The Weight Police
Body shape is something that cannot be changed. Oh sure you can change your weight, but the basic shape of your body will stay as it is, just smaller or larger.
Ideal body weight is largely predetermined by genetics and medical conditions, and varies from person to person. Generally speaking, if you’re taking a good amount of exercise and eating a reasonably balanced diet, you’re around where you should be. Now that might be a size 8, or it might be a size 20 or whereever, but it’s not really up to YOU what your ideal weight is, your body knows where it should be. Bear in mind that a balanced diet does include cakey things, which are as much for mental health as to offset all those salads. Avoid Rice Cakes, they be pretty blah. You can of course become even thinner than ideal, but it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of self denial and a lot of starvation.
Anyway. There’s plenty of fat acceptance blogs out there, and there’s plenty of thin acceptance. There may even be standard Body Acceptance, I haven’t really looked. I am a fat acceptance failure, in that I am about to restart treatment to control my insulin resistance. The upshot of this is that I may lose weight.
Granted, not all fat acceptance movement members judge or belittle people who do lose weight, but plenty do. I stopped bouncing around the fat blogs a while back, feeling like even thinking about treatment for the PCOS that I have was a shameful horror. I should be happy in my fat skin, and frankly I’m pretty okay with my fat most of the time.
Health and fat are linked in the minds of about everyone, from those who want the world to see that you CAN be fat AND healthy (and you can too, no argument here) to those who want to explain to fat people that fat = unhealthy. Which is not always true.
Sometimes it is. Yes, there are gray areas. Let’s take two fat people I’ve made up. We’ll call them Stella and Lola. Let’s pretend that against all the odds, they’re the exact same body type and weight and are both size 22. So let’s say Stella takes spanish dance lessons once a week, swims regularly and does other interesting body moving things almost every day, as well as watching her food and making sure she takes things like cheesecake in moderation. Medically, she is in fine fettle – blood pressure great, cholesterol great – everything that should be fine is fine.
Lola on the other hand takes no exercise, has a diet that leans more to the fast food end of the spectrum and tends to snack on less than great for her foods. You can’t argue, in this case, that she is a healthy fat person, because she isn’t. She’s overweight because she eats too much crap and never works it off.
I guess what I’m trying to get at is this: What should come first, the consideration of health or the fat acceptance? Should I be okay with my insulin resistance which caused my obesity because there’s a strong and growing movement to accept all body shapes, or should I seek treatment for it, therefore becoming a failure in the fatlove circles?
Bear in mind I will never – ever- be skinny. I’m not built that way, I come from a long line of curvy ladies and there’s no reasonable way I could ever be a size 4 or whatever the ideal is (not that I would want to anyway. Winter would suck without some extra insulation).
I’m at the stage here where my doctor blood tests me quarterly to make sure I haven’t developed diabetes. Now before you get up on your high horse about that, there’s a good chance I WILL develop diabetes since my insulin is all screwed up – she’s just keeping an eye on me so we can catch it early.
Regardless of how I feel about my body, I HATE my PCOS. I seriously hate it, I hate everything it did to me and everything it took away from me and I’m tired of just letting it go. I want to do something, and there’s another treatment available to me which I wish to try.
So why the guilt? Why the shame and the horror and the self loathing? Surely taking control of your health is a GOOD thing? Maybe. Maybe not. When fat acceptance goes too far, and when people are discouraged from taking the best care of themselves they can – at ANY size – then it’s become a Weight Police Issue, and that’s not right.
Crappy suck crappyness
I’m having a bad couple of days, emotionally. Well, emotionally I’m alright I think, but my self esteem which is barely there at the best of times has been utterly erased. Utterly. To the point where I can’t bear the thought of walking out the door tomorrow morning to go to work. I have a class to teach in the morning, so I can’t take the day off, but I’m terrified.
At the same time, I’m incredibly annoyed with myself. I’ve been fat since I was about 11, so it’s now 20 years and surely I should have better coping mechanisms by now. I should be used to seeing skinny models and diet ads without feeling like a waste of skin, but I am not. What triggered this plummet? What else – wedding dresses.
When I shop for clothes, which I honestly do try to avoid as much as I possibly can, the first thing I ever look at is the neckline. Anything lower than a shallow scoop neck – say around t-shirt level – is instantly dismissed as unsuitable. This is because I have, thanks to PCOS, hair on my chest. Yup, I’m fuzzy and it’s probably the thing that depresses me most about my appearance. No matter how gorgeous, flattering or amazing a shirt or dress is, I will not buy it if the neckline is wrong. I simply can’t wear it.
