Surgery is HAPPENING

My surgery is scheduled for January 23rd.

I'm on day 3 of the pre-op liquid diet.

Things are going well, so far, but I suspect the remainder of today will be difficult. Days two and three are always the hardest in anything you do, right?

I don't have a lot to say, but thought I ought to share this info, at least!

(Long-Awaited?) Update

Green means go.

I got green lights from all the necessary parties. Nutrition, psychiatry, most importantly of all - finance (meaning I've paid my program fee in full).

I am a go all around for my VSG surgery.

My weight is up right now. I just ate half a bag of Cheetos, a handful of Chex Mix, and a slice of ice cream cake for my dad's birthday.

I have to weigh in on Monday. I feel like I should cancel/postpone the appointment. I don't want to fuck this up so hard that everything I've done so far gets pushed aside because I weigh in high on Monday. Because you know what? That's just not fair. Justified, perhaps. But not fair. There's a difference.

It's time for this to continue. It's time for ME to get on with my life. The first year of my 30s is half gone, and I've accomplished very little in it, except a good score on my GRE.

There's nothing deep for me to throw out there into the void, right now. I just thought that my upgrade to greens warranted an update. Stick with me, kids. There'll be more to come. I promise.

VSG

VSG.

The sleeve.

Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy. Sleeve gastrectomy.

Whatever you want to call it, it's what I've decided.



This is my solution.

In going through the pre-operative program with Geisinger, I was always under the impression that they only offered the full gastric bypass (RNY) or the LAP band. When I attended the informational class, led by one of the head nurses of the program, she mentioned the sleeve... and I suddenly felt committed.

Both the bypass and the band have their pluses and minuses, but in both cases, the negatives almost outweigh the positives. When push came to shove, I was leaning toward the band, but the very slow weight loss combined with the intensive adjustment period involved to add/remove liquid from the band really turned me off to the idea of it. Not to mention that any time I said to a medical professional that I was leaning more toward the band, they would inevitably do that little wince and suck air in through their teeth to make a hissing sound... then bombard me with anecdotes of patients who've failed with the band - especially starting at my size.

The bypass, however, did not appeal to me at ALL. It has the highest risk of complications and death and long-term effects on your health, such as iron deficiency (I'm already borderline), B12 deficiency (I may go vegan some day, I won't need any help with that deficiency), and osteoporosis due to calcium deficiency. Right now, the only thing that's wrong with me is that I'm fat. Why am I going to agree to a surgery that could cause problems I may never have had in the long run, just to be thin? Nuh-uh. Logic.Fail.

The sleeve... it satisfies all of my intellectual desires for a surgery. It has more rapid weight loss than the band (but not quite as rapid as the bypass); it does not induce nutritional deficiencies, because nutrients are all still absorbed as normal. All it does is provide a physical stop sign (where I often feel like I do not have one, now) and an extended feeling of fullness. I feel it is, in a word, perfect. And most of the first-hand accounts I've read seem to support that feeling. It's very rare to run across someone on a message board who has been unhappy with their decision to have the sleeve operation... and when someone IS unhappy, it's more often that they get heartburn more than they used to, but it's under control with over-the-counter medication.

I have another appointment with both the psych team (I got a "yellow light" the first time through) and the dietitian (I was upgraded to a "green light," but they want to do a weigh-in to make sure I'm staying on track) on August 10th - at which point, they may compose the letter to my insurance company to get approval to go-ahead with setting a surgical date.

1) Commence freak-out.
2) Get off caffeine. *sips coffee* Tomorrow.
3) Keep honest, accurate food logs from now until that date (and beyond).
4) Get more active on verticalsleevetalk.com.

Second "Class"

My second class wasn't so much a class as a distribution of materials and an informational "Please pay this amount" session. Which, hey, fine, whatever. At least I didn't have to see the asshole nutritionist. Our materials included the surgical binder full of vital info (like timelines, pre- and post-op nutritional guidelines, surgical specifics, and some psychological newsletters to read and consider) and a book by Barbara Thompson, which I just finished reading yesterday.

The six month preparatory education meetings (and the materials distributed therein) carry a flat rate fee (through my program) of $375 which must be paid in full before a surgical date can be scheduled. We met the lady responsible for the billing at the center and she explained to us how we can opt to pay (all at once, installments, etc.). Insurance will not cover this cost and it does not go toward insurance "out-of-pocket" maximums.

I sent my first payment last week.

As far as I'm concerned, the ball is rolling and the decision is more or less made.

My mother is fighting valiantly to keep her mouth shut about my decision - but I can tell she doesn't want me to have the surgery.

But you know what? She may feel like she's been fat her whole life, but she was a size 8 when she married my dad. She wasn't wearing plus sized clothing until the 90s. Possibly the MID-90s. Do you know when I stepped into my first Lane Bryant? Sixth grade.

1993 was not a great time to be a plus-sized pre-teen. Back then, only old ladies were fat. That's what the clothing makers believed, anyway. There are lots of photos of me wearing clothing that could easily be mistaken for upholstry.

Twenty years of dieting (that's 2/3 of my time on this planet) has made me over-informed and unenthused. I am jaded. Calories in vs. calories out is a terrific theory... in theory.

In reality, it's a bitch of a black hole that just sucks your soul away, and when you finally manage to claw your way out of the crushing gravitational pull of count-count-count-deprive-exercise-count-count-exercise-exercise-refuse-invitations-count-count, you launch yourself head first into an industrial sized bag of potato chips and skid into a tub of Ben & Jerry's. Cackling from the sugar rush, you crack "What a long, strange trip it's been!" and slice open the packing tape on the box of "fat clothes" in the back of the closet.

