My Bathroom Scale Sneaked into my Bedroom

My bathroom scale sneaked into my bedroom this month. It now sits in front of my reading chair, like a bizarre ottoman. Sometimes I even rest my feet on it while I read this spy thriller, "At Risk." In order to get to my reading chair I have to step over the scale. Usually, I wind up sitting on my chair, thinking about my weight. I could take about how  weight is another corset for modern women, or how people discriminate against people who are overweight but I will not (at least not right now).

Right now, I would like to devote a little entry to the topic of why I want to lose weight. I want to look like Marilyn Monroe. End of blog, lol.

I still remember that day in the psychiatric facility, three years ago and 25 pounds ago. My social worker was telling me about my axis. Axis 1 is like one diagnosis, Axis 2 is another diagnosis. In medical jargon, it is essentially "things that are horribly wrong with you in a tidy little list." My axis said I was schizo-affective. Then, horribly, he said my other axis was clinical obesity. I knew I was overweight. I was about 184 pounds and only 5 feet, 2 inches, but obese? I thought obese was for women who could only wear mumus and whose arms were the width of my thighs. I know better know, but back then it was a terrible shock. Not only was I crazy, I was fat as well.

Two to three years later I am still schizo-affective. However, I am only clinically overweight now and not obese. I have lost 25 pounds since that initial diagnosis. My weight yesterday was 159 pounds, down from 184, which was not even the "peak" of my weight (my first semester of University I packed on pounds during finals week). I can never go back to not exercising for a minimum of 20 minutes daily, plus one hour walks, or I will gain everything back. I can also never return to eating 2,000 calories or more a day, ever. My body adjusted to getting 1800, then 1600, now 1300 calories a day. To shove in 2,000 calories would probably lead to significant amounts of weight gain. I will just get used to limiting my caloric intake. Cut fast food consumption. Cut what fast food I do eat into halves and eat only half. My staples are no longer home-cooked chicken and sandwiches. Now, my main staples are sauteed zucchini, cucumber sprayed with olive oil and flavored with Splenda packets, plain yogurt with Splenda packets, boiled and sauteed cauliflower with cumin, cayenne, and coriander spices, cereal, oatmeal, and tomato with roasted bell pepper and cheese sandwiches. When I eat fast food I either make sure I have had less than 2,000 calories for the day, or I feel really guilty and decrease my calories for the following day.

Maybe you can tell, I have not eaten breakfast yet, which is why I am rambling on about food. I am planning on having half a packet of instant oatmeal. Only half a packet because I will be baby-sitting my elderly grandmother for half of today, which means no taking hour long walks and doing morning exercise on my stationary bike. Maybe for a snack, a peach. Then for another snack, red-leaf chard lettuce mixed with mandarin oranges and a low calorie spritzer. Then lunch....dreading having to choose something for lunch. Then, a cucumber with olive oil and splenda. I like splenda on my cucumber because it makes the cucumber taste like fruit.

My goal for this summer is to lose 20 pounds. I will likely only lose 5 pounds, but whatever, at least I set a goal for myself. So if you ever stop by this little blog and see like four entries in a row of random meals, listed like some kind of restaurant menu, that is because I am concentrating my energy on losing more weight. 159 is less than 184, but not by that much. I want to reach 139 pounds. No wait, I will reach 139 pounds.

Wasted, Read it!

I read "Wasted" by Marya Hornbacher a while back but I only recently purchased it.

She is at the other end of the spectrum when it comes to food. I tend to cycle between binge eating and excessive dieting while she has struggled with anorexia and bulimia. "Wasted" chronicles her experiences with the two disorders. The book is poignant, interesting, and her style of writing flows freely and easily from her finger tips. She also wrote one on being bipolar that's titled, "Madness: a Memoir." My favorite part is when she is released from a treatment center for a few hours to attend college and she always has to run off quickly before anybody discovers that she's part of an in-patient program.