Now, logically I know that the chances of anyone even noticing this chest fuzz are very slim, but we live in a society where billions of dollars are spent on hair removal because women who dare to be a bit beardy are subjected to humiliation on a grand scale. I often wish I was a stronger person and able to just say “Fuck you too!” but I cannot. All I can seem to do is crawl into a cave and hope it all goes away. Which it doesn’t.
So poking around for dresses starts as “Don’t any of these have a high neckline” and moves to “God I wish I could look that good” which leads to “I hate how all these women get to show cleavage” which leads to “I’m hideous and cannot have a wedding and I need to tell Matt we’re eloping so no one has to see this mess”. Not logical, and hard to escape.
I don’t actually know how to make it better though. After almost 20 years of being as covered as possible, avoiding hair dressers, dentists and doctors and giving up on swimming and other fun things, it’s difficult to now say “I don’t care any more, I’m fuzzy, YOU deal with it”. Instead I’m going to start the hair removal cycle over again. Because it’s just not okay to be a hairy woman.
A History of PCOS by Me – aged 31.
Yesterday as I staggered around Borders wishing for early death (not to be overly dramatical) I told The Boyfriend I’d picked up the PCOS Diet Book and Managing PCOS for Dummies. He said surely I could write a Dummies guide to PCOS by now, having immersed myself in it for so long.
Apparently not! Quite apart from the fact that there’s more information in one single paragraph of these books than I ever got from a single specialist, the information in them is stuff I’ve never heard linked to PCOS before. Which has put me in between relief – “Oh good, it’s not just that I’m weird, it’s the PCOS” and anger – “Oh great, another fucking thing to go fucking wrong”.
Much of my “knowledge” of PCOS is gleaned from websites, communities and books. Simply because the specialists I saw were there to treat or look at one aspect of the whole, and therefore they’d do that and wander off. So as new information comes to light about the effects this condition has on the body, I need to make sure I keep up. In this case, it’s interesting to note that poor sleep and oversleep have been linked to – you guessed it – PCOS.
However most if not all of the worst parts of the syndrome can be bashed on the head with a quality low GI diet which includes a lot of whole grains and whatnot. This is a relief. I’ve avoided looking into PCOS diet simply because of the mental “I suck at diets” block. To find page after page of nummy things to eat that I can eat daily – big big big relief. My favourite of the three books I got yesterday – The Ultimate PCOS Handbook – even includes options and advice for vegetarians like myself. Hurrah!
So now for the history part. This post will be long, you can take a nap in the middle. I already napped today, so I’m good for a while. Ready? Let’s begin. (Boys should note at this point, I will be mentioning periods. Don’t be scared)
In about grade 5 (age ~ 10) I went from a tiny elfin little creature to three times my original weight within about 5 months. BANG. At age 12, my periods started just before I started High School. They were heavy, horrible and I missed a lot of school due to exhaustion and other things related to a 5 month constant period. Then they stopped, started, stopped, started… they never lasted less than 4 weeks.
No cause could be found for this cycle, nor for my massive weight gain apart from “You eat too much and you’re lazy”. I was, at this stage, not overly lazy. If I went to a friends house, for example, we’d walk into town, catch the train to the city, walk the city for the day, come home and walk back to their place. I was moving. I wasn’t a great sportsperson because I was fat and therefore slow, and my knees and ankles were giving way in alarming manners.
The ankles were addressed by a doctor who had me use insoles to support the foot, but the problem remained. A specialist in something or other tested my blood and said, without looking up from his notebook “Ah, yes. You probably will not be able to have babies. Everything else is fine. Goodbye”. Meanwhile I was growing body and face hair like whoa, which got me a referral to a dermatologist who – and I am not joking but I wish I was – said she couldn’t help with the hair problem but I clearly ate too much junk food. When I said I didn’t, she stood over me and blasted me for lying to her because I was so fat I was clearly eating junkfood every single day. Unable to defend myself, and crying hysterically, I swore off doctors for a long time. The Boyfriend can attest it’s a nightmare to try and get me to see a medical person these days.
