Start Spreading the News

I was thinking today about how different it is being overweight in New York, where I grew up and lived most of my life as opposed to being overweight in North Carolina, where I live now and have lived for the past four years.

If you haven't spent any time in NY, but have at least watched TV or have heard rumors about NYers being a$$holes, let me tell you it's completely true.  I've been to many cities in various parts of the state, lived in both small and large communities where everyone knows who you are and no one knows who you are and it just doesn't matter, NYers are just generally bastards.  There are individuals who can be nice, but for some reason the general attitude is rude, bitchy and downright nasty. 

When you're constantly running into this kind of behavior on a day to day basis, it spreads fast and never goes away.  If you're nice to someone, people are rude to you because they assume you want something from them immediately or that you're mocking them. 

Anyway, facing those kind of people, it shouldn't be surprising to hear someone call you a fatass or a tub-o-lard if you're overweight and doing nothing more than just walking down the street, or eating at a restaurant.  Yes, you get assaulted with insults for simply existing.  I'm sure this happens everywhere, but I use to see it all the time in NY.  Anyone who is different, not just overweight people, but anyone who might be different is likely to get an insult hurled at them.  Those who weren't insulting you were sneering at you or rolling their eyes.

Coming to North Carolina, I honestly expected the same sort of behavior.  I just assumed it was that way all over the U.S.  However, as my husband and I started venturing off the base and checking out local establishments we found people were genuinely nicer down here.  You could run into a perfect stranger in a grocery story and have a chat with them in an aisle for ten minutes and that is perfectly normal.  Store clerks don't hide from customers around here and most fast food employees are polite.  Hey, fast food service jobs suck, you have no idea how hard it is to smile in that kind of job so if they're polite and smiling, that's a big deal!

Sure I still ran into people who stare every now and then, but there was no eye rolling or sneering.  In fact, people randomly greet you with hellos and smiles.  Not just here in the town we live in either, but the bigger cities a few hours away as well.  More often than not I find myself doing it back instead of keeping to myself and avoiding eye contact the way I use to as a NYer.  

Now as far as what NCers are thinking? Maybe the same things are going through their heads as the NYers, I don't know.  It doesn't matter, it's how they're treating people that I care about.  I prefer being treated as a human being so I think I'll be sticking around here while I'm going through my weight loss.  I feel comfortable in my own skin here.

Having Cake (And Eating It Too)

Something that comes up in therapy every now and then, even after all these months, is if I ever throw up what I eat.  I do not purge.  I have never purged.  Not only can I not imagine myself doing anything to make myself purge, but I don't, in any way, enjoy the thought of making the contents of my stomach come back up.

Before being told about the binge eating disorder, I really just thought I loved eating, so to make anything I just ate come back up would be unthinkable.  I just went through the effort to enjoy eating whatever it was I had.  I want to digest that really delicious food and it seems like a huge waste of money and time to not allow that to happen.

Now that I'm dealing with the eating disorder and being more picky about what goes into my mouth and thinking about foods that I'm eating (including planning meals), I'm finding there are foods that I don't like.  Not just that, but I don't love eating.  I have a love affair with a few particular foods, but for the most part, I really don't love food like I thought I did.

This has only been a recent discovery, and one that I like.  It makes dealing with food more pleasant of an experience though lately it hasn't been too bad of one.  The longer I stick with this eating healthy plan, the easier it becomes.

Just as an example, I use to love fried food.  It's rare that I even touch it now.  The thought of it kind of actually turns my stomach and if it doesn't, the taste of it does.  Can't do french fries, chicken fingers, fried fish or most take out, really.  This is good, since not only is it full of calories, it's loaded with sodium and other bad things like saturated fat and cholesterol.

I'm also learning that I enjoy foods like green and red peppers, tomatoes and carrots.  Though I don't enjoy dark green vegetables very much, I do get in quite a bit of them because I know it's healthy for me.  I've cut out the white processed breads and switched to whole grain and wheat breads and they're not bad at all.  My favorite fruits are oranges and kiwis but I also love gala or fuji apples if I can't have one of the first two choices.

So, it's not second nature yet, but I'm looking forward to when I don't have to think about it anymore and I'm just reaching for this stuff naturally.  I'm not sure how long it will take.  I've spent years eating poorly.  I wouldn't say my whole life, because my mom didn't raise me to make poor food choices, but at least since I've lived on my own.  But, I have a good support system in place and I'm sticking with it and that's what matters.

