I've had an ED all my life, since as far back as I can remember. Looking at photos from childhood, and medical height/weight measurements on report cards, I don't show any signs of overweight until I was 9 years old, when I was put on a low-calorie diet (inappropriately) by my mother. It was 1000-1200 calories a day with no change in eating habits and no increase in motion, although I was a pretty active kid. Placing a child on a calorie count like that is dangerous and would never be done today. She didn't know what she was doing, however, so she's excused.
She controlled my eating and weight, and my sister's, as long as I lived at home. She'd put me on a diet, then at some point say I was too skinny and force feed me, then say I was too fat and put me on a diet, again and again for a decade. By the way, I never reached that elusive "correct" weight. In her mind, it was always one or the other, fat or thin. There was never a day that went by that my eating was natural, happy, or otherwise uncontrolled. I was allowed no money, not even as a gift, so I couldn't buy any food if I was very hungry. I couldn't NOT drink her weight gain milkshake concoctions because my father would hold me down and she'd pour it into my mouth. It was easier to swallow than to choke and vomit, so after a while I simply acquiesced and didn't have to be held down anymore.
A little on the sick side? You bet. She was never in her right mind, and remains fucked up even today. During every phone call, she asks me how much I weigh. I lie. She then tells me the details of every meal she had during the intervening days between calls. Every meal, one by one. She's obese. Food is her life. She always talks about how little she eats, which is delusional. Obviously, she has a major ED, so it isn't any wonder my sister and I have them.
This episode of anorexia started, as is common, with a simple weight reduction diet. Probably people with a history of anorexia, or any ED, should only diet under medical supervision. I figured that at my age, there was nothing to worry about. I had to lose about 10 pounds, to get to 145, but wanted to lose 25, to get to 130. I lost exactly 60 in seven months. That's quite a feat when you're starting at 155, because the closer you are to normal weight, the more slowly you lose, as you know.
I've regained three pounds, up to 98 pounds. I'm now dieting to lose them as quickly as possible and get to 88 pounds. There. I've said it. It's out there. I don't want recovery. I want to be thin. I'm sure you can't imagine how fat I feel--immense. I feel as though I didn't even lose one ounce, and that's the truth. As I sit here, I can feel the masses of fat in my butt, waist, thighs, chin, everywhere. I can't stand to be this heavy. It's uncomfortable and makes it difficult to fit into bathroom stalls.
I sincerely believe I don't have AN. By my weight, regardless of how fat I feel, I should be thin, but I refuse to accept a diagnosis of AN. Some part of me accepts that I have an ED of some kind, but not anorexia. No way.
I decided to come clean in this post because of something PrincessDieter said in a comment. I talked about how open and brave Allan is on Almost Gastric Bypass. She basically wrote that we should all be that way, and that she'd broken herself of her fear to post photos, etc. I'll have to get a photo of myself at some point--just bought a cheap camera to do that. I owe a couple of people photos of me; thus I may as well put one up here.
So that's it. I might have to delete this at some point, but not tonight. Tonight it stays up.
Now for sure we're all in this together.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Almost Gastric Bypass, Part two.
I am no expert on how to get leaner, healthier, thinner or how to maintain a weight loss. I am an expert on how to get Fat.Today, Allan published a photo of himself in which he weighed between 450-480 pounds. Let's be honest--it's unattractive. Very. I think I see desperation in his eyes, whereas the photo taken this morning, 180 pounds thinner, is just as attractive as the other is bad. There's a big smile on his face, too, and that bloom comes from within. He deserves our pride in him for such hard work and determination in fighting this ugly disease. It kills.
If you don't want to become a cardiac patient, go blind (or into kidney failure or get your leg amputated, etc.) from diabetes, get breast cancer, or any number of life-threatening or misery-inducing conditions, you have to lose weight. It's a simple as that. Make sure you don't go too far in the other direction, since it's even deadlier than obesity. The aim here is normal--normal as in waist measurement in conjunction with BMI. Yes, I'm a BMI believer. I've noticed that nearly all of the people who say it's inaccurate are overweight. If you're reading this, trust me: you're not a professional athlete. For us average folks, the BMI is a good, general indicator of where they stand on the anorexia to obesity scale. It's not the be-all, end-all, definition of weight. But it gives you a damn good idea.
450 - 480 pounds on me was not pretty, not healthy, and not something I wish on anyone. I could not breath well, I could not walk a block, let alone a mile. I was not happy, I ate whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted to. When I say I know how to be obese, I am not kidding around. When I talk about the plan I am on now, and how it has changed my life, believe that it has.
