A journal of healing

Archive for the ‘body image’ Category

Pissy Situation: Diet or lifestyle change

“Just go on a diet and lose some weight.” I do not know how many times I have heard this in my life. It has been said from well-meaning and not so well-meaning friends, medical people and people I do not even know. What right does anyone have to even propose such a life sentence? I supposed doctors think that if they say this, they will be absolved from better educated suggestions. But only someone who has lived a life of diets knows how really hard and almost impossible it is to be successful losing any real weight and keeping it off.

I am a large person from birth. I was my mother’s largest baby and also the largest female in my whole family by the time I was 11. I am not just talking about weight because in hindsight, I was not that overweight as I was told. But I was six or more inches taller and took a bigger size in my clothes than anyone else. I did not get the petite gene like my aunts, grandmothers or sister did. Matter of fact, my mother was 4 feet 9 inches and never weighed over 100 pounds accept when she was pregnant. How could she possibly relate to the mammoth she-child she had. Even my brothers were not large in size accept my one brother who was husky. But he played football and so that was ok.

I grew up in a world of carbs and candy. Sweets were ever where and the dinner table was heavy with fatty meat and starchy vegetables. It was not big deal for anyone else in my family. My parents also insisted on clean plates.

But somewhere around 14, my mother put me on my first real diet. Green beans and Jell-O. While others were indulging in spaghetti and desserts, I had green beans for my meal, and Jell-O for dessert. Not a recipe for success. This only left a bitter taste in my mouth about dieting.

As an adult, I made several attempts at diets. I did Weight Watchers a couple of times only to gain weight one time. One time I did lose weight only to gain it and some more back once I stopped.

Sustaining dieting is very difficult. Anyone who has tried to change any type of habit will tell you how hard it is. I find there is less empathy for someone who is dieting than someone who is quitting smoking. Why is that? It is just as difficult.

Our culture is mean. We demand that our females be slender and sleek. Yet we are bombarded with food ads. What a rotten tease. Does anyone else not see how unfair this is? I have yet to see a good ad for salads. But open any magazine and they are filled with baked yummies and cheese covered dishes. I stopped watching TV because of the ads a long time ago. But now, I won’t read a magazine either. And I have a subscription to a cheese magazine.  “Oh,  the irony.”

There are many fine folks out there who are raging a war on fat shamming. I believe in their work. I also belong to an organization that supports Health at Every Size. I don’t believe in diets to lose weight.

But I have to diet now. Have to. And it is not to lose weight. It is to save my kidneys. This is a fight for my life, not for being accepted for the way I look. I do not give a rat’s ass what people think about that and have not for a very long time.

Less than three months ago I went on a renal diet. It is not about calories. It is about protein, potassium and phosphorous consumption. My primary concern is protein. I gave up red meat in 1986. But I did consume large quantities of chicken, turkey and some fish. I gave up turkey completely as it also has high purines which are not good for kidneys. I will eat a little haddock once in a while. But giving up chicken has been very difficult.

Next time you are at a restaurant, try finding a low protein meal. EVERYTHING has some form of meat or fowl in it. Even salads are covered in either chicken or cold cuts. Not good. Mushrooms also are not good on a renal diet and I don’t like them much either. The next thing is look at the side dishes. Potatoes forever. Potatoes are a definite no-no. NO chips, no fries, no bakers with sour crème. Pasta has tomato sauce which is not allowed. Tomatoes are also everywhere.  Other choices like cottage cheese are not good due to the salt and potassium. Most other offerings are smothered with mayo, which is ok in small amounts.  Pasta is good on a renal diet but not good for weight and glucose. These are things I have to be concerned with too.

I do manage most times going out. But my husband and I have cut way down on going out to eat. It has really changed our habits. He has been supportive but is not as restrictive in what he eats.

Every once in a while I get very cranky. Then I know, it is time to have a free day. I know this is the only way I am going to be able to sustain this new eating lifestyle. It is not just a diet; it is a whole change in attitude and life. I don’t like being forced into things, but I have to let that go because I will never win on this. My not being careful will only harm me. And once my kidneys slip further in function, there is no going back.

