Dear Medical Professionals

Well, yet again the amazing Marilyn Wann has inspired me.  She shared this article on her Facebook page and of course I popped over to read it.  It’s an excellent piece on the damage caused by fat stigma and the responsibility the medical profession has towards it’s patients.  I was reading the comments and I was just struck with the desire to tell my story as a fat T2 diabetic to members of the medical profession.  I started to type a comment to the article, and what happened is I found myself writing a letter to medical professionals in general.  I have submitted it as a comment on the site (it’s awaiting moderation over there), but I decided I wanted to copy it and share it with you here.

It is of course nothing we haven’t all been saying in the Fatosphere over and over again, and it’s nothing I personally haven’t said before (repeatedly!), but I believe that we really do need to be telling our stories over and over and over, we do need to be addressing all kinds of different audiences about our experiences and perspectives, if we’re ever going to get real change in our culture towards fat stigmatisation.

So, without rambling on any more, here is my letter to medical professionals (any that care to listen).

Dear Medical Professionals

My name is Kath and I am fat (by the pointless BMI standards, I am morbidly obese at around 300lbs, but I prefer the term fat) AND I have Type 2 diabetes.  I am the one so many in the medical profession use as a cautionary tale against what happens to “bad/lazy/greedy” people who don’t live a “healthy” lifestyle.  Until I found my current doctor, not one health care professional would believe that I was not a sedentary glutton, and as a consequence I developed an eating disorder from about 13 years of age until my early 30’s, and was suicidal during that time as well.  I was starving myself and abusing both prescription weight loss drugs and other substances to try to lose weight.  Medical professionals I went to praised me if I lost weight, but chastised and even bullied me if I gained.  I always gained eventually, always what I had lost, and always some more.  When I confessed disordered behaviour, several health care professionals actually sanctioned it, and encouraged me to continue, since it was “working” (albeit temporarily).   I was rarely asked as to what I was actually eating and what exercise I was doing, but if I was, it was met with disbelief.   After all, calories in, calories out right?  How can one be fat if they are consuming less than they are expending?

In my mid-30’s, I decided that if nobody would believe me, and I couldn’t be thin and therefore worthy of space in this world, I would end it all and relieve myself and the world of suffering.  Thanks to the love of a good friend, I didn’t succeed.  But it was at that moment I opted out.  Opted out of the constant barrage of hatred that is poured towards fat people.  Opted out of dieting and employing any other methods of attempting weight loss.  I didn’t know where I was going at first, I just knew I couldn’t live that way any more, and I wanted to live, but not like I was.

Eventually, I stumbled across the concept of Health at Every Size (HaES) and my world was changed.  First step, find a doctor who listened to me and treated me as a human being, not an amorphous blob of fat to be eradicated, cured, prevented.  Second step, find a decent psychologist to help me heal the trauma of the stigmatisation I lived all my life just for existing in a fat body.  Third step, learn to eat again.  And when I say learn to eat, that means both for nutrition of my body AND for the pleasure food can give.  It means listening to hunger and satiety cues.  It means feeding myself what I need, and what fits within the life I live.  I still struggle with some disordered thinking and behaviour, but I will keep working at it until I have it beaten.  I also reclaimed my right to appear in public as a fat person, which has enabled me to do things like swimming at the beach and riding my bicycle, despite the fact that I am still ridiculed and shamed for daring to be a fat person who is active in public.

It has been about 5 years since the moment I opted out, and in that time I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.  I should have known, on my maternal side, my Grandmother is diabetic, on my paternal side, two aunts, an uncle and several of my older cousins (all T2).  I am built like my Grandma and my aunts, as are my female cousins, but the male relatives with diabetes are all tall and thin.  Nobody has ever shamed the men with T2 diabetes in my family, but all of we women have experienced shaming for it.

On diagnosis of T2 diabetes, I became even firmer in my resolve to practice HaES.  Since my diagnosis, my doctor and I have worked together and with HaES and appropriate medication, my blood sugar levels are in the normal range.  I am still fat, but all my vital measures are within the robustly healthy range.

I was far more a drain on society when I was trying to get thin than I am now that I live a HaES lifestyle.  I’ve gone from suicidal, frequently unemployed due to depression and the damage I did with my eating disorder, and constantly needing medical care.  Now I have a successful career in a field that I am passionate about and contributes to society.  I am a passionate campaigner for social justice and inclusion, and I contribute strongly to the public coffers via taxes, my private health care and the work I do in social justice and inclusion.

