When you start to wonder if it's possible

I know that blogging about weight the day after Christmas doesn't make sense. However, I can assure you my holiday eating has been rather scant. Even if it hadn't been, I've spent months working with a physical therapist who has served as a personal trainer who has been pushing me as hard as possible three days a week and giving me rigorous homework the other three days. I injured my knee somehow (probably because I'm obese, no doubt) and despite needing a cane for a while I still exercised as much as possible, taking stairs when I could and never once using a motorized cart or a handicap parking space. I've worked up a sweat every single day, even when it hurt like hell and the only thing I had to relieve the pain was over-the-counter painkillers. I painstakingly wrote down every single calorie even when I was overwhelmed with essays, exams, and lab assignments. I cried when it got hard but wasn't it worth it? It would be worth it in the end when my jeans were looser and my t-shirts not so tight.

But that never happened. In fact, I've gained weight. I bought exercise bands, a medicine ball and a strap for stretching and still nothing. I've missed out on stuff on campus so I could rush home and spend an hour and a half exercising and nothing. I lost my teens being made fun of and being self-conscious, my 20's being fat and having no fun and not being able to wear anything remotely fashionable, and no my 30's. I've spent most of life being overweight and miserable as a result. I'd give anything to be beautiful and worthwhile.

Going Forward

I'll be the first to admit that most of my previous posts are crap. They are mostly self-loathing and self-pity which hasn't gotten me anywhere. I haven't lost all the weight that I had the potential to lose and I'm facing bigger problems now that I did in the past. As of now, it's not anything I can't control with diet, exercise, and medication. But it's not a good thing and I am definitely struggling. I am making a promise to myself to think better and do better.

I will never be perfect and have to accept that there will be some horrible days. I'll make bad food choices. I'll get involved with the 9000 things that are part of life and miss my workout. That's okay. Even a machine can miss routine maintenance once in a while and not stop working completely. But like a machine, eventually the wear-and-tear becomes too much and all those missed "maintenance" sessions will add up. Perhaps that is where I find myself now. All is not lost, but unless changes are made, this machine will cease to operate.

I think I spend too much time beating myself up over missed workouts and poor meal choices than making the right decisions. I let myself be swayed by those who tell me. "Just this time you can ___" when I know that I really should make a better choice. A slice of cake or an extra large order of fries will never feel as good as making a good choice and eating something that is healthier and more filling. I've never regretted eating an apple or two, nor have I ever thought an extra 15 minutes on the treadmill was time better spent doing something else.

This calls to mind an "abs" class I took once for free at the community college I attended. It was basically 30 minutes straight of intense abdominal exercises with very little rest in between exercises, but changes in position to work different areas, two times per week. I remember having to think about a movie star who had a challenging movie role requiring a great deal of exercise to train for her role just to endure. I felt so out of place. Most of the kids were in pretty good shape, but here I was on the floor gasping and sweating and feeling like a whale. But I persevered and felt like a million dollars once I caught my breath, changed, and went back to the work-study job I also had on those mornings. The only time I ever felt awful was when I missed out.

It's hard to do what I need to do sometimes. But I just have to.

And I plan to have better stuff on my blog as well.

Stay tuned.

I understand, but...

Lately, I have been hearing a lot of this nonsense:

“I understand that you have depression, but there’s no reason you have to mope around and be unhappy.”

“I understand that you have anxiety, but you don’t need to have panic attacks and ‘freak out’ so much.”

“I understand that you have ADHD, but there’s no reason why you can’t concentrate like everyone else.”

“I understand that you have autism, but you should be able to learn the material just as easily as everyone else if you try hard enough.”

“I understand that you have asthma, but there’s no reason you can’t work out as hard as the rest of us.”

Obviously, this isn’t all directed at me (I don’t have all of these conditions). But over my life, I’ve heard a few statements that were similar to these. And for some reason I’ve been hearing statements similar to these a lot lately.

Saying that you understand and following it up with a completely contradictory statement means that you truly don’t understand. There are people in the world who suffer from illnesses that you probably will never fully understand. I don’t know what it’s like to suffer from multiple sclerosis, for example. So I can’t tell someone who does what they should or should not be able to accomplish. I can encourage them. I can listen. I can try to understand. But if they say they can’t, then they can’t.

I’m not perfect. I know there are times when I’ve underestimated or overestimated what others with mental and physical health problems could or couldn’t do. If you’re reading this and I’ve done this to you and never apologized because I didn’t realize my error, then I am sorry.