Doesn't that describe some of the suffering a morbidly obese person has during the tasks of everyday living? There comes a point when even walking is such a strain, movement is nearly impossible. The joy is stripped from life.
Most people don't get up in the morning thinking about what they're going to get to eat for supper. They don't think of food during every free minute of the day. They don't often dream of eating. Unless they're on a weight-loss diet, which makes you hungry, or you have an eating disorder, they aren't preoccupied with food. I think about food all the time. The menu, buying it, preparing it, and eating it. If I have a break at work, I think about eating something. If my mind wanders, it wanders to food. I wonder if I'll be able to squeeze lunch in today. A typical anorexic's daily intake is: take an apple, cut it into eight slices. Eat one slice for each meal, and five snacks. Eat as slowly as possible. That's it. Of course, bouillon accompanies it in winter (14 calories a cube), and water or diet soda in summer. There are bigger meals, but you get my drift. That's an ED, as is obesity. You'd better believe that I'm looking forward to that next slice of apple.
How his life has changed! Simple, everyday tasks are manageable, like taking a piss. Can you imagine the joy it must bring? I'm sure Little Al is entertaining himself mightily, too.I have read alot of your blogs. I have read about the failures and the success, and I comment on my blog as I see fit. I have been picked on, ridiculed and laughed at. I have done nothing earth shattering except I eat less and move more. I can not run 5 miles, but I can walk/jog them without dying. I can walk from Penn Station to my office and back and enjoy it. I can grab little Al with two hands and take aim at any toilet I want to, or tree for that matter, and see his happy face without having to move a layer of belly. I can wipe my own ass without fear of missing a thing. I can sleep in my own bed without fear of not waking up from Apnea. I am not an authority on how to lose weight, but I am trying. If you want to come at me because I am a bully, then you are not reading with the back story told. I will never bully someone that is weak, or attempting to better themselves. I will always help that person. On the other hand, write a blog that comes off as a knowledge center, while you carry 200 pounds of excess shit on your body will cause me to jump ugly. Better yet, why aren't the rest of you crazed from diet advice from people that are obese?
The courage he showed by publishing the Big Al photo this morning is staggering. Very few of us have the stones to put it all out there. He does. While we're all affected to one degree or another by other people, his self-esteem comes from within and the opinions of people he trusts, not strangers on public blogs. We won't all get there. We don't even have to try. But it demonstrates what being a new, different person physically can do for your mental and emotional health. It's wonderful, and delightful to witness. I only hope that he considers continuing his blog once he's at maintenance level. That's a tougher row to hoe than losing the weight, actually. Once again, he blogs for himself, but he'd bring so many along with him that it would be a boon. We'll see what he does.
I'm asking you to buck up your determination, to follow the path to health, to live longer. I'm asking you to be honest, open, and even brave. I'm going to do my very best to do that. I think it helps others in the same boat, and that it can help the blog writer him/herself.
If you're still following along, I hope I haven't ranted too much here. That wasn't my original intent. We're all in this together, fat or thin, because we all have an eating disorder (or three). Let's learn more from each other, and maybe save some lives in the process.
Almost Gastric Bypass--Part one.
Ice Queen, of Fat Like Me, is a friend of mine from another board. When she gave me the URL of her blog, I began reading. On her blog roll was a place called Almost Gastric Bypass, written and edited by Allan Klein. http://almostgastricbypass2.blogspot.com/
Reading his entry of that day led me to older posts, which in turn made me read all the way back to the blog's beginnings. Then I read blogs on his blog roll. I was hooked, and that's how I got started with my little blog.
Allan's entry today piqued my thoughts, so I'm writing about it. Oh, I also want to give you some idea of his personality, but you'll do much better just to read his writing. He's extremely smart, as well as clever; wickedly funny; can rant like a Hyde Park speaker; generous to a fault; gentle as a kitten and as biting as a goose; loyal to an extreme, perhaps, but someone a friend could forever count on . . . I could go on. He's been called a lot of things besides those, primarily the word "bully," due to his no-nonsense, no bullshit, way of seeing things. He brooks no lies nor denial. I like this guy, and think it would be quite something to know him in real life.