My point in telling my story here?  “The Obese” are not a disease to be eradicated, prevented, cured.  We are not some disgusting medical condition that is costing society millions.  We do not sit at home on the sofa eating cheeseburgers.  Nor are we stupid or liars.

We are people.  We are human beings with lives, loves, emotions, needs, aspirations and value in society like any other human being.  We deserve to be treated as such and allowed to advocate for ourselves.

Please remember that.

Thank you for your time in reading this.
Kath

On “Letting Yourself” Get Unhealthy

I read this post from Dr Samantha Thomas over at The Discourse and I must say, while I’m absolutely disgusted at the way Amanda Bell has been treated, sadly I am not actually surprised.  Because most of us who live in fat bodies know all too well that respectful, dignified health care is not something we can find easily, and that part of the reason so many of us find ourselves ill is because we avoid going anywhere near medical providers due to the amount of shame and bullying that is heaped on us when we do.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have recently been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which is a chronic illness that comes with a whole host of it’s own shaming, which is compounded when it is suffered by someone who is fat.  I am lucky, I have a GP who is supportive, sympathetic and treats me with respect and dignity.  She also listens to me.  However I was in my 30’s before I found my beloved Doc Jo.  But I dread the thought of needing a specialist of any kind, because it is fresh in my mind the horror of having to deal with fat shaming and the general disrespect of fat-hostile medical professionals (and I use the term “professional” loosely).

But as I have read more and more on the topic of T2 diabetes, all I have found is further fat-shaming from both health care professionals and from every “expert” member of the media and the public who profess to have an opinion on a chronic illness that they neither suffer nor have studied.  The most common message is that T2 diabetics, or to be specific, fat T2 diabetics, have “brought it upon themselves” and are now “clogging up our health care system on something they did to themselves.”  Somehow thin T2 diabetics escape this criticism and are often heaped with sympathy and disbelief on how they should get a disease that the commenter believes is something that only “unhealthy fat people” get.

And just tonight, on Twitter I have had some two-bit television doctor from the UK dismissing me as “being silly” when I tried to speak to him about the disrespect and shaming that fat people suffer at the hands of medical professionals.  Clearly he fails to see that a patronising tone is not an adequate argument.

What I want to talk about today is the commonly held belief that fat people do not deserve respectful, caring medical attention and are unable to advocate for their own health.  Now, let’s pretend, for just a moment, that all the evidence we have found about there being no causal links between fatness and disease, only correlation, and we’ll pretend, just for a moment, that there are no healthy fat people, nor unhealthy thin people, and we’ll even pretend for a moment that 95% of diets and weight loss regimes do not fail over the long term.  So if we ignore all of that evidence, and pretend, just for a moment, that fat really is something that can be controlled and eradicated by diet and exercise.

Let’s just pretend for a minute (bear with me).

If that’s the case, wouldn’t that mean that EVERYBODY who engages in risky behaviour or does things that are detrimental to their own health should be shamed, bullied, intervened into and vilified for their behaviours?  Wouldn’t that mean that ANYONE who is not in 100% tip-top physical form through some kind of activity or behaviour that may possibly do damage to the human body should be held fully financially responsible (without any support from private or public health care) for their illnesses and injuries?

Let’s think about that.

Do you tan/sunbathe/expose ANY of your skin to the sun?  Well, that counts you out for respectful health care, because you’ve let yourself get skin cancer.  Do you drink alcohol?  No respectful health care for you, if you let yourself get cirrhosis, stomach ulcers or alcohol related illnesses.  How about anyone who plays sport?  If you let yourself get injured on the field/course/track/court – no respectful health care for you.  Have you ever had sexual intercourse in your life? Well if you get any of the long list of illnesses and diseases that can be contracted from just one sexual encounter, then it’s your fault, you are also exempt from respectful health care.  Do you drive a car?   If you have an accident, you let it happen, so off the list you go too.  Take public transport to commute to and from work?  Well, if the bus has an accident, or you get the flu from other people on your train – you let that happen by engaging in behaviour that has risks, so you’re off the list there.  Choose to get pregnant?  Well, all those things that can happen during pregnancy and childbirth – you let those happen by exposing yourself to that risk, so nope, no respectful health care for you either.

