keeping the peace
Today was the graduation party for a family friend of ours. Her older brother and I are the same age and we were in baby group together, and our moms are best friends. There was a crapton of food – tabbouleh, Greek salad, egg salad, awesome half-sour dill pickles, cookout stuff, two kinds of guacamole, tomato salad, bean salad, pasta salad, and a rice salad.
I was sitting at the end of the table outside and L, who’s a mother of another friend of mine and the older brother, was talking about how she wanted some of the rice salad but she was on Weight Watchers. And J, the woman who made the rice salad, was all “It’s a Weight Watchers recipe! I just added more veggies! It’s only 2 points!” And then they started talking about how they lost 15 pounds a few years ago and put 10 back on, and blah blah points and blah blah fat and OH MY GOD SHUT UUUUUUP.
But I managed to keep my mouth shut. Because there’s a time and a place. And a party for someone I love a lot is neither. But goddamn.
And then I had two slices of cake. Screw you guys.
the unwanted restriction
Oh, hello there, poor blog. And again I’ve neglected you – over two months without an update. I think some of that’s because I’ve just been keepin’ on keepin’ on, as it were. I also tend to do brief comments on SA and HAES on my Tumblr when that stuff pops up on my dashboard. Dunno.
At any rate: my teeth are jacked up. I am fortunate enough to have dental insurance, but my dentist sucks and he’s the only one in the area who’s on our plan. And he keeps messing up the spacing between my teeth, so when I eat, stuff gets packed in really tight and makes chewing painful. Flossing is the only way to get it out, but so much food gets stuck in there that I usually end up flaying my gums open. And then I feel queasy and can’t eat. The worst culprits seem to be meat – those long fibers – and vegetables. Which I would love to eat more of! But I can’t! Because it leads to pain! And it means that I gravitate towards stuff that is softer and less likely to get stuck, but then I feel all logey and gross. Uncool. (I’ve totally written this before, but I just had more work done on the other side of the first problem area, so it’s been an issue lately.) And I think I’m actually losing weight because of it, but? I don’t want to. I don’t really give a shit about losing weight but I’m pissed that it’s happening because I can’t eat properly and I’m hungry all the time. I wouldn’t diet intentionally, and I resent that I’m doing it out of pain avoidance. FAIL.
I age out of this insurance plan (well, COBRA for my parent-supplied insurance) this fall. I hope to god I can find a dentist who will help me fix my teeth so I can eat normally.
time weighs heavily
Okay, yeah, I don’t know. Trying to be witty as I squeeze out a post before bed.
I went to the gynecologist last week. She’s lovely – I went to school with her daughter and so she always asks what I’m up to. I’ve been having issues with spotting and wanted to get it checked out just in case something was up. (Hormones are fine, scheduled for a sonohistogram.) And I got weighed.
Now, the last time I was weighed before that visit was back in July when I had my physical and my yearly exam. I weighed 261.
Last week: 259.
I have not been dieting. I was walking around more for a while there when I was getting dropped off in the center of town and walking a half-mile home every day, but that’s dropped off since the guy who gave me a ride has been working ten-hour days. I ate some junk over the holidays, I eat what feels like a normal amount at meal times. And my net change, other than whatever clothes I was wearing, is negligible.
A person, place or thing
When I was a wee Nomes, only learning the first few pieces of grammar, that’s what I learned what a noun is. And obviously the misogynistic culture we live in has a lot to do with shunting women from “person” to “thing.” Lately I’ve been carrying around in my head that particular chant when I’ve seen the marketing for the film Precious. Please bear with me; image analysis is so not my field, and I am out of practice with this stuff, but I wanted to write about this.
public transit
This is just a very quick post of something that happened to me today, and if it weren’t for the massive posts over at Shapely Prose (this one and the one before) I probably wouldn’t even mention it.
I take the bus to work sometimes. Today it was raining and the bus was very full. I was sitting down (next to a guy who, miraculously, put his legs together so as not to crowd me into the aisle) and there were a lot of people standing up. Dude standing right next to me was hanging onto the support pole with his arm on the other side. His arm closest to me kept rubbing against my arm, and he was talking with someone he’d gotten on the bus with and kept gesturing a lot. I almost got hit in the face several times. And yet I said nothing, because I have been sort of emotionally fragile this week and I really did not want to face getting into a brouhaha when I was trapped on the bus and had to stay on that one to be on time for work and not lose my fare.
I lucked out that I didn’t get hit in the face. Showing up to work with a shiner would’ve been awesome. But hey, transit etiquette: try to keep your goddamn arms to yourself when you’re on a packed moving vehicle.
thank you, captain obvious!
I had a frustrating day today – trying to go shopping at my local Target has become an exercise in futility, especially since I’m pretty sure they haven’t hired on extra staff to deal with the influx of college students. And their plus size section has dwindled to a meager four racks shoved against the back wall, swallowed up by activewear and maternity. Because fat girls should be working out to lose weight and/or the only acceptable belly is a pregnant one? I kind of don’t think that’s their reasoning but I was in a foul mood.
Anyway, so I’m headed out to Boston at the end of the week to hang out with my bff and see a concert, and so I hit Google to look for plus size options in Beantown. And one of the first results was for this Yahoo Answers post. The first person does mention chain stores which are in basically every mall, but they do also note a couple of boutiques. The second person, though.
“Have you tried Lane Bryant?”
