Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Eating Disorders

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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Societal norms that need to die

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Yesterday, I was talking about my frustrations with the BMI and fatphobia in general. The talk of diets and how women bond over moaning over how fat they were. Er, I did not talk about the last point, but it’s definitely a thing that happens. Not to mention talk about being ‘bad’ and ‘I shouldn’t’ with a giggle while reaching for a cookie. Then, when it became slightly less cool to talk about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food, it turned to ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ or foods you can eat all the time and foods you should eat in moderation.

I was reading an old post on Ask A Manager about (during the pandemic) someone’s hubby starting a new job. They had a wellness meeting on Zoom in which they had to talk about what they ate and how they could do better. Most commenters were genuinely appalled, but there were a few hardy souls who caped for the diet industry. Oh, they did not say it that way, of course, but they were so invested in it. Talking about obesity, blah, blah, blah.

As many people pointed out, obesity is one of the bogeymen of healthcare. It’s what a doctor slaps on anything that happens to a fat person, whether it’s relevant or not. And, as people pointed out, oftentimes, the causation is going the wrong way. “People who are obese develop sleep apnea” should be rewritten as “People with sleep apnea are obese”. In other worcds, if there is a causation, it’s not necessarily the way people are told it goes.

Here’s the thing. Of course the medical industry is going to push obesity and personal responsibility so they don’t have to change what they do. They can just tell their patients to eat less and exercise more. Rinse, lather, repeat.

By the awy, I know it’s lather, rinse, repeat. For some reason, though, my brain has always said it as rinse, lather, repeat–and I’m not too fussed to change it.

It’s the point I was making yesterday about recycling and smoking. It’s in businesses’ interest to make sure the responsibility is foisted off on the individual so they can go about ruinning the environment. In the case of the medical industry, it’s not exactly the same. Except it is. They’re going for the easy answer and the one that makes it the willpower of the individual. And, because health insurance is tied to the workplace, it makes it even more insidious.

If a workplace sincerely cared abotu their employees (and not just about bringing down the healtchcare costs), they would value work/life balance, provide an array of food for the employees to eat, pay better, and offer incentives for people to exercise.

One cemmenter said that at her workplace, they did just that. She offered all the things they did, and most of them sounded good. But, then she said that they don’t remburse for exercise equipment. Their rationale was that most people didn’t use home equipment. I thought that was backwards thinking, though, because people who didn’t use equipment at home were not going to go to a gym. Also, I would want my weapons to be reimbursed. Yes, my classes and private lessons would be, but my weapons should be as well!


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And what?

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Thinking more about the fat thing (ha, I wrote phat first, which is funny) because it’s irking me. I watched a few minutes of a Dr. Mike video in which he talked about BMI. He was careful to say that it’s just a tool and that blah, blah, blah, but then he defended it as legit. I turned off the video because while I find him to be informative and caring in general, even he has bowed down to the myth of BMI.

It’s so fucking frustrating how deep run fat phobia is in this country. The undercurrent of what Dr. Mike was saying was that it’s wrong to be fat. No matter how carefully he put it, that was his message.

And it’s all bullshit. This I know. BMI was never meant to be ussed for individuals. The guy who came up with it has said it himself. He was a mathmetecian (!) and it was supposed to be a quick and dirty way to judge the obesity of a general population, not an individual. Here’s an article on NPR/MPR explaining why the BMI is bullshit (restraining heated comment on their parting comment on obesity). I especially appreiate the bit about how because of the way the chart is structured, people who are considered obese will often have a high BMI, but correlation is not causation. As the article points out, those who are heavily muscled will have a high BMI. That was me.

The moment I realized that at my skinniest, when I was anorexic and bulimic with a thigh gap and fainting because I wasn’t eating enough calories to not faint, I was still considered on the cusp of overweight was when I knew for sure that BMI was bullshit. Not to mention that the MATHEMATICIAN who came up with it was doing it based on the ‘common man’. Which, yeah. You can understand why that worked out so well. This was early 19th century to boot and a lot has changed since then. So even the bemoaning of how obese Americans are is bullshit beacuse it’s based on BMI.

Putting that genie back in the bottle isn’t going to happen. Anyone mentions BMI without saying it’s bullshit? I don’t listen to them. That’s such a faulty premise that it’s like someone saying that the earth is flat–except it’s given much more gravitas. It’s unthinkingly accepted by the medical community–which is annoying as fuck.

Ita’s easy for me to say it’s bullshit. It’s much harder for me to fully embrace that the obsession with weight that America has is bullshit. But. Even if I can’t do that. Even if I were to agree that Americans need to lose weight, I cannot get aboard the train that shaming and blaming is the way to get Americans to change.