We could go on like this for ever.  Because every single action we do in our lives, can and does have health risks.  Not to mention that we humans do a lot of very stupid things to ourselves and end up sick or injured because of it.  We drive big metal and glass vehicles at high speeds, we perch atop small things with wheels on them and hurtle along roads, down hills and around car-parks in the name of fun or transport.  We hurl balls, sticks, spears, discs and other projectiles at each other in the name of sport.  We jump out of planes, strap huge cans of air to our backs and dive to the bottom of the ocean with big creatures that have teeth that and see us as food, we go places where there are things that can bite, sting, spear and poison us.  We have sex with all kinds of people and things, we use mind-altering substances and we engage in all kinds of purely cosmetic procedures that can go wrong.  In the name of entertainment, pleasure or convenience, we do hundreds of things that are not entirely necessary, and carry risks to our health.

Such is life.  Simply being conceived, gestated and born is the riskiest thing any human being can do – all the stuff afterwards is just the icing on the risk cake.

So why is it that fatness is singled out?  Why is it that there is this general perception that fat people aren’t capable of making informed, conscious choices about our own lives and the risks associated?  Why is it believed that we need to be shamed for our own good?

Because it’s not about health.  It has never been about health.  It is about appearance and moral superiority.  A fat person offends the eye of a fat hater (and fat hatred is encouraged in our society), so they need to be shamed and bullied until they are either thin, or hidden away where the fat hater cannot see them.  Or better still, eradicated.  And our culture encourages people to feel moral superiority over others, so as we are encouraged to hate fat, who better to claim moral superiority over to make ourselves feel better than the fatties?

Yet so many people still can’t understand why fat people avoid going to the doctor…

Quick Hit: Triple J Hack

Just a pop in post today.  I was interviewed yesterday morning by Alex Mann from Triple J for the Hack programme on the topic of the interactions between fat people and medical professionals, in particular GP’s (General Practitioners), along with Bec aka @TrashyTeacake from South Australia.

If you’d like a listen, click here.

I have to say, I’m well impressed that the producers of Hack on Triple J have given an opportunity to fat people to talk about how they are treated by health professionals, rather than the usual mainstream media method of speaking to everyone BUT fat people about the topic of fatness and health.  Alex from Triple J even came up here to interview me in person.

Kudos to Hack on Triple J.

My favourite part of the piece was the commentary from Dr Rick Kausman, in particular this quote:

Unfortuntely as a society, we’re focusing on the wrong “W”. We’re focusing on the “W” for weight, rather than the “W” for wellbeing. If we could focus on the “W” for wellbeing, the rest would take care of itself.

Dr Rick, YOU ROCK!

Side note: I was not asked to give my BMI, nor was it verified with me.  I have spoken to Alex about this and made it clear that had I been asked, I would have calculated my BMI (I actually don’t know it at the moment) rather than have them “assign” my BMI based on my mentioning that I am classified as “morbidly obese”.  Alex has apologised and understands the issue of others placing body measures on fat people, particularly in such a public way.

But You’re Gonna DIE!!

I’ve had another concern troll.  You know the usual schtick, the whole “But you’re gonna DIE!” type.  I was reading Ragen’s post over at Dances with Fat on the Vague Future Health Threat (herein referred to as VFHT) and I thought I’d talk a bit about the subject myself.  I think I’ll write a letter.

Dear concern trolls, fat hating medicos, my family and friends, other people’s families and friends, colleagues and random douchebags on the street…

We are ALL going to die.

Yep, one day, we’re all going to reach the end of our lives, and we’re going to die.  Maybe that will be because we got sick with diabetes, or heart disease, or hypertension, or any other of the diseases that you claim “obesity” is the root cause of.  Maybe it will be an accident that takes us.  Maybe we’ll just grow very old and our bodies will stop working and it will be our time to go.  Or perhaps we’ll get cancer.  No matter what the cause of death is, we all have that one thing in common.  We are alive now, and one day, we’re going to die.  Whether we’re fat, thin or somewhere in the middle.

Yes, yes, I know, you say that it’s all about preventing an EARLY death.  Here’s the thing.  I knew this girl.  She was beautiful and took really good care of herself.  She never smoked, never touched alcohol, went to church, worked hard, and did everything you’re supposed to do to be healthy and live a long life.  She was slim and ate well and exercised.  Then at 24 she developed a kind of cancer that is associated with smoking.  Strangely enough, she never once smoked anything.  She died at 26.