However, I happened to read a magazine article about PCOS and the symptoms seemed to fit so I marched back to the GP and asked to be tested. In the darkened room of the ultrasound booth, a lovely smiling little Chinese specialist sat me down and pointed out on the pictures exactly where all the cysts were, and confirmed that yes, I did have PCOS. Without doubt he is the best specialist I have ever seen, not just because he took the time to explain what was going on, but because he was sympathetic about the whole deal.
Anyways, that was 9ish years ago and back then (listen to me like it was 1963) the treatment was the Pill. This was purely to get the periods ontrack again, and resulted (in me) in more weight gain and feelings of suicidal depression. So I stopped it and gave up for a spell till I read on the internet that someone had found a link between PCOS and Insulin Resistance, and treating the IR would help the PCOS.
AND HOW. Taking metformin, a drug used for diabetics, and adding a tiny bit of activity to my life I dropped almost 25 kilos. The drawback? I felt, constantly, like I was about to puke. Medication didn’t stop that, it was just something to put up with and I decided I didn’t want to put up with it anymore and stopped met. BANG, 25kilos straight back on. I dabbled with met again earlier this year, but I really cannot stand the feeling of nausea and the idea that if you cough, you’ll need to change your pants (sorry, TMI?).
Which brings me, rather neatly, back to diet. Currently I can only do parts of it, but I hope even a little bit of the diet will help in little ways (this is because I still live at home, and my mother considers the phrase “Low GI” to be something someone made up to make money).
I’ll start slowly, mostly because I’m spending most of my time with the books reading through the case studies and thinking “Oh yeah, me too. Me too”.
Melbourne.
I have a love/hate affair with Melbourne. I love parts of it – Fed Square, the library, the museum, but I hate the streets of it. I think that’s just my thing about crowds really. Comfest? Love. Food and Wine Festival? Hate. I went in to the city today.
It’s about an hour on the train to get to the city loop, which isn’t too awful, but can get boring on the way back when you’re really just gagging to get home. I went in to visit Borders, which is nicely located about 30 seconds walk from the train platform. The trip in was mostly normal. There were some early football people heading in. I managed to skip the big footy crowd.
About halfway to the city a couple sat on the seats facing me. They were… interesting. She was done up as though she was about to shake hands with the Queen and he was in YuppieCasualYetSmart with huge expensive sunglasses and a huge expensive laptop bag. She was in long evening gloves, full make up and a black velvet dress under a very expensive jacket. Her hair was swept up with a huge (and ugly) blinging feathered clippy thing. They spent the entire time on the train talking about his job, and how the “bottom line” was “down to him” and sometimes you “have to cut out the deadwood, which is what he told the girl when he fired her, because the bottom line was…”. They got off at the footy stop, so I can only assume they were in a corperate box somewhere and not roughing it in the stands. People like that amuse me.
So anyways. I hit the borders website last night and came up with a goodly selection of books I wanted. They were PCOS and Saxaphone books (not.. in the same book. Though that would be awesome). Got to the store and they had not a single thing in. Bastards. I bought 2 PCOS books anyways and then wandered aimlessly through the city trying to get my bearings (I only go in about three times a year, I’m easily lost). Readers Feast had a delicious selection of crochet books, but each only had about 1 project I wanted to make, so I didn’t get any of them. With the help of The Boyfriend who was googling for me, I managed to find Dymocks who had – hooray! The exact PCOS book I wanted AND a good saxaphone one. Ten points to Dymocks. I resisted the craft section there.
After finding lunch (a brilliant focaccia, I love when they toast it and then add cold lettuce. Makes for extra numminess) I decided I was totally over the whole being in the city BS and longing for the quiet trees of home I made my way to the station. As I slipped my ticket into the gate I realised the 2:15 train was not only there, but the announcement was running. So I got to do that movie thing where you fling yourself through the closing doors. Which sucked, coz I’m unfit. Better than waiting 30 mins for the next one though I suspect.
The train back was quieter, apart from two teenage Hanna Montanna wannabees who were Like, talking about Like, her really like bad haircut she would have to like, dye or like cut off or like something. Yanno? They were on the train for about 45 minutes and in that time they updated their facebook status about 10 times each. “I’ve put chillin with em” “OMG that’s so sweet, lemme change mine” “Did you say you’re on the train?” “Yeah” “Okay I’ll change mine”
I can’t believe I was ever 15.