Free days are not days I eat everything I can get my hands on. They are days when I know we are going out to eat. I track everything I put in mouth. Most days, I limit my calories to less than 1200 calories. That is fairly easy to do when I am home. I have eliminated most of the crap in the house. I keep the fridge full of fruit and salad makings. I have high quality things like homemade breads which I buy and freeze. I slice the bread and wrap each slice individually so I can only take out one at a time. Any snacks I have are very low calorie like rice rollers or popcorn.

But some days, it is not going to happen. I crave something more substantial for dinner than a salad.  We have gone out for ice crème four times this summer. I had birthday cake for my birthday. I have not had potatoes but I will have chicken once in a while. We enjoy pasta once in a while and are now going to try homemade gourmet pastas. Better ingredients and fewer additives. The first couple of times I slipped off the diet wagon, the guilt was terrible. But then it really is no one else’s problem so I have learned to cut myself some slack.

I discovered that even with my free days, I still have lost weight. After I have a free day, I come back the next day with more determination to follow my diet. And it easier to do because I am satisfied and not as bereft of whatever it was I wanted to eat. My labs have been fantastic and have steadied my kidney function. My doctors are very pleased.

And I hopefully can keep this lifestyle up for ever.



I was reading one of my favorite blogs the other day and I became outraged. It talks about how Google was putting information down about walking distance and calories when asked for directions. She felt this was fat shaming.  https://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/google-cupcakes-and-terrible-ideas/

I do not necessarily agree that this was the best example of fat shaming. I actually think it is kind of nice information if you CAN walk.  The calorie indication is just part of the diet culture we live in. But there are other messages out there that are not only fat shaming, but blatant discrimination.

She mentions that in some places they have turned off the escalators so that people will use stairs. Swell. That is discrimination of people with disabilities whether they are small or large. I know plenty of people who cannot climb stairs or even worse, like in my situation, go down them. I can go up with a hand rail for support but coming down is not happening. My one ankle now goes completely out at any situation and makes me fall if I do not have something to grab. Imagine my luck on stairs.

What about wheelchair access? She was saying that they are putting up signs next to elevators to remind people to use the stairs because you burn more calories. Talk about rubbing it in the face of people who cannot make a choice. That is not fat shaming; it is just harassment of everyone who is disabled.

In other blogs she talks about the discrimination or fat shaming that occurs with large people getting medical treatment. She states one person she knew was denied health insurance because she was morbidly obese. (I hate that phrase with a passion) How is that not discrimination? How is telling employees that if you are over a certain body weight, you will have to pay more for your health coverage not discrimination and for that fact, legal? But places are doing it all over the country. My company almost went there.

We lump every large person into one category. FAT, LAZY, and UNRELIABLE. We are treated like liars all the time. (Yes, secretly I go home after work and stuff my face with ice cream and cake… and even if I did, what business is that of yours?) Doctors accuse of lying all the time. In my own experience, I was accused of gorging myself by my two doctors when I put on 17 pounds in 6 weeks. They were sure it was what I was eating. On my own, I stopped a medication I was put on and almost overnight, the weight disappeared. But neither would listen to me and I sat sobbing in their offices telling them how awful I felt since going on the medication. The medication also caused dyspnea, but they didn’t seem concerned and again said it was because I was fat. I did not have shortness of breath before or after. It was humiliating and hurtful and neither of them said anything afterwards when I proved it was the medication.

In this culture, large people are the remaining targets of the worse discrimination out there. We are outrage if someone is discriminated for color or race. They just sanctioned a baseball player for making slant eyes at an Asian pitcher. Bet if he called someone fat nothing would happen.