I also knew a man, who played sport several times per week, ate healthy, didn’t smoke and only liked a beer or wine or two with friends from time to time.  He loved his family and was kind to everyone.  He died at 49 of melanoma.

Oh it’s about quality of life you say?  Because everyone knows fat people have bad hips and knees, huff and puff going up and down stairs and all that stuff.  Some do, sure.  But don’t assume all do.  Besides, if you care so much about quality of life, how about not bullying people with fat shaming?  How about accepting people as they are, and encouraging them to live their lives to the fullest right here and now, which in turn will enable them to do things like eat well, and be active?  If you’re so fired up about quality of life, you’d be making sure that fat people were happy as well as healthy.

See when I was 12, I went to the doctor with terrible period pain.  He told me that if I didn’t lose the weight before I was 13, my periods would stop and I’d never have a proper puberty.  I didn’t lose the weight.  My periods didn’t stop and puberty came along as it should have.

When I was 16, I went to the same doctor with more terrible period pain, as well as some other menstrual issues.  He told me that if I didn’t lose the weight by the time I was 18, I’d have diabetes.  I didn’t lose the weight.  I’m 38 and still don’t have diabetes, or even pre-diabetes.

When I was 19, I went to a new doctor with debilitating menstrual issues (see a pattern here?) and he told me that I should go away and lose weight, find myself a boyfriend and have a baby.   Good advice for someone in pain who has bled for 18 months huh?

When I was 21, I went to a doctor with a skin problem.  He told me to lose weight and they’d go away.  I went to another doctor, and he made them go away without me losing a pound.

When I was 25, I went to another doctor because my periods had stopped.  He told me that it was because I was fat, and if I didn’t lose the weight by the time I was 30, I’d get diabetes and my knees would give away.  I lost the weight, then gained it again, then lost it again, then gained it again… all I got for that was bad teeth, a whole lot of stretchmarks and the continuation of a very long term eating disorder.  No diabetes or bad knees.

When I was 30, I went to a doctor with menstrual troubles again (see the pattern here?) and she told me that if I didn’t lose the weight, I’d never have babies, I’d get diabetes and have a heart attack before I was 35.  She told me that my depression would go away, my periods would come back regular (and be pain free) and I wouldn’t have any more acne.  She gave me lots of different types of weight loss drugs and treatments to try.  I did lose the weight.  A LOT of weight.  What I got was more depression, my period disappeared altogether, my skin got worse and I tried to kill myself repeatedly.

I gained the weight back.  I went to a doctor who came highly recommended.  I was 32.  She diagnosed me with PCOS.  Over the past 6 years we’ve been working through my health together.  We tried a lot of things, worked out what was best for me, and went with it.  I am now strong and healthy and emotionally happy.  We have figured out the PCOS stuff and all of that is working well for me.  My weight is only a factor when it comes to dosage.  I’m 38 and I still haven’t developed the diabetes (or even pre-diabetes) that has been predicted for me since I was a teenager.  My vital signs are all fabulous.   I am full of energy and life is good.  My doctor is happy with my health.  Should that change, then my doctor and I will assess things again.

The thing is, you don’t know my body.  You don’t know anyone’s body except your own.  You’re not really concerned about my health, because you don’t know what my health is.  You just don’t like looking at fat people.  But you think by camouflaging your fat loathing with concern for health, you can pass comment, or make judgement.  You can’t.

You worry about your health.  I’ll look after mine.

Regards

Fat Heffalump

P.S.  Here’s a special image for you all:

An Open Letter to Professionals

Dear journalists and other media agents, medical and health professionals, government organisations, researchers, academics and other relevant professionals,

I am writing to you to request politely but firmly, for the last time, for you to cease referring to fat people as “the obese”.

“The obese” that you refer to are not alien beings sent down from the planet Lardo.  They are not animals that have tried to assimilate with humanity.  They are not creatures from the black lagoon, nor are they any other kind of hideous monster you can dream up.  They are also not in any way less, sub, below, beneath or beyond yourself or any other human being.

“The obese” that you refer to, are people.  They are human beings who simply have more fat on their bodies than other human beings.

