LJ Idol Season 8 Week 16 - 'Cause We Love Our Love in Different Sizes

[walkertxkitty]

o/` "If he's extra large well I'm in charge
I can work this thing on top
If he's XXL well what the hell
Every penny don't fit the slot

The anorexic chicks, the model 6
They don't hold no weight with me
Well 8 or 9, well that's just fine
But I like to hold something I can see o/`

-- Perfect 10 performed by The Beautiful South

"Kindness is the

Comments

[tayryn]

"Try it my way for a bit, Kitty, and see what happens. I don't care about your size, I just want you to be as healthy as possible and happy about yourself."

for this alone... i love Dee!!

I'm re-inventing myself to be healthy at the size I am, no matter what that size may be.

good for you!! THAT is the best damn attitude to have!!

i've NEVER been tiny. i don't ever want to be tiny. i am six foot with a large frame... tiny would just look sick on me.

yes, i am doing Weight Watchers. yes, it is working for me. but it's not a diet. it's teaching me to eat healthier (or at least it's trying! *G*), to try for a healthier lifestyle.

so, i do understand the weight battle. i've been fighting it most of life as well...

I'm re-inventing myself to be healthy at the size I am, no matter what that size may be.again... THIS

[walkertxkitty]

He's been very good to me. He understands what happened, perhaps better than I do since the job he does involves thinking so much about human motivation and the damage early patterns can cause, but he does get angry and frustrated. Not always helpful

[roina_arwen]

This is awesome. It's sad that your parents treated you so badly growing up that they ruined food for you.

I've always been overweight for the most part, and also tried different diets - and even two summers at weight loss camps - but never succeeded in losing very much or keeping it off for very long, so this resonated with me. I'm glad you've got Dee around to help heal your food issues. *Hugs*

[walkertxkitty]

If my father had lived (he died of a congenital heart defect having nothing to do with heart disease as the doctors know it) it wold have been a different story. My mother went kind of nuts after he died and my grandmother didn't help. All they heard was that he died of heart disease, not that it was a birth defect.

I got sent to weight loss camps and clinics every year. It sucked because when I didn't lose weight,. they still said I was cheating. One of those camps, they put us all in sweat suits and had us run up and down, around a set of stairs, until we were throwing up from dehydration.

Now I just want to eat well. I still tend to count the calories and restrict them, which I shouldn't be doing at this point since there's so little I can actually eat without getting sick, but we're working at it. Sometimes now I even enjoy my food.

[roina_arwen]

I'm glad you're finally learning to enjoy food - I find I enjoy it far too much for my own good, LOL.

Did the doctors ever figure out why you were never able to lose weight? Is it just a slow metabolism, or something else? I would imagine that so many years on such a rigid, low-calorie diet wrecked havoc on your system, because the body wants to then hold on to every microgram of fat!

[walkertxkitty]

I had bacterial meningitis when I was eight years old and it nearly destroyed the hypothalamus. On MRI and PET scans the area shows activity only in the blue or green, which means it doesn't work much at all.

Since this area of the brain is responsible for all the other organs tied into metabolism and the source of several crucial hormones which regulate weight, my food doesn't get used properly. Even with medical advances they still can't replace enough function to give me a truly working metabolism. The hormones, medications, and supplements only poorly approximate what a metabolism should be doing, enough do that I can keep living.

That means that every ounce of energy gets stored as fat and then badly used if it is used at all. Extreme dieting like that definitely didn't help.

My weight, heavy as I am, is stable now. The goal is to keep it that way and to keep those blood work indicators normal.

[whipchick]

So much healthier to listen to your body - smart! And great that you have such a loving support system around you.

[walkertxkitty]

I honestly thought the moment I started doing that it would tell me to go find a gallon of ice cream or doughnuts...but no, I 'pigged out' on fresh fruits, on salads, on lentil dishes. I've found that I don't really want many sugars and I don't have much tolerance for them. I've also found that when I do want tea or soda, it's much better to have the full octane stuff than to play with it. Turns out most artificial sweeteners really mess with whatever is wrong with my guts.

And I am really, really lucky to have a man who takes the time to watch over me. I know the food games are tedious and that at my age I shouldn't have to be watched for playing with my food but...I can't break that habit yet so it helps to have someone there who won't let it happen in the first place.