Or maybe that's just me?

Dieter's cynicism aside, I am trying to get back on track with healthier eating (and living).

I ate something at McDonald's almost every day last week. I honestly don't know why.

Today, I'm trying out a new plan. I'm going to have Slim Fast for my evening meal, as that seems to be when I binge/graze/give up on the day. I'm going to add a salad onto that... maybe even a can of soup, as the warmth will keep me fuller for longer.

First Class

I had my first prep class on March 7th. I intended to post about it then, and join the freight train of weight loss surgery (WLS) bloggers already out here on the interwebz, but you know how it goes. Life interferes; 9,000 strangers you don't even know, but are somehow more dear to your heart than most people you DO know, die; depression hits; PMS comes and goes; Prozac is added to the daily multivitamin regimen in a different sort of attempt to balance one's life - never mind the vitamin D, give me that vitamin P!

Et cetera.

Before my class on the 7th, I had to meet with the doctor I'd met for the initial consultation several weeks earlier. I weighed in (wearing heavy work boots and not removing my coat due to the nurse's rush-rush-rush demeanor) and managed to weigh nine pounds more than I had at my initial consultation. I'm mentally subtracting five pounds from that for various factors - clothes, having just eaten lunch and drunk about a liter of water - and accepting the fact that maybe I weighed four pounds more than I had previously.

But you know what? March 7th was five days after my 30th birthday. Yes, I ate cake. Probably more than I should have. And I had a few drinks here and there. And I ate a burrito the size of my head at Mad Mex and had a damn margarita. You only turn 30 once, right?

My handsome Russian doctor scolded me. "Was it your birthday all week?" Well, yeah, it kind of was. I had different days with different groups of people and different places to go and things to do... it's not like turning 10 and having all of your classmates come to your house and having a once-and-done event. Age complicates things.

"Obviously, you are still eating too much. And not exercising enough. If you can't do this, this won't work."

If I could do this, I wouldn't be contemplating the surgical option, thankyouverymuch.

The visit with the doctor left me dejected, upset, disappointed in myself and angry at the world. Angry at well-meaning coworkers who do nothing but harm in bringing donuts/candy/cookies/snack mixes to the office. Angry at parents who don't seem to get the real consequences of this surgery, should I finally opt to have it, thus continue to load the cupboards and pantry with processed empty calorie crap. Angry at myself for lacking the willpower and motivation to avoid the temptations and drag my ass to work out after particularly busy bank days.

Still, there was a class to attend about "nutrition," so off I went, confident that I already knew everything the class was going to offer.

So far as actual nutritional information goes - I did. So far as post-surgical nutrition goes - I did not. And can I mention that the teacher of the class is the dietitian I have so thoroughly raked across the coals in this blog many times? The one I went to see in high school who was absolutely USELESS and who I abhor to this day? Yeah, let's not forget that.

Post-surgical nutrition goes a little something like this:

- The first two weeks are a strictly liquid diet.
- From then, all solid foods must be chewed to applesauce consistency.
- It will take approximately 10-minutes to consume one ounce of food. Use a timer.
- 5 grams of fat per meal.
- 60 ounces of fluid per day. (I usually drink twice that, now.)
- Liquids may not be consumed during meals. Only 30-minutes before eating or 30-minutes after.
- No caffeine (2-weeks before surgery and 2-months after).
- No straws, carbonated, or sugary drinks.

Then there are the generally accepted post-surgical "side effects" of dumping syndrome, anemia (I'm already borderline for this, surgery exacerbates the problem of iron absorption into the bloodstream), B12 deficiency, and possible protein deficiency leading to hair loss and all sorts of other fun problems.

This surgery invites sickness and ill health as companions to being thin. Of course, there are people who sail through without experiencing these issues. But then again, there are people who don't.

Which am I?

My next class is on April 6th. It's a "behavioral" class. Stay tuned.

Japan

Those of you who have known me the longest... know that I lived in Japan for almost six years. And left it very begrudgingly last April, only because the contract for my job was lost to a lower bidding company.

This disaster has had a profound effect on me. I have found myself on the verge of tears - or even crying - dozens of times over the past five days. It's hard for me to tear myself away from CNN in order to come to work.

All of my friends seem to be ok, so far, though the nuclear threat looms ever larger. My best friend in the country is in an area that was affected by the quake, but not the tsunami, and she tells me that supplies are running out. They've been told that regular supply could be delayed for up to a month, as they are going to be re-directing everything to the hardest hit areas first (of course). She is looking to get out of her area as soon as she can, either to visit friends in other parts of Japan or to spend a few weeks at home (New Zealand) until things calm down.

What most people don't know is that if I had taken the job I was offered when my contract was gobbled up (I had about 2-hours to decide... move within Japan or move back to the US), I would have been in Miyagi Prefecture, one of the most devastated areas.

I have been coping the best I can with what's going on, but it's been extremely difficult. I have fleeting feelings of guilt (I should have been there, and I wasn't... I could be helping because I am young and strong and Japanese-capable, but I can't, because I'm not there...), more guilt because I am relieved that I wasn't there, worry for friends, friends of friends, and friends' families who may yet be in the path of nuclear fallout if it comes to that, and the constant onslaught of information in this oh-so-connected age... new videos cropping up on youtube every hour, streaming Japanese news, email updates and pleas for charity relief...

At this point, I wish I could just curl up in my bed and hide under the covers for a while with my teddy bear. Teddy bears can't heal the world, but they do their best.

More on Surgery and My Fat

This is a conversation I had recently (via e-mail) with a very dear friend, and it's a lot of what I want everyone to know...

