Rededication to Health

I have been a bad, bad girl.

I have diabetes, and I have only been paying minimal attention to my eating in the last month or so.

My sugar has been fine, which is almost worse because it's like my body is giving me permission to eat whatever I want. Don't get me wrong - I don't eat junk. I haven't been counting carbs, though.

The problem is, that this is under medication. My goal was to reduce and eliminate what I needed to take. I've learned from some accidental missed dosages that I can't eat what I want and not take my medication. It doesn't work. My sugar shoots up to diabetic and near-diabetic ranges (way better than when I was hospitalized earlier this year - over 300 when I checked into the ER).

I didn't fall off the food wagon all at once. It was little stuff that I excused. Once the little stuff was excused, things like mashed potatoes and ice cream became OK.

This was worse than when I was in the midst of my bottom-of-the-barrel drug days. Then, it was fully recognized that I was out of control. Anyone looking at me could have detected it. Now, it's food - and good food! I use unprocessed ingredients and everything is homemade. I not only know everything that's going into my mouth, but I can figure out the carb count per serving.

Patton Oswalt did a bit about how he couldn't end up in the cool rehab with the rock stars. Instead, he's in over-eater's anonymous with stories about waking up in a hotel room where the underage chubby prostitute took off with your Ritz crackers and how he needed to, "...Swim away from pie," (seriously, YouTube this - it's hilarious, and I totally ruined it).

It's not one decision, though; it's a million decisions throughout the day. This morning, there were cookies on the counter (homemade with all natural ingredients, y'all). I actually thought, "I should just eat these today and work on my food tomorrow. Just call today a wash." Then, I realized it sounded like me back when I'd have a baggie full of Adderall at midnight and work the next day. I could sleep, or I could just power through the night and tomorrow and sleep after that - knowing full well that I'd be calling in sick, but lying to myself about what would actually happen. If I'd eaten the cookies, I probably would have eaten more tomorrow.

But damn if that's now how it feels. I need to swim away from pie. I got my life under control once without having to resort to 12 steps - I'll do it again.

I didn't eat the cookies, by the way. Instead, one cup of fat free Greek yogurt (10 grams of carbs) and 1 tablespoon of homemade apple butter (8 grams of carbs) with two packets of stevia. That puts my breakfast total at 18 carbs. I could have had more (I'm allowing myself 30 per meal), but Greek yogurt is incredibly filling and the tartness curbs my appetite.

It would be so much easier if I was still trying to control my drug use.

AMA Declares Chubby Chicks Diseased!!!

So, according to Leslie Kinzel of XOJane, the AMA (American Medical Association) has officially declared obesity a disease.

The goal behind the declaration is to remove the stigma around obesity and to convince doctors to treat the patient rather than just telling the patient, "If you'd just lose some weight, your life would be amazing and all problems would end."

Unfortunately for most of us, obesity was a choice (or series of choices) that lead you down a hole, you may have to deal with it.  I acknowledge some people have influences outside of their control that affect their weight, but that's not the case for most of us.  If obesity is a disease, maybe it's one of the mind (and mental health has its own set of socio-political rants).

I'm not saying that, because we're fat, we don't have basic human rights, deserve respect, and shouldn't be viewed as fully realized human beings.  I'm not saying we should pay more to see a movie, have higher insurance rates, or be guilted into losing weight (unless you actually want to).  However, we have to have some accountability.  While a disease is basically just an abnormal body condition (which does make obesity a disease), by calling it such we're allowing people to use the label as an excuse for their lives.  I'm struggling to see the positive side of the AMA ruling.

Here's the other part: Calling something a disease doesn't make it better in anyone's eyes.  Lepers are diseased.  People with herpes sores are diseased.  It's perfectly acceptable in society to look at the diseased with disgust.  They already do that to fat people.  If it's a disease, that just adds another layer of stigma to our condition.

I am a fat woman.  Fat is an adjective, but the primary word in the sentence is woman.  I'm a fat human.  Fat, yes.  But, primarily human.  By categorizing fat as a disease, we're just putting the spotlight on it, rather than the person behind it.

I am a woman.  I am a fat woman, an outgoing woman, a creative woman, a loving woman, and a lovely woman.

Even being obese and having diabetes, I don't consider myself a diseased woman.

Fat Chicks Totally Get Laid

So, one of my best buddies is a thick girl.  Like, she's not an in-betweenie; she's a full-on plus size lady.  However, she has never had a lack of male and female attention (she's straight, but so cute that the ladies can't help but try).

Girl has gotten mad laid, and the guys interested in her are HOT (like, damn, that boy is FOINNNE!).

Until I met my husband, I never experienced that. 

