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.

On "Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Image of Women"

As a University student I have access to a plethora of books and media not available in any other library. I stumbled upon "Killing Us Softly", a lecture by Dr. Jean Kilbourne. Fascinated by the collage of female bodies on the cover, as well as the eerily poignant title, I checked it out and just now watched the film in its entirety.

Maybe you're visiting this little blog again, and if so, you probably know that I am overweight and plagued by insecurity, self-doubt, and shame. I struggle with my weight, am classified as overweight, I'm 28, and going to a University populated by 18 year olds who grew up with the new media technology of airbrushing the female body. Let's just say I don't fit in (not for lack of trying).

This lecture struck a raw nerve. Watching the slideshow presented by Dr. Kilbourne was shocking. One teenage girl after another was being shown in insinuating poses. What reads like dirt is in fact just your typical brand name clothing advertisement. Youth, exploited, held up as ideal, their immature brains unable to fathom what exploitation they are being sucked into.

This lecture made me pull back from the social conditioning that happens on campus. I could, for a moment, perceive something beyond that contemptuous glance I received today from a very skinny young co-ed who sneered at the sight of my thighs as I walked by. So her thighs are thinner than mine. That's fine! So long as she doesn't wreck the grade curve by earning the highest A in the class, I can live with being her sexual inferior. She can keep her thin thighs and I'll keep my fat ones.

This is sad. I don't know what to do about this. It appears to be some sort of divide and conquer strategy, but by whom? Men have the most to gain, true, but women often take matters into their own hands by alienating and belittling those less beautiful than they are. Indeed, I must look at my own actions, because I am probably helping to keep the status quo somehow, without even realizing it.


164 pounds seems too much for me to weigh. Yet, I am more than a number. I am more than a statistic of the American fat epidemic. I wrote many excellent term papers: don't they count for anything? What about the fact that I give up my seat on the bus to little old ladies?


Anyways, I think I'm rambling, so I'll end here with a book, "Deadly Persuasion" by Dr. Jean Kilbourne, that can be found on amazon dot com. Dr. Jean Kilbourne was the lecturer on the DVD I checked out from the campus library. Unfortunately, the DVD, "Killing Us Softly" is not available on amazon. I think it might be out of print, which is sad. :(   But here is a book that covers the same topic!

Book by Jean Kilbourne Because "Killing Us Softly" Is Not Available on amazon dot com

I haven't read it yet, but I will. I did watch the movie "Killing Us Softly" and Dr. Kilbourne has made some startling insights into advertising and women's roles in society. 

Body Issues: Breasts, Weight, and Dance Class

The guy on myspace wanted to know what size bra I wear. I have to laugh, that's the first thing guys ask. In fact, I'm so accustomed to that question I stopped thinking it was rude years ago. Now, it's just like they're asking how old I am. I answer this question due to some strange exhibitionist trait I have had since I was a teenager. As you can tell by the fact that I write my diary entries online for anybody to see---I am totally an exhibitionist.

So I responded to the guy via myspace messaging. 36FF. In UK sizes. That translates to 36H in US sizes. I always answer in UK sizes because all my bras are imports from the United Kingdom, where large breasts are everywhere and stores actually make bras for the large-breasted population. It's not like here in California where Target goes up to 36DD only. There are some big bras, but they're for big band sizes, like 40 or 42 band widths. Maybe you don't know this, but the larger the circumference of the torso below the breasts, the smaller the cup size will be listed as. So a 36DDD is only a 38DD. Larger band, smaller cup. Smaller band, larger cup. Bra mathematics can be confusing.

I ran into problems in my dance class last week with my body. I am enrolled in a general education level dance class which I must pass in order to obtain my B.A. this May. I am a senior in college, 28 years old, 163 pounds (at the moment), and about 5 feet 2 inches. So I'm fat. Overweight, chunky, thick, whatever. The students are mostly underweight and still in their teenage years. I have never felt so out of place in my life---not even when I accidentally attended a faculty-only potluck last semester (only to be rudely told to get out! I was invited via email from another faculty member, but I left regardless! I almost cried, I was so humiliated!)