I can only speak for how this makes me feel. I see people’s expressions. I hear their words of disapproval, and I feel the ostracization all the time. I hear all the girls at work constantly talking about their suffering when it comes to dieting and they wear it like a badge of honor. “OH, I can’t eat that” or “I would love a cookie, but no…”

But this pisses me off more than anything: I eat my lunch at my desk while I am working. And I do this because I do not want to stop working, but more because I do not want to be judged. I eat the same thing every day. I have a bag of chopped veggies, an English muffin with mayo and 2 slices of “just turkey” (has no chemicals in it). I leave the veggies out to munch on. Just last week, someone came to my desk and had the gall to say, “OH my, what a healthy lunch.”  I said, “Yes, surprise! Fat people eat better than most. Why are you shocked?”  Oh did she do a back pedal. This is not the first time either. I actually have had people just come into my old office cubby when I was eating a salad and start lecturing me on diets.

The image I used for this post is what as me all riled up. “Fat ballerina.” This is inexcusable. Dress up like a fat person and make fun of them all night. Yes indeedy. Be the star of your party by humiliating people who often have no choice of their situation or health. Next we should make a costume to mock developmentally disabled folks and call it “Retard.” Or how about a costume that makes you look like you have a prosthesis and we can call that one “Gimp”?  Think I am going over board? Try walking around in a real fat suit and see how it feels.


Don’t take this personally

“You’re too sensitive.” “I meant this is a good way.” And my favorite: Don’t take this personally.” Everyone time someone says those things; I know it is going to be a dagger in my soul. I am too sensitive. I will take it badly. And I most definitely will take it personally. Because that is the honest intent. Prefacing statements with “honestly” or to “tell the truth” does not excuse the fact that you are about to be mean. “It’s for your own good” never really is. It’s about you feeling superior to me.

Being an empath is not a pleasure. I see right through most people’s crap in a heartbeat. It does not mean that I can shield myself from the hurt. I never learned that part of survival. Because of that, I am very vulnerable to insults, even if they are shrouded in good intentions. They never really are good intentions.

When you are a large woman, you are a walking target for these kinds of insults. People feel so justified to say, “You would be so pretty if…..” “or you have a beautiful face….” People tell you how much better your life would be if only you could be more like them with statements like: “you should run with me some morning.” Oh Honey, if you really knew me, you would know I can hardly walk some mornings due to psoriatic arthritis. But you don’t really see me, so thanks but no thanks.

These comments do more than just hurt me. They trigger me. My family never lacked in cruel comments. It was a sport to see how clever someone could insult another. I was an enigma in the sense I was the only woman in my family who was large. I mean I am the tallest by 5 to 7 inches, I wore a much larger size (my Mom was a zero to 3) and I had boobs. I spent my childhood listening to “how much better I would be if I only…” This is emotional abuse by the way. I was deprived of treats, often subjected to ridiculous diets like green beans and Jello and constantly harangued about my shape.

[And this is how just writing about my childhood trigger me to justify it. I realized this when I went back to reread what I wrote:] My mom was in charge of the food in the house and meals were excessively high in carbs and fat. There was always soda and cookies available because the other siblings could gorge on them. They were thin. I was an extremely active child and teen often spending the day swimming or riding a bike for miles. I was not allowed to sit around and watch TV or even read. As a younger woman, I was very active. I only slowed down because of the PsA and if I did not have it, I would still be playing tennis and other activities as much as I could.

My family’s constant barrage of self-improvement comments were actually telling me how I failed. There was little said to counter the demeaning of the words. It successfully made me feel like a failure and that was the intent. I know this now, but it scarred me. So now when people make their veiled comments, I hear the disappointment in my mother and father and it brings me back to that time. When you have PTSD, it does not take much to trigger you.

When you grow up with a sense of failure, you have two choices: over achieve or lie down and whither. I overachieved. My success had not dampened the hurt I feel when someone is critical. I am so sensitive, that a look can set me off. I feel people’s disdain of me even if they think they are hiding it. I read people very clearly. It does not matter who or what the relationship. It does not matter if I love or hate the person. Their intent comes beaming through.