Her:
Subject: Interesting?
I haven't decided, because I haven't finished, but I am reading. Words. Lots of words.
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/02/11/hello-i-am-fat
I read down to about 100 in the comments. Now I am eating a sandwich.

So yeah, I sent this to you because it was the original article that spurred some kind of email/comment that ****** posted on FB and I thought I would read the beginning of the saga. Which turns out to be the middle of a saga? I don't know. I want to use the word "saga" more in daily conversation.

I don't know if I should have an opinion or not. I am 30, tired of feeling this way, and tired of worrying about feeling this way.
Have I gained weight? Yep. Have I lost it? Yep. Will I continue to need to eat every day for the rest of my life? Yep.
Can I be troubled to worry about what I will eat every day? No. I just can't care about it right now.
Just like I can't care about "loving my body."
I am a succubus that uses this vessel to eat, sleep, whine about my job, and play Farmville.

You, who have worked your ass off at working off your ass... I admire your ability to care at all at this point.
As someone whose mom died an untimely death as a consequence of "lame" surgery, I can understand the reality of the risk of surgery and how much everyone seems to minimize that risk. It takes colossal gonads, in my opinion, to be willing to consider something that you have truly worked to avoid.

I think some of the sentiment I got from the comments is that there is something more to the mess than every individual someone sitting around on a couch stuffing his pie hole, whether it is gunked up food or whatever. The reality is, genetics and/or genetically altered food (if you aren't a freak that believes in creationism) humans are hunter-gatherers. While the instinct to gather and eat food all day remains, it no longer takes the amount of calories and time to locate, well, calories. Maybe it's time to engineer less nutritional food? The enigmatic futuristic rice cake diet that we can eat and eat forever and never consume any calories?

Yes, the solution does lie in a cake. The end.


Me:
I think I still care just because it's such a deeply ingrained habit. I have been fat forever... I haven't ever experienced a life where I didn't have to care. I've been terrified of my fat flopping onto my airplane neighbor since the very first time I got on a plane (and let's not discuss the fear of having to ask for a seat belt extender... or boycotting Southwest Airline's super cheap flights altogether because they were the first people to ever introduce mandatory 2nd seat purchases for "customers of size"...).

***** is a huge Dan Savage fan. I could care less, though I do know that he makes asshole-ish fat comments on a pretty regular basis... which is hypocritical on a massive scale since his whole gay preaching thing is about acceptance of everyone, regardless (fine print: regardless does not include anyone with a BMI over 22, fuckyouverymuch).

I just got something in an email from the obesityhelp.com forums today that pretty much summed up my thoughts on this whole surgery thing and the huge risk that goes along with it.

"I used to be embarrassed to take a plane or to go out in public. It was difficult to get behind the steering wheel. My lifestyle was very stifling. The consequences of my obesity, and the depression and social isolation it caused, made the risk of the surgery far more acceptable since I had been unsuccessful with every diet imaginable."

See how that's all in past tense? I long for that to be in past tense for me. My BMI is 48. Now, I think the BMI scale is bullshit because it ignores a lot of other factors needed to determine true health, BUT... a BMI of 50 is "super morbidly obese" and that's the highest category there is. That's what category those people on TLC who weigh 800 pounds belong to. "Super morbidly obese" people get transported by crane and weighed by truck scales and sometimes they wind up fused to their furniture because one day they wake up and they're just too fat to get up and go to the bathroom.

Right now, I'm pretty far from that point... BUT, assuming that I am perfectly capable of gaining ANOTHER 60-pounds in six or seven months... I am less than a year away from weighing 400-pounds, barring some drastic intervention.

There will never be a better time for me to take advantage of this surgery and use it as the drastic intervention that I so desperately require. I am SO healthy (aside from my fat) that it's disgusting. My blood pressure is damn near perfect, my blood work all came back perfect, and I am young enough that recovery should be swift and results damn near immediate. If I decided to give it another five years... ten years... lose and re-gain 50-pounds three or four more times... My body will be older, I will be just as fat (if not fatter), and I may have developed some obesity-related complications by then.

Thank you for caring enough to worry about me. Do you know that ***** hasn't said a single word about my thinking about having this surgery? Some support network I have, huh?

This addresses a lot more issues than you brought up in your email, but I know you and you're smart enough to be thinking about this shit, even if you don't say anything.

BRING ON THE FUTURE AND ITS NON-CALORIC RICE CAKES.

mmmm cake....

Support

Some of my closest friends have not offered their opinions (either support or dissention) about my surgical decision.

I wonder if they fear my dropping them like a stone if they disagree with what I want to do. There is precedent for that, so I guess I understand it.

Still, it would be nice to know that they care one way or another.

You know, maybe this is why I have never been able to lose weight and keep it off in the past. My support network is just so small as to be non-existent. Online-only friends, anonymous forum posters/commenters, and friends I've met but who live so far away they are basically online friends now... always supportive, positive, caring. What is it about real life that negates my ability to rally support like that?

I haven't got much else to say... just that I'm still completely uncertain as to which surgerical option I would choose (although the band, as opposed to the bypass, is looking like the better option), and I can't wait for my first pre-op "class."

The Surgical Option

There hasn't been a bigger flip-flop in the history of flip-flops since Janet's boobie flopped out of her malfunctioning wardrobe and the entire country flipped over it.

I am considering the surgical option.

Not only am I considering it, I am favoring it.

That's probably not even truthful.

I'm stalking it. Courting it. Being nice to it in the hopes that it will eventually marry me.

Yes, Angela of the no-surgery-ever-no-way-no-how-I-will-not-die-to-be-thin... has flip-flopped.

