Body By Lie
So I have a "friend" from college (quotation marks are immature, but I don't know of any other way to note that while I considered her a friend in college, I have different views of friendship now and I realize how unhealthy our friendship was in many ways) who has been on a diet for the entire time I've known her (since 1999). It's been a different diet, but she's always said she was fat, needed to lose weight, needed to slim down, whatever, and she's always talked about food in terms of what is "good" or "bad" and she'd drive me to Taco Bell late at night and we'd eat and then she'd chastise herself and refuse to eat lunch the next day. that kind of thing. She's always had an unhealthy relationship with food, is what I'm saying. She graduated from Ferris in 2001 and moved to Grand Rapids Michigan and then freaked out about being so far from home, had her parents buy out her lease, and moved back home. She and I lost touch. We reconnected three years ago on Facebook, and it's been "interesting" ever since (there's those quotes again...she used to send me bible verses that I "needed to read" because she saw me "struggling with my identity" when I came out, and she'd send me things like Proverbs 3: 5-6 which says not to lean on your own understanding and to acknowledge God in all your ways and he will make your paths straight, which is hilarious to me, because it's assuming that my coming out is "turning away from God" when it reality it was when I came back to God and started acknowledging him and seeking to find what he was REALLY saying that I began to EMBRACE being gay as part of my identity that I'd always run from, but I digress...she's always made a lot of assumptions that what she was always taught was the "truth" (TM) and I needed to follow that, even though me diverging from the "truth" (TM) is what really set me free, but whatever). So we have a fun friendship full of being passive aggressive and not saying what we really mean, is what I'm saying.
Anyway, she got involved with "Body by Vi" a few years ago, which is Visalus "nutrition" for those who don't know, and basically it's a weight loss program where you drink a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and then eat a "sensible" dinner (kinda like Slim Fast, but the Body by Vi people abhor that comparison because it's supposed to be a new and revolutionary idea now that they came up with it). The shakes have a good amount of protein, but they taste like chalk, and I can't drink them because I'm allergic to the artificial sweeteners they use to replace sugar. I've had this conversation with Angie, because she tried to get me to try the Body by Vi program, and she says it's just an excuse for me not to try the shakes (yes, not getting migraines and puking my guts up all day every day is a pretty good "excuse," I think). Visalus doesn't just promise to revitalize your body, it's a program where participants make money by selling the shakes to others, so it's a pyramid scam source of income that promises its participants will make tons of money by passing it on to others.
I can't deny that Angie is happy on the program now, and she's lost a lot of weight, and she runs in marathons and such (but she ignores the fact that I used to run and I used to play Rugby in college and I was "fat" back then, while she didn't play sports or do anything active, so she sees "fat" as the problem and has always called me unhealthy even when I was far more active and healthy than she was when I was still fat). I quit running and playing sports because my arthritis got to be too painful, and I gained more weight after that, but I was still "fat" back when I was healthy and active, so her view of the situation is totally skewed, just don't try telling her that. And I'm not knocking whatever she does to make herself happy. If she wants to drink shakes to replace meals and say they're delicious, she can go right ahead, and more power to her. My problem is that she's spreading this false equivalence of her "diet" as healthy and mine as unhealthy when I have to balance how much protein and how many carbohydrates I eat and avoid many foods just to manage my level of pain (which would still be unbearable for a lot of people) and I am still very active and drinking more water than the stupid Visalus diet recommends (I have to drink at least a gallon a day or the pain in my joints and gut gets really bad) while she's flitting around, drinking two shakes a day with ingredients that would incapacitate me, drinking maybe 32 ounces of water a day, tops. My point isn't that there's anything WRONG with Angie's diet, my point is that "healthy" for one person might not be "healthy" for another. She doesn't have to drink as much water as I do because she doesn't have arthritis and acid reflux and kidney stones. She can consume Splenda without winding up in the bathroom puking all day. Ok, fine, that's great for her, but I can't follow her diet because my health concerns are DIFFERENT and I have discovered this through trial and error. This isn't "an excuse." This is my LIFE.
So I put up with a lot of her postings and I've never started a fight on her status or even disagreed with her, and usually I can ignore it without it bothering me too much, but today she posted this gem in her status:
"For the first time in the history of our nation, some medical experts warn that this younger generation may be on track to have a shorter life span than their parents as a direct result of the obesity epidemic. When are we going to stop killing our kids! It starts with us demonstrating to our children healthy habits!"