P.S. No post yesterday, I slept through most of the day.  Hopefully due to healing and not just random laziness.

Let's Share!

Recently, I've wanted to get together and talk to other people about weight loss and the struggles that come with it because I just need to talk about it with someone other than my therapist.  After doing a search online, I found that there was a local chapter for Overeaters Anonymous in my town and I was pretty excited about it at first.

I checked out the location on Google maps and tried to psych myself up into going.  They meet once a week on Tuesdays at 6pm and I figured that I could handle this.  Not only would this be great for support, but it might help me meet new people since I really struggle with creating and maintaining new friendships.

The only problem is, I really hate people.  That makes no sense, right?  I know, it's confusing to me, too.  Try being in a position where you can't stand to be around people 95% of your waking day (not including husband and child) and then actually crave to be around others.  How do you get around that?  I have no idea.

I think I might just be having a little anxiety about being out in public while being obese, though.  I've talked about it in the past, not wanting people to stare at me because of my size.  I can't just assume because I'm going to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting that everyone there is going to be obese, too.  Some people can overeat and not gain weight, but still need help.  Not all binge eaters are obese.  This is the dilemma for me, having to worry about being around skinny people who overeat.  It makes me even more embarrassed about my size.

Anyway, what I think I need to do here is just force myself to go to one of these meetings eventually.  It's going to take a bit more psyching up, however.  Another week or two, perhaps?  I wish I had someone to go with.  Also, I wish I wasn't so big that I was worried about breaking a chair if I showed up or worried that I might not fit in the chair.  It's times like this that I tend to fall back on the excuse, "Well, I'll just wait until I lose a few more pounds then do it."  I need to break that habit.

My Favorite Five Letter Word

During the first several weeks of my therapy sessions, my therapist would say to me that I had to learn to love myself.  This phrase would incite such anger that if I could be the almighty Zeus, I would hurl my bolts of lightning down upon the Earth from where I stand on Mt. Olympus and lay waste to all of mankind.  Really, I loathed hearing those words from her.

She also gave me reasons why but I'll admit to being too angry to listen to what they were at the time, though I'm sure we'll talk about it again in the future.  Every week though, she would say it.  Finally, I was so furious and so sick of hearing it, I snapped at her and said, "Stop telling me to love myself!  It's not going to happen.  There is currently nothing about myself to love.  Maybe when the weight is off, I'll feel differently, but right now it's not going to happen."

She asked me, "Do you know how many times I was able to ask you that before you finally told me to stop?  I've been counting.  Have you?  Five."

I didn't get the point.  I still don't know what the point is because I have a long way to go with my therapy and I can't figure it all out at once.  However, the number of times was apparently five and she never brought it up again.  My point is anger was getting in the way of me understanding something about myself. 

Yes, I'm only figuring this out now but what made me realize it was the hospital visit on Saturday and my visit with Dr. Douchebag (name changed to protect the misguided).  When he left the room and I was putting my sock back on my foot, I suddenly chose to let go of my anger and use that moment as a motivational reminder that I can do this even if he didn't think I could.  Recognizing that I could let go of anger was an incredible feeling.  Empowering, even!

Ok, there is a slight problem now.  I can't get it back.  I have been angry since then about other things and I don't know how to stop being angry about everything and I don't know how to let go of that emotion over other situations.  Is it because I subconsciously don't want to or because I just don't know how to and what happened at the hospital was a complete fluke?  Is being angry the emotional equivalent to taking the easy way out of a hard situation or job?

So, I'm frustrated with myself and a little confused about it all.  I'm adding this to the list of things I need to think about more and perhaps even bring up in my next therapy session.  I have to stop letting anger stop me from doing things.

Ignoring the Warning Signs

Our bodies are very good at telling us that something is wrong, but sometimes we're either not very good at listening or, in my case, I will simply outright ignore it because ... you may have guessed it, I'm fat.  I allow my weight to stop me from going out into public, because I don't want people to stare at me even if this means not treating something like bronchitis or even a simple cold.  So, I confine myself to my house.

About two weeks ago I developed a nasty little infection in my toe thanks to what was either athlete's foot or fungal infection.  By Wednesday of last week it had started healing over, but I had started getting sick woth what I thought were flu-like symptoms which I did not connect to my toe (because, who would?) and still could have been completely unrelated at that point. 

