent it was.  No one should be subject to that.  I was especially angry because fatties can't win for losing- if we're out in the world, not working out, we're lazy, and if we are working out, we're disgusting.

To get myself in the gym, I told myself that I may be the fattest, slowest person in there- but maybe I'm making it safe for someone else to come in.  Maybe someone else will see me there and think, "Well, if she feels safe in there, it must be okay for me too."  And to be fair, not one person has ever said a cruel or demeaning thing to me in the gym.  And I've spent a LOT of time in the gym!  (Unless you count the trainers(ALL the trainers) who assumed that my goal was to lose weight, not to build muscle.  But I'll give them a pass.)

Anyway, today I wanted to draw your attention to this post about concern trolling at the Great Fitness Experiment.  Charlotte has really helped reaffirm my faith in fitness, separate from weight loss- she struggled with an eating disorder, and her blog really reflects a commitment to mental health as well as physical.  I really appreciate her discussion about folks who comment on others' bodies with the excuse, "But I'm worried for your health!"  First of all, I think it is never appropriate to discuss someone else's body in public, not mine, not yours, not Hillary Clinton's, not Arnold Schwarzenegger's.  If you know someone well, someone who is losing or gaining weight fast, there might(MIGHT) be a case for pulling them aside and saying, "Is something going on?  Are you okay?"  But to make extrapolations from observations of body size is hateful in this culture.

In other news, the sweet potato fries were mushy but a hit!  Also, I've walked two miles since starting this post.  (With only a few detours to other sites!)

Dieting; or, being fat in a skinny world.

So, I'm not sure I'm really dieting.  I'm not counting calories or carbs or grams of fat.  I cut out sugar and grains, but other than that, I don't restrict what I eat particularly.  I am trying to lose weight, but I can't say that I'm stressing about it the way I have with every other diet.  I feel a million times better on this eating plan than I did on literally every other diet.  And trust me, I have tried the diets!

The most "successful" diet was Atkins.  I lost 70 pounds in three months and kept it off for ten years.  (That puts me in the 5% of dieters that manage permanent weight loss, you'll note.  And 70 lbs took me from "morbidly obese" to just plain "obese".  It would take another 70 lbs to take me to "normal" BMI.)  The trouble with Atkins was that I was miserable the entire time, irritable, cranky, craving and sick.  I quit the diet because I started craving Twinkies.  I hate Twinkies.  I think they are foul.

Other diets I've tried, for various reasons: low fat, vegetarian, vegan, Weight Watchers, Atkins again and just plain calorie restriction.  Vegan made me sick- I started having major digestive problems.  Vegetarian didn't change anything health or weightwise.  Calorie restriction left me hungry ALL. THE. TIME.  I'm not saying hunger doesn't have a place in a healthy diet- but being hungry all the time is bad for the soul, because you start plotting to eat people!  None of these budged my weight, which after the successful Atkins ranged between 225 and 235 very consistently.

Other things that didn't change my weight: cooking at home.  eating out all the time.  running 5 and 10Ks.  weightlifting.  walking between four and eight hours a day. lying in bed all day, every day.

Recently I gained 60 lbs in three months.  I was very emotional about this weight gain, because I didn't understand it- I began gaining weight after stepping up my activity and starting to eat better.  It turned out it was due to a medication I was taking.

Potentially due to the weight gain, I also developed severe headaches due to increased intracranial hypertension- that is, the pressure from spinal fluid began building up in my skull.  That's why I'm trying to lose weight now- well, that and I'm pretty sure my body doesn't like being this weight.  I expect that if I lose weight, I will probably lose it pretty quickly, as I did before.  But who knows?  I was pretty content at that weight, and I could learn to be content at this weight as well.

In any case, I applied what I learned about my body and nutrition to create my own diet, focusing on meat, beans, whole fruits and veggies, fermented dairy and nuts and seeds.  It's pretty Paleoesque for the time being, although I do drink diet sodas and eat Splenda.  I'm not relying solely on those, though- I do drink a lot of water and avoid sweets for the most part.  I tried to cross losing weight and feeling healthy, and for now I'm pretty satisfied with the mix.  I feel much, much better eating whole foods, and that's more important than weight loss.  I'm also back to walking two or three miles a day, trying to build up the conditioning I lost earlier this year.  I'll add in weightlifting and other exercise in the near future.

It's been nine days since I began on Saturday September 22nd, 2012, and I'm aiming to keep to this lifestyle till New Year's- then I will re-evaluate.  But I'm feeling good!