Yay! Thanksgiving!

It is Thanksgiving.  I have some advice (this is really for myself, but if it helps you, great).  First, though, the non-advice.  Last night, on The Biggest Loser, a guy tried to sell everybody on whipping up cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes.  Bullshit.  I've tried that.  It's not the same, it's not that easy to do, and it's not going to help you if you're jonesing for potatoes made with some cream or milk and butter.  Eat the damn potatoes, and enjoy every bit.  Fuck the cauliflower.  (I might put that on a shirt.)

The advice:  It's a day, not a weekend.  Ideally, it's a meal.  Same for Christmas.  Here in America, the Holidays start with Halloween and end with New Year's Day (or even the Superbowl).  It's the wrong approach.  A feast is a historic rarity.  Keep it that way.

A friend has a situation.  First, a little about her.  She is from the south.  Her parents are heavy.  She grew up fat (we have traded stories about what that's like).  Then in high school she lost 130 pounds and started competing in beauty pageants.  She did well.  Later she went to law school, and she works in a big city.  Wow, right?

Her parents are still heavy.  Her mom has some health problems that mean she really can't walk.  Her dad, however, eats.  Thirty years ago, he was a normal-weight guy.  A couple of years ago, however, he was about 580 pounds, and he was having health problems.  He was going to have lapband surgery, but he had to lose weight first (100 pounds, maybe).  Talk about irony.  They told him to keep it below 4000 calories a day.  That's a lot.  Some days I struggle to get 2600.  I am rarely really hungry.

My friend told me yesterday her dad is up to 651.  He has apparently been eating more than 4000 calories a day.  He will not be able to walk her down the aisle next year.  He will not be able to dance with her at her wedding.  He and her mother are visiting her in right now, and they cannot leave her apartment without her help.  By the time they get to the front door of her building, he has to take a rest.

She is both heartbroken and angry.  He is 55.  I ran the numbers.  He could eat about 4900 calories a day and lose weight.  If he gets down to 550, he could have the surgery (though if you could lose 100 pounds without surgery, why do it?).

I've been pretty big (hell, I still am), but I don't know how you get that big without changing something.  If you've read much of this blog, you know that I think this has to do with emotional and addiction-type issues.  But how far does any addiction go before you say, hold on.  I guess I know the answer.  Sometimes people don't say hold on.  Sometimes addictions kill them.

I have no advice for my friend, either.  Enjoy him while he's here, I guess.  I'm losing because I want to, and every time someone tried to talk to me about it out of love, I'd get pissed off anyway.  I don't know how  you get someone to take care of himself if he doesn't want to.  And clearly, someone is helping him get bigger.  I wonder what will happen when he can't leave the house at all.

I say I'm in it for the clothes, and while part of that is shtick, it's also true.  Lots of people talk about losing weight for health, but I have no interest in health when I feel shitty about the way I look.  For me it's all of a piece.  And having a doctor tell me once a year that my cholesterol and triglycerides look great is not enough to get me to the gym.  The linen pants in my closet that I love and have not been able to wear in years will.

What will work for my friend's dad?  No idea.  I hope he will find the maximum of what he's comfortable weighing soon.  I found it a few years ago, and I started dropping weight.  I am now at the lowest I've been in ten years.  I am also at the highest I ever want to be again.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving.  Enjoy the food today.  But today only!

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.

Addiction

Go read this post.  Seriously.

http://theantijared.com/2010/10/i-am-a-food-addict.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAnti-jared+%28The+Anti-Jared%29

Family

I have written about feeling as though I didn't measure up in my family because I was a fat kid.  Could be true or I could have been projecting.  Who can tell?  But it was a burden on them, my being fat.  I know this.  (I also know that family members burden each other by their behavior all the time, but that's not what this blog is about.)

Also, I'm not writing about this to stoke my already-strong sense of guilt.  I just think it's interesting.  When we were in high school, my younger brother and some friends started a band in my parents' basement.  I was not a fan, but that's not the story.  One of the guys was a nice enough kid, but eventually there was a falling out, and the band, um, disbanded.

Recently, that kid posted to my brother's Facebook page:  "I'm glad you're not you're not obese like your family."  My brother took great offense.  I have never seen such invective on Facebook.  He's very loyal to the family, even if we don't always agree, and he was outraged.  I'm not the only fat one in the family, and my brother--he'd admit--is decently marbled.  But he's mostly been the thinnest one in the family for years. 

