I've always been fat.
And yeah, you just have to sit with that word. You don't get to scoff and say, "Oh you are not fat." or "You are beautiful." or "I love you."
That's lovely. I have a BMI of 56. (I don't want to hear your rants about BMI). I. am. fat. I can still be beautiful and you can still love me, but that doesn't change fatness as a fact. Get over it.
I've always been fat. I've always known I was fat. When I was a middle schooler, my mom took me to a health class at the hospital. For diabetic adults. It was pre-teen me and a classroom full of fat grownups.
I have done Weight Watchers, in it's many brands. I've done keto. No carb. Low carb. I did my gym's weight loss program. I have met with nutritionists and dietitians. I even paid thousands for an online program for people with disordered eating to "heal my relationship with food." I have worn blood sugar monitors. I have an Apple watch. I have tried having no snacks in my house. I ahve tried having all the snacks in my house. I have tracked and I have counted everything and I have tried not caring and I've tried caring a lot. I even did several years of regularly going to Orange Theory Fitness. During that time I was very strong.
But I was still fat.
I am also pre-diabetic. And every doctor's visit I watch that number inevitably tick up to diabetes. I have been on metformin for decades, because I also have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and so am naturally insulin resistant. (Ironically, the only time in my life my being fat wasn't "enough" was being a teenager and trying to get that diagnosis, and being told that I "wasn't fat enough" to have PCOS. Kill me.)
Being fat in the '90s and '00s "cocaine-thin" celebrity era was hell. No store carried clothes I could wear. My mom told me that maybe if I stopped eating when my skinny friend did, I would lose weight. (She meant well, and she doesn't remember this). My ex-fiance once told me that if I "didn't eat so much, we wouldn't have so many dishes." Fat shaming to get out of chores, anyone?
For a brief moment in the 2020s, I was kind of excited for the body-positive culture. Lizzo! So big and beautiful! Kelly Clarkson! Loving her full-figured mom body.
Enter GLP-1s.
My spouse started taking them before they were trending. Because, thanks to his marriage to me, he is full-blown diabetic. I joke I made him this way (OK, it's genetic). So he's been Ozempic for years, and whittled away to nothing. I miss his body fat. I tell him he is too bony. I wish he was squishier. If nothing else then because it is a reflection of me being fatter and fatter.
And now the thin-era is back. '90s fashion I couldn't wear then I still can't wear. You haven't known despair until you've had to walk through a store, pass the cute clothes, to the back, the the corner, to find the plus-size section. Hidden somewhere else. In JC Penney, they put plus-size next to the teen section. Insult to injury.
The clothes are never as cute. And the cuts are bad. And every time I have to try on something that has "W" next to the number, my brain remembers the jokes that it stands for "wide" and I wonder who named this shit.
Men.
Today in my doctor's appointment, I despaired. I've tried the stimulant "appetite suppresecent" drugs (amphetamines - didn't work, and I couldn't sleep). I've tried the anti-depressents that "sometimes" lead to an appetite reduction. (Nothing).
Who needs appetite reduction? It's not eating when I'm hungry that's the problem.
"Do you want to go on a carb-restricted plan?" she asked me. But it won't work - it'll work for two minutes, and my psychology is so rebellious against dieting that I will eat more carbs. Maybe I should intentionally restrict vegetables and see if that helps?
Don't tell me to get a therapist. Have you tried to get a therapist in this town?
"What do you feel like you can do?" doc asked.
Despair.
"Let's come back in six months and recheck it."
In six months. Which, as trends show, I may finally be over the mark to the delicious 6.4 A1C, a real diabetic. Worthy of a GLP-1, the seeming magic bullet.
I watch everyone around me get GLP-1s without diabetes and think, "How can you possibly afford that?!" And yes, I've looked at Hers and Ro and all the things. I even signed back up for WW so I could get it from them, and they said my blood pressure was too high (my doctor disagrees).
Can't win. Can't pay for it.
Am I worreid about my weight for my health? Yes. Do I feel like there is much I can do to be successful here? No. I have lost agency against this problem. 31 years of fighting the fat (maybe I didn't think about it for my first 10? At least the first 5.) and I have nothing left to give.
"Ethically, I can't tell you to stop the metformin," doc says. "If you did, your A1C would for sure be in the diabetes range and then the insurance would cover GLP-1s."
She smiled. Read between the lines.
And the worst part is as GLP-1s take off and everyone smiles nicely with their thin cheekbones, I feel worse. And less like I can talk about it. Because everyone has a solution. Everyone has a book I haven't read yet. A diet I haven't tried. "This really worked for me." Well, that's nice. Thank you, thin friend, for telling me the solution for your already high metablism.
Does it make you want to give up on me? "Well you just aren't trying. You have to sacrifice. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." Have you even had sour patch kids?
So this is just my rant. This is the despair of the fat girl who wants to give up but also, doesn't want to die of her fatness and have everyone nodding sagely. "She should have lost the weight ..."
If I lose it, where will it go? Will I also lose myself? How much of me is forever lost in this battle to be happy, also healthy, and love myself?
No comments:
Post a Comment