They are so tiny, so flat-chested, so, well dancer-like, that I wanted to run out of the dance studio in tears. We stretched, then danced. The professor, a waif-like blonde trained in modern dance, told us to do a little prance across the studio, then crouch, lunge, and twirl around. All the girls did this and they looked like professional dancers. I wound up being last in line and I was super conscious of my large breasts jiggling all over the place with every prancing step I took. I did not make this look graceful at all! It looked vulgar. I sighed, kept my eyes down, pranced, crouched, lunged, twirled, and ran to the end of the line to hide.

In certain situations my body type (heavy on top, thick thighs, big butt) gets me noticed by men. In other situations, it makes me feel like the circus freak fat woman. Dance class is making me consider a more rigorous diet.

The only good thing that came out of the class (besides the fact that I can graduate when it's over) is that there is a cute, adorable freshman who smiles at me. He's one of only 2 or 3 guys in the class. We partnered up at one point, standing back to back, and melted in a heap together on the floor. It was strictly the class work assigned by the professor, this partner work, but I felt on top of the world as we slid into each other's arms! I can't possibly imagine him picking me over the slender, model-like dance students, but it was still nice to be curled up with him on the floor. :)

Weight Woes

This April I was 181 pounds---and this was after I'd gone on a vegetarian diet to eliminate all the greasy, saturated meats in my diet. I was probably closer to 190 or 195 at my highest weight. At 5'1 or 5'2, this is not morbidly obese, but it is obese. In case you don't know, there's underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese, and morbidly obese. I knew something had to be done. I was having respiratory problems which made me short of breath while stationary. Walking I was fine but while sitting down I felt I couldn't breathe. This might have been my anxiety condition or it my weight problem, either way, I decided I would deal with the weight.

By July I was 171 pounds. No crash dieting (though I flirted with the idea at my lowest point), just large amounts of vegetables sauteed in olive oil and hot spices, no meat, and a cut back on sugar, pasta, and breads.

At my lowest weight I was 158 this November, down another 13 pounds. I managed this by purchasing a rowing machine with various levels of resistance with my financial aid money and using it as long as I could as often as I could....usually only 20 minutes 4 times a week...plus judo class for 50 minutes 2 times a week since the end of August.

I eat 3 meals a day, no skipping. It was simply that my portion size shrunk while the food I ate became healthier. I have my bad days, but usually I  have a routine where I prepare my vegetables in cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper, and turmeric spices with a regularity that is relaxing for me. As indulgence I will sprinkle some shredded cheese over a cup of vegetables and let it slowly melt into delicious cheesiness. Maybe I'll have a piece of Mexican sweet bread (pan dulce) as a late-night dessert, but for the most part I avoided desserts like some people avoid black widow spiders.

I have to make sure I eat 3 meals a day because I had a period where I did not eat 3 meals a day, I was on a starvation diet and I ate no breakfasts, a salad for lunch, and a measly dinner, drank my weight in sugary soda and sugary coffee to keep me alert at work, and then passed out at night, malnourished and steadily going insane. I lost almost all the weight I'd gained being on medications for schizophrenia, but in my stupid zeal I quit taking the medications and stopped eating the bare minimum requirement for health. When I was inevitably hospitalized for psychosis by my exhausted mother (this time it was secret assassins on television's Sesame Street threatening to kill my entire family), I was 131 pounds, not anywhere near the 112 pounds I was at age 21, but still, I was so damn close! Was it worth it? Hell no! I spent days in the psychiatric facility debating whether I should be thin and psychotic, locked up in psych wards with nobody around to admire my weight loss, or fat and sane, possibly even productive. Hence, why I now have to lose weight!