They are people with lives, families, jobs, responsibilities, intellect, humour, worries, friends, problems and feelings just like any other people.

When you refer to them, no us, as “the obese”, you dehumanise us.  You reduce us to some kind of “other” that isn’t of equal value to the rest of humanity.  You reduce us to a thing, rather than a person.

You don’t refer to thin people as “the thin”.  You don’t refer to tall people as “the tall”.  It is only those you wish to look down upon that are reduced to a “the”.  You know you’re not allowed to do it to people of colour any more, or people with disabilities, or people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.  You all pretty much stopped doing that in your newspaper articles and medical papers and such some time ago.  At least publicly anyway, because you know there will be trouble if you do.

Now I know you need to have some kind of official term to use in your work.  The word obese is problematic, but if you really must use it, then how about referring to us as “obese people” or if you want to see obesity as a health condition, you could even use “people who suffer obesity”.  Neither of which really sit well with me personally, but at least those terms don’t dehumanise us.

However, you may call us fat people.  Because, well, that’s what we are.  We are people who are fat.  Like referring to young people or tall people or Australian people – fat people is just a factually descriptive term.

But hear me now.  You must stop referring to us as “the obese”.  Stop reducing us to our body type, and start remembering that we do have power and influence.  We have money to spend, votes to cast, voices to speak, brains to think and plenty of friends and family influence.

You could have access to all of this if you only remembered that we do have it.  Some of your colleagues are, and they’re already reaping the rewards.

Yours sincerely

A fat person.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Ok lovely fatties…

Ever kept a food diary for a doctor?  What about an exercise journal?  Been asked by a health care professional of some kind about your eating habits and exercise routines?  What about at a gym, or by a personal trainer?  Have you ever been questioned by one of those about your diet and exercise?  Have you ever been to a dietician?  Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Tony Ferguson or any other diet company?

Pretty much most of you right?

Now, how many of you have been called a liar by any of the above?

I know I have.  I’ve handed over food diaries and been asked if that was all of it, like a naughty school child being asked to hand over all of the cookies they stole.  I’ve had “Did you add your snacks to this?”  and “Now are you being totally honest Kath?”  I’ve been asked “What did you have for dessert?” when I had written nothing because I had not had anything.

Then there are the lectures.  Regardless of what you put in your food or exercise diary, you still get the lecture about calories in vs calories out, not “cheating”, grilled about how much exercise you are doing and told that “you have to put more effort into this.”

The only time I ever lied to a doctor about what I was eating and how much exercise I was doing was to ADD food to the diary because I was living off grapefruit juice and broccoli in vinegar, and to REDUCE the amount of exercise I wrote because I was spending 4 – 6 hours exercising, and I knew they wouldn’t believe me if I wrote the truth.  I did however lie regularly about making myself vomit whatever I ate.

I never once lied about eating more food than I put in the diary, nor did I lie about doing exercise that I hadn’t done.

What I ask, is why is it so common for health care professionals, the diet and exercise industry and the like to not believe fat people when they give information about their diet and exercise?  Why is it immediately assumed that a fat person MUST be lying if their food intake is normal/moderate/low and their activity levels are normal/moderate/high?

I don’t know about you, but when I think back on the number of times I was either outright accused of lying about my diet and activity, or lectured like a naughty schoolchild, I get really angry.

Recently I heard of a GP commenting on fat people with:

“They’re like men who beat their wives, or alcoholics, in denial.”

I don’t have any words for attitudes like this.  I always believed that doctors are meant to have compassion for their patients, that they have a duty of care to treat people with respect and without prejudice.  Many of you may have seen or heard about studies of doctors and their attitudes towards obesity (another) and it’s not looking good.  More than 50% of physicians viewed obese patients as awkward, unattractive, ugly, and noncompliant.  And this is without any factor towards our levels of health, our medical history, or the information we may give them about our diet and activity.

One of the reasons I’m really thrilled to be able to present at the Australian Fat Studies: A Critical Dialogue Conference is that for the first time in my knowledge, fat people are being asked to give their perspective on “the obesity epidemic” to academia.  Instead of being headless fatties, statistics or “awkward, unattractive, ugly or non-compliant” patients, we’re given names, faces and voices.

If you can go, please do so.  The more allies we have there to be heard, the louder the message will get across.

But… but… your health?