The Great Pretender
One of the issues with PCOS, in my case anyways (I can no more speak for the entire PCOS community than I can speak for all brunettes) is that it is a defeminiser. I don’t know if that’s even a word, but I’m sure you get my drift. I grapple, often, with the concept of my femaleness. There are days when I feel neither male nor female, just human. I admit it’s a little rarer these days since The Boyfriend is making such a point of pointing out the female side.
I find I have little to no common ground with standard female practice in Australian society. I’ve never had my legs waxed commercially, nor have I picked up a brilliant jacket/pair of shoes/pair of jeans off the rack that made me happy. I detest clothes shopping, the three mirror changing rooms are hell, and the variable sizes between brands horrible. The buzz of being a size 16 in Brand A is quickly squashed by being a 20 in Brand B. I had my first, and probably last, massage only a few months ago and only then because of chronic back pain. I do not gym, sauna, spa, dayspa, facial, make over, hair salon or manicure. And GOD no I do not pedicure.
It’s not even purely a matter of weight. One of the fun parts of PCOS is body hair, and in Western Culture the concept of hair on a woman is considered disgusting and wrong. Due to a multi million dollar industry selling everything from laser treatment to disposable razors, women are constantly told through media and social ideals that they need to have a full body wax at least every three hours.
I did have laser treatments over the last couple of years, and so far the results are pretty decent. Most of the work was done on my belly, and very little of the hair has returned, so I’m pleased with that. I stopped when the weight went back on because laying there staring at the ceiling while my stunning laser tech stared at my screamingly white belly was too much for my exceptionally fragile self esteem. The next step was to have been the chest, but I am finding it easier, mostly, to simply continue to wear things that cover me as totally as possible.
Last year I visited a psychologist in order to address some anxiety issues that were pretty much running my life. I’m much better now, thanks for asking, due in part to a string of sessions and a daily dose of lexapro (Depression / anxiety is pretty common in PCOS ladies, to the point where it’s listed in some places as an official symptom). This year I have done things I would not have dreamed of last year, such as the Ghan trip, various driving things and – hello? Chicago next month. So you could say a lot of my anxiety is now gone, and I am much happier for it, but for some reason, the shame about the hair remains. It’s not terribly dark, or long, but to me it’s pretty much a 6 inch shagpile rug.
“Why don’t you wax it/shave it/bleach it/pluck it”. Depilatory creams bring me out in an almost incredible rash, I do pluck the longer or ingrown hairs, I don’t shave it because I hate when the stubble catches my clothes, and I don’t wax it because that also brings me out in a rash, albeit a lesser one. So I cover it up, and i HATE that. I’ve been looking at a lot of BBW sites of recent trying to boost my self esteem and embrace my shape, and what I wouldn’t give to wear some of those clothes. However, I cannot, because they simply don’t cover enough skin.
I love to wear skirts, but I battle with the moronic idea that I don’t deserve to wear them. Skirts are feminine and I am not, does that make sense? So why should I wear them? It makes no sense, even to me, but when I plan to wear a skirt to work, I always end up in jeans. Jeans are safer, unisex and they cover the entire leg. It’s a perfect win.
But tomorrow, damn it, I might just try a skirt.
Big Gal
I have a thing called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, generally termed PCOS because it’s that much faster to type. In general terms, it means I am fucked up in many ways, not the least of which is my variable weight. The underlying cause of PCOS is insulin resistance, which means that the body doesn’t understand insulin so well, so the pancreas just keeps pumping it out. This gives me a classic insulin fat shape – upper back fat and belly fat. Aka – apple shaped.
One of the hardest decisions for me, and one I make several times a year, is the trade off that taking Metformin is. If i take the met, I will lose weight. I will also feel crap 99% of the time, and will be unable to cough without worrying I’ve.. um.. you know. So I take it a while and then the sideeffects piss me off, so I stop and feel fantastic for a time. Then I go back on it. It’s a cycle I can’t really seem to break. The desire to lose the excess weight is very strong, and the dread and hate of the met is also strong, so I tend to go around and around.
One of the problems with PCOS (and it has so many) is that it really is harder to lose weight. I know that sounds like an excuse, but it’s true. Weight goes on a lot more easiliy, and comes off with a lot more work. So even in the event of dieting and all that any weight I lose is literally waiting around the corner for a chance to jump back on. However it’s really time to try to get off the met cycle once and for all. So here’s to probably maybe perhaps doing something a bit positive.
In the meantime, I am trying to accept myself more. Which, after 15 years of pretty intense self loathing, is a bit of a climb. But I might get there still, you never know.