On the plus side, it was wonderful to give myself permission to eat and enjoy food, despite becoming obese in the process. Where once I had envied my boss's young wife for being rail thin (she worked all day as a waitress in her husband's restaurant and the only thing I ever saw her eat was a salad with cottage cheese on top---a bizarre concoction that I never could get the hang of), I now envy women who are successful in their jobs and happy about their contributions to society. This is an achievement I'm proud of, and though I have to continue to work my way into the normal weight range, I'm on medication, attending University with one semester left until I graduate with my B.A., managing my mental illness, living a life with friends and family, and being productive to society. I never could have accomplished this being unmedicated or starving.

I have a long way to go before I reach my ideal weight---these holidays set me back 5 pounds, back to 164, but I'm determined to accomplish my New Year's goals  of losing weight, exercising 5 times a week, graduating with a decent cumulative GPA in May, budgeting my grant money so I don't wind up penniless by summer time, and raising my self-confidence in my body and my mind. :)

Hopefully, with some patience and ambition, I can accomplish these goals this year.
2011 was a year of painful loss (my cousin by suicide and my grandfather by heart attack), one of scholastic achievement (Dean's List Spring semester), one of unemployment, but a year that I'll be proud of one day in the future as a period of transition from mental patient/pot head to University student.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Finals Week on Campus

Some people go to a confessional booth to see a priest. I am not that religious. Instead, I come to cyberspace to spit out my secrets, hoping somebody somewhere will absolve me.

My mother would be so ashamed of me, keeping my life open like some kind of tart.

I should really be studying for finals right now. I will, I'm not that lazy. I've just written about 30 pages of research for my undergrad classes and I feel like I should take a breather, just until 9 tonight.

I have nothing dramatic to say, I quit with the melodrama last summer when I broke up with an insensitive male lover. Instead, I am going to talk about my life goals. Why? I dunno. If you're looking for something more daring, please read "Confessions of a Closet Schizophrenic" or "Confessions of a Closet Bisexual" that I wrote a few months back.

I completed all but one of my lower and upper division general education classes already. Next semester I have 2 linguistics classes, 2 foreign language classes, and 1 theory of dance class that fulfills the last of my general education requirements. Then I graduate. What I do after I graduate is unknown, as the job prospects are limited for somebody who only has a B.A. This economy isn't ideal, to say the least.

Saturday I am going to the campus library to study for hours. My friend will hopefully join me so we can rent one of those rooms with a whiteboard. Sunday I am going to the library to study. Monday I am going early so I can go to the library and study. Then I take my phonology final. Then I go back to studying a foreign language, a class which was going well until my grandfather died right before Thanksgiving. I have to memorize 20 sentences worth of dialogue, including spelling, in a non-romance language. After this, I should only have my Chinese final to prepare for.


There's this yahoo gossip column about some female student who went berserk in the library at another CSU (or was it UC?). She snapped over the loudness of somebody's breathing and started hollering all over the place. Man, I am glad I tend to isolate when I get stressed out or there might be some kind of viral video of me curling up in fetal position under a desk  in the library, muttering poorly enunciated Chinese words to no one.

Finals week sucks.

One student in my French 2B class last semester told me she had a breakdown every semester. She showed up for our project red-eyed and still puffy from sobbing. "I've been on a crying jag for a few hours," she admitted. She was in the graduate program for music. I gently asked her if she might consider an anti-depressant but she laughed me off. She's out there somewhere, having another nervous breakdown. I guess this is me having my break down.

When I have breakdowns I stuff them down by eating too much. That's probably why I gained the weight back I lost taking that martial arts class. I was 159 about 3 weeks ago, and now I'm 161. I tend to be an anxiety-eater. You know the type, the type that tries to be really pleasant and helpful to everyone but eats in binges until the stressful event passes. That was me last week. I didn't have enough Zoloft, my grandpa had just died, my grades were falling from A's to low B's, and it was about to be finals week. So I ate. I ate a hamburger from McDonalds---and I'm a vegetarian! I ate 230 calories worth of salty french fries with that stupid hamburger. In the middle of the night I went foraging for rice cakes. Yes, those are only like 50 calories for 2, but I ate like 6 or 8!