I mean, I'd get the occasional suitor who I had little to no interest in.  But, nothing I wanted any part of.  I always attributed it to my girth, but I look at her - who has dates pretty much every week and is hit on daily - and question that. 

So, when I was a little fattie, I got crushes on boys just like every other girl did.  However, if the boys I liked ever found out I was interested, they were so disgusted (how many times do I have to ask you to CRY FOR ME - dammit!?!).  Through the years, I learned to never express interest in anyone.  Whenever someone did end up getting a hint that I was interested, I'd deny to the ends of the earth.

And I think that's it.  I never really learned the flirting stuff.  When I finally would express interest, it was done all weird and creepy-like. 

(me, being weird and creepy to the camera)

When Jon and I met, all rules went out the window.  I mean, I was totally creepy the first time we tried to date and completely ice the second time, but he was persistent enough to get through that.

But, it's not a woman's body that keeps men in or out of her bed, it's her.  It's everything about her.  My friend - regardless of her fluctuating size - has people doting on her continually.  She knows how to tilt her head, be cute, flutter eyelashes, put her hand on guy's shoulders - all of that stuff.  She knows how to wear sex like it's body spray.  She doesn't put up walls, and she uses her feminine wiles enough that they're not dusty or stiff from disuse.  Lessons I probably could have used in my single years.

Now that I'm married, I have more sex than I know what to do with.  So, maybe my awkward courting was more effective than I give it credit for.

Plus, he doesn't mind when I creepy flirt.  He maybe prefers it.

Fake Fat Lady Phenomenon

There's been a lot of talk in the last year of Hollywood's new acceptance of fat people, citing the popularity of actresses like Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy.

I call shenanigans.

While those actresses may have the lead role in several major studio films, they represent a fraction of a percent of working actresses. We have two major actresses in a sea of thousands who are supposed to represent 64% of American women who are overweight or obese.

OK, so maybe this is supposed to be exciting because it's an increase in women of size over previous years.  However, just from my memory, we've always had a few plus-size stars.

Hell, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most powerful women in the world!!!

 

 

Maybe the idea behind the phenomena is that these plus-sized superstars is that they're being viewed as sexual, fully realized characters.  Women who have the same wants and needs as any of their smaller counterparts. 

 

Nope. 

 

Instead, these ladies play goofy punch lines to their own jokes.  They both play characters that are so far removed from reality and represent the view society has of fat women: creepy girls who crush unattainably, masculine women, and women who are ridiculously over-confident.

 

Sometimes, I think Gwyneth Paltrow was a better fat role-model in Shallow Hal than what we're seeing in popular film today.

 

 

 

That is not to say that media is devoid of positive, full-figured females.  We see them in shows like Drop Dead Diva on Lifetime, starring Brooke Elliott and Margaret Cho or in indie films like disFigured about an anorexic and obese woman who become friends.

 

 

These women showcase characters who have sex, get flirted with, and deal with themselves as humans.  Of course, there is fantasy involved - it's fiction.  But they don't use their bodies as a prop for a comedy routine.

 

While I appreciate any representation of women of size in media, it would be nice if the percentages more accurately mirrored the population they were mimicking and the characters played had some basis in reality.  I don't begrudge Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy their work, but instead would love to see them portrayed in a more positive light.

 

This isn't an explosion of fat acceptance.  However, now that we have some women of size becoming more powerful in media, it could be.

Gurl, How You Keep Your Carbs So Low?

I've hesitated to post about this.  Mostly because I have deep shame regarding my diabetes.  It's like saying my weight out loud.  However, I went to the doctor this week.

The good news: I'm down 15 pounds from my last visit.  The bad news: It wasn't 30 pounds.

I wanted to be doing so much better.  I mean, yes - 15 pounds is great.  It's a decline.  But it's such a small dent in such a big number I still have to lose. 

And I know it's my fault - like, totally.  I should be adding exercise into the mix, and I haven't.

I hate obsessing and shaming myself over this.  Six months ago, I wasn't freaking out about my weight.  I was accepting my size and realizing my body was no one else's concern.  I was learning to love me.  And I still know that.  But, I have these creepers of self-hate and shame that have been crawling through my brain ever since the diabetes diagnosis.  How could you have let yourself get so out of control?  How are you so unhealthy?  You don't even look human.

I hate that I have this shame infection instead of just dealing with the disease. 

However, let's focus on the positive - I lost fifteen pounds in a few weeks.  That's cool.  Also, my blood sugar is super under control and I may be able to get off insulin in the future with further weight loss.  That's my goal.  That, and getting in shape for swim suit season.

Just kidding about the swim suit season.  Haha! 

The biggest thing I'm doing to keep my sugar down is eating fewer carbs than the dietician suggested.  Where they told me to eat 45 - 60 per meal, I try to keep it down to about 30.

