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.
K’s friend, M, was a mother. That meant she had snacks in her purse. She pulled out a Snickers bar and held it out to me. I shook my head because I did not want to ingest the calories. She gave me a hard look and pressed it in my hand. I reluctantly ate it. Yes, even after fainting because I had not eaten enough that day, I feared the calories of a candy bar.
K drove me home as her husband drove my car back to my house. K read me the riot act and asked if I wanted to die. I didn’t, but I did. But I didn’t. what she said hit me hard, and I stopped that day. But, true to my nature, I swung in the other direction. Hard. I became a compulsive eater, not denying myself anything. And it wasn’t as if I was enjoying what I was eating–it was just cramming things into my mouth.
I regained everything I lost and more. The third time I lost an appreciable amount of weight was when I tried to take Prozac or Zoloft, can’t remember which for the second time. The way antidepressants go with me is that they work the first time around for a year or so. Then they quit working. If I go back to them, they have a nasty negative effect on me. In this case, it made me suicidal. I could only think about killing myself. I lost 19 pounds in one month. I managed to make an appointment to see my doc. She complimented me on losing the weight. I bluntly told her it was because I was suicidal from the antidepressants. She looked flustered and said, “Well, at least you lost the weight.” Yes, because that’s what someone who’s deeply suicidal needs to hear. I realize she didn’t know what to say, but come the fuck on. I did not go back to her again.
I’m still fat. Since my medical trauma, I have fully embraced my body. It got me through dying twice! It’s a fucking badass. My god. I mean. Non-COVID-related walking pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and a stroke. It carried me through that without faltering. Honestly. How the fuck can I be mad at my body for surviving death?
but. And here’s where things get delicate.
RKG has their new shirt out. It’s siiiiick. For the first time, they’re doing hoodies as well. Yay! I always get XL because I have huge tits that cannot be contained. But it was weird because people were asking about size and all these guys were like ‘medium’ and ‘large’. There was one dude who needs an XL, but that was all I saw (until later). This is the unisex shirt, so I had all kinds of emotions about being an XL. And, yes, I got the t-shirt and the hoodie.
Intellectually, I know that being bigger than dudes is not a big deal. But it messes with my brain. I still have the training that women (and whatever the hell I am) are supposed to be smaller than men. I once dated a small dude that said he wished I was smaller so he could put his arms around me. I know that it had more to do with him than me, but it still stung. It’s hard not to take that personally, especially given that I’m from two cultures that hate fat women.
I want to lose weight. Or rather, I don’t want to be so fat. And it has nothing to do with health. I can’t even pretend it does. I want to be thinner because I’m letting those messages get to me again.
What I want to try to do is focus on eating better rather than dieting. I’ve cut out my daily chocolate and it hasn’t been a big deal. I want to cut out processed food and add more cooked meals, albeit simple one, to my menu. And I need to do all this without using any numbers because that is a trap for me. If I start using numbers at all in relation to food, then I’ll get sucked into disordered thinking. I can’t count calories or use scales. I may try tape measuring my waist once a week, but I’m chary of doing even that. I really think the best bet is to focus on eating better and not do anything with weight at all. We’ll see if I can hold to that.