But if you say you understand, then you have to accept that with understanding there are things that person can or can’t do that you won’t be able to comprehend. Even if you suffer from the same illness, your experience will not be the same as another person’s struggle. You can’t say, “Well, I have such-and-such, but you don’t see ME having a problem!” Use your success in dealing with your problem to support and help another person who might need someone right now. If you truly understand, then you accept that person “as-is.” And if you can’t, simply say, “I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you’re dealing with at all.” I’d rather here that than “I understand, but…”

It's bad enough to feel awful and fed up with your appearance. The numbers on the scale seem stuck at some awful number you can't get below and none of the stores seem to carry your size.

It's awful.

So you decide to do something about it. You join a gym or sign up for a class. Yet even though you're making a change for the better, things aren't any easier. It's a struggle to get back in shape. You can barely keep up. You're out of breath and feel discouraged.

And instead of words of encouragement or advise, you are criticized. I'm not talking about the constructive kind. I'm talking about what basically amounts to bullying.

I've heard people say, "Fat people at the gym make me sick." "If I see one more fatty sweating like a pig at the gym I think I'm going to throw up." "Why can't the fat, disgusting people be forced to work out at 2 a.m.?" I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.

It's bad enough when "lay" people make comments like that, but it might be worse when someone who calls themselves a professional does it. When you go to a personal trainer, gym instructor, etc. you hope you get someone who will help you get back on track and work your way up to where more fit students are. Yet instead, too often I find "professionals" who are rude, impatient, and downright insulting.

Most of the time, they don't have the courage to insult you to your face. You either overhear them complaining about you to other students or they're referring to someone else (which is still insulting because if the other person is just as overweight as I am, you are really referring to me as well).

I have found that very few people have successfully lost weight in response to insults and criticism. Anyone that I personally know who lost the weight and are still keeping it off made it there through a good deal of positive reinforcement and support from others in addition to their own efforts.

Why Guilt and Shame Don’t Work

Why does it seem that for many their first reaction to an overweight person is to point out their size and attempt make them feel bad for being so “fat and lazy?” When asked why they do this, most people answer that they are simply trying to motivate the person into wanting to lose the weight. I've seen countless pictures online of overweight and obese individuals and there will always be at least one comment from someone ridiculing the person in the image simply for the perceived crime of being overweight. And it only seems to be getting worse. As the internet becomes more popular and populations swell, more pictures than ever are being posted.

An example that has been circulating online for a while now, usually accompanied by comments about the girl on the far right's appearance.

The internet isn't the only one to blame. Fat-shaming has been going on for years. It just has been made a lot easier because you can hide behind your computer, sometimes with an identity that is not your own, and point and laugh at those whose appearance you feel is in some way is objectionable to you. Of course, it doesn't always happen behind the safety of your electronic device. I hear it everywhere I go. Most of the time, those that I overhear are not talking about me. But that doesn't make it any better. If you feel that way about that person, you probably feel contempt towards me as well.

Yet obesity is more rampant that ever. According to Gallup, “More than 6 in 10 American adults (63.1%) were either overweight (36.6%) or obese (26.5%) in 2009” (Mendes). In 2010, the CDC reported that the number of obese was at 35.7% (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1). Clearly, making people feel ashamed is not proving to be an effective method of motivating anyone to lose weight. In fact, it seems to do more harm than good.

One of the reasons that humiliation and shame don’t work is that stress raises levels of cortisol, a hormone in the body that is released when we are under stress. Cortisol is released as part of our “fight-vs.-flight” response in the body, but unfortunately, the body was not built to be under high levels of stress for long periods of time. Over time, cortisol actually causes more of the fat we eat to be stored in the body. And it gets stored in one of the worst places: the stomach. When fat is deposited here, professionals often refer to it as “toxic fat” because the buildup of fat in this area is often related to heart disease and stroke (Stöppler).

To add to the problem, a lot of people take comfort in eating when they are upset. We tend to soothe our frayed nerves and broken spirits with ice cream, candy, potato chips, and pizza. I have never heard anyone say, “I am so depressed that I think I’ll have the broiled tilapia with steamed broccoli and a side of brown rice,” although that would probably be a better choice. Instead, we are drawn to calorie-dense comfort foods. Some even cope by throwing back a few alcoholic beverages, many of which are notorious for being laden with a ton of calories.