What an insult!  Obese.  Even if it's true.  Not the same as saying, I'm glad you don't have brown hair like your family.  Not the same as, I'm glad you're not a lawyer like the people in your family.  Truth as insult.  It's interesting.  I think the reason it hurts is because no one who is fat doesn't know he or she is fat.  You know from the minute you get up in the morning, get dressed, eat, and go to work.  Having people point it out just adds to the burden.

I feel bad that my brother got this reaction.  I'm also gratified that he ditched this guy in favor of his family.  But hell, I'm glad my brother isn't obese, too.  I wish no one else in the family were.  It would be easier for everyone.

Of course, my theme is that obesity, in my experience, is mostly about using food as a drug--as an way to escape problems.  In that way, we're a family of alcoholics or heroin users.  It's just that everyone can see it when they see us.  If I could quit ingesting food, I'd have done it years ago.  I'm working hard to quit "using" food.

If you go look at Sean's website (losingweighteveryday--linked at the right), you will see that he's made his peace with food.  It's his friend now.  I'm working on that, too.  Food is fuel.

Fear

I don't know about you, but I have made a commitment to change my life and to become a thin person for the years I have left.

I have done this at least twice before.

I really think I have it in me to lose the weight and to keep it off.

The possibility of failure scares me to death.

Like Drew Carey, I am sick of being fat.  When I lost about 80 pounds in high school, I went to a doctor who had me write down everything I ate and limited me to 1500 calories a day.  If you figure my BMR, that was really, really low.  (Doctors, as a rule, don't know much about nutrition, and the honest ones will admit it.)  I looked good,  but I was pretty sure that once I was thin, I would never have a problem again.  In fact, my dad told me I would always have to be careful, but I just thought he was being a dick.  I gained it back, no problem.  And then some, of course, because that is the refrain to this song.

When I lost about 120 pounds in college, I had no idea what i was doing.  I really didn't.  Back then (late 80s), it wasn't as easy as it is now to get information about how to lose weight safely or how to keep it off.  Here's what I did:  I ate one meal a day, anything I wanted.  This was lunch around 4pm, probably 1000 to 1500 calories.  I ate some more after I turned 21 and could drink beer whenever I wanted.  (Heh.)  But I didn't know anything about working out, and I didn't think I'd need to do that.  I didn't know about BMR, etc.  And I thought that once I was down, I would never be up again.  At 21, I was down to 220 to 225.  You can see a picture on this page.

From age 21-26, I put on 35 to 40 pounds.  Law school will do that to you, especially if you don't know how to eat and don't work out.  I weighed about 260 when I got married at 26. 

From 26 to 37, I put on about 140 pounds, up to 350.  When my wife and I split, I put on at least another 50.  I assume my high was 400, give or take.

So here I am now, doing it again.  I scares me.  It really does.  Eating more (see below) scared me.  What if I start gaining?  What if I eat something and binge?  What if I fall off the wagon completely?  And what if I lose all the weight, buy all new clothes, and then gain 100 pounds?

It could happen.  It has twice.  I think this time is different because I know now that I have to be careful every day from now on.  It's daunting to think of that, but I can do it today.  I can do it tomorrow.  I'm planning on going to meetings forever, too, just like any addict.

It's also easier because I'm actually learning about the mechanics of the body, how much to eat (especially to eat enough).  I work out, too.  When I started losing in 2007, I started going to the gym.  The first time I got on an elliptical machine, I lasted five minutes, and I thought I would die.  Now I go 45 or 50 minutes.  I could go longer, too, but I usually get bored or run out of time before I run out of steam.  I actually like being at the gym, and I LOVE having worked out.  But it's hard to get off the couch most of the time.  (I had a zen moment a few months ago.  I was bored at home on a weekend, so I went to work out.  Amazing!)  Working out is great because everything hangs better. 

I hope this time is different.  I'm trying not to make pronouncements about the rest of my life.  I'm trying to take it all a day at a time, to make the right choices.  A lot of this is about caring for myself instead of punishing myself.  I think I've decided I deserve to be healthy and happy.  I hope it sticks.

Who loves you, baby?

This is part of the problem: Many people think that if you're fat, you're unloveable. Fat people internalize this. It only makes the cycle worse.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSU054h9kHdM3ANrg8VThBEWSISJnkYQJsXkeD5qootKPHdwtJkm2d2xDWklpVmChKuWN2vHjuPD5qkyRFc9ZCyfX3SpYApj63VC_R9DQcp7aau5_KTnlWI2laMepyTMBfm7kt8NguBPjK/s1600/cupcake.jpg

Why am I here?