On Thursday I woke up with some minor lower right leg pain, below mid-calf and above my ankle in three specific points on my leg that had small purply-red spots developing.  It was very odd, but I didn't think much about it other than it was where my leg rested on the recliner where I sleep and I was assuming I was developing uncomfortable pressure points.  On Friday the pain was worse, popped some ibuprofen and hoped for the best.  Friday night I developed chills and a fever and had my husband pick up cold medicine, annoyed that I was getting sick in the middle of summer.

On Saturday morning I realized that I was having pain while walking and though I had done things like showered and changed my clothes I had not really bothered looking at my leg.  Pulling up the leg of my pants, it looked awful.  What the hell was that? That was not a leg.  That was a purple swollen gross stump of something and it hurt when I barely touched it.  

Having worked in the medical field for years I had a sneaking suspicion of what it might be, but I didn't want to admit to myself that it might be that.  So, I used an online diagnosing program to help me confirm my fears that it probably was what I thought it was, and it was at the top of the list of three conditions it could be, all which I should seek treatment for within the next 24 hours.  Cellulitis.

I was horrified.  It took the persistent pushing of both my husband and a friend to get me to go to the walk-in clinic on the base to get treated.  Why?  Because I'm fat and I didn't want people to stare at me.  I didn't want to have to sit there and talk to the doctor about my weight because I was too afraid he was going to blame my condition on diabetes, which is another cause of cellulitis, but was not the cause of it in my case since I do not have diabetes.  

Packing up my medications, I went to the clinic anyway because this is a serious medical condition and I couldn't leave it untreated.  It needed antibiotics this time, I couldn't let being obese stand in the way of seeking treatment for an illness. 

The doctor did exactly what I thought he would and ... did his job.  Asked if I had diabetes.  It's his job!  I know this.  I was still annoyed, though, and that's my issue because he's still required to ask questions and do his job.  I assured him that I did not have diabetes despite my weight, explained the infected toe and showed it to him with the newly healed skin and he immediately agreed that it was more likely to have been that cause since almost the entire top of the toe was now covered in new skin.

Despite that, the conversation still turned back to my weight and diabetes.  But, I came prepared.  I very calmly and even somewhat proudly told him that I had gone to a bariatric surgeon for gastric bypass and during the psych evaluation was diagnosed with binge eating disorder.  I was now seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist for binge eating disorder weekly to bi-weekly, a dietitian monthly and my regular doctor regularly.

I went on to explain that I was on medication for my blood pressure and that while my sugar levels had been borderline high when last tested in March, my doctor and I agreed we would wait before putting me on medication for diabetes because I was actively losing weight through healthy eating and exercise and seeing the dietitian and in 6 months we would retest me to see how the numbers looked.  I even told him that I had now lost over 40lbs.  That's 40.  I'm under 420lbs!

What came out of his mouth next though floored me.  He went on to say that when he was going to medical school, he used to binge eat when he was stressed so he could understand, he just never gained the weight.  I must have had a look on my face that clearly said, "Did you just compare your med school stress eating with my lifetime of uncontrollable compulsive eating?" because he quickly followed it up with how he didn't really know much about how cognitive therapy worked but that he hoped I was doing well with it and obviously it was working for me to drop 40lbs and gave me what sounded like an apologetic congratulations if that's somehow possible.

Then he turned around, told me to go back to see my primary physician for a follow up in a few days and to get my blood rechecked for diabetes.  I should also get back to the surgeon for that gastric bypass as soon as I could, as it was my best option for success.  Beg your pardon?  I was actually furious with this guy for suggesting that but thanked him for his information on the cellulitis and the antibiotic and promised him that I would be following up with my primary physician in a few days as he instructed.

When he left the room, I sat down in the chair and I thought to myself, "This guy... thinks I'm going to fail?" That was all I could come up with.  I had actually given him some very good detail about the cognitive behavioral therapy and how much I had learned about binge eating and triggers and how it was helping me with my weight loss.  The fact that he was suggesting the surgery though after all that just made me come to the conclusion that he believes that I'm going to fail.

Well, I have news for you.  I'm not going to fail.  Also, it felt really good to tell you that I lost 40lbs, even if I am still over 400lbs and I didn't have surgery to do it and I did it a little more slowly than other people might have.  I will also have you know, I will not be getting the surgery, even if it means getting the weight off faster to correct issues like my blood pressure and borderline blood sugar level.  You know why?  One binging episode after I have a gastric bypass and I will die and considering I still cant control all my binging episodes yet, that's a problem.  So no, I wont be going to do that and I am happy about it. 