When we are stressed, we also tend to devote less time to eating. “I just want to grab something to eat and go to bed/watch a movie/play some video games.” So we end up at some drive-thru picking up a combo meal or standing in front of the microwave zapping a processed food product. Rarely do these offer much in the way of nutritional value but never fail to fill us with simple carbs and saturated fat. Clearly, opening your mouth to make someone feel ashamed of themselves has the opposite effect.

What makes matters worse is that at the same time people are slinging insults and trying to tear us down, our brain is telling us we need to eat. We have been conditioned by our evolution to crave fat, sugar, salt, and carbs. While in excess all of these can have detrimental effects, in moderation they are important. They help our bodies carry out their most basic functions. There was once a time fat, sugar, salt, and carbs were in short supply. We had to hunt and gather. We had to eat extra in the more plentiful times so we could survive long cold winters where food was scarce. We went to great lengths just to stay alive. However, during our human history we figured out how to increase our supply of food through agriculture and technology (Leith). Unfortunately, our brains have not evolved as quickly as we have advanced technologically. While the world is telling us to feel ashamed for craving salty, fatty, and sugary foods, or brain is giving us the opposite message.

So what can be done to change this? I’m not sure. If you’re reading this and you are one of those folks who likes to ridicule those who are overweight and obese, stop. It’s not easy, but it needs to end. Realize that your words are a powerful weapon that can cause years of pain. Even if you think you’re just kidding around and the recipient of your barbs is “okay” with your insults (sometimes they aren't; they just say that to be “cool” with you), think again. I’m not trying to change the world overnight or be a “party-pooper,” but we need to change our mindset. Insults really don't help anyone.

Works Cited

Leith, William. "Evolution Makes Us Fat." Telegraph.co.uk. Telegraph Media Group Ltd., 27 Sept. 2007. Web.

Mendes, Elizabeth. "Six in 10 Overweight or Obese in U.S., More in '09 Than in '08." Gallup Well-being. Gallup, Inc., 9 Feb. 2010. Web.

Stöppler, Melissa Conrad, MD. "Stress, Hormones, and Weight Gain." MedicineNet. Ed. William C. Sheil Jr., MD, FACP, FACR. 27 Feb. 2007. Web.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prevalence of Obesity in the United States, 2009-2010. By Cynthia L. Ogden, Ph.D., Margaret D. Carroll, M.S.P.H., Brian K. Kit, M.D., and Katherine M. Flegal, Ph.D. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, 2012. No. 82. Web.

The past several months have been a maddening struggle. I went from 2100 calories around the beginning of the year to 1900, then 1700, 1500, and for the past month, 1300. I increased workouts from 3 times a week to 6. I rarely ever use elevators and escalators (except for the short period of time when I stubbed my toe so bad I actually thought it was broken). Sometimes the hunger gives me a headache. I get one once a day. So I don't understand why I can't lose a single pound. I'm exhausted of measuring, weighing, writing every calorie down, putting up with criticism that I'm obsessed and a fanatic, yet getting absolutely nothing in return. I don't have a family doctor who could maybe help or understand. I'm terrified about what this obesity is doing to my body in the long run. People look at me and assume I'm a lazy slob and it hurts. I just need this to start working.

So it happens again.

I am doing well. I'm working out on a regular basis. I'm finally losing weight, even if it is only a few pounds. It doesn't matter that it's only a few pounds because I'm on the right track.

But then my back goes out. Not the end of the world, right? It'll last a few days and I'll be back to normal. No problem. It's a setback. I'll feel like I have to start over with my workouts. The injury somewhat resets all the progress I had made. I'll gain the weight back and maybe a little more because I'm immobile and unable to prepare healthier meals.

But it keeps happening. Again and again and again. For years. The weight gain is starting to really add up and exacerbates the back pain making the episodes longer and more painful. Longer episodes of incapacity mean bigger setbacks, longer periods of minimal exercise, and greater weight gain. The cycle continues over and over.

I lose my insurance and can't find a job that offers insurance. The state says I'm not eligible for benefits and refers me to the clinic. The clinics insist that I apply for benefits. Meanwhile, I'm stuck here alone and isolated on a heating pad filling out form after form hoping this time I'll be covered so I can continue physical therapy (and get the lesions biopsied so I don't have to worry anymore, but that is another issue). My condition negatively impacts every aspect of my life from my job to housework to maintaining a social life.

So please forgive me if I get angry when someone says they don't understand why this is so upsetting. Or when people question the cleanliness of my home or my ability to go to work. Or when I'm asked why I LET it get this bad.