I'm not writing this for accountability. Lots of the weight loss bloggers say they are, and they put up numbers and talk about what they're eating. That's ok with me, and I often find such things interesting. Tips about good things to eat that won't kill me are fine with me. But I'm not writing this to focus on that stuff.

I'm writing this because I want to read more about the mental part of all this. Not just weight loss, but weight in general. My thesis is that anyone you see who is more than a little thick has issues.

MsBitchCakes talked about it in a posting from October 2008. She said she doesn't have a weight problem; she has a food problem. Which is to say, I think, that if you deal with the food, the weight will take care of itself.

Some people use drugs or alcohol to mute whatever psychic pain they have. Some people eat. Maybe I should be reading more about addiction.

There are a couple of blogs devoted to maintenance that I find useful on this score. In fact, though I'm losing (trying to, anyway), I find the mindset espoused on the maintenance blogs very helpful. I don't consider this a journey, because that word suggests an ending. It is only a journey to the extent that I'm changing diverting from a path my life was on to a new one. I'm under no illusions. If I lose 130 more pounds, I'm not going to live a normal life like my friends who has never had a weigh problem. I am going to write down every damn thing I ever eat.

It's a little overwhelming to think of it in those terms. But I can do it today. I don't think this is much different from the alcoholic who is on the wagon. No drinks ever again would be daunting. No drinks today, not so much.

It's not an episodic kind of thing. People think episodically, and why wouldn't we. Commercials show a problem and resolution in thirty seconds. TV shows in 22 minutes, maybe an hour. Movies in an hour and a half or two. Real life is not prone to clean, neat resolutions.

I'd like to minimize the setbacks. I'd like to live and eat in a healthy way. But, as I've said before, it's about more than health.

Fat Man Gone

There are a lot of weight loss blogs. Most of the ones I've found have good stories of people who have lost a lot of weight. Some have good stories of people who have actually kept the weight off for a long time. I'm not sure the net needs another one. I'm not sure I'll keep it up. But I'm here anyway. Today, at least.

I don't plan on listing my weigh-ins, and I don't know how much of this blog will deal with recipes or food. While I'm learning to cook and learning what goes with what, none of that is really interesting to me vis a vis weight loss and maintenance.

It's not about the food. At least not for me. I want to think and learn about what mentally makes and keeps people fat. That includes me.

I have a theory that fat people are not much different than drug addicts or alcoholics. They self-medicate with drugs and booze. We're self-medicating with food. Every time I see someone really huge, I think that person must have real problems dealing with his or her emotions. They eat to compensate. Historically, so have I.

Here's some history. I grew up fat (starting at about five years old). I went to Weight Watchers summer camp in Wisconsin the summer I turned 12. (Yes, they used to have camps.) I lost 33 pounds there, and I stayed with the program for a while and then forgot all about it.

I got bigger, and then in high school I lost 70 pounds by counting calories and writing everything down. That lasted until I had a group of friends who liked to party and eat pizza and burritos late-night.

In my junior year of college, I was about 340 pounds, and I lost about 120. I looked pretty good at 220 or 225. But over the ensuing 17 years or so, I put it all back on and then some. By the time I was 37, I was about 350 pounds. I got divorced and spent the next six months or so eating ice cream with Tony Soprano (on disc). I got to about 400 pounds.

I went to Weight Watchers and dropped about 55 pounds, keeping most of it off (but not staying with the program) until last fall, when I started to creep up. I was not happy, felt out of control, desperate. I went back in April 2010.

As of today, I'm down about 27 pounds. I understand that this is going to have to be like AA for me. I'm going to write down what I eat for the rest of my life. The enormity of that hit me hard a couple of weeks ago, but I realize that I only have to write it down today. Just today, whenever that day is. I can do that.

In the past, I didn't listen to my body well. I found it easy to slip into mindless eating fueled by emotions. I'm trying to listen now. I'm rarely hungry. I'm with the program. I'm learning.

I started at 358. Now I'm at 331. I'm shooting for 230. Well, I'm shooting for less, really. But for now, 230 sounds ok.

Why start yet another weightloss blog? Because I'm curious about other people. How do you do it? What messes you up? Do you agree with the concept of emotional causation?

One last thought. Sure I want to be healthy. But I'm also in it for the clothes.

Thanks for reading. Talk to me. Call me Skip.