Next time you go to make a comment, try to remember that a large person already knows they are large. Chances are they have spent a lifetime trying to meet other’s expectations and have failed. They may not be strong, and your words will haunt them for days. You have no right to demean someone ever. If you think you are helping them, you are not. Get off your white horse and stop being so pompous. Learn that “right reflexing” (the attempt to take charge of someone else’s change process) does not motivate anyone to change. Understand your motive before you speak. Send love, not hurt.


Let there be cake!

I saw the bright reflection from down the hall. The light glimmered off the protective covering as my boss walked towards me. It was time for our weekly staff meeting and we met and turned to enter the room together. It was like walking with one of the three kings from the Orient to present the holy child with frankincense or myrrh. She had the gift of the Magi. She had birthday cake.

If I was abandoned on a dessert island and could only have one food, it would be chocolate birthday cake covered in butter cream frosting with tons of roses and flowers. And there is one store here that makes the best. My boss was carrying one of those exact cakes into our meeting as a surprise for one of staff. I had to decide at that point if it was the best day or the worst.

I have been going through an on-line course call “Be Nourished.” It is a series of six modules that offer lessons and inspiration to learn to become an intuitive eater. No diet, no starvation and definitely no deprivation. It takes practice and training to quiet the mind and really feel what the body is saying. Instead of eating from emotion, you eat when and what your body says it wants. Believe it or not, when you really pay attention, the body does not crave sugar. I was surprised to see how easy that has been. I also noticed that I do not crave carbs and salty things as much.

If you think by “letting go” there would be the urge to eat everything under the sun. For some, I guess that happens. But then, it is in response to an emotion and not the actual response to hunger. I discovered I eat when I am bored. I eat out of habit. Its noon, it is time for lunch. But now I wait until I am hungry. It is weird also to actually feel hunger. And then I listen to what my body says it wants. I bring my lunch but at dinner, the choice often is salad automatically.

The other part of intuitive eating is knowing when your full. There are studies which say often obese people do not sense full. I stop for the most part when I am full or just know to stop. Sometimes the guilt of throwing food out makes me push past the point where I could stop.

I sat through the meeting eyeing with delight and patience for them to cut the cake. But when they did, I passed on it. It was only 10:00 am and I truly was not in the mood. I did not want the sugar rush that early on in the day only to crash later. I knew the cake would be left in our shared area and others would attack it later as was my plan. But I ate my lunch first. I was not hungry after that, but images of butter cream rosettes danced in my brain. Finally, I gave in and went to cut a chunk for myself. I included a piece of the biggest pink rose. It was only about an inch and a half square piece. I had to carry it back to my office. I knew if someone passed me in the hall I would get “the look.”

I actually set it behind me on a cabinet for a bit and again reassessed how I felt. The biggest hurdle was the guilt. It was so strong. I thought of all the things I have been doing for myself. This was a blatant disrespectful act and lacked self-compassion, I thought.  I spun my chair around to gaze at the loveliness of the rose which just happened to be my favorite color. I spun back to my computer to think how I would feel with all that sugar pulsing through my body after so long a withdrawal from most sugary things. I could feel the cake behind me. Its chocolate goodness filled the air and the pure white of the frosting sat waiting to be enjoyed. I spun around and with fork in hand, slowly and with purpose devoured the piece. I tasted every grain of sugar, every ounce of butter, every essence of dark cocoa.

It was done.

Was it worth you ask….. Hell, Yeah!

Death sentence

clown 2

Every year since I was very young, this time of year brings some form of bad illness or pain for me. It has been that way since I was 11 years old. I cannot sleep at night. I wake up and I have pain or an issue of some sort  and insomnia becomes the norm. I have written before about this.

I can remember as a young girl getting up in the dark and going downstairs to see the remains of my parents drinking all night. Their favorite glasses would have remains of watered down liquor and the ashtrays would be full. I remember one time when I had something wrong with my shoulder and could not raise my hand above my head. They thought it was bursitis, but I know now it was a Psoriatic Arthritis flare. Back then, they did not even know what Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) is. Many medical providers still don’t.