I came across this vintage ad on Tumblr:

Pretty full on isn’t it?  Back in the 20’s/30’s/40’s (and indeed since), smoking was endorsed as a method of keeping thin, or getting thin.

It wasn’t just for the ladies either:

We of course now know just how damaging to our health smoking is, and that it’s “benefits” for weight loss are most certainly not going to outweigh the damage it does to our health.  However back in the day, cigarette advertising was peppered with endorsements from doctors and “scientific studies”.  Face the facts, as the above ad says.

Even the dentist jumped in on the game:

But what about things that are endorsed now, even by the medical profession, as life saving ways to lose that weight that is killing you?  Diet drugs, shakes, replacement meals and snacks, herbal “remedies” and other potions, lotions, pills and powders.  We’re told they’re safe ways to lose weight, but we’ve already seen some ripped off the market because of deaths, and one look at the ingredient list of any of the non-prescription items will raise a whole pile of questions about what the hell that stuff is.

I myself was put on prescription speed to suppress my supposedly voracious appetite so that I would lose weight (with no heed paid to the fact that I actually wasn’t eating enough).  There’s a whole blog post in that little episode.

Let’s not even get started on weight loss surgery.  Then there’s the simpler ideas of removing whole food groups, or only existing on one type of food, while adding manic exercising into the mix.  All of this is supposedly for the health of fat patients.

Of course, a lot of the advertising campaigns of the past were pseudoscience, and carefully worded and crafted interpretations of what the medical profession had to day.  But is current media and marketing any different?  Have you heard the list of side effects and “results not typical” in a standard American drug advertisement, put there to prevent consumers from suing the arse off these companies?  How much of what is presented to us as science and fact right now is spin?

But we buy it.  So do a lot of everyday members of the medical profession.

How many more of these things have to come out as deadly or dangerous before we stop focusing on using extreme methods to lose weight, and focusing on general health, regardless of body size.  If “science” and “facts” were wrong about smoking, who’s to say it isn’t also wrong about all of the extreme methods of losing weight that are sold to us today?

Personally, I don’t believe it’s all about the health of fat patients one iota.  I believe it’s a moral panic around obesity, and that it’s purely about disgust and repulsion for the fat body.  A disgust so vicious that many in the medical profession would rather put fat people at risk of disease, disability and death to possibly get that weight off, than just focus on getting their patients feeling good and improving their health.  Fat has been so vilified that it has become standard practice to get fat patients to lose weight no matter what it does to their physical health, their self esteem, their emotional health.

Getting thin  has become more important than getting healthy.  Losing weight has become more important than just eating a balanced diet and being active.

Not to mention that someone out there is making lots, and lots, and lots of money from getting fat people to buy all of this crap.

Makes you think back to these ads again doesn’t it?

No one can deny huh?  Would that be just like no one can deny that being fat is bad for your health?

7400 Grams

A little housekeeping first.  I’ve decided to resurrect the Fat Heffalump Facebook Page.  Come on over and “like” it, and I’ll share interesting links and stuff there that feed into the fat acceptance message.

Now…

I had a bit of an epiphany early this morning.  I had been reading a few blog posts about weight loss, dieting and exercise last night and had been talking about my own experiences with trying to lose weight and the whole diet/exercise thing.  I was mulling it all over this morning when I woke up before the alarm went off, when I realised something.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was at a friend’s place recently and they had a scale in their bathroom, which I just couldn’t resist, and weighed myself, for the first time in about 2 years.

At my most crazy starvation and exercise binge kick (between 4 and 6 hours exercise per day, I shit you not), I was exactly 7.4kg lighter than I am now.  That was at my lowest adult weight.

When I was constantly dieting and going to the gym, which I hated with a passion (not necessarily to the starvation and exercise insanity levels I call my worst), I was 16kg heavier than I am now.

Today, I no longer diet and refuse to exercise, but only engage in activity for the love of it, not to “exercise”, I am 16kg lighter than regular diet and exercise!  And only 7.4kg heavier than at my most extreme desperation of dieting and working out.

How fucking insane is that?  All those years of starving myself and working myself into the ground with ridiculous levels of exercise out of desperation to lose weight, and for what??  SEVEN POINT FOUR FUCKING KILOGRAMS!!

