Negotiating My Set Point

Wendy Shanker wrote in her book, “The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life,” - and I’m paraphrasing here - that if there’s anything you want to know about a diet, you don’t ask a skinny girl, you ask a fat one, because if they are any one of the hundreds of fat girls that have been socially shamed about their size, then they have most likely tried every diet imaginable. This line made me laugh loud and long because it’s so damn true. I could write books about everything I’ve seen and heard about dieting. I could probably recite the South Beath Diet book to you in its entirety and I haven’t even done that diet. That’s how preoccupied I’ve been with size: I want to know all the ways to lose weight, even though I know that I will not lose weight on them.

I bring this up because Body Weight Set Point Theory has been on my mind a lot lately. I’m very intrigued by this idea that your body knows where your weight is supposed to be, and if you just get out of the way, i.e. give it good stuff to eat, exercise, and rest, that it will steer the ship and take care of the rest, leaving you at exactly the weight your body wants you at. I like the idea that my body can take care of itself. I like the idea that if I’m taking care of business with food, water, exercise, and rest, that my body will get me where I need to be and I don’t have to apologize for wherever that “be” happens to end up. And then when someone asks me why I can’t be bothered to lose the weight and be “healthy,” I can just say, “Well, my body has other plans so just fuck the fuck off, mmkay?”

The problem is that my body and I are having a serious disagreement about where that set point should be. I think a little lower on the bell curve would be nice, and my body seems to think that it doesn’t matter where on the curve I end up so long as it’s a big curve. Sigh.

Here’s the deal: I have been the same weight, with normal fluctuations of a few pounds, for a year and a half now. It’s kind of amazing because for the 15 years previous to that my weight did nothing but climb, climb, climb.  So there is some kind of balance being maintained, and I’m cool with that. I don’t have a scale at home, so the only places I’m weighed are at the Emily Program and the doctor’s office. It doesn’t happen all that often (the weighing, I mean), but every time I step up on to that scale, I’m scared to death that I will have gained, and I’m also more than a little hopeful that I will have lost weight. (Eating disorder? Who, me?)

Recently I was at Planned Parenthood doing the birth control tango (and let’s take a brief moment to applaud the awesome work with reproductive health and choice that Planned Parenthood does everyday), and as a new client I had to go through the whole height/weight/allergies thing. I was already on an anxiety roller coaster when the nurse called me and so I ended up doing this awkward and pathetically funny little dance in front of the scale before I finally decided to step on backwards. Ms. Nurse didn’t pick up on my choice to not know my weight, and proceeded to sit in front of me and write it down on my chart. In very large numbers. That I could see clearly. Right near the box on the paper that I checked indicating that I have an eating disorder.

GAH!

I wasn’t bothered so much by the fact that Ms. Nurse could have gotten the same reaction out of me had she just hit me over the head with the damn scale, as I was by the number itself. It was the same number. The same number that has been following me around for a year and a half. 

My brain could have taken a few courses at this moment: 1) “Great! I’m maintaining! That’s fantastic news. It must mean that I’m doing good work!” or I could go for 2) “Ah, fuck! I haven’t lost anything. It must be my fault because I’m not eating perfectly and exercising perfectly” or I could try for, 3) “I’m maintaining. I’m not eating and exercising perfectly, and I’m maintaining. Does that mean if I DID eat and exercise perfectly that I would lose weight?” or last but not least, 4) “Geez. I’m maintaining. Is my body trying to tell me something? Is this where I’m supposed to be?”

First of all, I’d be curious to know what your brain would say in a situation like that, but if you guessed response #4 for this FatGrrl, then you were dead on. Well done! In fact, I was freakily afraid that my set point had made itself known and I’d better get with the acceptin’ ’cause it ain’t going nowhere no time soon.

This is incredibly sad for me. I don’t want to stay this size. I don’t like it. But I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to beat my set point in to submission through excessive exercise and carrot sticks. Sigh. For the love of all that is fucking holy in this world, why can’t I just accept myself??!?!

Rock, meet hard place. Hard place, this is rock. Pleased to meet you.

I did not fall off the wagon. I was thrown.

I know this is probably my eating disorder showing me a complete catastrophe where this is none, but lately it seems that when things go wrong, they go really, really wrong. And then WHAM! Faster than you can stick a spoon in a jar of peanut butter, my day quickly starts to swirl down the toilet bowl: a mindful breakfast turns in to a Hostess cupcake, which then turns in to four cupcakes, and my best effort at a successful lunch later meets an over-stuffed dinner of fried cream cheese rolls and beef pad thai. Laying on my couch later with an over-stuffed tummy, I go right to a dessert of whip-cream covered guilt. Yum.

I hate these kind of days. Sometimes it feels nigh on impossible to pull out of the nose dive, but I know expecting perfect performance in eating is impossible, too. (Oh, yes. That’s right. I said it. I’m not perfect. So there.) So it seems like a big “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t” situation. I get that nagging impulse to not fill out my food logs; to hide what I’ve been eating from my acupuncturist and nutritionist, because I don’t want to admit that I haven’t been able to hold it together. I just assume everyone else is judging me, because I am definitely judging me, and HEY!, who doesn’t love a pity party, right?

