So today, I write to you, dear stranger, in strokes of hard truth.
I am not anorexic, or bulimic, but those words have been thrown at me often. Sometimes venomous, sometimes with real concern… but the intention doesn't matter anymore. It all stings the same.
I will not be making a comparison to the tormented self-esteem of those who have been ridiculed for being over-weight. The two are polar opposites, and trying to box them together only contributes to the formation of warped stereotypes.
Someone who is desperately (or even casually) trying to shed those extra pounds, will find it very difficult to ever empathize with someone like me.
I love ice-cream, cupcakes, fruit roll ups, nachos and bacon. (Oh the bacon). I am a reclusive stoner and I never go to the gym. I never buy low fat or diet anything. I never have to look in the mirror and wonder if something makes me look fat. So, as far as the outside world is concerned, I don’t have a weight issue at all.
Except I do. I am under-weight. Not always, but most of my life I've struggled with my appetite, and the consequences are only getting more extreme as I get older. The list of foods I don’t like is lengthy, and even as a child my mother had serious issues getting me to finish a meal.
If I don’t eat right when I am hungry, I don’t get hungry for the rest of the day. And even if I do manage to hit the hunger-window accurately, it dissipates quickly, and I end up forcing down as many more bites as I possibly can before the opportunity is gone.
I count calories; to make sure I eat more than I burn. I step on the scale every day, fearful the numbers will read lower than the day before. I take pills, and powders… hoping for some sort of scientific miracle. I scour articles from experts who all claim to have the answers, sometimes for hours, attempting one extreme weight-gain plan to the next. And maybe they work for some people. But not for me.
Very recently, despite new medications to balance my stomach acid, and the added bonus of living with my sister for a while (who is a nutritionist with three kids and lives in a house overflowing with healthy food)… the drop has become much more significant, and the changes happening faster than I can accommodate. Blaming circumstance is possible (I got involved in roller derby, managed to drag myself out of a destructive relationship, moved to a new city, and received a nasty flu as my arrival gift, still lingering after weeks of feeling like complete shit) but it doesn't help me to pretend this is temporary, or hide behind helplessness and convince myself there is nothing I can do.
Some people eat their stress. I starve mine… and being aware of the issue, doesn't seem to stop it from happening. I took all the steps they say are necessary. I established a support system, and a routine. I made mental lists of every food high in “good fat” content, and quickly erased half of it in honour of my unbelievably frustrating taste-buds and their aversion to so many common food items. Prescription drugs aren't making any noticeable difference; even the herbal remedies no longer instill the same vigorous munchies of my youth.
I miss my curves. I miss the way my boobs used to bounce around when I ran. I miss the jiggly part of my thighs… fuck, I even miss the love handles I used to wish weren't so prominent.
I wish you could see the look of pure fucking judgment I get from most people while attempting to explain this.
“Just eat.” They say, because it’s so easy for most of the world. Or “You’re skinny. You should be thankful.” Oh right. How silly of me. I am very thankful for this protruding rib-cage and shrinking stomach. Mostly though, I just love when other people tell me how I should feel without even attempting to sympathize.
I am not sure what I hoped to accomplish in sharing this with you, but it does feel nice to end it all with sarcasm… and a faded glimmer of potential understanding.
12 comments:
I can't give you advice on what might help (although I have heard that many people gain weight after they quit smoking) but I can partially relate to how people respond. I am still at my high school weight and when I went to a multi-decade reunion with all my chubby classmates, I got some comments (and "concerns") that I must be ill or something for not having filled in more over the years. Strange society we live in. But then again, its the usa and getting fat with age (or even without age) is more and more the established norm.
I feel as though this post was talking to me (even though you have no idea who I am). A screen name I often use online is "Weird Stranger", so that might be why, though it's irrelevant.
I'm like you, I've been skinny my whole life, and even if I eat gallons of ice cream and brownies I don't gain much weight. I've never had the issue of low appetite however, my appetite has always been massive, which gets me in trouble when I'm around ice-cream.
There are a variety of healthy foods you can eat that are good for gaining weight. You want to eat foods that have a high glycemic index. The more a food spikes your blood sugar the higher the glycemic index of a food. This is good for gaining weight because when your blood sugar rises, your pancreas secretes insulin and insulin causes your body to store fat.
My personal favorite is sweet potatoes. They are very nutritious, are extremely high in vitamin A, fairly high in vitamin C, and have numerous other vitamins and micronutrients in them. Furthermore, sweet potatoes are high in beta-carotene and other carotenoids and they are high in anthocyanins. Sweet potatoes are excellent for gaining weight. They cause your body to store fat, and are very nutritious.
Potatoes are also another food, but they are not quite as nutritious as sweet potatoes.
Plantains are a great option. They are like bananas only tastier. I like to fry mine in bacon fat. mmmmm tasty.