Today I tried to control my caloric intake by avoiding eating with my family and instead munching on 3 pieces of sushi for lunch. Then I saw my therapist, who gently goaded me to accept my life as it is now. She said it's okay to overeat on occasion, so long as it's only during finals week. But last finals week I ballooned up to 190 pounds and it took me from April to September to climb down to 160 pounds.

I feel that food is like the only thing keeping me from curling into a ball in bed and refusing to take my finals. Well, that and coffee....lots and lots of coffee. Like 8 cups of coffee a day. Therapist also said to cut back on the coffee. If only I could! It tastes so good with splenda and some half and half. Yes, I know, half and half won't help me lose weight, but I need my caffeine fix so I just delete a snack for the day and pour in some creamer without remorse.

Tonight I am going to write a list of all the Chinese characters we have learned over the semester and begin to copy them over and over and over again. Plus, I will read through the chapters in my phonology book. Then I will take an anti-anxiety drug and go to sleep. Ah, the pleasure of psychotropic medications. It's funny, people who are medicated get this rap for being unstable, but if anything we are so medicated we're the most stable in the room! Where one person starts yelling about people breathing too loud, I just take my medication early and nap away the stress. Is that healthy? Oh who cares, this is a Prozac Nation anyways (read the book, too!).

Of Death and Calories

I'm watching a documentary titled "America the Beautiful" (2007). It chronicles today's fixation on appearance. The narrator follows various people in the beauty in-crowd and asks them, "are you accountable for anorexia, bulimia, and general low self-esteem of American women?" The answer is a resounding "no." It is as if the disease of self-obsession entered society as a mysterious fog that invaded our lungs simultaneously---nobody is to blame, and nobody can escape.

Few escape the fog. Those who do are mostly the people who are not able to critically think. Then again, if you're running on a handful of romaine lettuce, how can you think at all?

To be honest, I spent today worrying about how many blueberries and packets of splenda I dumped into my plain yogurt. Was I serving myself too much? I didn't want to go over my limit of 1300 calories.

My grandfather died last week. I have been on a semi-diet since then, reducing my caloric intake from 1700 calories to 1100 one day, 1010 the next. Grief made me think less critically about what I'm doing to my body. I have become obsessed with a number: 161, and how I can't make it drop more than 2 pounds below 161. Rather than feel pride that I've already lost 25 pounds since this April, I feel shame for my current weight. Rather than think about what my grandfather would have wanted---to be healthy, I started to procrastinate on my University term papers and closely monitor every portion of food I ate and every beverage I drank. I wake up, check the weight, make a food menu (vegetables with coffee, with some stuffing since it's Thanksgiving), and spend my days thinking about how I'm going to prepare that zucchini. I think about how I'm still sitting on the BMI fence between overweight and obese at 161 and 5'1 or 5'2. I think I can't stand another day of flabby belly and thunder thighs.

My research on linguistics sits untouched by my bed as I sit at my computer, mindlessly playing "Top of the World" by the Cataracs and wondering why I can't look like the Viddie girls. Then I started shopping on amazon dot com for movies on getting thin. I stumbled on "America the Beautiful" and I watched the trailer, thinking it would be another marketing movie that plays up the worth of vapid, egotistical supermodels and sends a message of hate and contempt to the everyday woman. Instead, I found a poignant, moving, and often disturbing view into our society and our drive to obtain a Western ideal of beauty.

