I’m going to write about something I have avoided to blog about for over six months. If you don’t want to read I understand, because God knows I scroll as soon as someone mentions the word weightloss. This isn’t about ‘life style changes’ (I hate that fucking expression) and counting calories, though. It’s about being so depressed that “if I eat that food today I’ll have nothing cooked tomorrow and cooking is too hard” makes perfect sense.
I’m ashamed of it. I try to blame it on new meds. I try to say I eat pretty well. Here’s a secret: I don’t. Some weeks I live entirely on sandwiches or chips or apples. Other weeks I cook maybe once, and eat that stuff for that whole week. Sometimes I go over to my parents house on weekends, just so that someone will cook for me and I won’t have to use all my spoons to make a simple meal. They always send me home with leftovers. Sometimes they last for days.
This is not me losing weight on purpose. This is me living extremely unhealthily. This is me losing 32 kilos (and counting) by eating chips instead of vegetables, and toast instead of fruit. This is me feeling that I’m doing good if I cook more than once in a week.
People have started asking me if I eat, what I weigh, if I’ve lost weight. Not in a good way. In that way they had, back in high school, when I had an eating disorder and a mystery illness and was too weak to sit up by the dinner table and had to suck on sugar cubes just keep from collapsing in class.
I used to weigh 100 kilos and run and eat perfectly healthily. I used to rant and rage about idiot people in my blog on fat acceptance and health at every size. My last run was in May 2012. My last post in that blog was in August 2012.
Technically speaking, I’m of a ‘normal’ weight now. On the upper half of normal even, if we speak BMI. BMI is utter bullshit, though, BMI is the least thing you should look at for health. It doesn’t count muscles vs fat ratio, it doesn’t care if parts of that fat is because you have an awesome rack (I don’t, by the way), it doesn’t do any of those things. It was construed in an attempt to figure out the ‘average man’, ranging from the average length of his arm to the age he would get married. BMI is arbitrary. But should someone ask, this is what being of ‘normal weight’, of the elusive 22 on that stupid scale, feels like. I’d rather be able to have dinner without having to lie down afterwards because eating sitting up takes all my strength, but hey.
I’m trying to decide if writing this is oversharing. If I’m right back where I started, if what I’m writing now is no different than the way too personal stuff that’s in all those posts I just set to private in an attempt to start over. Maybe I am. But this, my friends, is where I’ve been the last six months. Knowing that it’s unhealthy, that it isn’t good for me, that I’m letting down my HAES-friends, and everyone who reads that other blog of mine. Turning this over and over in my head, staring at the screen, trying not to write about it because I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. To think I’m losing weight on purpose.
The worst part is probably that a small part of me, the one with the eating disorder, the one that thinks it’s an accomplishment to look like this, likes being below 70. I do my best to silence her, because it’s nothing but proof that eating disorders are forever, that the thoughts are forever burned into your brain, but sometimes it’s hard. Not always, but a lot of the time.
Fuck her, though. Fuck her, fuck the depression, fuck the anxiety and the doctor who says my bloodwork is fine and I’m healthy and shouldn’t feel this way. This is where I try. Try and fail, probably, but trying all the same. Today I fought the “but I’ll have to cook tomorrow if I eat it now” voice. I had both lunch and dinner. I did the dishes. I read a book. I went for a ridiculously short walk. Last week the streak of making things right lasted two days. Let’s make it three this week, shall we?
And please, please, please don’t see this as me advocating, condoning or otherwise saying yay to unhealthy weightloss or any weightloss whatsoever. I don’t. Dieting is evil. Most (healthy) ways to lose weight aren’t successful. Those that are, will probably not stick around. I still believe all those things. And maybe one day I’ll eat like I used to, and go for runs, and blog about how fucked up these skinny ideals are. Maybe I’ll be fat again, then. (Fat is a neutral word, people. I put no emphasis, positive or negative, on it.) Who the hell knows.
I’m going to hit ‘publish’ now. I hope I won’t regret it later.
I love you. You’re not letting ANYONE down. If anything, by posting this you’re doing the opposite. This is a post you can point to and look back on in the future, when you are healthier, regardless of what weight you are and say ‘see, that’s what I was, and I’m doing better now.’
HAES means every size. You can be healthy & thin or fat or inbetween, or whatever. It sounds like you’re not so healthy right now but even being able to talk about this probably means you’re heading in the right direction. Baby steps.
Can I suggest something? Maybe make a list of dishes that you consider healthy and nutritious, that only take a couple of steps to make. Like – avocado squished into a sandwich. Or, hot soup stock heated up with frozen vegies in it. Apples with peanut butter, whatever. If you make a list of things which take minimal effort, maybe another list of things that take a little more effort, then you don’t have to THINK each time.
Fruit does not require to be cooked. No excuses there, sweetie. Also if you add salsa & cheese to chips it totally counts as a meal.
I have a friend who is a mother of 3 and she hates/is exhausted by cooking. Thinking up what to cook is not her superpower and it’s a constant source of stress. Planning meals takes away the decision making aspect through the week, which makes it easier for her to cope. It’s not the cooking so much as – the deciding to cook.
If none of this is helpful then ignore, ignore, ignore. What do I know? But making lists used to be a helpful tool for you.
xxxxx
You’re the best. <3
How is you being too depressed to cook or eat properly letting anyone down? It’s not dieting, it’s not even about your eating disorder, it’s depression. That’s just one of the many wonderful things depression does to you.
I hate cooking, really fucking hate it, it drains me, can’t manage it even when I’m not depressed. Luckily I live with someone who has slightly less trouble cooking than I do. Thanks to her, I don’t leave solely on sandwiches. And I try to not give myself shit about what I eat or do not eat. It’s really (I mean REALLY) hard, but I have to try.
You know, just like there’s a lot of shame in being fat (because, you know, society), there’s also a LOT of shame in not eating what is considered healthy. It’s the same as eating disorders really – food is divided into “good” and “bad”, when it’s really all just food. I’m not saying that eating only chips is great for you, but I wish you could cut yourself some slack. It’s okay that you’re losing weight because you are too depressed to cook. Not okay as in you should keep going indefinitely, but okay as in it has nothing to do with your value as a human being. Okay as in you’re really doing the best you can.
I hope I read your entry right and that I’m not upsetting you. I know what it’s like to be depressed – it’s really hard enough without the additional self loathing because you cannot behave (like cook or eat) like non-depressed people. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. I hope that’s okay.
You know, I have no idea. It’s just this feeling I have, that might not make sense, but it’s THERE. And yes, you’re so right about the shame with not doing things right. I’m totally feeling that, and it makes things a lot worse. But yes, I am trying to let go of it, now that I’ve poured it all out here!