Milk is another great way to put on weight. Weightlifters have an acronym they use "GOMED". It stands for gallon of milk every day. Milk gives a huge insulin spike and causes the body to store fat. If you like milk and want to gain weight, drink a glass of milk for every meal.
All things considered, if you're gonna have weight issues, better to be on your end of the spectrum than the opposite. Some people just have a crazy high metabolism, and nothing they do puts on weight. That could be your case, I know it's mine.
Shitty deal. I guess I have never seen it from this perspective. Hope things become better for ya. Doesn't sound like fun at all.
Olivia Seyfried
Not so long ago I come across a feller that I hadn't seen in ages. He approached me, called me by name and I had no idea who he was...that is until I looked him in the eyes. Turns out he swam in the Amazon River on vacation and got a Tape Worm...lost about 50 lbs. Now... he said it was all gone now. I didn't shake his hand though...never know where or when a Tape Worm could craw out of ya know.
all i can say is you really got horny with the rib cage talk
beautiful. -guy not trying to get in your pants, but in your mind, then maybe your pants later. but seriously, wonderfully true and real and refreshingly "softer" in complement. can personally identify and empathize, why i am typing on top of aforementioned. anyway, not trying to hate on weird stranger guy or strike an argument with him, but watch out for that advice, his basic premise is around high-glycemic index among many other things that are off. what goes up must come down. ur smart enough to put that 2gether. your body will get addicted to that atypical type of food intake/pattern no matter who you are and no matter what you integrate it with afterwards/beforehand/whatever. and btw, most "professionals", as im sure youve undoubtedly notice, are hardly so, esp in the nutrition and fitness industry. at least to the level i would consider and they claim and with something to this degree of complexity. a lot of what you are dealing with seems to be just as much of a chronic "starvation response" as it something psychological- i know cuz i am there and have been there. v difficult to get out of and costs a fucking fortune. also it is an extremely misunderstood, never-diagnosed physiological response often experienced by countless people to varying degrees. i only intended to put forth the "beautiful" until i came across that guy's advice, that will make your problem way worse in the long run and give you more probs, may help in the short for sure and solid to implement here and there, but far far far more complex than that. i could elaborate extensively and would like to if not for the sole sake of the empowerment of an individual more than worth it, but i am unsure if you read these or whats up. i jst check you periodically, u have some fascinating posts and streams of thot and ur iq is wicked high. ur twitter posts make my penis jump, like all of them, a sort of mind-fuck, and i go there for intellectual relief/curiosity :). i abstain. hope that helps. take care :)
This is to the anonymous guy who takes issue with my post:
If your real age is the same age that the way you type portrays you as, you are probably about 12 years old. You may not have been trying to strike up an argument with me, but you did anyways. I’m going to respond to the drivel you posted in order.
“his basic premise is around high-glycemic index among many other things that are off. what goes up must come down. ur smart enough to put that 2gether.”
This makes very little sense, but why is my premise off? All you said is, what goes up must come down. First of all, that little quote you used has nothing to do with biology. That quote is referring to the fact that a physical object, when moving in the away from a large mass (the earth) will eventually succumb to the large gravitational pull of that object. In biology, no, what goes up doesn’t always have to come down. However, as it is, yes your blood sugar will rise and fall like it does every single day in the life of every single person alive on this planet. When your body can no longer regulate its blood sugar, it dies. That’s why type 1 diabetics must take insulin, because their bodies don’t produce their own insulin and thus can’t regulate blood sugar. When a person’s blood sugar rises after a eating a food that has a high glycemic index, their pancreas releases insulin. Insulin then goes and binds to various cells in your body including muscle cells and fat cells, causing them to store lipids (fat). If a person wants to gain fat, the ONLY way to do that is to store additional fat, and the ONLY way your body can store fat is when insulin binds to receptors on the cells in your body and tells them them take up fat from the bloodstream.
“your body will get addicted to that atypical type of food intake/pattern no matter who you are and no matter what you integrate it with afterwards/beforehand/whatever.”
This also makes very little sense. Are you saying your body will get addicted to eating high glycemic index foods? There is definitely a such thing as a sugar addiction, and as it turns out, food high in sugar does tend to have a higher glycemic index, but that is where your logic ends. One of the foods I suggested that could be eaten with a high glycemic index is sweet potatoes. Do you think that a person could develop a sugar addiction by eating a lot of sweet potatoes? No. And if a person did develop some mysterious addiction to eating sweet potatoes, why would that be a bad thing? Sweet potatoes are healthy. Sugar addiction develops because people eat shit like candy, cookies, and brownies, not because they eat sweet potatoes.
