Two things

First, more on my back.  I have a Pars defect, which is essentially a broken vertebra.  Cut a doughnut in half and you know what I mean.  This break allows the spine to slide out of place, pinch nerves and cause pain.  It's either a stress fracture or congenital.  I didn't play football in high school, so I imagine I was born with it.  Physical therapy is in my future. 

Next, I wanted to talk about the article in Marie Clare magazine by Maura Kelly, Should 'Fatties' Get a Room (Even on TV)?  I've seen a number of articles about it, and I understand that Maura Kelly is a former anorexic.  Basically, she doesn't want to see fat people do much of anything, from walking across a room to making out and getting it on.

The article was insensitive at best (hell, just the title was insensitive).  Most fat people feel invisible anyway.  I don't think most people (fat or thin) think of fat people as sexual (though I have a theory that heavier people are more sexual than thin ones.  Maybe I'll write about this sometime).   I find Kelly's thought process interesting.

She says that being fat is shameful.  Commenters all over the web are saying she's mean.  But I think most people agree with her.  I think most fat people agree with her.  The sense of shame at being fat is enormous (pardon the pun?).  Once in a WW meeting, a leader said that you can be a drug addict or an alcoholic and it's not obvious to others just by looking at you (for a while, anyway).  But everyone knows if you're fat.  Lots of fat people feel ashamed and loathe themselves.  Lots of people fear being fat.

That's what I think is going on with Maura Kelly.  She's deathly afraid of being fat.  And we hate in others what we hate in ourselves. 

I understand that fear.  I've put on a couple of pounds lately.  It might be last week's cake.  It might be that I've figured out the high range of what I can safely eat.  It might be the meds I'm on for the back (they make me thirsty, and I think I'm retaining water).  It might be a lack of exercise (which I am not allowed to engage in right now). But it scares the shit out of me.  I'm about 80 pounds down from my all-time high.  I have a long way to go, too.  I don't want to go back to how I was.

So I'm going to keep eating right and eat a little less.  I'm just going to ride it out.  I was hoping to be down twenty pounds from now by Christmas.  That's very unlikely now.  But I've had some success, too, so I'm going to focus on that and on taking care of myself.  I'm also going to try to feel some sympathy for Maura Kelly, because she fears what I fear.

Health and weight

I should have knocked wood after writing the post about my (lack of) health problems.  It turns out that I have a herniated disc somewhere in the lumbar region.  Family history (dad, sister) of those, plus my symptoms and my weight all suggest a disc.  The doctor mentioned my weight a couple of times in talking about it.  He was not unkind.  In fact, he's nicely marbled himself. 

But weight has plenty to do with back problems.  The weight is an additional burden on a skeleton not designed to carry heavy loads.  I had muscle spasms several times when I was 80 pounds heavier than I am now.  They went away as I dropped.  This time, the problem felt totally different.  Not muscular.

The disc problem appeared Wednesday night.  I didn't sleep much that night or Thursday, because I couldn't get comfortable.  Thanks to some heavy duty pain and muscle relaxing meds, I've been able to sleep.  But the problem hasn't gone away, and I'll probably have to do some physical therapy.  The doctor also said not to go to the gym.  I actually like the gym.  I wonder if the PT will believe that I can (and do) stay on the elliptical for up to an hour. 

But I'm trying to look on the bright side.  Part of fixing this without surgery is strengthening the core.  I could use some help learning how to do that.  The real hard part will be losing weight without being able to move much.  I don't want to make the injury worse.  That would be counterproductive over the long haul.

I'm considering moving to straight calorie counting from WW points.  I think I have a handle on eating healthy, for the most part.  I want a more accurate measure of what I'm eating.  Calories are pretty much a zero-sum game.  Since I've been on a plateau for a long time (except this week--see below) , I want to change things up.  I learned today that if I'm tired and in pain, a buffet is a bad place for me to go.  Heh.  I'm over by about 350 calories for the day.  It's not going to break me, but I'm not thrilled.  I ate kind of mindlessly at lunch.  It didn't seem to be that big a lunch, but I hit a lot of high-fat foods.  Carnitas.  Carrot cake.  That kind of thing.


Finally, I didn't weigh in today.  This was in part because of my back.  It was also (if I'm being honest) that I put on some weight.  I expected to this week.  It was the week of my anniversary, and we went out to eat and had plenty of cake.  But I didn't want to face it, either.  Call me a wuss.

That's it.  We'll see how the week goes.