Apparently, all it takes to persuade me into an option with which I vocally, loudly, adamantly did not support... is a man in a white coat with a Russian accent telling me that it was the only option for weight loss that would offer me a 70-75% chance of success.

The problem came when we started discussing calories and I started throwing out all of my tips, tricks, tweaks, secrets, and cheats for meeting my daily calorie goal (of which I'm well-aware). If he'd given me a quiz from the hospital's nutrtional weight loss program, I probably would have scored a hundred percent AND gotten extra credit points for excessive elaboration on certain subjects.

He looked at me and said, basically, that I obviously know what to do and how to do it. My problem is continuity and maintenance (aggravated by current and recurring depression). Gaining and losing 50-pounds at least half a dozen times in the past decade is proof enough for him that the non-surgical option is probably not going to be my saving grace - especially since there doesn't seem to be anything more I need to learn on the nutrition/exercise side of things aside from implementation, follow-through, and a pile of therapy that's yet to be scheduled.

In discussing the options, we decided that it would be prudent for me to start the motions of the pre-op classes, if only to educate myself more fully about what is involved with the surgery and to make a more informed decision as to whether or not I want to have it. But, I can tell you, now that I have allowed the possibility to exist, it's all I can think about. I want it done and I want it done now.

I feel like I've done my time as a fattie. I've put the work in, time and time again, only to watch others (who know less and don't try nearly as hard) succeed where I fail.

And I am sick of it.

I turn 30 in two weeks. If I would get the surgery as soon as possible after completing the required classes (September or October, most likely), I would probably be down 60-pounds (plus the 10% I have to lose pre-op for insurance purposes, so make that almost 100-pounds total) by the time I turn 31.

I deserve this.

I deserve not to have my 30s suck.

Confessions?

I have an appointment on February 9th with the Danville clinic for fatties. They have both a weight loss program and a bariatric surgery program. They asked me twice in the process of making the appointment which I wanted. I have chosen the weight loss program, because I know I can lose weight. I have in the past. I also know that I cannot do it in these conditions, so I think I'll be wasting both time and money by going through these motions.

Once I get there, I may start talking to them about surgical options.

I say I don't want it. I want nothing to do with surgery. Even a 1% chance of DEATH just because I'm so fucking desperate to be thin sounds like ridiculous odds. 99% I'll be able to shop in the 'normal' sizes. 1% I'll just be dead. How is that even an OPTION? Fat or thin or dead? Two-thirds of those are undesirable.

I don't NEED the weight loss program. I know nutrition. I know exercise. I know muscle memory and that my body will eventually get used to workouts if I don't change up the activity/frequency/intensity. I know that finding some way to deal with emotion other than shoving food down my throat is a necessary evil skill. I know WHY whole wheat pasta is better than processed.

I KNOW IT ALL.

I don't need an education about weight loss.

I need an intervention. And a therapist.

I need a prescription for independence and my own apartment.

The surgery wouldn't fix my head. I can see myself being one of those people who just eats and eats and eats after going under the knife. I would stretch my stomach back out to its current mammoth proportions and regain anything I had lost.

As long as I am here, under the thumb of parental control, I will be fat.

I have decided that, unless the bank ponies up with promotions and/or raises fairly quickly, my savings account is being built up for the sole purpose of moving back to Japan. Interac would hire me. I want to make sure I have enough money to buy my ticket, pay my key money, and live for two months before that first blasted paycheck, without having to ask anyone for anything in the process.

Barring astronomical advances in my banking career, look for me in Japan, March 2012.

60

I went to a dietician when I was in high school. I think I've told this tale before. I hated her. But, I do remember that she told me in her reviews of my charts, I'd steadily gained an average of 10-pounds/year for several years to hit my 300-ish weight when I was 15 or 16. She said, "That doesn't sound so bad, does it?" I shook my head no, and was a little proud because, hey, at least it wasn't 20, right? "Well," she added, "If this trend continues, you'll weigh 400-pounds by the time you're 25."

Oh, well, fuck you, too, lady.

Fortunately, it did not continue (no thanks to my dietician, though). I actually did gain about 30 more pounds in high school. I graduated somewhere in the 330s. Girls from my high school graduate in white gowns. I looked like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Grad. Seriously, you should see the photos.

At any rate, in college I hovered between 290-300-pounds, depending on the day/year/finals schedule. I moved back home and was well into the 300s again before I left for Japan. In six years abroad, I managed to dip as low as 283-pounds when I was 28, a number I hadn't seen in more than a decade. I called that a 40-pound loss and was so motivated to continue, nothing could go wrong.

And then I lost my job and moved home again. The scale this morning? Around 343-pounds. I have gained approximately 60-pounds in eight months in this country.

I have been bored, depressed, angry, grieving, exhausted, and any number of emotional messes that can totally screw over an emotional eater trying desperately not to shove fistfuls of Tastycakes down her throat.

I chose not to articulate any particular resolutions for 2011. Why bother? The rest have always failed. In fact, I chose not to be awake when 2011 showed its (thus far ugly) face.

However, the fact remains that I will turn 30 in less than two months. I weigh more now than I ever have in my recorded weight history. I want to get better, but being healthy in my house is as effective as nailing Jell-O to a tree.

Still, I'll keep trying. Never mind the bloomin' onion from Outback last night, the sundaes from the night before, or the impending doom of a Domino's delivery tonight. Yeah, never mind that.

Outside Looking In

I think you are worrying too much about your weight and thats maybe why you dont lose much weight :)
chubby girls can be beautiful also...just as thin girls
relax about it and eat normal, whenever you are hungry...