I thought the same thing when the push to make people feel terrible for smoking went full bore. This was right around the turn of the millennium, and the place I worked (county government) made it so you could not smoke inside. I didn’t care. I only smoked out of my home when I went out drinking. I will admit I was a bit miffed when bars went nonsmoking, but that was because Minnesota is fucking frigid in the winter. Which in itself would not be terrible except there were no places to safely smoke outside.


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‘Healthy’ is a yet another dog whistle

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I hate food culture in America. I just want to say that up front because I’ve been thinking about it lately. I re-read posts on Ask A Manager, and I’ve been absorbed in one about a nonprofit charity that deals with people with a certain chronic disease (and how to help them eat healthily*. That wasn’t what the letter was about. The letter was from someone who worked there who asked how to implement a:

healthy eating policy that is respectful and non-judgmental.

My immediate response on re-reading that question was, “There isn’t. Next?” Which, to be fair, many, many, many people pointed out. But, reading the comments reminded me again about how deeply endemic these issues are in our society.

To be clear. The vast majority of people were against the policy as it stood. Oh, the policy would be…not even sure, but something about eating similar to what they’re pushing their clients to eat? I don’t know, but the letter writer, named QuestionSubmitter, elaborated in the comments. They were shamed for bringing chocolate into the office so ended up eating it in their car. They said in their letter that there were people who ran their food program who were frustrated that they “had” to police their coworkers food choices. I put had in quotes because they didn’t have to. They were doing it all of their own volition. What’s more, there wasn’t support from the uppers in this push for ‘healthy’ eating. The uppers wanted cupcakes at meetings, which did not bode well for a policy.

Alison’s response was wonderful and hit most of the important points I had in mind. It was interesting to see how people pushed back, though. There was a woman who compared a food policy to a dress code, which, no. I mean, I think most dress codes are ridiculous, too, but in most cases, you can’t get sick from those restrictions. The same woman said something like we can all agree that certain foods aren’t healthy–like Skittles. Several people pointed out that Skittles were perfect for diabetics who needed a quick hit of sugar.

Other people said it was getting into not everyone can eat sandwiches territory (adhering to the very special/rare cases), but it’s not because a blanket policy will affect many different people in different ways. In the comments, people were giving their specific dietary restrictions such as several needed to eat more salt than was recommended. Another could not eat leafy greens. Then there were those who were celiacs and/or had Crohn’s disease. The point being that what was healthy for some was not healthy for others.

Other people said it’s easy to eat healthy by societal standards (lots of vegs and fruits), but they included a lot of meat beacuse they lift weights. Somebody pointed out that lots of meat would be considered unhealthy by many doctors, which is true. It was discouraging that a very vocal minority wanted to dismiss food deserts as a problem.

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Going harder on my teenage years

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I have more to say about my teenage years.

I really wish that I had known much earlier that my family was fucked up. That it wasn’t just cultural difference. Yes, my family is Taiwanese American (my parents are Taiwanese, full-stop), but it was also highyl dysfunctional. My parents never should have gotten married, and my mother had (and still has) very toxic ideas about family and what it means to be a woman.

I had untreated depression and anxiety. To be fair to my mother, she found me a therapist when I was fourteen or fifteen, but it was a man from the local uber-Christian college. He was pleasant enough, but he was not used to dealing with emo angst-ridden teenage girls. Who weren’t white. I was also bullied a lot in school for many reasons, including being Asian and fat. I would venture, though, the fact that I was just weird contributed to most of it. And I mostly got teased by girls, which can hurt way more. Boys are mean–girls are cruel.

The worst was a girl who picked on me every day in…I want to say chemistry. Not sure of the class. But she was just mean to me. For no reason. Except that I was a weirdo. I did not knwo how to fit in (my empathic skills did not help me out until I went to college), and I just stuck out like a sore thumb.

This girl (I still remember her name) would not let up. I tried to ignore her, but it did not work. One day, I had enough. When she teased me, I grabbed her hair (very short), yanked her head back, and calmly told her I would kill her if she did not leave me alone. Then I let go of her hair and stared down at my desk. She told me I was making a fool of myself, but there was fear in her voice for the first time. She left me alone after that. I felt horrible, and I never did that again. I took the wrong lesson from it; that violence was not the answer. I mean, it’s not, but that shouldn’t have been the sole lesson. What I should have noted was that sticking up for myself worked. Then I should have found ways to stick up for myself verbally. But, you know, I bet she learend a lesson as well–to not fuck with someone. And, yes, sometimes, might makes right.


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Weight of the world

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I’m fat. I’ve been fat most of my life. There were two times I struggled with anorexia with a side of bulimia the first time. I remember being proud that my thighs didn’t touch the second time around, which, I mean, even if I came by it naturally, it’s not something to be proud of, is it? It didn’t really say anything about me other than I was able to go hard at dieting. At my thinnest, I still thought I was fat and disgusting. K told me later that I looked as if I were in a concentration camp because of how worryingly thin I was.