“and btw, most "professionals", as im sure youve undoubtedly notice, are hardly so, esp in the nutrition and fitness industry. at least to the level i would consider and they claim and with something to this degree of complexity”
This is the first thing you’ve said that I agree with, but I don’t see how it is relevant to what I said.
“a lot of what you are dealing with seems to be just as much of a chronic "starvation response" as it something psychological- i know cuz i am there and have been there. v difficult to get out of and costs a fucking fortune. also it is an extremely misunderstood, never-diagnosed physiological response often experienced by countless people to varying degrees.”
How could you possibly know if the body of someone you have never met is going through a “chronic starvation response”? You clearly have no idea what you are talking about because a starvation response is when somebody eats very very little food and so their body responds by decreasing its metabolism. Someone whose body is going through this will often actually experience a slight weight GAIN because their body is trying to use as little energy as possible to stay alive. Also, someone whose body is in starvation mode will be producing ketone bodies in their liver. Ketones make your urine stink REALLY bad. If your urine doesn’t reek, your not in starvation mode.
“i only intended to put forth the "beautiful" until i came across that guy's advice, that will make your problem way worse in the long run and give you more probs, may help in the short for sure and solid to implement here and there, but far far far more complex than that.”
I think I’ve said enough to point out that you are extremely UN-knowledgable about all things metabolism and diet related. Your advice is the advice that should be avoided.
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On an unrelated note. A new study came out recently that marijuana smokers have, on average, waists that are one inch smaller than non marijuana smokers. The mechanism is not understood, but it is clear that something about smoking marijuana makes users slimmer than non-users.
http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/21/marijuana-the-next-diabetes-drug/
I take this finding as a win for marijuana and potential health benefits gained from its consumption, but it is interesting non-the-less. I would never tell someone to quit smoking weed, but it could be the reason your not one inch fatter :)
grow up kiddo, take some medication or find something alternative if you cannot control yourself, quit trying to get in her pants, and find something better to do than strike up ridiculous, inane, mostly baseless arguments that detract from the real reason you should be here(at least in this post) : to provide objective help and support for a woman genuinely seeking the truth. I hardly have the time or patience to argue with such an emotionally charged kid and obliterate your every last thought and assertion point by point which, as previously stated, would be counter-productive. I could clarify myself in extremely explicit detail if need be, but that would be for her, not for you. take care p.s. you act like a woman, which might be endearing except for the fact that you are not. or are you. huge difference between androgyny and passion or just being a lil bitch. but seriously take care of yourself and chill the fuck out
LOL, you call me a "kiddo who's trying to get into her pants", that's priceless. I'm curious how old you are, no way it's over 16, especially when you say in your first post, "ur twitter posts make my penis jump". But I'm supposed to be the kid trying to get into her pants, right?
What are my inane baseless arguments you speak of? I'm VERY curious to hear what you say they are. All you seem to be able to say is that I'm an "emotionally charged kid", and that you can "obliterate my every last argument". Well then..... why don't you? Why don't you obliterate my arguments? If it would be so easy for you to do, I would think you would have done.
Instead, you didn't bring up one single thing that I said, all you did was attack me and call me a bitch. Yet, I'm the ignorant kid.
My guess is that the reason you don't have the "time or patience" to argue is because you have no argument. You certainly had the time and patience to type and post your last two messages. Would you have been spending that much more time and patience to respond to something thing I said?
Please please please, respond to my baseless arguments. I want to know what they are.
"LOL". you're an idiot, weird stranger. cant read? a legit response to you is a waste of time, my posts have absolutely nothing to do with you in essence, and i do not care except to clarify how poor your "advice" is(as shitty advice is abundant in the medical industry and esp in the nutrional sciences field and esp in this regard). it is for her for aforementioned reasons. she seeks the truth and is intelligent and logical and this is her personal blog, and you are here for all the wrong reasons. i put enough in there for her to figure it out herself. if she wants to know more, she has avenues to ask and i will contact her. it was for her benefit, not yours or to amp up your juvenile antics. your contradictory, convoluted "logic" is more than evident to any half-witted person. throwing in some biological facts does not substantiate your argument in any way, and from reading her various posts her intellectual level is such that she can more than recognize what is and isn't so spare yourself and anybody else and just give it a rest. or don't. whatever. you desperately need people's approval too much. good luck p.s. that just took 5 mins while on here to check if she posted anything new. literally obliterating your assertions would take hours they are so asinine and there are other aforementioned things that would just make it just pointless. and yea she's hot and intellectually fascinating, keepin it real, but my intentions were and are genuine, it was an ambiguously playful joke and reality drop, kid. chess not checkers
So I guess that settles it, you are unable to actually respond to anything I said. Why would it take hours to obliterate my assertions? If you could truly obliterate them, I'd think it would only take a few minutes. You sound like one of those religious nuts. No amount of logic, reasoning, or facts is gonna get in the way of what you want to believe.
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