I have been struggling the past two years trying to find the correct drug to manage my PsA symptoms. Currently I am on Humira, which is if nothing else, has not caused a lot of side effects like some of the other medicines I have been on. But it also is not working. My labs show my SED rate and other indicators show high amount of inflammation. I do not need any lab to tell me that. On top of the PsA, I have just plain old psoriasis. I have never had it as bad as some people get it until now.

I want people to understand. Psoriasis is an auto-immune disease that affects 7.5 million people or 3 % of the world. There is no cause and there is no cure. The skin becomes inflamed and the reaction varies from person to person. I had been lucky not to have many lesions. These are crusty little to large patches of bubbled up skin that itches and burns. The Humira is not working on the Psoriasis at all so now I am covered with very itchy skin and scalp. My legs are mess. A component of Psoriasis is Inverse Psoriasis which occurs in very sensitive places. I am also having an issue with Inverse but I will save the details. However, this is what is keeping me up all night. Anyone who has a mosquito bite can tell you how bad an itch in the middle of the night can be. Imagine that it not only itches very badly but burns.

On top of all this mess, I have been having terrible back pain on my left mid side. I know it is my kidney. I have at least three large stones in there the last time they looked, and they are so big they will not pass. When I lay down, they are pressing on my kidney. By an hour after I get up and have some water, I am ok. I wanted to know why now this was happening on top of my labs showing a change in my Creatinine and GFR.

My Doctor is a young Indian who is usually very patient and concerned about me. He subscribes usually to less is more when it comes to medicating. I have been seeing him for about five years. He does not like the fact that my rheumatologist has been changing my medication so much and does not really understand why we cannot find the right drug.

This visit was terrible. He told me that my kidney had not failed. Yes there had been a change in the creatinine but not that significant. (The lab reading was as high as it was when I struggled to pass a huge stone two years ago) He said the GFR was not a reliable indicator. (So why have the test?) My Systolic reading was forty points higher than normal for me but the diastolic was only 73, which is my normal. And he dismissed the back pain. He also told me to stop taking a potassium supplement I was using for the leg cramps.

What he did say was so painful I started to cry. He said I should go get bariatric surgery. In all the years I have seen him, he has never said this. My last doctor said it would be extremely dangerous for me to have the surgery because of my blood clotting issues. Factor V Leiden is an inherited disease and is passed down through families. It has nothing to do with my weight. He seemed short tempered as he spoke, like my visit was a bother.

He said my blood pressure is out of control. That’s not true, it has been steady and normal level for over a year and a half, since they took me off one shot (for PsA) that raised it to dangerous levels. He said my kidney issues are from being overweight. I said I have stones in there and this has not been a problem since May of 2014. He saw the stone I passed then and was amazed. He seemed to totally forget all that. I had to ask him to schedule me for an ultra sound to see what is going on, because this was NOT normal.

There was more he said that was harsh and I sat there with tears streaming down my face.

To me, he has sentenced me to death. I cannot express how much this affects me. I have a reaction to the concept of bariatric surgery that is so visceral it makes me physically ill. You know when something is very dangerous, and your gut tells you…”BE WARE”. That is what happens to me. When I was younger and able to exercise, the thought of going under the knife did not bother me. I wanted the help. But I was told I was not a candidate way back then. In those days, you had to go through hoops to get the surgery. In most cases, insurance did not cover it.

Now I am 62. I have a diagnosed blood condition and a chronic illness. Now they will cut you open if you simply ask. I argued back with the doctor that the long term success rate they are now finding is not great. This surgery is still new medicine. This was when he made a comment about dying sooner from being obese or having a longer life. I asked, “what if I die from the surgery?” His response was I was high risk, but he felt it would be worth it. REALLY????

