Family Health

I don't talk a whole lot about my family on here, mostly it's not relevant, but I wanted to talk a little about it today.

My father has kidney disease. It says in check mostly, but his weight is higher than his job would like. Around the new year he was given a nutritionist (he's seen her before for his weight) who put him on a "shake" diet. My mother calculated that they were having him eat between 600 and 800 calories a day. I think at the time my father weighed around 220. Well, being a man, he dropped weight very very quickly, and made weight when he was tested. I voiced that I thought this was a bad idea, and that he would put the weight back on. He said that your metabolism speeds up when you lose weight (interesting how my father, or is that all men, have very different ideas on weight loss and gain than women do) and that he looked forward to going back to "normal eating" when it was all done. Well, it was done, and he did, and he put most of the weight back on. I said nothing, because it's rude to rub things in people's faces, but he did mention that I had been right, which was vindicating.

I do have a point in telling you all this.

Recently I had a talk with my father about removing sweeteners from your diet, how I thought that was to blame for poor health, that I didn't think it was as simple as "calories in calories out," and that simply by removing anything with sweeteners and using raw honey sparingly and replacing the old foods with fresh whole foods I had lost 23(21?) pounds and felt great. He took this to heart, though perhaps not exactly as I would have hoped (but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth), and has begun to remove things with sweeteners from his diet. He has stopped drinking any soda, and has replaced sugar in his coffee with a bit of raw local honey. I'm very pleased. I believe his health will improve and he will see some weight loss. He has also been asking my mother about the specifics of my diet as she knows exactly what I'm doing. I am very happy to have had a positive influence on his eating habits.

Additionally, my younger sister has begun to consume more healthy foods. We live together so she is a constant observer of how I eat, and while her diet is definitely very different from mine, any change she makes toward healthier whole food is a good one. With her MS it's definitely important in my book to positively influence her eating/lifestyle habits however I can. Though, I admit that I spend most of the time feeling like I'm having no influence at all. Additionally, she has begun to take a medication to decrease her constant state of sleepiness/near constant sleep. She was very productive on the day she took it. I was impressed. I hope this med works out well for her.

Finally, and I think this is going to be the best, my mother. My mother, in my opinion, very likely has an undiagnosed autoimmune disorder. Ever couple of years she goes through a period where her body completely rebels against her, swelling in her joints, pain, exhaustion, ect. This lasts for an undefined period of time, and all the tests come back negative, until it fades away and she is fine for a while before whatever it is flares back up. My father, being the enourager that he is, always declares her dying at the beginning of these things, and goes on about how her health is declining and he will outlive her and have to find another wife and generally becomes someone I want to avoid at all costs. And I worry a lot, because she and I are very close.

Well, the most recent case involved her stomach swelling and her ability to eat foods being reduced to almost nothing. She was limited to mostly semi-solids or else have horrible stomach pain for the better part of the last year and a half. At first they thought it was cancer, then a variety of other diseases, but all the test came back negative. My mother also developed regular migraines. The did lots of tests, and concluded that she needed to "lose weight." That's it, she was having severe water retention in her stomach and visible inflammation of her intestines and stomach because she was 220 lbs and needed to "lose weight."

So, she worked out 45-70 minutes on her treadmill every day, increased the incline and the speed, took walks to the park with my father, and kept eating what she could. She figured out at some point she was only eating around 1000-1200 calories a day. She lost weight VERY VERY SLOWLY. When she was finally down to "not obese" she went back to the doctor. She still had the severe water retention, still had the inflammation  still had the stomach pain. Their response was "oh, we thought it would go away. Well, it doesn't seem to be killing you, so maybe this is your life now."

I have to admit that my mother's trials with the (sizist) doctors have developed, in me, a general resentment of the medical establishment.

Well, recently she got a new doctor, who set up new tests, took her off her old medicine, gave her a new medicine, and gave her packets of probiotics.

On Friday I shared some of an apple with my mother. Now, remember, she's spent the better part of a year and a half on a mostly semi-solid diet. She expected to have a severe stomach ache that night but at the apple slices anyway because she was hungry. She didn't have any pain.