Today is almost precisely one year since he began a low-calorie diet. He weighed somewhere around 480 when he started, and has lost 180 pounds this year. Yes, you read that right--nearly 200 pounds in one year. Breathtaking, isn't it? The diet comes from medical professionals with whom he works closely, and is the old standard: move more, eat less. He has many readers, but about 50 people (many dropped out) are following the plan with him in a major Challenge.
He has always insisted that he blogs for himself, and himself alone. However, he's a natural leader who inspires trust and motivates others to lose weight. All of the people are obese--many are morbidly so--but they're losing weight by leaps and bounds alongside him. It's magnificent to watch. He's done more for more people in this past year than most of us will do for others in a lifetime. The diet plan is literally saving lives.
He uses the metaphor of cancer to describe his morbid obesity. He says he has fat cancer. He watched his wife go through a cancer cure and knows what treatment entails. He knows he'll never be "normal"--that he'll always have to carefully self-monitor his food intake--and will never be able just to eat when hungry. That's because in his case, hunger can mean anything, rather than purely physical hunger. The signals got mixed up somewhere along the line (my vote is primarily genetic, with a very large dose of environment/behavior thrown in). He's willing to do that in order to live. He's in his mid-40s. At that age, and 200 pounds ago, he probably didn't have much longer to live.
Okay. That is a light overview of what he and AGB are about. The next entry will be a riff on his post today.
Reading his entry of that day led me to older posts, which in turn made me read all the way back to the blog's beginnings. Then I read blogs on his blog roll. I was hooked, and that's how I got started with my little blog.
Allan's entry today piqued my thoughts, so I'm writing about it. Oh, I also want to give you some idea of his personality, but you'll do much better just to read his writing. He's extremely smart, as well as clever; wickedly funny; can rant like a Hyde Park speaker; generous to a fault; gentle as a kitten and as biting as a goose; loyal to an extreme, perhaps, but someone a friend could forever count on . . . I could go on. He's been called a lot of things besides those, primarily the word "bully," due to his no-nonsense, no bullshit, way of seeing things. He brooks no lies nor denial. I like this guy, and think it would be quite something to know him in real life.
Today is almost precisely one year since he began a low-calorie diet. He weighed somewhere around 480 when he started, and has lost 180 pounds this year. Yes, you read that right--nearly 200 pounds in one year. Breathtaking, isn't it? The diet comes from medical professionals with whom he works closely, and is the old standard: move more, eat less. He has many readers, but about 50 people (many dropped out) are following the plan with him in a major Challenge.
He has always insisted that he blogs for himself, and himself alone. However, he's a natural leader who inspires trust and motivates others to lose weight. All of the people are obese--many are morbidly so--but they're losing weight by leaps and bounds alongside him. It's magnificent to watch. He's done more for more people in this past year than most of us will do for others in a lifetime. The diet plan is literally saving lives.
He uses the metaphor of cancer to describe his morbid obesity. He says he has fat cancer. He watched his wife go through a cancer cure and knows what treatment entails. He knows he'll never be "normal"--that he'll always have to carefully self-monitor his food intake--and will never be able just to eat when hungry. That's because in his case, hunger can mean anything, rather than purely physical hunger. The signals got mixed up somewhere along the line (my vote is primarily genetic, with a very large dose of environment/behavior thrown in). He's willing to do that in order to live. He's in his mid-40s. At that age, and 200 pounds ago, he probably didn't have much longer to live.
Okay. That is a light overview of what he and AGB are about. The next entry will be a riff on his post today.
Monday, March 14, 2011
A new ED book, March 14, Part 2.
I ordered a new ED book from Amazon and it just came in. It's part of a modular course in clinical psychology, Eating and Weight Disorders, by Carlos M. Grilo. The first chapter has a macabre sense of humor: "Overview of eating and weight disorders: Bodies to die for."
It emphasizes obesity, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.
The book was published in 2005. One statistic throws me for a loop. He writes that statistics show that roughly 25% of children between 6 and 11 years old, and adolescents aged 12 to 18 years old, are obese. I was shocked by that number. He didn't say overweight--he said obese. Wow. If you add overweight to that, I'll bet it's more than half of all kids between 6 and 18 need to lose weight. Does that surprise you as much as it surprises me? I've read in popular magazines, such as Newsweek and Time, that the number of obese kids is close to a third, not a quarter. Can this be true? If you add overweight kids into it, then we're definitely looking at greater than half of them needing to take off a lot of pounds. If we don't intervene while they're young, I think we're setting them on the path to a truly unhealthy--and unhappy--adulthood.
