Self Respect

One of my friends wrote a post regarding health, weight, eating, etc. In trying to figure out how to respond, it seemed easier for me to put some of my perspective here in my own space.

I've been fat since I was about 5. I'm not sure why or how it started, especially since I grew up in a house where whole wheat bread was the only bread and sweets were rare. I could write pages upon pages about my relationship with food, about how and why it got out of control as my life progressed, about how it has changed again in my recent history. But the most important point is that I've had a natural desire for the visceral pleasures of eating my entire life. Scientifically, there are individual differences in our biologies/genetics that affect our appetites, metabolisms, energy levels, ability to process food, tendency to store fat, etc. So not everyone has to fight against themselves to be thin. Some people just don't care about food. Some people eat a few bites of food and are perfectly satisfied, or get full on small portions. Some people's bodies tell them they've had enough before they eat too much. Some people can't stand the idea of sitting still for hours at a time. Some people would rather run around in circles than sit in one spot reading, writing, thinking. I am none of those people.

Am I supposed to spend my entire life fighting against myself?

Then there is the fact that, having grown up carrying this extra weight, my body has adapted to it more so than someone who gained a significant amount of weight as an adult and/or within a short period of time. And, despite my preference for sedentary activities my entire life, I did engage in a certain level of physical activity much of my life that kept my muscles strong and my stamina fairly high.  I rode bikes, played tag, physically chased boys, walked to school, carried heavy objects, moved furniture, played outdoor games, did yard work, pounded nails, ran up and down stairs, carried babies and children. I usually didn't mind physical activity as long as it had a practical use or provided entertainment. So I grew up to have large, strong calf muscles and relatively strong arm muscles for a girl; to be able to throw bags of soil or rocks on my shoulder and tote them all over the yard; to dig my own garden plots; to move heavy furniture by myself; to work outside for hours without a break.

I used to be able to do even more, but switching to a desk job took a toll I didn't foresee. I had never had a job where I sat all day, every day and had to spend 2 hours in the car commuting every day on top of the 8+ hours of sitting. Even now with all my garden work and winter shoveling my stamina isn't what it used to be. I used to be able to hike for hours, up and down hills like a mountain goat. The last time I tried to hike the easy trail at a mountain nearby, I had to completely give up after about 10 minutes. It was the first time in a long time I had been ashamed of my body.

See, when I was about 19 I had my obesity epiphany. Until then, I had believed what everyone else told me: that as a fatty, I wasn't good enough. Top Ten in school? Straight A's? Nice, but you're too fat to be pretty or popular. A natural with children? Responsible enough to babysit alone at age 12? Wonderful, but you're still too fat. Funny? A talented writer? An avid recycler? A good driver? Not enough. Because you're hugely fat and until you stop being fat you'll never be good enough.

I can see now that many people did actually respect and appreciate my good points, mostly adults but also some peers. I can also see now that social anxiety & self confidence problems were probably the greater cause of my continually plummeting self-esteem. I mean, I had college guys flirting with me when I was 12, and I didn't realize it. Which is probably a good thing, actually. There was this one guy who worked at my school and this one time he got mad at me when I insulted him and he told me that sometimes I acted like I was 30, but sometimes I acted like I was 3. I was elated and then crushed, and I was so angry at him and hurt: but looking back it's almost like we were having a lover's quarrel which is kind of funny and oogy at the same time and... well, uh, anyway... The point is, I had already had it so deeply embedded in my psyche that fat = bad and ugly and unlovable that I couldn't see evidence to the contrary. So when I was about 19 it finally REALLY clicked in my brain that I didn't need to wait until I was thinner to have a life, to be happy, to do the things I wanted, to be who I wanted to be. And then I began to actually believe that I deserved to be admired, wanted, and loved exactly as I was. I wasn't going to get thin in order to get a man. I was going to believe in myself, because what a good man really wants is a woman who is comfortable just being who she is. A good man wants a woman who respects herself, and I finally felt like I had some real respect for myself. So I was going to finally find a good man. Right?