Uh. NO SHIT, SHERLOCK. I am pretty sure almost every fat woman has tried Lane Bryant. How many other options do most of us have? And the thought of going to the same goddamn soulless chain store for the same overpriced clothes that I have to suck it up and pay for because nobody else wants to take my good green money for body coverings, but in an Exotic New Location… well, it’s infuriating and depressing all at once.
Maybe I’m just overly hormonal, but this is really pissing me right the fuck off. Yes, I have tried Lane Bryant. I am looking to support local or indie shops or find something actually goddamned interesting for once. I don’t want to wear clothes that would suit my mom, I want to wear something that makes me feel reasonably on-trend and around my age. I want to wear clothes that are not entirely made out of polyester. I want to wear clothes that are reasonably well-made. I want things that are vaguely office-appropriate.
And the thing is, I shouldn’t feel like I’m asking for the goddamned moon when I write out that list. My sister can find any number of stores that would fit those criteria handily; she wears a size 6, and I wear a size 22, and I’m completely fucked.
fair foods
A friend of mine linked to this article on Twitter: “Move over, Twinkies: Deep-fried butter is here”. The article is about what you’d expect; the state fair in Texas has a deep-frying competition, and one guy who’s won three out of the four last go-rounds has deep-fried butter as his entry. Yeah, okay.
For me, the shocking part of this article comes about a third of the way through, under the heading “‘Special foods for a special time’”. I’m just gonna go ahead and quote parts of this because I am that shocked:
…Should the Food and Drug Administration step in and ban the event?
No, said Jennifer Pereira, a registered dietitian in nearby Arlington, Texas. A firm believer in the “no bad foods” approach to dieting and healthy eating, Pereira said it isn’t such a bad thing for people to splurge occasionally on foods they truly enjoy.
“The state fair is only once a year,” Pereira said. “I would strongly encourage people not to binge. Don’t build up your hunger so you can eat everything in sight. Pick a couple of things that you really enjoy, savor them, and stop eating when you feel satisfied.”
[snip]
“In my practice, once I get people to legalize all foods, it’s amazing how food loses its grip.”
Wait, what’s that? Legalizing all foods? Enjoying food? Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full? Is it just me, or does that sound remarkably like intuitive eating?
IN AN ARTICLE ABOUT DEEP-FRIED BUTTER?
I’m amazed. And a little bit giddy. I assume the word “splurge” is an insertion by the reporter. The quotes from Pereira are, to me, pretty close to how I live my life and try to eat. At the town fair this spring, you can bet that I got a piece of fried dough. And I enjoyed it. But I didn’t even finish the whole thing, because I had Chinese food for lunch and too much fried stuff was making me feel sick after a while. I’m glad to see a registered dietitian in a big media outlet saying something that half-approaches sense.
pride and prejudices
I was at the comic book store the other day, poking around while my friend picked up her pull list. And I came across the last issue of the Pride and Prejudice mini-comic that Marvel has been publishing. And now I have a whole mini-essay on portrayals of historical literature. Behind a tag, because this got loooong, and image-heavy.
diets, diet, dieting
No, I’m not going on a diet.
I just randomly went and looked at the diet blogs a friend of mine and a couple of her friends have, and I realized that just reading these – skimming, really, about a day’s food intake and “cheats” and “being bad” and “why I’m fat” and “I want to be skinny – was making my stomach clench. No, really. Apparently I have grown totally intolerant of diet talk. Which I sort of knew, already, but what a way to confirm it.
I’m actually eating way less these days, but not because of trying to lose weight. I had some fucked-up dental work done, and because of that I am getting food wedged between teeth where it really shouldn’t be. And then I try to get it out and flay open my gums. And then the next time I try to eat it all gets packed in against the still-sore gums. Ow. I am actually limiting my food choices and eating less because I’m afraid of my mouth hurting – I had a really hard time last night when we went out for my dad’s birthday dinner (another post on birthday rituals should be forthcoming) and had to stop eating when I wasn’t really ready to, and take tylenol when I got home. Ow. But I have a consultation coming up, and maybe I can make them fix their own shoddy work so I can eat normally again. It’s bad when I am avoiding fruits and vegetables because the seeds are really awful at getting stuck in my teeth. I want to eat nothing but cucumbers and tomatoes and berries, but I can’t. Because I would cry. A lot.
physicals and physicians
I am so goddamned lucky.
I had a physical this morning. I’d met the doctor once before for about five/ten minutes, getting a new scrip for my antidepressants, but nothing more than that. We chatted a bit about a couple of things, and then… what I’d been expecting. And dreading.
He brought up weight loss. Which I can understand him doing. I have a BMI that qualifies as morbidly obese; my dad was diagnosed as prediabetic a few years back; my grandfather (Dad’s father) died of complications from type 2 diabetes.
But I told him why I wasn’t going to diet. Because I have problems with disordered eating, and trying to restrict my eating and diet triggers that really badly and makes me gain weight, and I would rather just try to get some more exercise and not try to deliberately Go On A Diet.
And his response was not “well, diet anyway.” It was “your chart says you were seeing a psychiatrist at grad school; are you seeing anyone here?” When I said I was going to the psych services at the local university, his follow-up was “do they have an eating disorders specialist?”
How utterly refreshing. And when he noted that my blood glucose levels were perfect and I’d lost ten pounds since the last visit anyway, he seemed a lot less inclined to push the diet thing.
It wasn’t a perfect HAES experience, but it was so, so much better than I had feared.
Fat Slut 