But I'm more worried about adults, frankly. They're at higher risk for heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, joint damage, breast cancer, liver problems--you name it--because they've had the problem so much longer. Isabelle Caro, the famous anorexic who posed nude for the billboard attacking the fashion industry's promotion of unhealthy weights for women, died of her AN, just as she was beginning to think seriously about recovery. She'd come to realize that she really had a disease, and she needed treatment to cure it. But she'd been anorexic too long. Her muscles were wasted; her heart, damaged. It couldn't hold out, nor could her other organs, and she died of unknown causes at age 28 this past November. Essentially, she died because her body failed. She was 13 when her anorexia started, which means it took 15 years to kill her. How many years does it take to kill an obese person? It can happen rapidly, suddenly, over years, or in a slow death. But we do know that, just as in AN, the longer one is obese, the more dangerous it is. And death will happen.
I have my fingers crossed every day that my friends here and on Allan's blog have success with their weight loss plans, whether in the Challenge or using another method. I also hope that those of you who've reached a healthy weight stay there. Yes, it's hard. However, Ice Queen has a design to the right of her blog's name, which reads: Losing Weight is Hard. Being Obese is Hard. Choose Your Hard.
There's no debating that.
It emphasizes obesity, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.
The book was published in 2005. One statistic throws me for a loop. He writes that statistics show that roughly 25% of children between 6 and 11 years old, and adolescents aged 12 to 18 years old, are obese. I was shocked by that number. He didn't say overweight--he said obese. Wow. If you add overweight to that, I'll bet it's more than half of all kids between 6 and 18 need to lose weight. Does that surprise you as much as it surprises me? I've read in popular magazines, such as Newsweek and Time, that the number of obese kids is close to a third, not a quarter. Can this be true? If you add overweight kids into it, then we're definitely looking at greater than half of them needing to take off a lot of pounds. If we don't intervene while they're young, I think we're setting them on the path to a truly unhealthy--and unhappy--adulthood.
But I'm more worried about adults, frankly. They're at higher risk for heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, joint damage, breast cancer, liver problems--you name it--because they've had the problem so much longer. Isabelle Caro, the famous anorexic who posed nude for the billboard attacking the fashion industry's promotion of unhealthy weights for women, died of her AN, just as she was beginning to think seriously about recovery. She'd come to realize that she really had a disease, and she needed treatment to cure it. But she'd been anorexic too long. Her muscles were wasted; her heart, damaged. It couldn't hold out, nor could her other organs, and she died of unknown causes at age 28 this past November. Essentially, she died because her body failed. She was 13 when her anorexia started, which means it took 15 years to kill her. How many years does it take to kill an obese person? It can happen rapidly, suddenly, over years, or in a slow death. But we do know that, just as in AN, the longer one is obese, the more dangerous it is. And death will happen.
I have my fingers crossed every day that my friends here and on Allan's blog have success with their weight loss plans, whether in the Challenge or using another method. I also hope that those of you who've reached a healthy weight stay there. Yes, it's hard. However, Ice Queen has a design to the right of her blog's name, which reads: Losing Weight is Hard. Being Obese is Hard. Choose Your Hard.
There's no debating that.
Just a quickie--blog entry 1 for March 14.
I've been meaning to post twice a day lately, but haven't gotten around to it. I will today. This blog keeps me sane. How odd that is. Is it the same for any of you? Some of you have written words to that effect, also how your blogs keep you on track with food.
My dear husband brought home a huge apple coffee cake yesterday. I ate a third of it, then had no supper. Aside from not taking in one bit of healthful nutrients, I felt like a thresher shark eating all that shit. I also had a piece of bread for breakfast. It was a starch festival. This morning, my waistband on my jeans was too tight. I don't think you can gain weight overnight, and certainly not on 2,000 calories when a normal person needs that to maintain their weight. But I feel as though I did, or at least am bloated up from it. Ugh. I'll make up for it over the next few days--also not a healthy thing to do.
I usually hate blogging about my personal eating, because I think it's of no interest at all to you. But I want to have a record of this in writing so that I don't forget. He wants me to gain weight, and knows that I've been craving sweets, so I swear he brought it home to sabotage me. That sounds awful, but I think it's true. I won't touch any of it today. If he doesn't finish it today, or at least put a big dent in it, I'm tossing it tonight.
I might delete this post. It's too boring. See you later, and have a good day, people.
