Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: eating

Sleep, eat, overthink (part seven)

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My car would not start tonight. A month or two ago, it wouldn’t start and I charged it overnight with my battery charger (after talking to my brother about it). He said that I should start it every few months or drive it twenty minutes every few months to keep the battery juiced. I tried it a few days ago just to make sure it started. I was meeting a friend for dinner tonight–and the car would  not start. All the lights were lit up like it does when the battery is dead. My friend came to pick me up (the restaurant was only two or three minutes from my house), and when I got back home, I called put my car on the charger.

Then, I called my brother to tell him what happened. He immediately said that I needed a new battery; I was morbidly glad that I had properly diagonosed the siuation. But, then a weight settled on my shoulders because I hate doing car shit. Especially since I have a hybrid, so it’s a bit trickier than if I just had a gas car. Also, tomorrow/today is Friday. And I am single, which means I have to just do it myself. Or call my brother to help me. I don’t like to rely on him too much, though, because he’s very busy.

Oh, and the reason I was checking to see if my car worked was because I want to get one of my meds before the weekend. Sigh.

My sleep has been terrible the last two nights. I went to bed earlier for me, and I got three hours and four-and-a-half hours, respectively. Maybe closer to five the second night, but that’s still not enough. It’s so frustrating to actually try to do the right(ish) thing and still not get enough sleep. I’ve been snoozing on and off while I’m “awake”, which is very frustrating.

I need to get more than six hours of sleep tonight, but with the car woes on my mind, who knows?

I don’t think I’ll finish this tonight. I’m so tired, and I keep nodding off. I’ll write more tomorrow.

(Written the next day.) I managed to get over seven hours of sleep last night, so I feel a bit better. My car place wasn’t open past ten a.m., so I did not get to talk to them. But I was able to start my car and went to pick up my meds.

Still. I’m feeling pretty down for a variety of reasons. Some big, some small, but it’s just all adding up to me being pretty unhappy at the moment. And still exhausted from getting shitty sleep the last couple of days. I’ve been nodding on and off, and never feeling awake, really.


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Weight, dieting, food, and society

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Ask A Manager posts a new post around 11 p.m. (Minnatime) Sunday night – Thursday night. Last night, I read the post for today and immediately knew it was going to be, shall we say politely, a fucking shit show. One of the questions was from someone who was a member of Overeaters Anonymous and needed to weigh their food as part of their recovery program. They were going to have a lunch with their boss’s boss and was going to bring their scale with them. They didn’t think it was a big deal (think it was a she, but don’t want to presume), but their husband said it would be off-putting to the boss’s boss. They ended the letter with this:

I just plan to say I have a food plan from a nutritionist and it requires me to weigh my food. It’s true and I don’t think anyone would care. What do you think?

I knew immediately that they were being naive, and my heart hurt for them. I also knew that the commentariat would be mostly against the bringing the scale, but, man. I did not expect the intensitiy of the negativity,y shall we say. And while I absolutely should have expected all the people with dieting advice or morality judgment, it was a bit overwhelming.

Someone pointed out that breast pumps, prosthetics, and such were also out of the norm, but they slowly became normalized the more people had them/used them. A few people pointed out that ‘business norms’ don’t change if, well, no one actually does anything to change them. Plus, the reactions from a few old people (and, yes, I do know their general age) were very harsh. “You’ll look like a degenerate and no one will take you seriously! You will never, ever, ever be promoted!” I’m paraphrasing.

“Eyeball the proportions!” Um…LW did not ask for dieting tips and there’s a specific purpose in weighing the food. I can’t do it myself because my particular eating disorder was based on knowing the calories of everything I ate. I had to deliberately ignore that info for several years after. Which, was just around the  time that putting the carlorie on everything. That was a harrowing time for me.

There were a few good suggestions, including from Alison to call ahead of time and see if there was anything on the menu that would work. She said it shouldn’t matter, but it probably would. That’s something I appreciate about Alison–she’s honest about how something might be bullshit, but it was still something to think about. There have been interesting posts about what she has changed her mind about over the years. I like that she’s able to admit when she made a mistake or when she’s changed the way she thinks.

I think the best suggestions were to go ahead of time to the restaurant (assuming it was a restaurant) and way a meal then–assuming that the portion sizes were pretty consistent. One thing people don’t know or don’t care about is that people are lousy about eyeballing anything. And, the fact that the letter writer said they had to weigh their food specifically rather than ‘eyeball’ the portion size.

Other things that did not help: more than one person saying this was unhealthy behavior. Weighing their food, I mean. You are not their doctor. You aren’t qualified to make a blanket statement like that. And a few people did–said that anyone weighing their food was engaging in problematic behavior.

It was wild how much sthit people threw into this post. As I commented, I was disappointed, but not surprised. Our society is fucked up in general when it comes to food, eating, and dieting. It’s how women bond, sadly (dating), which I have railed against in prior posts. There is so much culturally wrapped up in food. I’m not surprised, but I don’t quite get it. Breaking bread together? Yeah, I understand that it’s important. But not to the point of rigidity.


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Leveling up my veggie game

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though not quite as tasty.
Better for me than chips.

I need to stop buying chips; I really do. I had given them up at some point, then gave into the impulse to buy them once, and the rest is history. It’s funny because while giving up caffeine was a nightmare at the time, I haven’t really missed it at all. I bought a thing of mocha coffee (with almond milk) last week, drank it for three days, then didn’t miss it when it was gone. Chips, on the other hand, are my weakness. Which is weird because I never used to be a salt person. I’m still not actually a salt person. I don’t add it to anything, and I wipe off my chips before I eat them. Or I get low-sodium chips.

I know the conventional wisdom is to eat in moderation, but that’s just not possible for me. I think another conventional wisdom should be to know thyself. One of the problems with giving advice, especially on the internet, is that the giver tends to look at the ideal situation. Look, you know I love me some advice columns. I consider them my stories, and I read them every day. But many of the comments are very black and white without considering the nuance. So, ‘eat in moderation’ is sound advice, but insisting that someone can do it through simple willpower isn’t.

Yes, of course, I know it’s because most people are limited in their capacity to look outside themselves (one reason I get so frustrated with conversations) and have a hard time truly understanding that other people may react to something differently than they do. I saw that in the Ask A Manager comments once when someone was talking about not being able to have their favorite junk food in the house because they had no control. People made sensible suggestions like divvying it up beforehand and freezing the parts you don’t immediately eat (in the case of chocolate) or hiding it away (for chips), which were very good suggestions. The problem is for someone like me–I won’t do it. I just know I won’t. We’re not always rational beings, and it’s difficult to explain why.

For example. One time while my mother was here, she said if I folded the paper bags from Cubs correctly before putting them in the cabinet, they would take up less space. Later, I told Ian that she was correct, and that I wouldn’t be doing that. He gave me a look of pure puzzlement. He said, “You know she’s right, and yet, you won’t do it?” I cheerfully said, “Yep!”, which just blew his mind. I knew it was irrational, but in that case, I also knew the reason why. Pure childish spite.

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