Here’s the hard truth about anorexia–you’re never thin enough. Ever. No anorexic person looks at  themselves in the mirror and thinks, “Damn, I look good!” It’s never thin enough, and I know this from experience. The second time, I tried to lose weight the sensible way. I limited my calorie intake (too much) and my exercise (too little), and I set what I thought was a reasonable, achievable weight. Except.

The number of calories I set was based on someone my height and purported gender who never moved during the day. I worked out 2 1/2 hours a day, more on days I lifted. As I got near the weight I had set, I knocked off five more pounds because I felt I was still grotesque. I weighed myself and measured myself with a measuring tape once a week. I kept losing and still felt like it wasn’t enough. Everything came to a head one night when I was going to meet K, her husband, and their friends at First Ave for a concert. It was a group formed by members of Los Lobos, whom I really liked. I allotted myself two G&Ts, which meant I had to eat roughly 350 calories less than the 1200 I randomly decided was reasonable. Plus, I knew I would probably want to eat after getting home, so I ate maybe half my calories before going to the gig.

This is relevant because I went to the gig with maybe 500 calories under my belt. And I was going to drink, which I did once every third month or so at the most. Then, it was one drink and maybe a second drink hours later. This time, I slammed the two G&Ts within a half hour, and I fainted. One minute I was on my feet and swaying to the beat. The next minute, I was laying on the ground, dazed and confused. There were people surrounding me and shouting at me, and I did not know what to do. I was embarrassed, but also dizzy. The massive security guard scooped me up and carried me to the front door to get me some air, shouting questions the whole way. I had no capacity to answer, so K did for me. No, I was not doing drugs. No, I didn’t have anything medical. She told him that I had been dieting as he rushed me outside.


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How to be body positive

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When I was seven, my mom put me on a diet. She used to tell me that I would be so pretty if I just lost weight. For context, my parents are old-school Taiwanese who are greatly invested in gender roles–except when they’re not. For example, they believe that a woman should work outside the home–at least my father does. My mother might not because she’s said more than once that she would have loved to stay at home fulltime and be a mother. Given that she gave in to my father at every turn, it’s not wonder she ended up working.

In addition, she played sports. That’s the thing I never understood–many of the women in our church (Taiwanese church) played sports. Tennis, softball, ping-pong, to be more specific. That’s not usual in societies with rigid gender roles, but whatever. It’s just proves that no one is perfectly consistent, but I do appreciate the fact that I was not restricted sports-wise because of my perceived gender. Every other way, yes, but not in that specific way.

While my mother was putting me on diets and scolding me for being fat, she was also insisting that I clean my plate and that I eat everything before me. To be fair, that was rarely dessert, but it still did not make for healthy habits. It didn’t matter if I was hungry or not–I had to eat whatever was in front of me.

My parents also took us to a fast food restaurant once a week after church. It was the best part of my Sundays, if I’m to be honest. Getting a Big Mac, large fries, large DK, and hot fudge sundae from Mickey D or a chicken parm, large fries, large Diet Pepsi from BK, or a cheddar beef sandwich with the trimmings from Arby’s was the highlight of the day, if not the week, foodwise. My mother was not a good cook. She told me when I was an adult that she did not like to cook.

I do not blame her because I do not like to cook, either. I don’t take any joy in it, especially when it’s just for myself. I don’t mind doing it when I’m with someone else. But chopping up a bunch of stuff is no fun when it’s me on my own. And, yes, I know I can freeze things and unfreeze them later, but that’s a lot of work for something I don’t enjoy in the first place.

Because of my mother’s constant harping on my weight, I grew up believing that I was incredibly fat–and not only that, that I was ugly because of it. I mean, how else was I supposed to take her constant criticism of my weight and her statements about how I would be so pretty if I would only lose weight?


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Changing my diet meaningfully

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I’ve been gluten-free (GF) , dairy-free (DF) for four years or so. I did it for health reasons. I ‘ve always been lactose-intolerant (I’m Asian) and it’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. I used to be able to pop a Lactaid pill and be fine with eating dairy. Right around my forties, that stopped working for me. It took me a few years, but I finally decided that the negative results of eating dairy was not worth the pleasure of said eating. I also realized that I was having a negative reaction to eating gluten. I cut both out at the same time and felt much better.

There have been great strides made in the making of dairy-free and/or gluten-free foodstuff in the past ten years or so. I was gluten-free/dairy-free/sugar-free once twenty-five years ago or so for bronchial reasons. All the substitute foods seemed to be made out of arrowroot or tapioca, neither of which was tasty. I suffered for four months and started literally dreaming of pizza and lasagna. Nowadays, there are some very tasty substitutes, some that I like even better than the real thing. Such as Earth Balance’s vegan butter. And Green Valley’s line of lactose-free products. Katz has a great dessert line, including Twinkie and Hostess Cupcakes copies.