Something dawned on my as I clicked the "rent now" button on amazon dot com: I'm not getting paid to give a shit about how I look. I'm getting grant money to write papers and learn the theory of linguistics. The real reason why I'm suddenly unhealthy in my diet is because I did horrible on several home-work assignments which I had to complete while my grandfather was in the morgue. First, I lose the only father-figure I have. Next, I lose my borderline A grade in two of my classes. I'm not afraid that I won't be able to lose another 25 pounds. I'm afraid I'll fail out of college and break the vow I made to my grandfather when he was on his deathbed. I'm fixated on weight and beauty right now because I feel like I failed in the part of my life that actually matters: my education.

Thank you, "America the Beautiful", for putting my priorities back in order. I am not what I look like, I am what I accomplish in life with my mind and my actions.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some homework to complete. :)

Comment on the book "Appetite"

The book, "Appetites: Why Women Want," by Carolyn Knapp is an articulate, well-informed, deep analysis of why women starve themselves. Written in lucid prose, Knapp explains her own period of anorexia and expands on her views about why women put themselves through this. Genetics, environment, and personality all play crucial roles in the formation of anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating disorder, she writes.

Knapp discusses societal factors that plague women, pushing them from overachieving to under-eating and self-destruction. She discusses the role of feminism within the sphere of eating disorders, saying that women are now allowed in places and jobs they'd never obtained before, but with a catch: don't take up any space and don't complain.

I found this book to be interesting, well-written, deep, and a critical portrait of a society where women are still breaking through gender barriers, the most severe being in the way they present themselves in terms of appearance. It made me understand why anorexics push themselves to such dangerous levels of societal conformity.

One thing that stuck out to me was the author's admiration of a fat woman in her twenties who had stopped abusing herself via dieting and binge/purge cycles. She had decided she'd just be fat and accept that fact. The author relates this woman's plight to a friend of hers, who has a wildly different outlook: 'You admire her, I just see diabetes, heart problems, and hypertension.'

The funny thing is, why do we not look at anorexics and bulimics the same way? If you see diabetes and hypertension whenever you see a fat person, why don't you think, "irregular heartbeat, brittle bone disease, and dangerously low blood pressure" when you see an anorexic? Why the admiration for them?

Just a thought.

On weight, anti-psychotics, suicide, and metabolism

I have found an interesting and entertaining documentary concerning the existence of obesity. I hope that you already know why so many people are obese: the obesity gene began as a way of our early ancestors to survive through periods of famine without dying. A thin person would simply die, but an obese person would be able to live off all of their stored-up fat and still be able to bear children. This kept the human species alive for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Then, with the advent of food and medical technology, being obese was no longer an evolutionary advantage. Being thin became an advantage, especially a social advantage.

This documentary is available for free streaming on top documentary films dot com, and you can also find it on youtube. It's called "Why are thin people not fat?" Here is the link:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/why-are-thin-people-not-fat/
In this film the audience follows a group of naturally below-average-weight individuals who are put onto a daily caloric diet more than twice their previous diet. You may have heard of a previous experiment like this one. Prior to this film, there was a 1960's prison experiment where prisoners were allowed to leave prison early if they could get fat--some ate up to 10,000 calories a day (versus the 2,000 recommended caloric intake for males), and to the researchers' surprise, some failed to get fat.
The researchers in this documentary are looking into why some people can get fat and others can't. It's a very interesting watch, and I, as a thick woman, feel a little vindicated to finally see media that says people are genetically different, not just their genes but their metabolic rates as well (metabolism=how fast you burn calories, be it through exercise or transformation of calories into heat).