That's a comment made on another journal I keep. More private, friends only. The girl is young, German... thin. The comment is in response to a meme where one question was "One word to describe you" and I answered "Fat." I didn't necessarily answer that question on that day because I was feeling down and out about my butt. I would answer that question that way (on the internet) most days, simply because it's true. It's what people would remember. It's what they would say if I went missing and they had to describe me to the police. It is, for better or worse, one of my most defining features.

However, the comment got me to thinking (as comments usually do). Is that what skinny people think? That to "relax" and "eat normal, whenever you are hungry" is the cure for obesity?

For some, perhaps. Not for me.

There's a whole lot more to this mess than someone who doesn't have to deal with it could ever know.

How's this for you?

I have an eating disorder. If the first step is admitting you have a problem, there, I've just done it. *crickets* What? Oh, I get it. Girls with eating disorders are thin. Right. I see the problem here.

Your average person knows about anorexia, bulimia... in fact, your average person probably knows someone who has or had one of those disorders. The thing is, I would wager that more people know someone with Binge Eating Disorder. It's quite likely that you do. Hey, many of you know me.

I am self-diagnosed with this disorder. As mentioned in the article, most doctors don't or won't ask about the related symptoms. Not to mention, "Because it is not a recognized psychiatric disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it is difficult to obtain insurance reimbursement for treatments." Super, yes?

Since coming back to the states, I've recognized all ten of the example symptoms listed on that site.

From the outside looking in, you see a fat chick... who doesn't seem to eat that much more than your average 'normal' person. You can't see her dropping $5 into the office snack box and eating a few packs of cookies on her break after everyone else has cleared out of the lounge. You can't see her ordering delivery on a day she packed her lunch... and then eating both. As with most things, you can't see what goes into making something - merely the result.

What's one word that describes you? Fat.

Losing the battles, losing the war

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, more discouraging than being at a dinner table with people 1/2 or 1/3 your size who insist on turning down every piece of bread or chocolate offered to them. People who order salad and "couldn't possibly" finish it all. People who refuse dessert in the name of that chocolate chip they accidentally ate thinking that it was a poppy seed three weeks ago.

People who are better at being thin than I will EVER be, even in my wildest eating disordered dreams.

For much of my life, I was blissfully unaware that what I was eating was wildly bad for me. I was a fat kid, but generally, I was a happy kid. I was a fat teenager, and all fat teenagers are miserable. It's a universal truth. But, I was unhappy mostly because 99% of my peers were assholes who didn't have a drop of the milk of human kindness in their veins - as most fat teens' peers are.

I knew a little bit about diets and weight loss. I knew that when I went on the "Three Day Diet" with my parents when I was in high school, I lost weight. People lose weight when they only eat 500-900 calories a day 50% of the time (or more if you cheated and made it a Six Day Diet because you were that desperate). I also knew that I started passing out at the drop of a hat on that eating plan (I've passed out three times in my life - all three when I was eating an apple and some cheese for breakfast or a hot dog and some broccoli for dinner and not much else).

I knew that my friend who was born with diabetes was thin as a rail and always had been, and I envied her the disease. If I knew that M&Ms or Skittles or mini Snickers bars by the handful would probably kill me, I'd probably be thin, too. Can you imagine? I spent days as early as elementary school wishing that I had a genetic disease to help keep me thin, whether it could kill me or not. And I scoff at the reports of surveys of people saying that they'd rather lose a limb than be 20-pounds overweight. They'd rather be dead than full-on obese. "How ridiculously shallow can people be?!" I cry! I was one of them. When I was 10.

I knew that almost every boy I'd ever had a crush on had laughed at me. To my face. The ones who hadn't chose simply to ignore my existence, whether we'd been great friends before or not.

In college, I drank Slim Fast. I drank it religiously, until one morning my "breakfast" came gushing out into the sink when I brushed my teeth a little too vigorously. You never want to re-visit cappuccino-flavored protein shake from a can. Never ever.

In college, I gained confidence. I had a large circle of friends, most of whom were very trustworthy and awesome people. I had a boyfriend for a while (the first and only). I cut off my disgustingly long hair, which had been in a perpetual ponytail since elementary school. I started wearing t-shirts that let a little of my arm flab show. Hell, I started to wear tank tops.

In college, I went on Atkins. I was militant about keeping my life virtually carb-free. Until I stalled out on weight loss and then I wasn't. The idea of bacon and eggs everyday loses its luster when the scale mocks your efforts. Where's my damn Cap'n Crunch? Give me a @#$*ing BAGEL. And the weight came pouring back.

But the confidence never really left. I worked in an office for a year, brazenly confident in my work clothes (some of which I look at now and wonder what the hell I was thinking).

I went to Japan and was assaulted, daily, by swizzle sticks with nervous systems. Pixie sticks with false eyelashes. Twigs with strappy shoes and matchstick calves. Once I could understand enough of the language, I realized what many of them were saying about me and my confidence was shattered. No one could withstand six years of emotional and verbal abuse, could they? That kind of direct, unceasing onslaught would be enough for a wave to wear down a cliff to a mere rocky outcropping. I spent summers sweating to death in 3/4-sleeve black shirts that I could pretend hid the sweat and the fat and minimized the visual damage done by rolls in places no person in Japan is supposed to have rolls outside of a sumo ring.

I went to Japan and missed the United States' foodie movement in progress. I tried to keep up with it via books - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, The Ominvore's Dilemma, Food Matters, Harvest for Hope, Good Calories, Bad Calories... I devoured them as if they were the literary equivalent of the neverending pasta bowl at Olive Garden. OM NOM NOM KNOWLEDGE.

I watched PETA's infamous slaughterhouse hidden camera videos. I watched Supersize Me, Food, Inc., King Corn.