My dear husband brought home a huge apple coffee cake yesterday. I ate a third of it, then had no supper. Aside from not taking in one bit of healthful nutrients, I felt like a thresher shark eating all that shit. I also had a piece of bread for breakfast. It was a starch festival. This morning, my waistband on my jeans was too tight. I don't think you can gain weight overnight, and certainly not on 2,000 calories when a normal person needs that to maintain their weight. But I feel as though I did, or at least am bloated up from it. Ugh. I'll make up for it over the next few days--also not a healthy thing to do.
I usually hate blogging about my personal eating, because I think it's of no interest at all to you. But I want to have a record of this in writing so that I don't forget. He wants me to gain weight, and knows that I've been craving sweets, so I swear he brought it home to sabotage me. That sounds awful, but I think it's true. I won't touch any of it today. If he doesn't finish it today, or at least put a big dent in it, I'm tossing it tonight.
I might delete this post. It's too boring. See you later, and have a good day, people.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Obesity is an eating disorder.
Ice Queen commented on one of my recent blog entries. The whole comment was good, but this part hit me like a brick:
"If the eating patterns that get a keep a person obese isn't disordered eating, I don't know what is."
Truer words were never spoken. There's great pleasure in eating, no doubt about it. But that's not why people become nor remain obese. Fundamentally, it's a highly unhealthy relationship with food. What most people don't know is that the painful feelings due to hunger can sometimes be pleasurable to an anorexic. Yes, sounds crazy, but anorexics aren't normal. There's a high to it. When we're dying of hunger, it means we're losing weight. That makes us happy. When we're dying of hunger and don't eat, we're showing we can control the most basic of desires a human can have. That means strength and control to us--a control we have nowhere else in our lives. I suspect that at least some of the time, it's as pleasurable as eating is to an obese person. But that's not why we become anorexic. It's disordered eating, just as it is for the obese.
That's why I insist that obesity is an ED.
It's also been shown that obesity frequently has crossover with the other EDs. As in anorexia, an obese person often feels she's not in control of large parts of her life. She can eat to comfort herself for that anger. They often binge; in fact, I'd say they all binge. That gives them Binge Eating Disorder. Not all purge, but a number do, making them bulimic, too. Binges are definitely self-medication. Compulsive Overeating Disorder is a frequent addition to obesity. I can't imagine that any obese person doesn't have COD. In fact, other than the anorexics, the people at OA meetings all discuss their COD.
So why isn't obesity termed an ED? I think it's because even today, not to mention two hundred years ago, it was seen as a moral failing by lay people (and was by medical and religious people, too), not as a mental illness. The obese are still seen as weak, lacking in self-control, normal but lacking in basic character, etc. I've known people--my therapist is one of them--who see anorexia that way, but nearly all people in the mental health field disagree. I'm seeing the tide turn with obesity in modern medical research of obesity. It's a physical, mental, and emotional illness, with genetic, neurological, and psychological aspects. There's no moral component whatsoever. As several of my blog entries have addressed, obese people are practically hated. It's crazy. I have some ideas about why that's so, and will probably post about that again later.
When reading so many of the weight loss blogs, if you do as I do, you'll see the bingers are everywhere. A few are bulimics and should be receiving medical care for that in rather than, or in addiction to, obesity, IMO. COD is rampant. That should be treated, too, or else the obesity will persist--once again, IMO. Oh, anorexics binge, too, but on a much lesser scale. A binge for an anorexic can be as little as 500 calories, or as much as 1,500 calories, nothing like the tens of thousands an obese or bulimic person will eat. Since a "regular" obese person won't purge, and obese people have more efficient digestive powers, that adds weight quickly. Bulimics tend to gain more slowly, and their binge/purge cycles are a little different. They can easily binge/purge a dozen times in one day, something an obese person will almost never do.
I know this is rambling all over the place and apologize for that. But one thing leads to another. What I'm essentially trying to emphasize is how much of obesity is wrapped up in the other EDs--so much so that ignoring that is a disservice to the obese, and why I think it's so difficult to treat.
You know, I haven't talked about people who are overweight in this blog, and only rarely mentioned them. I'll get to them in the future. I just want you to know that I'm always aware of them, and not ignoring their problems. Obesity and anorexia are life-threatening, however, so while the problems of the overweight are important, they're not dire. Anorexics have the highest death rate of all the EDs, but obesity isn't too far behind. They must come first.