Then she ate some pizza at a get-together with friends. No pain.

She bought a couple of apples and ate them. NO PAIN!!!!

I am super excited, stoked, that my mother's stomach might be healing, that she might be able to go back to a "real" diet, a truly healthy diet with fruits and vegetables and whole grains. I don't know if it was time, or this doctor, the timing implies the doctor did something, but I'm super happy. This is wonderful news, and I hope it continues; for my mother's sake, for her health, and for my sake, for my peace of mind as I move.

These improvements to my family members health make me very happy.

The Weight of the World on Us

You know, they say that loosing weight and regaining it is worse for you than simply maintaining a high weight. Funny, then, that the entire world indites you for your weight. I feel...an unending kind of guilt and worthlessness for never being able to reach weight. A kind of constant defamation of my character. I stopped cutting, I changed my entire mindset so that I am free from crippling depression and anxiety, I lived in a foreign country, I completed college, yet I have so little self control that I cannot stop eating enough to loose weight.

In England they call it "The War on Fat," but everyone knows what they mean is "The War on Fat People."

People post on web pages everything from "I don't like to hang around overweight people, it's just so unhealthy, you know. It's gross that they let themselves get like that," (and just "overweight"? I think, what is their definition of overweight, anything higher than a BMI of 25? Do they check people before they'll hang out with them, or are they so convinced of their discerning eye that they can tell .1% more fat on a female body?) to "It's truly disgusting, we should let them die, kill all the fatties and make the world a better place." Whether people want to believe it, whether it's ethical or moral or not, this is the way society thinks, it's how they've been trained. The war on fat across the world hasn't decreased the number of overweight and obese, but it has SEVERELY MARGINALIZED them. Anyone who is bigger, particularly and emphatically women who are larger, can attest to this. It's dehumanizing.

Tell me, when 90% of the population is overweight or obese (we're already pushing 70%), will you still claim it's merely a matter of self-control?

When I was in South Korea I exercised nearly every day. I hiked each week, and ran more than 5 miles in addition to weight training. I worked out about 2 hours 5 to 6 days a week (I say about 2 because some times I went over, sometimes it was only 1:50). I ate healthy Korean dishes and limited my intake of any sweet drink or treat and walked virtually everywhere I went. My lowest weight was 169 lbs. Then, in Europe, where I was despairing and decided to have fun, and ate everything I could get my hands on from beer and ice cream to sandwiches to the local delicacies, I dropped weight. How did I drop weight?

In addition, my lowest weight, and my fittest self, able to run five miles and do two dozen push-ups, endless crunches and squats, I still weighed 163lbs. Which, if I do have big bones, is 8 pounds higher than the highest I should weigh, and still puts me in the category of "overweight and obese" that is the "plague" on today's society. And, if I don't have big bones, is 13 pounds more than the highest weight I ought to weigh. When I was on Crew at Murray State my lowest weight was 169 lbs. ON CREW. How young was I? 18, 19, 20, how much was I working out? 12+ hours a week. Plus, I had no car, so I was also walking. If, at 19, I was not able to reach a "healthy" weight, despite being an NCAA athlete, what hope do I have?

And yet, I will always be indited for my weight. Everyone who sees me will assume my character is visibly and, literally, fatally flawed.

What bothers me more is to see people who are of a "normal" weight eating the things that I should be refusing myself. How come they get to go to the ice cream shop? How come they get to eat cake? How come they get to drink sweet tea? How come they get to wear flattering clothes? Their bodies do not betray them, their bodies to not stigmatize them, but mine does.

I once knew a girl who ate no sugar, just honey. She was fatter than I was. And yet the idea wasn't entirely flawed.

I went off all sugar for lent and lost 7 lbs. I have decided to do this again, but to include exercising.
My present weight is 193 on a good day, but generally 195. Even for me it is not a weight I am comfortable with.

I also go into this despairing, not because I do not think I can be healthy, not because I do not think I have value, but because I do not believe whether I'm "healthy" or not will change how people perceive me. I will always be "overweight" and that is how strangers and health care professionals will see me first; as a disease caused by character failure, as a social problem, and maybe, if I'm lucky, as a person.