Many people gain all the weight and then some back. But even if they do not, the other complications are huge. I do not know anyone who has had the surgery personally who said they would do it again. One friend had such terrible anemia, she had to have transfusions. And she is one who gained everything back. We let one employee go because she was out so much. They found another reason to terminate her, but she never recovered well from the surgery. She was not obese. She was plump and did it for cosmetic reasons. We just had one young employee who had two toddlers die a few months ago from the surgery. She became septic. She was 28. I know of someone locally who had a debilitating stroke from the surgery and is still not and never will be the same. One friend had it done two years ago and she has kept the weight off, but she looks 60 to her actual 40 years of age. She was much prettier heavy.

I could go on for hours about this. I have cried every night, and I am fighting them now. My point is that this is what people of size put up with all the time. I went to the doctor because I think I have a kidney stone trapped. The labs indicate it, my pain indicates it, and I needed professional help before it gets worse. My physical abilities are in the crapper right now because I am not properly medicated for the PsA. I can hardly walk some days. The pain level is extreme. My skin is on fire. I am not sleeping because of this. I cannot get into the rheumatologist until January 3rd.  He never has open appointments because rheumatologists are in such short supply. And my PCP is telling me to take a risk with my life and have a surgery that could very possibly kill me. ( and my gut says it will)

I do not think I have ever been as depressed as I am currently. I am not saying that being thinner would not resolve some things. I am not that stupid. I feel trapped in a world lacking of compassion, ignorant and insensitive, which is leaving me to suffer with vacillating issues of either continuing to suffer in pain or commit suicide, which is how I feel about the surgery.



My mother and Weight Watchers

stone goddesses

I began Weight Watchers in January, 2015. I am strongly letting everyone know that it has nothing to do with being accepted or trying to meet anyone else’s expectations. It is about me getting my Psoriatic Arthritis under control, which it is not. I found out that inflammation changes the hormones and body chemistry making it very difficult to lose weight. In fact, most people gain. And I am like most.

In the last two years, I sat back and watched my weight steadily increase, some of it since last May when I had a horrible incident with a kidney stone that was 6mm big. It threw my chemistry completely off and within a month I had put on 8 pounds. I thought it was fluid, but it kept climbing higher, even after I passed the stone.

I did a lot of research, as I often do when I come up against something. I thought about bariatric surgery and discovered it should be called barbaric surgery. I asked around a lot and found from the mouths of people who had the surgery that it worked at first, but then MANY gained back some, if not all. And then on top of that heartbreak, they all had some form of  new issue such as diarrhea, hair loss, pain, mal-nutrition, anemia and the list went on. This to me was not an option for me because of the other complications with my blood clotting. I scratched it right off the list.

Then I looked into serious weight loss plans. Again, major rebound issues coupled with health problems. One program was good for small weight loss like 20 or so pounds, but very impossible for long term. The diet was 500 calories with multiple supplements. Really? How does that change a life for better?

So I turned back to old Faithful Weight Watchers (WW). This was my third go at it. First time I lost about 30 pounds but rebounded. Last time I gained right off the bat. This time…. well…. First my story. This is triggered by a friend’s blog I read tonight.

My weight issues began when I was very, very young. I do not remember ever not having a weight problem. I was pudgy as baby. I had severe food allergies and then that seem to not be a problem. There is one picture of me around three and I am not fat but I am not thin. I was tall though. A picture of me at five is that of a beach ball. It remains that way the rest of my life. But in truth, there is a picture I found of me standing up and I was around 13 or 14. I was fully developed, taller than any woman in my family and thick. Not fat, not thin. Shapely. I think at that time I was a size 14-16. The same size clothes now would be a 10-12. I had fabulous legs because I rode a bike everywhere and for miles. I walked, skated, swam all the time and danced. I had a bit of a gut compare to others, but I also had a shapely figure. But by then, I learned to hide, so to see a full shot of me was startling. I also realized I was not the beast my family had portrayed.

My mother, sister, aunt and both grandmothers were petite women. No one was over 5’1 and no one was over 120 pounds. In 6th grade, I was 5’5” and 117 pounds and in a DD bra. I was considered an aberration and chastised soundly by everyone. I can remember my aunt telling me to wear a girdle when I was 13.