Not exactly. Either the men I wanted weren't good enough for me or they were okay with my body and my self respect but turned off by the rest of my personality. I might have been able to get the attention of college guys when I was 12, but I couldn't get them to look twice at me for the ENTIRE 10 YEARS I WAS IN COLLEGE. Eventually I learned about flirting, and I had the time of my life working at the law library for 9 years. Every year I built a playful, friendly rapport with a variety of new male students, and then every year I lost a few as they graduated. But I had learned I could have fun bantering over the desk and there was no pressure. I was in heaven.

Almost. Because I still wanted love, and there were a select few from whom I desired more than bantering. Just a chance would have sufficed. I found out years later that my suspicions were correct and that one of them had been interested in me. It never would have worked, but it sure as hell would have been nice if he'd admitted it to me. Then there was the perverse, obsessive one I had to report for being too interested. That's not what I was looking for! Then there was my socially unacceptable bad boy who was my first kiss, and then turned a cold shoulder on me. Definitely for the best. But the majority of "special ones" would have made decent, acceptable boyfriends if only they had given a rat's ass about me as a woman.

So was it the body or the brain or both which caused my complete and utter lack of boyfriends all through high school, 2 undergrad colleges, and grad school? I presume I will never know. This may seem far removed from the health issues I started out with way up there at the beginning, but it's all connected. It is all connected --brain, body, heart, mind, health. What size we are now is a residual effect of everything that has ever happened to us. And self respect has a lot to do with overall health.

So remember that hike that left me ashamed? I really hated that feeling. I had finally met The Right Man, who was so absolutely perfect for me that I can almost forgive all the other men in my life for not having been good enough to be him. He was with me on that hike, and I'm pretty sure he didn't love me any less or feel ashamed of me because I couldn't climb a mountain. And while on one level that meant the world to me, I still had to contend with myself. Eventually, my increasingly tight pants and weariness after only light physical exertion prompted me to eat a bit better and start going for walks on my breaks. I wasn't trying to lose weight, I was trying to regain some physical fitness. And I was trying to regain some self respect. Because even during my low-confidence childhood and teen years, I wasn't completely filled with self loathing. The feelings of insecurity and doubt were usually going head to head with an incredible amount of pride. I loved myself for being able to do the things I did extremely well. And I think that was what made it so devastating when other people made fun of me or told me I needed to change or told me (through words or their actions) I wasn't good enough. Part of me knew they were wrong, but the other part of me thought that my one voice against so many others must be mistaken.

So where does that leave me now? Well, now the demons I fight with are psychological and philosophical. Sometimes I would still like to be thinner and I worry about my health. But I'm convinced of several things:

1) I will never be thin due to a combination of genetic factors, personal biochemistry, and the accumulated adaptations of my body over time to my lifelong obesity.
2) My psychological issues are currently doing the most damage to my health via continual stress, anxiety, and almost complete loss of any inner peace I ever had achieved previously.
3) While my blood sugar and cholesterol are annually monitored and are on the verge of being "bad," while I'm pretty sure my blood pressure during work hours is too high, while I choose to take medication to regulate certain biochemical/hormonal functions, and while I have chronic sinus problems, I am still essentially healthy. On my first visit to the dentist after 11 YEARS, my new dentist was floored. She said she would have guessed that it had only been 6 months since my last check-up and cleaning and that I must have an absolutely amazing immune system. Almost all of my multiple blood tests for the past 3 years have failed to reveal anything of major concern. I may eat too much, too much of the wrong things, and not quite enough of the right things, but at least I'm ingesting enough of the right things to keep the nutritional baselines decently covered.

Will this change as I age? Possibly. Do I wish I could figure out how to find a form of exercise that was fun and interesting and didn't bore me to tears? Yes. Do I wish the circumstances of my life made it easier to work time in for any exercise? Hell yes. Do I think I should eat "better" for environmental reasons because my eco-soul feels guilty? Yes. Do I believe that giving up food I like and forcing myself to do exercise I don't like will make me happier and healthier? Absolutely not. Because I've done it, and if you think you've seen me bitchy, you ain't seen nothing until you've seen me during one of those "I'm going to get healthy" phases.