As I wrote initially, I think we're all in this together: the obese; anorexics; those with BED, COD, bulimia, etc.; and all of the EDs. We have to band together and force the medical experts to see that obesity is treated the same way as the other EDs. We have to educate laypeople to understand that obesity isn't something to be hated, feared, or its victims to be seen in a terribly negative light. We really have to make laypeople--especially young women--not see anorexia as something desirable, a choice, and something to be aimed for.
Obesity is a sign of disordered eating, an unhealthy relationship with food--an ED. For real. It's not a choice. No one ever decided at age 5 to be obese. No one binges in an out-of-control way in order to get to 350 pounds. No one joins an obesity blog ring to get tips on how to gain weight. (Anorexia websites are filled with such people, as sick as that is, although it comes from pure ignorance.)
Fat is not disgusting. Thinness is not desirable. Normal is the thing to aim for. For the average person, that's a normal BMI. At 5'4", my range is 108 to 145 pounds, a very wide range. It's not 88 pounds, which is what I want to weigh right now. Oh, and when I get to 88, I'll want to weigh 85 or 83--that's the nature of anorexia. I don't want to die, just as an obese person doesn't want to die. Death is irrelevant in these diseases until the desire for health steps in and says, "No more. I'm getting off this road to death right now." Then, and only then, can recovery occur.
I hope I haven't bored you here, but this is very important to me, that the obese and those who are traditionally determined to have EDs get together and fight these diseases.
What do you think about this? I'm really interested in what you have to say.
"If the eating patterns that get a keep a person obese isn't disordered eating, I don't know what is."
Truer words were never spoken. There's great pleasure in eating, no doubt about it. But that's not why people become nor remain obese. Fundamentally, it's a highly unhealthy relationship with food. What most people don't know is that the painful feelings due to hunger can sometimes be pleasurable to an anorexic. Yes, sounds crazy, but anorexics aren't normal. There's a high to it. When we're dying of hunger, it means we're losing weight. That makes us happy. When we're dying of hunger and don't eat, we're showing we can control the most basic of desires a human can have. That means strength and control to us--a control we have nowhere else in our lives. I suspect that at least some of the time, it's as pleasurable as eating is to an obese person. But that's not why we become anorexic. It's disordered eating, just as it is for the obese.
That's why I insist that obesity is an ED.
It's also been shown that obesity frequently has crossover with the other EDs. As in anorexia, an obese person often feels she's not in control of large parts of her life. She can eat to comfort herself for that anger. They often binge; in fact, I'd say they all binge. That gives them Binge Eating Disorder. Not all purge, but a number do, making them bulimic, too. Binges are definitely self-medication. Compulsive Overeating Disorder is a frequent addition to obesity. I can't imagine that any obese person doesn't have COD. In fact, other than the anorexics, the people at OA meetings all discuss their COD.
So why isn't obesity termed an ED? I think it's because even today, not to mention two hundred years ago, it was seen as a moral failing by lay people (and was by medical and religious people, too), not as a mental illness. The obese are still seen as weak, lacking in self-control, normal but lacking in basic character, etc. I've known people--my therapist is one of them--who see anorexia that way, but nearly all people in the mental health field disagree. I'm seeing the tide turn with obesity in modern medical research of obesity. It's a physical, mental, and emotional illness, with genetic, neurological, and psychological aspects. There's no moral component whatsoever. As several of my blog entries have addressed, obese people are practically hated. It's crazy. I have some ideas about why that's so, and will probably post about that again later.
When reading so many of the weight loss blogs, if you do as I do, you'll see the bingers are everywhere. A few are bulimics and should be receiving medical care for that in rather than, or in addiction to, obesity, IMO. COD is rampant. That should be treated, too, or else the obesity will persist--once again, IMO. Oh, anorexics binge, too, but on a much lesser scale. A binge for an anorexic can be as little as 500 calories, or as much as 1,500 calories, nothing like the tens of thousands an obese or bulimic person will eat. Since a "regular" obese person won't purge, and obese people have more efficient digestive powers, that adds weight quickly. Bulimics tend to gain more slowly, and their binge/purge cycles are a little different. They can easily binge/purge a dozen times in one day, something an obese person will almost never do.
I know this is rambling all over the place and apologize for that. But one thing leads to another. What I'm essentially trying to emphasize is how much of obesity is wrapped up in the other EDs--so much so that ignoring that is a disservice to the obese, and why I think it's so difficult to treat.