And yet the real insanity?  When I was in that completely manic phase, I got stuck at my lowest weight, and after two months stuck there I went to my then doctor, and cried my eyes out, telling her how I had no life and I was exercising up to six hours per day, that my friends didn’t want anything to do with me and that I couldn’t keep up with work.  I cried that I couldn’t move off that weight (which was still fat) even after two months of working my arse off.

Her response?  “If you just ramped it up a notch, you’ll lose some more weight.”

Yep, between four and six hours per day of manic exercising wasn’t quite enough for this doctor.  She wanted me to add more.  More than power walking before work, two sessions at the gym, two hours of swimming of an evening and then yoga before bed.

Which goes to show, even doing what they tell you to do and diet and exercise, isn’t enough.  It’s never fucking enough, unless you’re one of the miracle few that get thin, and can stay thin.  Even then they constantly berate you not to “fall off the wagon” or “slip up”.

Thankfully I stopped going to that doctor.

I get so angry when I think that not only doctors, but society at large expects fat women to practically kill themselves, or at least live in misery, to try to reach a goal that matters to them – not to the woman in question.  It busts my arse when I think that I fought so hard for a shitty 7.4kg, and that wasn’t good enough.  It was everything that I had to give, and it wasn’t enough, because I was STILL FAT.

So screw you calories in and energy out – you’re a complete lie.  I’m going to eat however I feel like eating, and move my fat body in whatever ways I enjoy, but I’m not playing the “Get thin” game any more.

I’m still fat today.  A mere 7.4kg fatter than my thinnest, but 16kg lighter than my very fattest.  I’m happy.  I don’t hate myself.  I’m healthier than I’ve ever been.

Life is good.

Doctor Dilemma?

I’ve not been well since my last post.  I plummeted into the depths of depression on Tuesday, almost within hours, to one of the lowest points I have ever been.  It was scary as well as incapacitating.   I’ve never had depression arrive so deeply with such swiftness.  Surprisingly it left pretty quick too – the next day I was a walking case of aches and pains, along with intense fatigue, and today I’ve started to come good.

I did what I have learnt is the wise thing to do when I am very, very depressed and my body isn’t feeling right, I took myself off to my awesome doctor.  Turns out I have a flu/virus and she believes depression is a symptom of viral infections.  I spent a lifetime in a quest for a decent doctor, and when I found the wonderful Doc Jo, I really hit the jackpot.

I’m not sure she quite realises it, but these days she is a Health at Every Size practitioner.  We went through our years of diets and stuff, but there came a point where I said “Enough!” and to her credit, she has supported me on that.  She never comments on my weight (except to mention how she worries a specialist might be prejudiced against me) and looks to my health in all aspects that give her real information.  So long as my bloodwork etc comes back good, she’s happy.  She always says “You know when you’re not right, don’t you sweetness?”

But I know how hard it is to find a decent doctor.  One that doesn’t judge you because of your weight, one who treats you without prejudice, one who treats you with respect.  I was 32 when I finally found Doc Jo.

I’ve had doctors turn me away as soon as they looked at me because I was fat.  I’ve had doctors prescribe diet and exercise for asthma.  I’ve had doctors tell me I was lying, that I was cheating, that I wasn’t taking my health seriously.  I’ve even had a doctor tell me at 19 years of age when I presented to him with chronic menstrual bleeding (heavy flow for 18 months solid) to “Go lose some weight, find yourself a fella and we’ll talk when you’re ready for babies.”

I wish I was joking.

Thing is, we pay these doctors to care for us.  To treat us.  Even if you’re using full health insurance or Medicare, YOU pay for that in your taxes and deductions.  You are employing your doctor.  So if they don’t treat you with dignity, respect and like a human being, withdraw your custom from them.  Just like any other business, stop being their customer.  Take your business elsewhere!

If you were in a shop or other business, and looking to buy something, and the salesperson was disrespectful, would you purchase from them anyway?

Yes, it’s hard to get past that thing where your self esteem takes a battering and you just go with the doctor anyway.  Or walk out and avoid going to ANY doctor.  But you deserve and need decent health care.  I found my Doc Jo through a recommendation from a friend.  Ask your friends who their doctor is.  Google doctors by their names.  I have googled Doc Jo and get glowing mentions about her (some of them now are mine).

There are fabulous doctors out there.  You don’t have to put up with the shitty ones.  If you’ve got a good one, give a holla in the comments hey?