Basically, I found out that pretty much everything I'd ever eaten was bad for me. I had dreams of being the wife of a farmer like the Polyface Farms dude.

I seriously flirted with vegetarianism in Japan, but never committed because it's simply too much of a chore there. People don't understand it (and they don't want to), and they are not accommodating of alternative lifestyles.

I had high hopes of returning to the states, being able to read ingredient and nutrition labels with ease (in English!), having access to gyms and yoga classes and aerobics instructors because I had a car, totally rearranging (and improving!) my parents' lives through the auspices of perfect nutrition, the complete absence of HFCS and artificial sweeteners, and organic produce...

And then I actually got here and realized that my pipe dream rusted away the moment I set foot in this house again. I am dealing with two very stubborn and unadventurous eaters, one of whom mocks my food (and therefore my [praised by everyone else I know] cooking abilities) every chance he gets. In public. To our friends and relatives. Ain't that a confidence booster?

However, when I leave this house, I can do so fairly secure in the fact that a) I will not be the fattest person someone encounters over the course of their day (which was a given when I was in Japan) and b) I carry my weight well and look better than most who are my size (one small genetic blessing). It gives me a false sense of comfort. Complacency. It gives me permission to have a Tastycake (or a whole box) when I feel like shit about myself or my life, because, hey, it ain't as bad as that chick who has to ride the Hoveround at Wal-Mart because she's wider than she is tall. And then I feel a little better.

But then, a handful of times, I have gone out to eat with a group and there's that one person - that one skinny person - who is completely capable of making me feel like shit again.

It's irrational to hate that person. Just like it's irrational to hate the person that the usurping company placed at my former job in Japan. It isn't her fault, it's her company's fault. But I still hate her. Maybe it isn't the skinny person's fault that they're skinny.

Maybe it's genetics or maybe she really did have to work very hard at being thin for a long time. Maybe she actually deserves to be skinny. Maybe she threw in the towel a year ago, had half of her intestine removed and her innards sewn up into a tablespoon-sized pouch formerly called stomach and can't eat more than the molecules she can manage inhale while boiling salt water (in which case I DO hate her; cheater). Regardless of how she got thin, it seems as though she is shoving the issue in my fat face when she can't even stoop to putting one hand into the bread basket in the name of dinnertime fellowship and camaraderie.

Was I the only person who felt that way at dinner? (There were six of us, and five of us were fat.) Probably. I find that I am acutely aware of other people's stares, whispered words, muffled laughs, and the flick of disapproving eyes glancing at what's on my plate. Much more than most. But there it is.

This post meanders... but it covers a lot of things that have been floating around in my brain for a while. So far as the title goes... well, it's how things are going right now. I had a pretty good day today... until it wasn't. And that's how most of my days have been going. A new development (a full time job, YAY!!) should help to get things back on track for me, though.

I've realized that I've been wasting a lot of my time caring about people who don't care about themselves, and I simply don't have enough of myself to give to them AND still have some for me (which is why I know I will never have children. EVER.), and this has been screwing me over. So, I need to be done with that. I need to stop trying to satisfy other people and live to satisfy myself. That is how I succeeded before, and that's the only way it will happen again.

It's a hard lesson to learn, but harder on them than on me, I think.

HUGE

Ok, yes, I feel huge, but that's not really what I'm getting at.

It's been 2.5-months since I last posted. With a post titled "Day 1." That would make today Day 75... or somewhere thereabouts.

It's not. If anything, it's some negative number. Day -20... or something. Because I've been moving decidedly backwards. I've hovered in very familiar territory over the past 75 days... Let's call it the Triple Crown (Triple Crown... ha... where's my jockey?), because it's composed of three 100s. Yes, dear readers, I've made nice with the 300-club again. I've been volleying between 300-320 for 10-weeks. No joke. I wouldn't joke about that. I remember certain optimism from early 2010, absolutely certain that I would never hit 300 again. My bad.

I am still unemployed. The number of resumes/applications I have sent off into the void for consideration is hovering nearer and nearer a triple digit. Flat-out rejections number in the teens, I suppose. I've been on three interviews, two of which rejected me and one never sent out anything even resembling a response (a Catholic school... way to be responsible, folks).

A lack of purpose and/or direction in my professional life makes it intensely difficult to maintain purpose and/or direction in my personal life. I imagine it's the same for many folks. The "why bother?" attitude permeates everything. I've stopped applying to positions that I see as a 'reach' for my skills and experiences, because writing cover letters is time-consuming and I'd rather spend that 10-minutes stuffing as many granola bars down my throat as humanly possible. And, frankly, it's the more rewarding activity of the two. The granola bars make me feel like a million bucks for the two minutes the chocolate lingers on my taste buds. The cover letters are 8.5x11 sheets of endlessly repetitive despair that lead to infinite depression in the case of the non-response, and a moment of acute pain (followed by bingeing) when a rejection letter actually comes.

I've been thinking about coming back to this blog for a while, now. I hate being that fat blogger who disappears for a while, then comes back with her tail between her legs, a hang-dog look, and 20 more pounds on her ass than when she last visited. It's like I fear that the Internet is going to smack my nose with a rolled up newspaper.

So, even though I hate being that blogger, here I am. I actually started this post with the intention of writing about TV. Television was my only respite from the place where I live when I was a kid/teen/young adult... and it is very much becoming so again. Of course, I am a fan of The Biggest Loser and Losing It With Jillian and the like... I've even given Dance Your Ass Off more than a passing glance (I'm not proud). But, the recent influx of fat-people-are-people-too! shows like Drop Dead Diva and HUGE are quite high on my list of escapist love.