For myself I know what makes me fat: 1) hypothyroidism, which is a slowing down of my metabolic rate combined with low body temperature. This means that I can't burn off fat by converting it into heat because my body remains at a cool temperature. Also, the ability to burn off those calories through exercise is difficult, due to my slow metabolism.
At the moment, I'm not on synthroid, though I was in the past, due to the fact that health care in America is a murky swamp of paperwork and employment through which one must wade into to get the health care you need. Being unemployed, this makes health care impossible. Free clinics get booked so quickly that there is a 6 month wait period to see a doctor in the Central Valley of California where I live, with no guarantee that you're getting adequate health care. Now that I'm a student, I plan on making a trip to the campus physician to get my long-postponed prescription to treat my hypothyroidism.
2) Anti-psychotic medications, which I need to treat my schizo-affective disorder . Yes, I'm mentally ill, but you wouldn't be able to tell unless I'm acutely psychotic, which isn't that often off medication and doesn't happen at all on medication, so don't stigmatize me---I'm not a psychopath who goes berserk on innocent people. I also don't wander around town shouting obscenities; that's a different disorder. Nor do I accost random people to spout conspiracy theories, curse at them, or whatever preconception you have of mentally ill people. I just have different perceptions which scare me. But back to the topic: zyprexa pills are much like snicker's bars in that you will pack on weight if you eat one every day. I was on zyprexa for about a year, so imagine that. Hence, how I went from a moderate size 5 to a size 16 in less than five years. There is still research being done on why anti-psychotics cause extreme weight gain, some of which I believe (my opinion here) that some of the findings are being kept in the dark due to pressure and financing from major pharmaceutical companies. If you think that sounds like a paranoid talking (and, well, I am) then you should google Zoloft  and suicide risk and read the studies that were withheld until the relatives of suicides came forward and sued the pharmaceutical company for not disclosing that Zoloft increases the risk of suicidal behavior, especially in the initial period when medication is first taken.

Having just lost a cousin to suicide, I was not surprised to hear he was starting medication for depression. Frankly, I think the doctor and pharmaceutical company are liable for my cousin's death, but it's not my call at the moment. Plus, I'm still in mourning and I don't feel like thinking about who is to blame for the suicide of a 24 year old male with no history of suicide attempts (most suicides have a history of botched attempted suicide, they usually don't just kill themselves out of the blue). But now

I'm getting angry, so I'll change the subject: anti-psychotic medications made me gain weight. No, it wasn't lack of self-discipline or lack of exercise. I ate what I ate before. I admit, I liked pizza before and after my new medication, but I had never packed on more than 5 pounds for this indulgence. So I ate what I ate before, did my usual running before work, walked for miles during the day, and boom! 50 pounds settled on my short frame rapidly. Suspiciously rapidly. I had never had a problem with my weight before Zyprexa and all the other drugs I've been on (Geodon, Zoloft, Seroquel, Paxil, Zyprexa, Risperdal, Abilify, Zoloft-generics, and a host of others whose names I've forgotten). The moment I started taking the pills I began to plump up so quickly I began to think of myself as a puffer fish, you know, that one fish that expands into a balloon when you frighten it. ( image:http://www.google.com/search?q=puffer+fish&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=576&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=BLEjTq-NPIHkiALCuLzOAw&sqi=2&ved=0CCsQsAQ)

Now, having been on heavy anti-psychotics off and on from the age of 23-24 to my current age of 28, I have found that every time I get OFF my medication I immediately begin to slim down. Several years ago I went off my medication, lost 15-20 pounds in a matter of months, got a little zealous, began a starvation diet, lost another 15 pounds, then, unsurprisingly, went mad, got quarantined in a psychiatric facility,  was forced to take weight-gaining anti-psychotic medications, along with having my diet monitored to the point where I was not allowed to leave the cafeteria without eating a certain percentage of my plate, and gained all my weight back again. I was so close to weighing 125! So close. But then I would have been a slim nutcase and the county psychiatrist thought that would be a liability.

So I learned that I must have some sort of borderline diet crazed mentality in order to reduce my pudgy body to a moderately overweight frame if I plan on being compliant with psychiatric treatment. Being both hypothyroid and on a steady diet of multiple psychotropic medications, I am competing with a natural propensity towards obesity, so the best I can do without developing a severe eating disorder is to be slightly overweight---and even that requires a minimalist, sugar-free diet mixed with excessive exercise and the high-end anti-psychotics that claim to have less side effects.