Now, having said all that, I realize I only see things this way because I can. I don't have serious medical conditions that require me to give up foods I love or risk death. Some may argue that if I continue living the way I do, I will someday have those conditions. I'm not convinced. There's actually no medical proof that such an end is assured for me. Which makes me a really shitty source of support for friends who do have serious medical conditions. I don't know that I have any help to offer. I can't tell someone else how to get motivated to exercise, because I haven't the faintest clue. Exercise doesn't make me happy. (Unless, of course, it does. I've been wanting to get a bicycle. But for 6 months out of the year I can't ride it here, I don't know where the heck I'd store it, and I don't even know where I would ride it. Streets aren't safe and traffic would turn what is supposed to be a relaxing activity into a frigging nightmare. I have a treadmill that doesn't fit anywhere except facing a wall. I don't have time after work to go for walks, which are again, not really feasible half the year when the sidewalks are icy deathtraps. Anyway, I'm not being helpful at all here. Again.)

Truly, the hardest part about changing the way you think about food, exercise, health, etc., is finding the right source of inspiration and help. I have profiled hundreds of health-related guidebooks and memoirs over the past 4+ years, and I've made a note of the titles of probably less than 1% of them because they were the only ones in which the attitude, voice, and ideas clicked with me. I'm sure the others have inspired and helped lots of other people, but they wouldn't have done me one iota of good because there was no connection.

And now that I've rambled all over my life and everywhere else, done no one any good except a little for myself, and have stayed up past my bedtime, I'm declaring this a failed attempt to help a friend but a somewhat successful post for my own blogging purposes. Oy.

Fast Forward Through Monday Please

I had an annoying sinus headache when I woke up, despite having taken 12 hour medicine before going to bed, and it just got worse until late morning when the new drugs finally kicked in, presumably. I was tired all morning, and even nodded off for a second a couple of times while working. I don't know how many times I had to stop working to try to appease my itchy, tired, sore, hurting eyes, and my stomach felt unsettled most of the day.  So, when I got home all I wanted to do was maybe cry and definitely crash.

Instead I had to take Gytha to the vet, where I ended up paying $27 for them to put a drop of that yellow/green stain in her eyes so he could check her cornea. It also cost $37 for her eye drops because the price of pet prescriptions is ridiculous. And those were in addition to the regular visit fees. (Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore our vet clinic, but the cost is sometimes hard to swallow.) Then I found out I'm supposed to administer the drops 4 times a day. I can't do it four times a day because I'm gone 10-11 hours a day! We both are. The only way to get a fourth dose in during the time that we're home is to set an alarm to get up and do it in the middle of the night. So 3 doses per day better work, because there's no frigging way I'm getting up in the middle of the night to fight with the cat, if I can even find her. And then, as we were getting ready to leave she did something she's never done before, ever --not even during the multi-day car trip when I moved from Illinois to New Hampshire. She threw up in her carrier. Twice.


Once we got home and I got the cat carrier cleaned I thought I could finally sit down to eat and "relax" while looking at the Lexis/Nexis insurance credit report I requested so I can contest their data and/or decisions which raised our homeowner's insurance $120 for the year. Except there is no report in the envelope because they can't "authenticate" me based on the information I provided. After waiting for 2 weeks for this stupid report, there's no damn report. I am so, so, so pissed. I had a whole rant planned about the bullshit that IS the entire insurance credit reporting scam, and once I'm done with this ordeal I will still post about it. But I can't think about it anymore today or I'm going to explode.