My mother decided right about then she was going to “fix” me. She put me on this diet of green beans and Jello. I like both, but it was all I was allowed. I bought lunch at school and that was when you did not have choices, just one hot lunch for 25 cents. Our house was filled with candy and cookies. My father made his own root beer. We had store-bought bakery goodies and donuts every Sunday. Dinner was a roast or casserole with white bread, whole milk, fresh butter, and some dessert.  Crème sauces were big and on everything like fish, potatoes, veggies and meat. Veggies were lima beans, corn, peas and potatoes. I did not have a tossed salad until I was 16. Fruit was rare and often a “salad” was a canned pear on a leaf of lettuce with a glob of mayo and a maraschino cherry. Very chic! Very 50’s.

So her solution to my EATING problem was making me eat beans and Jello for a while. Now mind you, when I was younger, if you did not eat your dinner, you were severely punished. As children, we did not eat with the adults until we were older. On holidays we were allowed at the dinner table, but no talking and no messing around. Just eat and shut up.  I learned very early to eat everything. I was the kind of child who hated being scolded in any manner. Still don’t like it.

My mother could out eat us all. Her metabolism was not given to me. My siblings could eat and remained thin until much later in life. Not me. I ate what was on my plate. Rewards were foods like a special Dunkin donut covered in frosting. Birthday meals were fried chicken or lasagna. Candy lurked everywhere, dishes and bowls of the stuff. Fortunately for me, I am not a big fan of most hard candy, but in a pinch. My mother and father had buckets of Fanny Farmers’ assorted chocolates. There was always a full cookie jar on the counter in the kitchen.  Cheap soda was in the refrigerator and the famous root beer was shared on special occasions. Even alcohol was allowed early in life and on special occasions. I learned to love Cherry brandy by the time I was eight

The part as an adult that I have had to work on so very hard is to get my mother’s critical voice and disapproving looks out of my head. She would skew her face up and would look at me with such distain sometimes that it would hurt me to the core. Food was the enemy she deemed and would go on rampages to humiliate me or shame me into “doing something about my weight.”

Dinner often turned into a battlefield, especially if they had been drinking, which….. they did every night. Some nights, it was a race to be done eating to get away before something happened. Common tortures were a heavy knife handle to the elbow for having it on the table. We had these ball shaped salt shakers which my father would swipe up and pelt at you for some perceived misdoing. As time went on, and my siblings left to go to college or their own lives, I was the featured target. My father would take his dinner plate and fling it at the back of your head like a Frisbee. If he was really out of it, he would fling whatever he could reach.

But I always ate my dinner with my head down and quiet until I was around 15. Then I began to cook for myself and eat privately when I could. My parents often never got to dinner or it would be ten o’clock or so. They were so smashed it didn’t matter. My father munched on cheese and crackers and Mom smoked. But by this point in my life, my food issues were tightly engrained and my body was never going to be petite. NEVER. I ended up at 5’ 6’ inches with size 8 feet. (Mom’s were a size 5) My hip bones (pelvic area) were a good five inches wider than hers, and at her  4’9 inches, I towered over her.

But her voice never left me. is I will always see her dark hair framing her disapproving looks.

Fast forward to now, the present moment… well we will back up first. When I started working at my job there was this woman who I saw for the first time from the back and my heart skipped a beat. I swore it was my Mom.  Something about the way she held herself.  This woman and I do not get along. She is critical of everything and everyone. She has a frown on her face most of the time. She especially does not like me. I am in the position she held for ten years as head of Education. She is a nurse, I am not. This is my failing and she and a few others let me know at every opportunity they do not approve of me. It was very hard for me to get passed her and ignore her and her cryptic comments and her LOOK.

Now, present moment. What does any of this have to do with Weight Watchers? I was doing WW on line since January. But they offered a deal at work and were going to have meetings there. So I signed up and arrived early to the first meeting last week.  Who do you think walks in to join? Mind you, if she has ten pounds to lose, it is a lot. So there I am and all the old guilt, resentment, and uglies surfaced. I could barely speak in the meeting. We had to share why we were there and I wanted to stand up and scream because my mother was a mean bitch and so are you….(looking at this woman). But in a shaky voice I mumbled about being a big beautiful woman and that I was here to get healthier. I went home so upset I thought I should quit.