HUGE is especially fantastic. Things I like:

- The fat kids at fat camp are ACTUALLY fat. Not like those 195-pound 8th-graders who used to go on the Oprah show bawling about how awful it was being SO FAT as a teenager. Then, Oprah would feel so bad for them that they got free tickets from the richest woman in the country to go to fat camp and get un-fat. I used to scream at the TV, "SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU AREN'T FAT!!!!" The HUGE kids... they really are. I wanted to go to fat camp, but we didn't even have enough money for me to get a basketball hoop; I tried to raise the most money in some charity event to win one and wound up coming in second. To a chiropractor. Who could've afforded to buy his own damn hoop. Asshole.

- Nicky Blonsky (the lead, the chick from Hairspray) is fat like me, which you almost never, EVER see on TV. Everyone else is that apple with toothpicks kind of fat that I've always envied (arms and legs skinny enough not to be ashamed of them... just a big belly and/or butt). No one realizes the benefits of skinny wrists and ankles, unless you don't have them.

- The skinny preppy kids at the neighboring tennis camp are ACTUALLY assholes. They didn't run into the fat kids frolicking around the borders of the two camps and suddenly have epiphanies that, hey, they may be fat, but look how awesome and funny they are! Let's be friends! Hell, no. They were cruel and vile and awful and I suspect they will continue to be. As they should.

- The portrayal of the ups and downs of being a fat teen, even one who is in a 'safe' environment surrounded by nothing but other fat teens, is spot on. The writers deserve major props for that. It's not easy to put that much truth and honesty and real-life-ness into a show and have it still be valid as entertainment.

All that being said, I highly recommend HUGE to those of you who get the ABC Family channel.

Meanwhile, I'll be over here, arguing with myself about the merits of going to Zumba on a day when I've eaten crap which will only cause side stitches and cramps.

Day... 1?

It's not day one.

Not by a long shot. But anyway... my friend has said that maybe I should think about tracking what's going on in this house as I re-integrate into America, job search, try to rehabilitate my parents off of the fast and frozen food life... (as a means to a memoir later on)... and menu records are one way to do that.

Don't worry, I don't plan to turn this into one of those macro-photos-of-everything-I-eat-all-day blogs. ;->

Breakfast:
2 cups Cheerios
1 cup skim milk
1 packet Splenda
1 piece Arnold Health Nut bread
13g JIF peanut butter
1 banana

Snack:
2 (large) mugs coffee
1/2 cup whole milk between the two
2 packets Splenda

Lunch:
2 sandwiches (using Thomas' mini pita pockets, thin-slice deli turkey & ham, Swiss cheese, brown mustard)
Large salad (mixed spring greens, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes)
2 Tbsp Raspberry vinaigrette with poppyseeds

Snack:
Handful of raw almonds
1 piece of Lindt 70% cocoa chocolate
1 string cheese

Dinner:
Oatmeal chicken
Mashed potatoes (instant - still clearing out the cupboard stocks) w/ instant chicken gravy
1 cup Broccoli
2 cups canned peaches in juice

Snack:
1/3 bag Butter Lover's popcorn (again, clearing out the stocks... will switch to natural stuff later!)
Celestial Seasoning's Sleepytime tea


Exercise:
50 minutes Zumba


I've moved the good digital scale into the bathroom, finally, so I'll work on posting my weight tomorrow. I'll measure on the weekend. :)

New Name, New Goals

Fat and Back Again... Wanderlust and Weight

I have been home for almost three weeks exactly. That dubious anniversary comes tomorrow, actually.

Things have been a bit of a mess. I won't lie. Living with others is something that I am simply not used to anymore (nor ever wanted to be again). Living with people forces you to be at least somewhat dependent on house-mates (relatives or not) for at least some support and cooperation.

While my house-mates (my parents) have been trying, much of it is with false gusto, forced smiles, and unhappy stomachs. I am dealing with VERY American palettes (too much sugar, too much salt, too much flavor/sauce/etc. on everything) which are unwilling to try new things. Hands reach for salt shakers or sweetener packets before even tasting what's in front of them. I have to resist the urge to smack them away. After all, I am not the parent.

One of the first things I bought when I got home was a lovely bag of organic quinoa, excited to have easy access to this superfood ingredient that I couldn't get in Japan. I haven't made it yet. I'm terrified to. If I have a slightly off result (as I did with the cous cous I made, because it had to sit on the stove in the pot for 20-minutes before we ate it), they'll never touch it again. I love it and I don't want that to happen... but I don't have enough experience with it to know for sure that I won't have a recipe failure.

Successes so far:

- Adding oatmeal to the weekly breakfast menu 2-3 times/week

- Reducing household restaurant/pre-fab meals to less than 3-4 times/week

- Integrating fruit and vegetables and other natural-type things into snack time

Failures:

NUMEROUS

Stay tuned.

I hope to start posting meal plans/menus here... and I hope you'll keep following my struggles back in the land of the large.

6 Weeks

How much can change in six weeks, I wonder?

Weight, that's for sure.

Job, definitely.

The continent you live on... apparently.

I last posted on March 9th. Since then, I lost my job, dove head first into the binge of the century, packed and cleaned and flew back to the US, and here I am.

A quick trip to the bathroom scale (after peeing, of course) tells me that I'm weighing exactly 300-pounds at the moment. Unsurprising after the month that I've had.

I'm not upset about that number - definitely not surprised. But, I am ready to go at this thing 100% again.

Pharmaceuticals

Way back at the beginning of this blog (wow, June 2009, how are you?), I made a pretentiously intelligent-sounding post titled "Food vs. Ph00d," wherein I more or less lay blame on chemically processed crap masquerading as food for making (and keeping) me fat.