On the plus side: Yesterday I planted 9 Bright Lights cosmos seedlings, 1 more zinnia seedling, and replaced 5 basil seedlings that had been munched into oblivion. Most of the zinnia seedlings I planted a couple weeks ago suffered the same fate, just as they did last year along with most of last year's cosmos seedlings. So this time I put clear plastic cups over all 15 seedlings in an effort to minimize, and hopefully eliminate the decimation of my babies. One of the cosmos cup covers had somehow ended up by the neighbor's driveway this morning, so I put it back before leaving for work. But this evening I checked and all the seedlings are untouched. The cups are obviously working, because it only took one night last time for the zinnias to be half eaten and for the first nibbles to show on the basil, but today they are still pristine. Hooray for small blessings!

Why I Love Summer

I know it is summer now because it feels like summer. I feel like going out more and doing all kinds of things. I've gotten past the frantic planting schedule of spring and my weekends are now open for reading, napping, casual yard work chores, and possibly working on more posts.

I have been having vivid flashbacks to summers in Southern Illinois, all the way from childhood through grad school. Not necessarily specific events, but the way life felt going on around me and the way I felt being a part of it. There's a jumble of people, water, sun, laughing, food, games, places. Summer weather conjures up times when I was happier and life seemed promising and full of expectation and energy. I remember the me that I more often was and want to be again. And most importantly, it seems positively possible to find her again. That is the vitality of summer.

Of course, this is early summer. If it turns as hot as it can in the middle of the summer, if days turn humid with temperatures in the 90s, I won't feel like doing anything. I will spend hours sitting miserably in one spot in front of a fan, wearing the skimpiest clothing I own, and trying not to move. I have a few plans to make things a little better during those stifling heat waves. Yesterday I braved pulling a spider colony on top of my head and got the awnings out of the shed. Now I just need to figure out how to install them. I'm also planning to get one of those portable air conditioners so we have something for the downstairs besides a fan. I have a mental picture of sheets tacked up in doorways to corral the cold air, and it reminds me of Grandma & Grandpa Cory's house in Springfield --a place overflowing with fond memories, especially in the summer when I often went and stayed for a week at a time. Grandpa licking his ice cream bowl clean, endless Schwann's ice cream bars and sandwiches, 4th of July fireworks with the neighbors, a perfect view of the city fireworks from Gabatoni's parking lot behind the house, and of course, the sheet at the top of the stairs to keep the air conditioned coolness in the bedrooms upstairs.

But today it is hard to be pessimistic about upcoming heat waves. The sun is out, everything is lush and green, there is a lovely breeze, and the National Weather Service says it is only 61 degrees. Speaking of which, I really ought to get my own outdoor thermometer. This is the time of year when I really feel like doing all those the things I've thought about doing forever. I feel intensely motivated to finally get that outdoor thermometer, to finally invest in a composter, to cut down that tree before it gets too big, to cook again, to make my own iced tea and stop buying the stuff at the store, to figure out problems and challenges I've pushed aside for months.

Of course, I also want to just stop and enjoy the perfect moments that are abundant on weekends like this one. Yesterday afternoon I went out to water everything. While I had the sprinkler in the front yard I ended up just sitting on the front steps, watching the water move and taking a good, long look at the yard. I suddenly realized that "all the work" I thought I had left to do wasn't so much after all. Sure, there's still a lot of room to work with in coming years, but for right now, my yard is exactly the way I want it: full of wild grasses waving in the breeze, young plants who will eventually fill out the space around them, brand new plants and some of last year's slower specimens waiting to put on their first show later this summer (it looks like the lavender is going to bloom this year!!) , and annual seedlings that promise varying degrees of success in making it to flower stage. I know that other people may look at my yard and see a chaotic mess of weeds and whatnots, but that truly is what I want my yard to look like, and I've succeeded beautifully. Then, this morning I hung clothes on the line, which is practically a meditation and something which brings me a great deal of inner peace and happiness. And now I'm sitting here in the back sunroom surveying those clothes on the line, feeling the cool breezes from the open windows and thinking that, while I want to jump up and do half a dozen things all at the same time, I also just want to sit here and feel this good.