You know, I haven't talked about people who are overweight in this blog, and only rarely mentioned them. I'll get to them in the future. I just want you to know that I'm always aware of them, and not ignoring their problems. Obesity and anorexia are life-threatening, however, so while the problems of the overweight are important, they're not dire. Anorexics have the highest death rate of all the EDs, but obesity isn't too far behind. They must come first.
As I wrote initially, I think we're all in this together: the obese; anorexics; those with BED, COD, bulimia, etc.; and all of the EDs. We have to band together and force the medical experts to see that obesity is treated the same way as the other EDs. We have to educate laypeople to understand that obesity isn't something to be hated, feared, or its victims to be seen in a terribly negative light. We really have to make laypeople--especially young women--not see anorexia as something desirable, a choice, and something to be aimed for.
Obesity is a sign of disordered eating, an unhealthy relationship with food--an ED. For real. It's not a choice. No one ever decided at age 5 to be obese. No one binges in an out-of-control way in order to get to 350 pounds. No one joins an obesity blog ring to get tips on how to gain weight. (Anorexia websites are filled with such people, as sick as that is, although it comes from pure ignorance.)
Fat is not disgusting. Thinness is not desirable. Normal is the thing to aim for. For the average person, that's a normal BMI. At 5'4", my range is 108 to 145 pounds, a very wide range. It's not 88 pounds, which is what I want to weigh right now. Oh, and when I get to 88, I'll want to weigh 85 or 83--that's the nature of anorexia. I don't want to die, just as an obese person doesn't want to die. Death is irrelevant in these diseases until the desire for health steps in and says, "No more. I'm getting off this road to death right now." Then, and only then, can recovery occur.
I hope I haven't bored you here, but this is very important to me, that the obese and those who are traditionally determined to have EDs get together and fight these diseases.
What do you think about this? I'm really interested in what you have to say.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Fat kills.
Allan K. talked about fearing a stroke or heart attack as his motivation for finally getting to a healthy weight and saving his life. This inspired me to write something about an old friend, Doobs, who died about 25 years ago.
Doobs was always obese, even as a little kid. So was his sister, and his mother was overweight. His father had been obese, and died young of a heart attack, leaving his mother a young widow with two small children. Doobs was thus pushed into the role of little man while still a kid.
His mother obviously had some sort of ED and stuffed her kids and any of their friends who came over. She was one of those crazy Catholics with pictures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hanging around the house--you know the one with thorns around his ex-corporeal heart, dripping with blood, even one hanging in the kitchen. It didn't promote appetite in me, that's for sure.
Here I'm not kidding: a serving of mashed potatoes was a huge soup bowl piled high with about six or seven regular-sized servings in it, and cream poured on top! On the dinner plate was a whole chicken for each person, smothered in gravy. There were no vegetables unless it was something starchy like baked beans or corn served in another soup bowl, but there were several pieces of bread for everyone at each place setting. Binks put away the whole thing, thousands of calories, and that was just for supper. I believe she pushed food as a way of making up for a deprived life and as a means of control. She didn't allow her kids to do anything, and chose all of their friends. Yeah, she was nuts.
As an adult, he and his buddy often came to visit me. I had a set of those 50's chrome-legged table and chairs, and it wasn't meant to hold a 500-lb. guy. When he sat in it, the legs splayed out and the chair cracked in two, sending him to the ground. He didn't even blush, which I found odd, because I would have been humiliated. He was angry I had such cheap furniture. That week, I went out and bought a sturdy, solid-oak chair with upholstered padding, pretty expensive, which I was sure would hold his weight. It was over-sized, but it fit perfectly at the table. When he visited that weekend, I told him he had a new chair. He was insulted, and said he wouldn't sit in it. He sat in one of the set's chairs, and the same thing happened. Now I was down two chairs. I didn't have much money at the time, since I was unemployed and living on savings, but I went out and bought a whole new kitchen set so he wouldn't feel "different" from everyone else, but would stop breaking my furniture. That seemed to settle him and it worked.
Now I believe he had a small stroke when he was 24 or so. He'd been driving down the road and blacked out. When he came to, the car had hit a railing on the road, and while the car wasn't too bad, he'd hit his head against the steering wheel. He began having severe headaches and started missing time--short periods were bleeped out of his memory. He saw no specialist, just a very bad family doctor, who said it was a result of his hitting his head. But what had caused the black-out, I wondered? The doc was an idiot, and never investigated that.