I still believe that's the case, sure, but now there's supporting evidence regarding the whole mess.

Still, it hadn't occurred to me that my pithy respelling of the word food would one day strike me with another meaning.

Food as pharmaceutical. Phood.

See, there's a lot of stress involved in living in a foreign country. Even when one has lived in said foreign country for damn near six years. Regardless of how homey you make your home, it is not home. In fact, foreign-country-home and home-country-home have their own idioms when one is using English and living in a foreign country. When you go back to your foreign-country-home from work everyday, you "go home." When you go back to your home-country-home for the holidays, you "go home home."

Ex.

A: "Are you going home for the summer holiday?"

B: "Home home?"

A: "Yeah."

B: "Nah, I'm just going to relax at home here. I need some down time."

Ya dig?

To deal with the stress of being "home" (vs. home home!) takes a certain level of finesse and some fine tuned coping skills that many people have in various forms. These include, but are not limited to:

• creative outlets (crafting, art, writing, etc.)
• exercise
• pharmaceuticals (Paxil! Xanax! Prozac! oh, my!)
• eating

Guess which one is my default? I wish it were any of the other three, but it's really not. It's food.

Food is my witch doctor, my shaman, my general practitioner, my babysitter, my therapist... hell, most of the time, it's my best. damn. friend.

Until it takes up residency in my ass. And thighs. And, more recently, stomach.

I need to oust the FDA in my brain (that's Food-as-Drug Administration). It's hard, though, since I already know all of the prescriptions so well. I guess it's kind of like changing careers in your 50s. It can be done, it has been done, but not without a butt-load of time, effort, and probably more than a few tantrums.

Problem 1: Get excited over scale success! Try on goal clothes "just to see." Goal clothes make me look like a stack of old tires forced into polyester tubing.

Solution: Take a therapeutic walk in awesome clothes that do fit, determined to keep going until the even awesomer goal clothes fit. Wind up at the grocery store buying everything that's on sale in the snack aisle, whether I like it or not, and pray that there's fried chicken on sale. Eat until I'm sick, though I don't really know why or consciously understand what happened. Wake up for school, determined to make it a better day.

New Solution: ??????

Problem 2: Students decide today is a good day to compare my arm circumference to their thighs. Or, God forbid, my thigh (that's singular - one thigh) to their waists. (Japan was a much nicer place when I didn't understand the language.)

Solution: Take 4 slabs of pizza toast and a box of chocolate chip cookies and call them all bastards in the morning, when I wake up with a sugar hangover of epic proportions.

New Solution: ??????

Problem 3: Wake up in the morning, decide I look 6-inches shorter and 3-feet wider than usual (thanks, kids!), even though the scale shows absolutely no change.

Solution: Prescribe "Why bother? It makes no difference..." dinner of 1 bag of granola (not 1 bowl, 1 bag) and pass out in carb-sugar stupor, oversleeping tomorrow's alarm(s).

New Solution: ??????

Ok, so, clearly we have a pattern here. I am aware of it.

I am working to find new ways to expend this stressful energy when it builds up. I have an exercise bike in my room that I have used maybe a dozen times since I came to Japan (in 2004), which is abominable. There is no reason for me NOT to be on that thing five days a week, if not everyday.

For now, my solution is to clean. It may be snowing like a bitch outside at the moment, but spring is coming, and I am clinging to that fact with claws digging in and knuckles white.

So, I clean. In anticipation of spring, of warmer weather, of sunny days where I can hang my laundry outside and open my windows.

F-U, mid-March snowstorm. You ain't getting Debu-chan down.

Webcam

"Keel-ee calleya ku kah!" (You disappoint me!)

Oh, yeah... definitely time to get a move on.

I should take a photo of my garbage pile after a binge night. Hell, I could probably turn photos of that crap into some modern art exhibit.

Hmm... points to ponder.

Points to ponder while I try to pedal myself to Tatooine on my exercise bike, that is.

1/3

I've decided that I am facing a 1/3-life crisis.

Why should middle-agers (mid-) and college grads (1/4-) get to have all the fun?

Here's the score card that I have to look back on as I embark on this last year of my 20s.


+ I have visited 14 countries.

+ I have had a steady job for seven years and spent no more than one month unemployed after my college graduation in 2003.

+ I own a car and have an impeccable credit score that will help me get anything I want or need when I go back to America.

+ I've lost, and maintained a loss of 40-50 pounds since I graduated from high school 11 years ago.



- I have had one relationship (when I was 19) and have absolutely no prospects right now (and don't even know if I want a husband).

- I have had no children (but that's ok, since I don't want any... this is a negative because it's a societal negative from the standpoint of my age).

- I have not been able to wear clothes from the regular women's department since about 6th grade and appear to be no closer to that goal than I was in my college days.

- I've watched countless opportunities pass me by, either because I was overlooked due to my weight or because I held myself back, fearing that my weight would make it embarrassing or even impossible to do something.


I don't know how to compare those lists. Are they balanced? Does one clearly outrank the other? I simply don't know.

Still, this blog isn't about my existential crisis as I approach 30. It's about the exponential crisis of my ass as I approach an accepted metabolic threshold that I would rather not have to overcome weighing my current 290-pounds(-ish).

Even though there is snow in the forecast for my part of Japan next week, spring is on the approach and I can't help but harbor some faint hope that it will mean rebirth for more than just the flowers. I know that this won't happen without work - and fucking hard work at that (see previous entry for wagon analogy) - but the return of warmer weather might make it a little easier to urge my bones and muscles and brain into doing what needs to be done.

Namely, pushing one huge-ass wagon up one huge-ass hill.