Leaving aside the factual errors I suspect in this sentence (this "nation" has always had a lifespan in flux due to factors other than obesity, such as people not fucking having access to food period, and having to work 80 hours a week until they worked themselves into an early grave) but the "healthy habits" part of this sentence makes me shake with rage. Healthy habits? HEALTHY HABITS? You eat a primarily LIQUID diet! You drink a fucking SHAKE for breakfast and lunch and then eat dinner. You want to feed your kids weight loss shakes? Is that a healthy habit? Plus people aren't "killing" their kids if they can't AFFORD "better" food and it's a choice between this less "healthy" meal or not eating at all. This kind of shit pisses me off so much. She's never had to worry about money. Her parents aren't rich, but they're set for life (which is "rich" as far as I'm concerned) and if she ever needed financial help, they would bail her out. she's never had to live paycheck to paycheck, she can afford the expensive Visalus plan that costs more weekly than my food budget for the entire month, and she dares to look down and judge people for the hard choices they make that she has never had to make? She posted this lovely picture too, and a lot of my other friends have been passing it down:
Yeah, way to go, comparing people to animals, first of all, to dehumanize poor people and compare them to wild animals looking for a handout. Do I receive food stamps? Yes. I also WORK as much as my condition will allow, and I pay taxes into this system too, and I deserve to get some of that back. Am I dependent on that "handout" money (which is not a handout because I fucking work for it)? To an extent, but if it weren't there, I would find a way to get by without it, though it would be a struggle. I love the picture here that poor people who get food stamps are "becoming dependent on handouts" instead of looking for the other money that is apparently there, right under their stupid noses, they just don't want to work for it. BULLSHIT. I'm glad the people who can afford to make these kind of judgmental posts don't have my pain, and my level of hospital bills they can't pay that make me cry myself to sleep at night, and aren't sitting here hungry because they're afraid to eat because the food stamps don't come for another week and they don't want to run out of food, and they can barely walk across the parking lot or climb stairs because the pain in their joints makes them cry and keeps them from sleeping, but they have to drag themselves to work because without that job they would be living in a dumpster because they don't have parents to bail them out when they need help, and they have no money to go to the doctor and even find out what's wrong let alone get treatment to help the pain, and they can't afford to spend $600 a month just to buy shakes that cover two of their required meals a day for one person (forget the other people in the household) so they're "fat" because they must be "lazy" even though they put in more work and harder work in a week than these judgmental people do in a MONTH. Ugh. I know that people do scam the system, and that pisses me off too, but that doesn't give me the right to make pissy little judgmental posts like this with blanket statements that cast an entire class of people as lazy. But I just don't "get it," right? Right, because I'm fat and lazy and it's all my fault.
God I want to start some Facebook drama. But I won't. so I'm venting here (lucky you, my faithful readers).
Anyway, she got involved with "Body by Vi" a few years ago, which is Visalus "nutrition" for those who don't know, and basically it's a weight loss program where you drink a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and then eat a "sensible" dinner (kinda like Slim Fast, but the Body by Vi people abhor that comparison because it's supposed to be a new and revolutionary idea now that they came up with it). The shakes have a good amount of protein, but they taste like chalk, and I can't drink them because I'm allergic to the artificial sweeteners they use to replace sugar. I've had this conversation with Angie, because she tried to get me to try the Body by Vi program, and she says it's just an excuse for me not to try the shakes (yes, not getting migraines and puking my guts up all day every day is a pretty good "excuse," I think). Visalus doesn't just promise to revitalize your body, it's a program where participants make money by selling the shakes to others, so it's a pyramid scam source of income that promises its participants will make tons of money by passing it on to others.