What do you do, folks? When you see the train coming down the way, what do you do to get yourself off the tracks and avoid the carnage??

PS: I did pack fruits and vegetables in my lunch today. I’m givin’ it another go!

Fat Friday: The Windmill in My Mind

I suppose if Jim Henson was ever to create a skit that would visualize the crazy ED Hamster spinning its wheel in my brain, it would probably look something like this:

Great find by Christina the Self-Righteous Drunk via DaddyTypes.

Run from the bear! Run from the bear!

Have I mentioned how much I like working with my holistic nutritionist? Because I do. I really do.  Let’s call her Dr. NuRT since one of the major techniques she uses in treating folks is Nutritional Response Testing. I have to tell you about this because it kind of boggled my mind.

Nutritional Response Testing uses acupressure points to find out where in your body things are going awry. So I would be either standing or lying down with my right arm extended at about a 30 degree angle. As Dr. NuRt exerted a pressure on a certain acupressure point, she also exerted a pressure on my extended arm that I was supposed to match with a counter pressure. If I had a strong reflex, I would be able to match her pressure on my arm. If there was a weakened reflex, my arm also became noticeably weaker and would wobble under her pressure. It was totally bizarre. Being a bit on the cynical side, I would try to focus everything on my arm and hold it perfectly straight and strong….but it would still wobble!

Dr. NuRT also had bottles of various environmental chemicals and substances that she used to test for sensitivity reflexes. She would place the bottles over my abdomen or heart and test the reflexes. I came out clear on most environmental substances, but my two big reflexes were wheat and sugar. (This isn’t very surprising since my Eating Disorder absolutely goes crazy for grains and desserts.)

Another aspect of the initial consultation was heart monitoring, and measuring tension in my system. When she and I sat down to go over the results, she explained to me that right now my parasympathic nervous system is working on overdrive ALL THE TIME. My resting heart rate lying down is 93 beats/minute, and standing it is 117 beats/minute. (!!!) She said she was worried because my body and brain is constantly in fight/flight mode, saying “Run from the bear! Run from the bear!” and one of our priorities has to be bringing that tension down. This makes sense, too, because the bear just changes form throughout the day:

Run from the eating disorder!

Run from the demanding tenants!

Run from the bills!

Run from US Immigration Paperwork!

Naturally, it freaked me out even more to hear that I was on the verge of a heart attack, which probably did my heart rate no favors at all. *sigh* Run from the heart attack!!

Our conversation about food went very well, and all the anxiety I had felt thinking I would have to make a bazillion changes to my eating overnight (AND do it perfectly, because what the hell else is an eating disordered girl going to do with her time?), kind of went the way of the dodo. We talked about overarching goals (minimizing processed wheat and sugar intake), and little baby steps to take now (more veggies and protein at each meal). I’ve been feeling pretty good about things, and the Canadian has been awesome throughout the process. He says he sees it as a two-for-one deal since we pay for one person’s treatment and he can just eat what I’m eating and we’ll both benefit.

I’m really starting to feel the benefits of acupuncture and nutrition. And what’s more, the better I’m taking care of my body, the more likely I am to treat it respectfully than go at it with my usual dose of hatefulness and venom.

Tune Ups at the Body Shop

I’ve actually been pretty excited to share some news, and I’m gonna give it a go despite the fact that I am ten different kinds of cranky today.

I gathered your opinions in January about Eastern medicines, listened to your many positive experiences, and then I took the leap! I have been seeing an acupuncturist that friend Mamichan recommended, and I’m really enjoying it so far. I don’t have any miracles to report (yet) but I love the feeling of going and letting someone put me on a table and proceed to give my body a tune up. My whole body. With needles.

There’s something so valuable to me in that time where I feel like I am making myself a priority, something that I don’t get otherwise. And I like the way that the acupuncturist is looking at my whole system rather than just specfic symptoms. Bodies are complex, so it makes sense to me that health is complex, too.  I’m fascinated by the idea that my body can tell her things about what’s going on with me - things that my brain wouldn’t know to disclose.

Quick on the heels of the acupuncture debut, I also got in touch with a holistic nutritionist and chiropractor that my hair stylist recommended, and I’m loving that experience, too! I felt like she actually took time to figure out what was going on in my whole system and then created a plan to address with food where things are going awry. I like this approach better than the dietitian approach I’ve used in the past. It feels like it was made for me.

It’s only the beginning, but I’m excited to see where things go. Wish me luck!

Sew-Sew-A-Go-Go

For any of y’all that have picked up the needle and thread, you’ve likely noticed that there is often a startling difference between the sizing you see in stores and the sizing listed on sewing patterns. I once picked up a pattern that I saw had sizing up through 28W, and thought, “Hell yeah, this’ll fit me.” No, no it didn’t. Not even close. I actually really enjoy this bizarre disconnect between store sizing and pattern sizing because it reminds me that the numbers on the package are just that: numbers. What I’m looking for is the garment that FITS ME. Not the garment that gives me bragging rights to some supposedly acceptable size number. (So the next time you hear some little thing going on and on about being a size 8, just remember that in McCall’s World she’s probably a 14 - which is considered PLUS SIZE, dontcha know!)