It's actually not hard.  Not really.  Non-starchy vegetables.

Non-starchy vegetables are normally 5 - 10 grams of carbs per cup (cooked vs. uncooked).  If you follow the diabetic exchange, they're free.  I say fuck that noise.  I count every carb in my mouth. 

Broiled, sautéed, boiled, raw, salad - I eat tons of veggies.  I fill up on veggies and have some fish or chicken.

Slowly, my cravings for other foods are calming down.  Of course, I've backslid.  Of course.

After I wake up with a carb hangover, I start the day with a measured cup of barley flakes or Greek yogurt and get back on track.

I mean, what's the alternative?  Losing my toes to diabetes?  Losing my life?

Whatever.  Veggies fo' life, yo.

In Which the Boy Does Not Offer the Girl His Jacket

I was sitting on a log next to the boy I was crushing on, and shivered.

"Are you cold?" he asked.  I looked coyly from under my lashes and nodded at him.  He took his coat off and slipped it onto my arms.  I pulled myself into the warm boy-smell and smiled at him.

"Won't you be cold?" I asked, knowing he would never get his jacket back from me.  He just smiled in return.

So, that classic teenage girl moment never happened to me.  I mean, I sat on logs with boys, but no one ever offered me a coat.  And I'm sure it's not because they weren't raised right.  I'm fairly certain it's because we both knew the coat wouldn't fit.

Being a fat has huge, obvious obstacles that block girls from living in a Dawson's Creek type world.  I mean, boys don't automatically think you're hot (though you'd be surprised at how many still do - fer reals), it takes more spiked punch to get you ridiculously drunk at the prom, you can't fit out the window of the basement where you're trapped after being kidnapped by a jealous peer, etc.  The list goes on!

One of the more minor issues is that other people's clothes don't fit.  Not just the guy's jacket, but your best friend's jeans, the largest cheerleading uniform, or your rival's awesome dress that she doesn't deserve (am I watching too many teen movies?).  No one's clothes will fit you.

That's simple, you say.  Just befriend another fatty, you say.  Well, yes.  Of course we're whales that herd together for protection.  But you'll get an occasional friendly (or best friendly) dolphin who has amazing taste in clothes.  I mean skinny girl.  Not dolphin.  Dolphins don't wear clothes.  At most, they have, like, blow-hole dangles or shell flipper piercings, right?

But, the skinny girl is all, "It's one size fits all," or,  "It's kind of loose on me.  I'm sure it will fit," or, "I love dolphins!"

I don't know if it's an attempt at kindness or cruel size-blindness that causes people to see you as smaller than you are.  However, it never fits. 

The boyfriend's jacket looks like a sausage casing on you and won't button.  The baggy band t-shirt that your BFF wears to bed shows every bulge and roll.  The dress fits you like a leg warmer.

Instead, fat girls plan ahead.  We don't talk about it, and we don't tell you, but we think in eventualities.  We carry our own hoodie in the spring and fall in case it gets cold.  We might have an extra t-shirt in our car in case we spill something on ourselves.  We start shopping for prom a year ahead or make our own dress instead of waiting for the great sales in April.

And, if we don't plan ahead, we suffer in silence.  We shiver on the log, never mentioning how cold we are.  We wear our t-shirt with the coffee stain down the front and pretend we don't care.  We bitterly envy our best friend's awesome dress that - if it fit - she'd totally let us borrow (because she's that cool, which is why she's our best friend).

We can't even rely on other fatties to borrow clothes from because, even though not everyone notices this, we're not all the same size.  Even though my size 24 friend can commiserate and has similar experiences, we can't share clothes, either.

I did, at the age of sixteen, have a best friend who wore the same size as me (for a few months until I was smaller than her, then a year later, I was bigger than she was - hello weight fluctuations!).  Unfortunately, as sweet and nice and generous as that girl was, she could not dress.  She was a Laura Ashley girl, and I was more of an Angela Chase type (points for those of you who catch the reference).

I did take all of her old jeans, though.  She thought they were ruined when the knees wore out. 

I told you - she couldn't dress for shit.

Like I said, it's not a huge issue, but it's one of those little annoying ones that you almost never notice.  It's just part of how being fat infiltrates your life and leaves it's mark on everything.  And there's no fix.  I mean, yes - there's weight loss, though there are a billion issues behind even suggesting that as a solution, and isn't even an option for some people - along with the understanding that some people will only get so small.  There's fat acceptance, but that changes only perceptions when a lot of the problems are concrete reality issues - like measurable, physical issues: clothes fitting, activities being fat-(un)friendly, chairs breaking.  THINGS.

Anyway, the point of this wasn't to rant, but instead to make you feel sorry for me because I never stole my boyfriend's coat. 

The End.