I empathize with her because I spent a lot of time in psychiatric hospitals for bouts of mania. I never told my teachers that I wasn't just ditching their class for two weeks...I was sick. Instead, I'd just sort of waltz in and take my old seat without so much as a hello. Of course, my grades suffered each time the paramedics would cart me off on a stretcher with leather wrist cuffs, but I guess that's the price you pay for denial of illness.

The writer does mention an incident where an overweight woman called her chunky, ("just like me," she said to Marya.) and I have to address that. Of course you're not chunky, Marya, and if you were you'd still be a great writer. That woman probably felt really lonely in her castle of flesh and wanted, perhaps irrationally, to be close to you. I doubt she was being cruel. She probably wanted to feel less alone in her pudgy life. Trust me, I should know (I've never called anybody chunky, but still).

The truth is, eating disorders have things in common. This might shock and offend and piss off anorectics everywhere, but it's true: binge eating, anorexia, bulimia, bulimirexia all have a common thread of food obsession, control issues, and emotional issues. All 3 disorders can be precipitated by traumatic life events and are aggravated by stress. Of course, one is more socially acceptable than the others.

Here some people would disagree. They would look around and see this "plus size movement" as proof that there has been a backlash against skinny. Well, tell the fashion editor, the majority of the population, women's clothing manufacturers, and the guy down the street THAT and you'll see how little truth there is to this "pro-fat" movement. Take a classroom of females, one extremely skinny and one extremely fat, and ask them to describe negative comments, looks, and experiences their weight has caused them. Yes, both will have some. But it's likely that the fat woman is more likely to get comments from strangers, doctors, and family more often than not.

Having starved myself to a size 2 and binge eaten to a size 16, I vividly recall many more cruel weight comments when I'm fat. Plus I  have to deal with knocking all kinds of things over with my huge butt. Once, I scrambled out of my classroom desk for a break and almost tipped the thing over with my butt! Desks were obviously not intended for the thick women in the world.

But back to the book, it was totally engrossing and I highly recommend it.

Wasted by Marya Hornbacher---read it!

Electra's Complex 101

If you don't like confessional-style, soap opera lives please click "next blog." 

This blog is my way of coping with the loss of my cousin to suicide. We lived together for several years before he moved back with his mother and I hadn't seen him for 2 years when I got the news from his father that he had committed suicide. I don't mean to start off on a sad note, but it's important that anybody who reads this understands that I'm coming from a place of mourning and confusion.

In the aftermath last week, I binge ate and regained 6 pounds I had lost through a vegetarian diet and exercise.I couldn't help my cousin and it seemed like I couldn't help myself either. I stuffed BBQ chicken into my mouth at the park where our two families met to mourn. I gulped down bites of rice. The next day, we got pizza and I ate 3 slices for lunch and 3 slices for dinner. My new, healthy lifestyle went out the window for about 3 days.

I've always had issues with food; I'm an emotional eater, or dieter, it depends. When I lost one of my uncles to a tragic accident at the age of 18, I stopped eating. I sought counseling at the University psych services, and though the intern there flaked on me, he did give me some good advice: find something you can swallow and eat it someplace safe. That turned out to be chicken nuggets with me eating them in the very back of the fast food joint, out of sight. I went down to a size 2.

I came back to my home town after losing my housing accommodations and began to party like crazy. Sex was my new issue. I had lots of it. I ran around to various house parties, met up with random guys, and slept with them. My friend was disgusted. My mother was horrified (we're a traditional Mexican-American family).  I was on the verge of  a nervous breakdown from all the sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

Then I lost it and took a bunch of pills. That was my first experience with a psychiatric hospital. I was labeled bipolar, drugged up, and released. Later, a more specific diagnosis would be given to me: schizo-affective disorder, meaning when I get manic, I stop sleeping and I wind up psychotic. I'm not a bad person, I've never been in a fight and I'm not delinquent. I'm just nuts. Hence, the Electra Complex (Also, my father left before I was born so I figured this would be a good title.)



Please stay tuned for part 2. My mother is home and I have to go buy some Coriander powder and zucchini.
Thanks for reading, and I hope I haven't depressed you too too much!