I have to admit that I never considered that there might be other eating disorders for fat folks than binge eating. This article about fat anorexics opened my eyes and I would like to share it with you. Please note that I haven't looked through this site much, other than the article I ran across today, so I can't recommend the entire site yet. (It does look a bit spammy to me.) Enjoy!
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
Joy Division
The thing about all of this introspection is that you can find odd new things about yourself all of the time that you might not even believe if someone else told you. I have spent all of this time reminding myself that I’m worthy of love and happiness and every darn thing that every other person is worthy of. And most of the time, I seem to believe it, but still…
Driving home from work a few days ago I was feeling strangely fine, listening to my iPod and singing, really quite happy. Traffic was light (for a change). I was bopping around in my seat and smiling. Then, up ahead, I noticed three teenage boys on the sidewalk, and that I would be passing them in seconds. Somehow my entire demeanor suddenly changed, before I could even think about it. My smile disappeared, replaced with a serious, worried expression. Something in my chest contracted a little. I whizzed past them without incident, of course – after all, what could they do or say to me in my car for Pete’s sake?
I was disturbed by my reaction. Yes, teenage boys have been the bane of my existence since I was a child, but I’m a middle-aged lady these days and besides, I’m SAFE now. What the hell?
Of course, me being me, I had to analyze it for a while. It seemed to me that *I* still believe that I am allowed to be happy. It wasn’t guilt. It felt more like fear…. I wanted to hide my joy. I didn’t want to be – what? Sneered at, belittled, attacked? For smiling? For joy?
I don’t like that feeling.
I saw an image this morning that reminded me of this idea again. As soon as I saw it, I felt almost offended, and definitely fearful. Here’s the image.
I couldn’t help but think that this beautiful woman was doing a terrible thing. Not the eating, not the enjoyment, but that she was doing it so *publicly*. How could she put herself out there for other people to see, to be so vulnerable, so open to ridicule and attack?
And it was more than just having her picture taken and posted publicly, it was her expression of joy, of the joy of cake and her body and her life all at the same time. I visit a couple of body acceptance sites that post pictures of beautiful, brave fat people all of the time, so it wasn’t her body. It was the joy and the eating. How could she bear to do that?
How can I bear to do that?
Closing notes: The image above was found via Ragen Chastain from the Facebook site, 1 Million Vaginas. Other fat-positive sites I like - most images are Not Safe for Work!! - are Adipositivity and Uppity Fatty. Enjoy!
Driving home from work a few days ago I was feeling strangely fine, listening to my iPod and singing, really quite happy. Traffic was light (for a change). I was bopping around in my seat and smiling. Then, up ahead, I noticed three teenage boys on the sidewalk, and that I would be passing them in seconds. Somehow my entire demeanor suddenly changed, before I could even think about it. My smile disappeared, replaced with a serious, worried expression. Something in my chest contracted a little. I whizzed past them without incident, of course – after all, what could they do or say to me in my car for Pete’s sake?
I was disturbed by my reaction. Yes, teenage boys have been the bane of my existence since I was a child, but I’m a middle-aged lady these days and besides, I’m SAFE now. What the hell?
Of course, me being me, I had to analyze it for a while. It seemed to me that *I* still believe that I am allowed to be happy. It wasn’t guilt. It felt more like fear…. I wanted to hide my joy. I didn’t want to be – what? Sneered at, belittled, attacked? For smiling? For joy?
I don’t like that feeling.
I saw an image this morning that reminded me of this idea again. As soon as I saw it, I felt almost offended, and definitely fearful. Here’s the image.
I couldn’t help but think that this beautiful woman was doing a terrible thing. Not the eating, not the enjoyment, but that she was doing it so *publicly*. How could she put herself out there for other people to see, to be so vulnerable, so open to ridicule and attack?
And it was more than just having her picture taken and posted publicly, it was her expression of joy, of the joy of cake and her body and her life all at the same time. I visit a couple of body acceptance sites that post pictures of beautiful, brave fat people all of the time, so it wasn’t her body. It was the joy and the eating. How could she bear to do that?
How can I bear to do that?
Closing notes: The image above was found via Ragen Chastain from the Facebook site, 1 Million Vaginas. Other fat-positive sites I like - most images are Not Safe for Work!! - are Adipositivity and Uppity Fatty. Enjoy!
Monday, November 26, 2012
In the Middle
Okay, in lieu of posting anything useful, here's a video of a song I heard on my way home today... This is a good one for when I'm feeling down or just down on myself. Enjoy!
Monday, October 29, 2012
AFTER Effects
Today let’s go back to food journaling for a bit. After a few months of doing the meal evaluations and check-ins, my nutritionist gave me a worksheet to fill out about my eating preferences. I’ll add an image of it at the end. It’s called the AFTER worksheet: Aroma, Flavor, Texture, Experience, and Response.