He'd had trouble finding girlfriends, but when he moved to Florida after finding a job as a motel manager, he fell in love and married a lovely woman. They had a baby after they'd been married a year or so. Within two weeks of his son's birth, he was dead of a heart attack, age 32, almost a duplicate of his father's death. When the autopsy was done, his heart was covered in fat, as were his internal organs, and his coronary arteries were closed due to cholesterol deposits. It had only been a matter of time.
He died of obesity, without experiencing the joy that many years of marriage can bring a man. His son never had a father.
His life was one of emotional deprivation, and his death was unnecessary. I will say this: he never tried to lose weight in all the years I knew him. I believe now that the thought simply terrified him, whether it was the fear of hunger, failure, or losing his protective layer of fat. While I knew on some level it was inevitable, it still took me quite a while to come to terms with his passing.
Make no mistake--obesity kills, and it often kills young. Whether the death is slow or rapid, it still kills. Please, please, get healthy before it's too late. People love you. People will never, ever, get over your death. You're not the only one losing your life. Those who love you lose a piece of their lives, too. Do it now.
Doobs was always obese, even as a little kid. So was his sister, and his mother was overweight. His father had been obese, and died young of a heart attack, leaving his mother a young widow with two small children. Doobs was thus pushed into the role of little man while still a kid.
His mother obviously had some sort of ED and stuffed her kids and any of their friends who came over. She was one of those crazy Catholics with pictures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hanging around the house--you know the one with thorns around his ex-corporeal heart, dripping with blood, even one hanging in the kitchen. It didn't promote appetite in me, that's for sure.
Here I'm not kidding: a serving of mashed potatoes was a huge soup bowl piled high with about six or seven regular-sized servings in it, and cream poured on top! On the dinner plate was a whole chicken for each person, smothered in gravy. There were no vegetables unless it was something starchy like baked beans or corn served in another soup bowl, but there were several pieces of bread for everyone at each place setting. Binks put away the whole thing, thousands of calories, and that was just for supper. I believe she pushed food as a way of making up for a deprived life and as a means of control. She didn't allow her kids to do anything, and chose all of their friends. Yeah, she was nuts.
As an adult, he and his buddy often came to visit me. I had a set of those 50's chrome-legged table and chairs, and it wasn't meant to hold a 500-lb. guy. When he sat in it, the legs splayed out and the chair cracked in two, sending him to the ground. He didn't even blush, which I found odd, because I would have been humiliated. He was angry I had such cheap furniture. That week, I went out and bought a sturdy, solid-oak chair with upholstered padding, pretty expensive, which I was sure would hold his weight. It was over-sized, but it fit perfectly at the table. When he visited that weekend, I told him he had a new chair. He was insulted, and said he wouldn't sit in it. He sat in one of the set's chairs, and the same thing happened. Now I was down two chairs. I didn't have much money at the time, since I was unemployed and living on savings, but I went out and bought a whole new kitchen set so he wouldn't feel "different" from everyone else, but would stop breaking my furniture. That seemed to settle him and it worked.
Now I believe he had a small stroke when he was 24 or so. He'd been driving down the road and blacked out. When he came to, the car had hit a railing on the road, and while the car wasn't too bad, he'd hit his head against the steering wheel. He began having severe headaches and started missing time--short periods were bleeped out of his memory. He saw no specialist, just a very bad family doctor, who said it was a result of his hitting his head. But what had caused the black-out, I wondered? The doc was an idiot, and never investigated that.
He'd had trouble finding girlfriends, but when he moved to Florida after finding a job as a motel manager, he fell in love and married a lovely woman. They had a baby after they'd been married a year or so. Within two weeks of his son's birth, he was dead of a heart attack, age 32, almost a duplicate of his father's death. When the autopsy was done, his heart was covered in fat, as were his internal organs, and his coronary arteries were closed due to cholesterol deposits. It had only been a matter of time.
He died of obesity, without experiencing the joy that many years of marriage can bring a man. His son never had a father.
His life was one of emotional deprivation, and his death was unnecessary. I will say this: he never tried to lose weight in all the years I knew him. I believe now that the thought simply terrified him, whether it was the fear of hunger, failure, or losing his protective layer of fat. While I knew on some level it was inevitable, it still took me quite a while to come to terms with his passing.
Make no mistake--obesity kills, and it often kills young. Whether the death is slow or rapid, it still kills. Please, please, get healthy before it's too late. People love you. People will never, ever, get over your death. You're not the only one losing your life. Those who love you lose a piece of their lives, too. Do it now.
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