But I did not. Instead, I challenged her. She has four other participants and we have our own team from HR/ED. We will win. This week our team all had significant weight loss. I am doing really well, after a couple of stalls. This will happen and then I lose a few more. Right now I have lost 5% of my total body weight from where I started. It’s all numbers. I am still big. I am also still in pain. But I have not had a shot in two months. It will be interesting to see what happens once I get a shot and calm the inflammation. Right now I can barely walk so I am not exercising. But that will become necessary soon.

The team that loses the most total poundage gets a lunch provided by the other team. I will enjoy watching her serve me……hahahah. I keep holding on to that.




I am sitting here trying to write through the tears that are pouring out of my eyes. I hate this. I am so frustrated I could melt iron with my anger. And because I know my anger does nothing, I am even more frustrated and around I go until I just burst into tears and sit sobbing until I give up and go to bed. I just thought I would write and see if it helps. So….why am I so upset? Several things.

I have Psoriatic Arthritis. For those who do not know, it is an auto-immune disease which targets the joints and the surround tissue. On the scale of severity, I am pretty lucky and it has only disintegrated my foot, ankle and toes on either foot and I have some deterioration in my lower spine. I can live with the fact that I limp on some days. I can also live with the shooting pain for the most part and the pervasive ache that is so deep in my bones it seems to be like hot lava.

What I cannot live with is the incompetency of the people who I have to work with to get the drug that helps alleviate this pain. Because I am on a specialty drug, I have to go to a high end mail order pharmacy for my drug. Every single time I had to deal with the company, Accredo, it was a major clusterfuck. And they lie like a cheap rug. One time I had to go without my medication for almost three months before they straightened out their mistakes. And then when it was all done, and I went to order the following month, they cancelled my prescription because I had not called for it in three months.

Well, my insurance switched to a new pharmacy. Can you guess what happened? They have it all screwed up. Although it was supposed to be a clear transfer of the script and authorization, it did not happen. So now I am on week 2 past due for my med because of their screw up. First they did not have the authorization and now they say they have an authorization, but it is for the wrong dose. What I do not get is nothing changed from the one pharmacy and the script was for at least six months.

Meanwhile, the pain crawls up my back like a sloth climbing a tree. PsA does not affect just my joints. It also affects my hormones and internal organs. It changes my body chemistry. This creates a situation where I am even more frustrated. I put on weight. So I have been on Weight Watchers now going on three weeks. I lost many pounds the first week, less the next and so far this week I have GAINED 2.5 pounds.

Everyone will say, “it’s what I am eating.” IT IS NOT! I am tracking every mouthful of my food intake.

I am following the point system which gives you a gimme on fruits and vegetables. They say you can eat all you want. Well, for me, it is the basis for my diet normally so this is very easy. But it does not make me lose weight. So now, I am looking up the nutritional value of even the fruits and veggies. For example, broccoli is wonderful for you. But a head of broccoli has five points when you put it into the WW calculator. That’s a lot of points. And yes, I can eat a whole head of broccoli between lunch and dinner. Even with me counting those, I still eat every day 10 or less points than the amount I can. And I gained weight. Do you have any idea how frustrating this is?

So the answer is, move more. Get up and exercise. Well,……. See above. Last night I worked with my DVD on yoga. This morning, I was in pain. As the day wore on, the pain increased instead of got better so I am not doing it again tonight… Anyone else see the issue with this?

Writing helped me to stop crying. I am grateful for that. But I know as soon as I head to bed, I will start again.

On top of all of this, a dear friend was diagnosed with cancer today. This is a re-occurrence for her, but it is not in the same place as it was years ago. I know she will probably be fine, but I cried all the way home thinking about her and how brave and wonderful she is.

And then I think…I have an issue? Ok that set me off again… Night!