I can't deny that Angie is happy on the program now, and she's lost a lot of weight, and she runs in marathons and such (but she ignores the fact that I used to run and I used to play Rugby in college and I was "fat" back then, while she didn't play sports or do anything active, so she sees "fat" as the problem and has always called me unhealthy even when I was far more active and healthy than she was when I was still fat). I quit running and playing sports because my arthritis got to be too painful, and I gained more weight after that, but I was still "fat" back when I was healthy and active, so her view of the situation is totally skewed, just don't try telling her that. And I'm not knocking whatever she does to make herself happy. If she wants to drink shakes to replace meals and say they're delicious, she can go right ahead, and more power to her. My problem is that she's spreading this false equivalence of her "diet" as healthy and mine as unhealthy when I have to balance how much protein and how many carbohydrates I eat and avoid many foods just to manage my level of pain (which would still be unbearable for a lot of people) and I am still very active and drinking more water than the stupid Visalus diet recommends (I have to drink at least a gallon a day or the pain in my joints and gut gets really bad) while she's flitting around, drinking two shakes a day with ingredients that would incapacitate me, drinking maybe 32 ounces of water a day, tops. My point isn't that there's anything WRONG with Angie's diet, my point is that "healthy" for one person might not be "healthy" for another. She doesn't have to drink as much water as I do because she doesn't have arthritis and acid reflux and kidney stones. She can consume Splenda without winding up in the bathroom puking all day. Ok, fine, that's great for her, but I can't follow her diet because my health concerns are DIFFERENT and I have discovered this through trial and error. This isn't "an excuse." This is my LIFE.
So I put up with a lot of her postings and I've never started a fight on her status or even disagreed with her, and usually I can ignore it without it bothering me too much, but today she posted this gem in her status:
"For the first time in the history of our nation, some medical experts warn that this younger generation may be on track to have a shorter life span than their parents as a direct result of the obesity epidemic. When are we going to stop killing our kids! It starts with us demonstrating to our children healthy habits!"
Leaving aside the factual errors I suspect in this sentence (this "nation" has always had a lifespan in flux due to factors other than obesity, such as people not fucking having access to food period, and having to work 80 hours a week until they worked themselves into an early grave) but the "healthy habits" part of this sentence makes me shake with rage. Healthy habits? HEALTHY HABITS? You eat a primarily LIQUID diet! You drink a fucking SHAKE for breakfast and lunch and then eat dinner. You want to feed your kids weight loss shakes? Is that a healthy habit? Plus people aren't "killing" their kids if they can't AFFORD "better" food and it's a choice between this less "healthy" meal or not eating at all. This kind of shit pisses me off so much. She's never had to worry about money. Her parents aren't rich, but they're set for life (which is "rich" as far as I'm concerned) and if she ever needed financial help, they would bail her out. she's never had to live paycheck to paycheck, she can afford the expensive Visalus plan that costs more weekly than my food budget for the entire month, and she dares to look down and judge people for the hard choices they make that she has never had to make? She posted this lovely picture too, and a lot of my other friends have been passing it down:
Yeah, way to go, comparing people to animals, first of all, to dehumanize poor people and compare them to wild animals looking for a handout. Do I receive food stamps? Yes. I also WORK as much as my condition will allow, and I pay taxes into this system too, and I deserve to get some of that back. Am I dependent on that "handout" money (which is not a handout because I fucking work for it)? To an extent, but if it weren't there, I would find a way to get by without it, though it would be a struggle. I love the picture here that poor people who get food stamps are "becoming dependent on handouts" instead of looking for the other money that is apparently there, right under their stupid noses, they just don't want to work for it. BULLSHIT. I'm glad the people who can afford to make these kind of judgmental posts don't have my pain, and my level of hospital bills they can't pay that make me cry myself to sleep at night, and aren't sitting here hungry because they're afraid to eat because the food stamps don't come for another week and they don't want to run out of food, and they can barely walk across the parking lot or climb stairs because the pain in their joints makes them cry and keeps them from sleeping, but they have to drag themselves to work because without that job they would be living in a dumpster because they don't have parents to bail them out when they need help, and they have no money to go to the doctor and even find out what's wrong let alone get treatment to help the pain, and they can't afford to spend $600 a month just to buy shakes that cover two of their required meals a day for one person (forget the other people in the household) so they're "fat" because they must be "lazy" even though they put in more work and harder work in a week than these judgmental people do in a MONTH. Ugh. I know that people do scam the system, and that pisses me off too, but that doesn't give me the right to make pissy little judgmental posts like this with blanket statements that cast an entire class of people as lazy. But I just don't "get it," right? Right, because I'm fat and lazy and it's all my fault.
God I want to start some Facebook drama. But I won't. so I'm venting here (lucky you, my faithful readers).