Before I ended up in the hospital, I was slowly cutting down on meat products for ethical reasons. I got it down to one serving a day, mostly chicken. Being already GF/DF, I don’t eat any dairy, anyway. So that was a leg up in the right direction, to mix my metaphors. I was pretty proud of myself for cutting down to one serving a day–that was down from two to three a day. That was how I grew up, by the way, with eating lots of meat. Making the jump from one serving a day to none, however, was just a mental block for me. But I was getting there. I was confident I would make it.

Oh hey. In looking up vegetarian/vegan songs, I came across one that I would never have thought was on the list. I’ll Stand By You by The Pretenders. Chrissie Hynde is a vegan and wrote the song in solidarity with animals. That’s pretty cool.


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Fat, health, and what lies between

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I want to lose weight. I got weighed at the doctor’s office and yeah not happy with the number. Even though the rest of the numbers are fine. It doesn’t help that the doctor, much like most doctors, is focused on that one number to the exclusion of the other numbers. I know I’ve been steadily gaining weight in the past several years, even when giving up gluten and dairy. Part of the problem is that many of the substitutes for dairy are full of fat themselves–which I didn’t really think about but was reminded of this week.

I will be painfully honest. I could say that I’m concerned about my weight for health reasons, but it’s not true. It’s all about looks and the fact that as much as I’ve become neutral about being fat, I still would prefer not to be. I know that it sounds like I’m splitting hairs, but it really is a different mindset.

Side Note: It’s similar to when I took the depression survey. I garnered a total of twelve and anything over six is considered worrisome. However, I was sure that I scored fifteen to twenty before (which my doctor ignored), which meant that I was in a much better place than before. That meant nothing to the doctor as she was focused on the 12. I understand from her point of view, but she didn’t even try to see it from mine.

It’s the same with my body. I used to hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. I worked on deescalating that hatred for many years and now I’m mostly neutral about it. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it the way I once did. I don’t actively want to beat it into submission, for example. Because of taiji weapons, I now like my biceps and my ass. That’s an improvement.

Goddamn it. It’s too hot and I’m wilting like a delicate flower. It’s been 90 to 110 in the past few days, which is way out of my comfort zone.

Food map? FODMAP it is! *Sigh*

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I’ve been aware of the FODMAP elimination diet for years, but I’ve always shied away from it because it’s really damn restrictive. I’ve already eliminated gluten, dairy, and caffeine, which is the reason I don’t want to do the damn diet. I feel as if I’ve given up so much, and I don’t want to give up more. But, my symptoms are getting worse, and it’s exhausting to have to deal with the aftereffects. In looking over the lists of what you can and can’t eat on this elimination diet, I found out that cauliflower is high FODMAP, which might explain the terrible reaction to the Cauliflower Bezule I had while I was in Philly.

IT WAS STILL WORTH IT!

The problem is that I don’t cook. I tend to eat a lot of prepared food, processed and otherwise. Many of the items on the high list are in many processed foods including onion and garlic. Let me give you several other items on the ‘do not eat’ list, particularly ones I like to eat. Mushrooms, peaches, watermelon, apples, beans and lentils, gluten and dairy (already given up), cashews, honey and other sweeteners, and alcohol. The last isn’t a problem for me. This is but the tip of the restricted list, and I get tired just looking at it.

Giving up dairy and gluten wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t hard. There were plenty of substitutes, and I rarely miss it. Yes, I do occasionally want a dumpling or cheese, but it’s not something that has a negative impact on my life. This, on the other hand, is an ordeal. Right now, I’m big into hummus. Chickpeas are medium FODMAP and garlic are high FODMAP. I love potatoes, which are low FODMAP, but can be irritable, nonetheless. Thankfully, citrus fruits are low FODMAP, which is good because I eat an orange a day.

I just read an article about how you should think about what you can have, not what you can’t. There’s plenty! You can have salmon and green beans and potatoes, for example! Actually, that sounds delicious. The problem is that I don’t cook. I will have to cook. These two things are mutually exclusive, and I don’t know how to reconcile it.

My nose is burning. It’s hurting like hell. My head is softly thumping, but it’s not migraine levels. Yet. I stopped drinking the cold coffee I bought, and that seems to have done the trick. I might check it by drinking some of the coffee because, science.

I really am not feeling blogging this week, so I’ll end this hear. I’ll leave you with yet another Oxventure. Actually, it’s the first of three episodes, and Andy Farrant who plays the rogue pirate, Corazon de Ballena (nee de Leon, kind of) has to pretend to be a young paladin named Chauncey. His voice and manners as he pretends to be Chauncey had me in tears. I earmarked where it all started in the video below. There is also a lot of homoerotic tension in the quest as well, which is delightful.