Anyway, I was rummaging about the local fabric stores and I stumbled across the Connie Crawford line of Butterick Patterns. Take heed, plus-size sewers! This is a great line of patterns that offers many cute looks in sizing through women’s 6x, which comes out to about a 68″ bust, 58″ waist, and 76″ hip. Some of them also look easy enough to alter if you’re looking for something beyond a 6x. (And if you need any more proof that you can sew your heart out without getting caught up in the numbers: I am a 6x on top and a 2x on bottom. What sense does that make? None. So I just let it go. My body is wacky. It is what it is.)

Here is one of my finds - a button down jacket with raglan-style sleeves and mandarin collar. Cute huh? I’m excited to give this one a go.

The Yuckies

When my good friend, Christina the Self-Righteous Drunk, rolls out of bed and is confronted with a bad-vibe body image that even post-beer morning breath can’t knock down, she calls it The Yuckies.

The Yuckies are when you’re standing in front of the closet and don’t see a single thing to wear. Those colors don’t go together. That stretches too tight across my boobs. My thighs. My belly. I wore that twice already and people are going to think I’m disgusting if I wear it again. But it’s the only thing I feel comfortable in right now. The days when you’re hypersensitve to every lump and bump - real or imagined - on your body. The days when every mirror is your sworn enemy. The days when you know that if you stand in that closet one minute longer, you’re going to burst in to tears.

I had a really bad day with The Yuckies yesterday. I made it out of the closet in what I thought was the only suitable thing to wear, and I STILL felt like the world’s largest and most swollen water balloon. I tried to push it away and focus on balancing the checkbook instead while I had some breakfast. Then the Glob of Peanut Butter fell off my bagel and landed directly on my shirt.

I thought I was going to cry myself to death. I wilted right there at the desk, not able to even think about venturing back in to the closet to find another shirt. It’s so disempowering to be trapped by this eating disorder; to be convinced that I am the ugliest creature walking the planet and the only way to get past it is to finally accept it. Accept how ugly I am.

I don’t want to accept it. I just want to be thin.

It’s been a hard couple of days, folks.

Stick It To Me

So we’re going on 4 or 5 weeks with my back injury, but the good news is that now I’m spending about 90% of my walking time in an upright position, and the other 10% hobbling. Ahhh….so much better.

It came up at my last session with PhD Smiley and as I had been weighing my treatment options - you know, sans medical insurance - I threw out a question and crossed my fingers:

“By chance, does the Emily Program have a massage therapist on staff?”

“Sure do.”

“Awesome….”

“We have an acupuncturist on staff, too.”

“Shut UP!”

At that point I thought I would faint with happiness at the possibility of getting care for my back at a place where I already had an established account and did not have to mess with the potential nightmare of hospital bills. But it got better! PhD Smiley went on to tell me about her experience with acupuncture, and that it is great for treating both physical AND emotional pain. That’s when my fear of needles started creeping towards the front of my brain, but I tried to relax because, hey, acupuncture could help with that anxiety!

I’m on the waiting list now to get an appointment with the acupuncturist and despite my nervousness, I am very excited to talk with the doctor about what this treatment could do for my back and knee pain, as well as my anxiety and depression. It sounds like an Eastern medicine double whammy! Sweet….

But I’m curious to hear from you. Have any of you worked with Eastern medical practices? What did you try, and for what symptoms? What was your experience like? Would you do it again?

A Little Less Robot Love

If you enjoy geeky pop culture, then I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending a stop by Robot Love in Minneapolis. Whether you like quirky figurines, steet art, or books that are a little off-kilter, this is a good place to hit up should you find yourself in the Twin Cities with time to kill.

I write all these complementary things, but really, I wanted to say: “Robot Love, you let me down this weekend. I saw so many deliciously decorative hoodies, sassy t-shirts, and dazzling belts, but I couldn’t enjoy any of them. They wouldn’t fit me. Not even close. Not by a mile. And even though you don’t design the products in the store, you choose to stock them, and in doing so send a message that chic and geeky are the territory of the thin.”

Not cool.

Sometimes I’m not at all surprised by my preoccupation with thinness. Not. At. All.

Bumble Candy figurine by Julie West

Ouchies. I has them.

A few weeks ago I made the unfortunate decision to shovel the walkway and parking lot for my building. How unfortunate? Three weeks of unfortunate back spasms. Three weeks of an unfortunate hobble. Three weeks of unfortunately sore leg muscles and knees as they try to take the workload off my back. Three weeks of asking the Canadian to tie my shoes for me. And three weeks of questionable looks from the dog, because even she has noticed that I don’t lean over to set down her food bowl quite as fast as I used to.

I think what has sucked the most is the pestering little thought that keeps popping up: If I go to the doctor, maybe they will tell me that I have to lose weight if I want to save my back. Then there’s no choice. My doctor said so!

Alas.

Reading: Celebrity gossip. Yum.
Listening: Someone in the office left the classical music station on. Some kind of choral work….
Playing: Mario Party 8 for Wii