I would like add, that going to the doctors made me realize it's my chance to brag TO a doctor that I am losing weight and if it's a doctor that I see regularly, they'll even be able to open my chart see that and go, "Wow, you are losing weight!"  Maybe they will praise me, because I like praise, and because they are a regular doctor I know they wont say something stupid like, "Go get surgery."

Also, you are a huge tool.

So, I did learn a lesson this past weekend: Self, the outcome was good, even though the experience at the Navy clinic was negative.  When you feel sick, go ahead to the doctors so you can get treated to feel better and boast when you have the opportunity.  Take your chance to pat yourself on the back because you deserve it.

Fat People Are Unintelligent

I probably just pissed off a lot of fat people with my title.  Chances are, I got their attention, too.  Don't worry, fat people, I'm fat, too.  I've been chubby, mildly overweight, heavyset and now morbidly obese .  It was my parents' fault when I was a child, it was my fault as an adult.  There were definitely some other factors involved that attributed to my weight gain including medications and mood disorders such as depression but as an adult I  take responsibility for my part in my weight gain.

Perhaps you, the skinny person or maybe even the overweight person, look at me and you judge me because obviously I must lack smarts to allow myself to get this big.  Did I not know what I was doing?  Yes, I did.  It didn't stop me from being the emotional eater when I was down, or rarely exercising or eating poorly.  Still sounds like I'm unintelligent right now, doesn't it?  I'm getting to that, I promise.


I wanted to lose weight.  I tried, many times.  I tried paid programs and failed, I tried diets and failed, I could never seem to get it right.  What the hell was I doing wrong?  Why couldn't I get it when other people seemed to be able to?  Why couldn't I stick with things or understand what was going on?

Did you happen to read the little blurb (description) about this blog where I go to say that I suffer from a binge eating disorder?  What it had come down to was me going to a bariatric surgeon for the gastric bypass.  For those who don't know, this involves many tests, including a psychiatric evaluation.  I wasn't looking for the label of binge eating disorder and I didn't know it existed.  In fact, when I was turned down for the surgery because I was diagnosed as having this disorder, I was in disbelief and in denial.

I'm not going to go on here and use this as my excuse to be fat.  It's the reason for being uneducated as to why I couldn't commit to weight loss and why I was repeatedly failing at losing weight.  Now that I know, I am taking steps in the right direction to do something about it.  Therefor, I am not unintelligent, I am learning from the information I have gained and I am finally improving myself.  I just needed the right teacher.

So here is where I shock you and tell you I'm skinny now and you can do it, too, in these easy steps!  Just kidding.  I'm still fat.  Are you kidding?  I just started this process in January (2010) with the surgeon.  My weight was 462lbs.  He told me that before I could even be considered for the surgery I would have to lose 25lbs on my own.  It was at the end of February that I had my psychiatric review where the woman told me she wanted me to find a cognitive behavioral therapist for binge eating disorder.

What I am going to say is that I really don't want the surgery.  I never really did, but I was scared of dying from being fat and I didn't know what else to do.  Between seeing this therapist once a week who specializes in eating disorders and seeing this dietitian once a month,  I'm losing weight slowly but I am losing weight.  This morning I am 427lbs and I am happy that I am not 462lbs this morning.  Sometimes I still binge eat, I only just started being able to identify when I do it.  It's depressing, but I'm working on it.

So, this is what my blog is for - a place for me to talk about what losing weight is like for me.  It might be the emotional things, it might be the people in my life that contribute to what causes me to eat or the emotions that make me feel like I want to eat, maybe the motivations or goals I have.  Either way, it's for me.  I'm not trying to be an inspiration for other people, I'm just trying to be an inspiration for myself.  A reminder to keep going, I guess.  I keep my food journal offline, I don't need to do that here.  I will try not to whine!  Sometimes I will be positive, sometimes I might be negative but hopefully all of this will be cathartic for me.

Maybe you're losing weight, maybe you've lost weight, even if you aren't a binge eater and you've just struggled with being heavy and you want to comment, that's cool.  I really want to hear from you.  But you want to troll?  This really isn't the place for you.  I'm never going to post pictures, I wont be your thinspiration and don't want to hear about how you're so fat at size 2 and wish you were a size 0, I won't be target for your mean spirited comments.  I may be a faceless person on the internet but I am a person with feelings and ask you to move on and not bother me.

If you're still reading at this point (long winded, aren't I) then I thank you for sticking around.  See you next post.