Basically you fill in everything that you can think of about things that you love and things that you hate. It’s in five different categories about food and about the things you sense when you are eating. So it isn’t just “I love chocolate and I hate broccoli.” It’s also about aromas that make you hungry or turn you off and textures that you enjoy or that make you want to spit something out. It’s about whether you like to go to busy restaurants with crowded tables and loud conversations or intimate places with low lighting or bright places and only a few other quiet, considerate patrons. It’s about WHAT you love about chocolate and hate about broccoli. It’s about creamy, crunchy, bitter, sour, savory, salty, soupy or sweet. It’s about “warm soup belly” or feeling bloated or dehydrated. It’s about the burn of capsaicin and the cool of sour cream.
What this exercise does is get you to focus on the things about a meal that will make you feel more satisfied or satiated. If you can incorporate several of the “loves” into a meal, you can make choices based on satisfaction rather than fat and calorie counts. For example, I like to eat crispy/crunchy things and savory/salty things, so potato chips are pretty high on my list of trigger foods. But I have found that very crisp cucumbers or carrots with savory Italian vinaigrette also hit that crispy-savory spot that I need. Okay, sometimes I just want some freaking Doritos, but I know that afterward I feel dehydrated and a little sick to my stomach, so sometimes I can happily choose the cucumbers and be okay.
But even more, it gives you a way to make every meal happier for yourself, even if it isn’t a choice between the healthy thing and the less healthy thing. If I’m going to have a salad, I’m happier if there are crunchy things in it than if it’s just lettuce and tomato. I want my soups to be thick and hearty, maybe more like stew than soup, and I like lots of “stuff” in it, rather than just limp noodles and tiny cubes of chicken. If I’m going to make a steak, I prefer to marinate it in something salty/savory for a bit. These are things that I can do to end a meal feeling not only full but actually satisfied, and therefore I’ll be less likely to want to keep going or try something else or soothe myself with sweets after the meal.
Here's the sample worksheet with my preferences entered, so you can see what it's like.
Basically you fill in everything that you can think of about things that you love and things that you hate. It’s in five different categories about food and about the things you sense when you are eating. So it isn’t just “I love chocolate and I hate broccoli.” It’s also about aromas that make you hungry or turn you off and textures that you enjoy or that make you want to spit something out. It’s about whether you like to go to busy restaurants with crowded tables and loud conversations or intimate places with low lighting or bright places and only a few other quiet, considerate patrons. It’s about WHAT you love about chocolate and hate about broccoli. It’s about creamy, crunchy, bitter, sour, savory, salty, soupy or sweet. It’s about “warm soup belly” or feeling bloated or dehydrated. It’s about the burn of capsaicin and the cool of sour cream.
What this exercise does is get you to focus on the things about a meal that will make you feel more satisfied or satiated. If you can incorporate several of the “loves” into a meal, you can make choices based on satisfaction rather than fat and calorie counts. For example, I like to eat crispy/crunchy things and savory/salty things, so potato chips are pretty high on my list of trigger foods. But I have found that very crisp cucumbers or carrots with savory Italian vinaigrette also hit that crispy-savory spot that I need. Okay, sometimes I just want some freaking Doritos, but I know that afterward I feel dehydrated and a little sick to my stomach, so sometimes I can happily choose the cucumbers and be okay.
But even more, it gives you a way to make every meal happier for yourself, even if it isn’t a choice between the healthy thing and the less healthy thing. If I’m going to have a salad, I’m happier if there are crunchy things in it than if it’s just lettuce and tomato. I want my soups to be thick and hearty, maybe more like stew than soup, and I like lots of “stuff” in it, rather than just limp noodles and tiny cubes of chicken. If I’m going to make a steak, I prefer to marinate it in something salty/savory for a bit. These are things that I can do to end a meal feeling not only full but actually satisfied, and therefore I’ll be less likely to want to keep going or try something else or soothe myself with sweets after the meal.
Here's the sample worksheet with my preferences entered, so you can see what it's like.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Article Sharing Time!
I have a blog post in the works, but for today I found another article on Jezebel to share. The title gave me pause, but by the end of the article I was much less worried about it. Here's the link: "Losing Weight Won't Fill the Emptiness Inside. Only Cake Can Do That."
Please read the whole article in order to get past that awful title. Here's a section from the end:
Please read the whole article in order to get past that awful title. Here's a section from the end:
"I don't blame Attenberg for this, or at least I really actively try not to, but it does make me sad.
I went through a lot of my life dealing with the aftermath of chronic dieting and childhood teasing, and it's those things that attempted to make me feel less than whole, less than human. It wasn't some mysterious "hole" inside of me that I was trying to stuff with Cheetos, it was put there by a society that's unrelenting when it comes to women's bodies. And it wasn't something that I ever tried to cram with snack packs; if anything, it was something that I tried to dig out and make thinner, make smaller, make gone.
We can't reframe the way society thinks and feels about weight overnight; there will always be cheering when a fat woman (or probably any woman who doesn't suffer from visible anorexia) loses weight. But we can fight damn hard for the right to be comfortable in and with our own bodies, even if it's really, really
fucking hard."
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
The Beauty of Different
I found a nifty video on Upworthy today that I want to share. It's three minutes long and put together by artist Karen Walrond. Check that out here: The Beauty of Different. Apparently there is also a book...
Her website is here, though I haven't quite been able to check out her 1,000 Faces gallery quite yet because my computer can't seem to handle so many open tabs at one time!
Monday, October 15, 2012
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