Here's an example of a typical diet day:
no breakfast.
If I eat breakfast it's always half a cup of yogurt. I then drink about 3-4 cups of coffee to keep me energized until lunch.
Lunch=small plate of zucchini with lots of spices to trick my taste buds into believing I'm eating something delicious, + 1-2 cups of chai (tea with milk). Snack=nothing.
Dinner=small portion of whatever I want. This can be more zucchini, but usually it's something a little greasier like a handful of home-made cumin fries with a salad or veggie burger with a piece of buttery garlic bread. I then drink 3 cups of tea to trick my body into feeling totally stuffed, and into bed I go. I wake up, weigh myself, and spend the rest of the day going to class, caring for my grandmother, doing my homework, and hunting down either a salad or a cup of coffee to chase away the hunger.

If you're wondering why I eat fries, the answer is simple: they taste good, they're everywhere, and I will cave in and binge eat if I abstain from eating comfort foods for more than a month. Sugar I don't like, and I rarely eat cake or ice cream unless it's my birthday or my relative's birthday, but butter---that's my achille's heel. So I eat it in moderation and not every day, or week for that matter. But when I do eat it, I feel guilty. Right now, there's a box of garlic bread in the freezer that is singing siren songs to me, but I already ate dinner so I must boil 4 cups of tea and drink until I feel full. Yes, this vegetarian, chai diet actually works: I've lost somewhere between 12-20 pounds since I started it this April. I can't be exactly sure since I didn't buy a new weighing scale until May something, and the initial weight loss occurs very quickly at the beginning (and then slows down...), but I do know that a month ago I weighed 179 and my weight this morning read 169. I can now fit into a size 14, but just barely. Oh yeah, on top of the diet, I walk to and from the bus stop (30 minutes each way) all week long, plus one hour of continuous power walking every day, plus 20 minutes on a rowing machine three times a week, plus 10-15 minutes of using a 10 pound weight one to two times a week. All this...and still on the borderline between overweight and obese. On the plus size, my internal organs will be in great shape in time for the beginning of my new judo class this fall semester, even though I can't wear a bathing suit because I'll still be too fat.

Exercising While Top Heavy

I have found certain things are out of the question. For example, running while top heavy is not a good idea for me. It is painful to my breasts and back and I get comments. This would be a problem if I was a neanderthal who had to outrun a vicious sabertooth tiger, but I'm not so I am free to find other ways of exercise.

I found a great rowing machine on sale at amazon dot com and I have used it maybe 3 times the last two weeks. That's not that much, but if you consider that it's hitting over a hundred degrees in the Central Valley you'll understand why. Plus, I've been grieving over my cousin, but I can't just lie in bed all day and cry. I have to channel my emotions into something else. Like rowing.

Rowing is an excellent exercise if you're top heavy. There's no bouncing, no leaping, no jumping jacks. You just sit on a sliding seat, set the arm handles to the hardest level, and push off the foot rests for 20 to 30 minutes. I can feel the burn in my butt and thighs. Rowing is also good for strengthening the back muscles which will help to alleviate any back pain caused from large breasts. According to the internet, it's the second best all over exercise to do, second only to swimming. It also helps posture, which top heavy women often have a problem with. Myself, I often hunch over or lean to one side or the other and put my weight on my arms when sitting. Not good. Sometimes I just plop my chest onto the table when I'm using my laptop so that they can stop bothering me. I think I may need a chiropractor or a good masseuse.

Another thing to do is yoga. I took a yoga class my first year at the University, when I was thin, and I loved it. Due to my weight gain and sudden growth of breasts into a 36H cup (or 38DDD, depending on what bra I'm wearing), I can't do some of the trickier poses I used to do like that pose where you put your legs over your head until your feet touch the floor. Or anything that requires me to lift my upper torso. I still do some poses though, just to keep my body stretchy. I do sun salute and various other sitting poses where I look like a pretzel.

Sit-ups are out of the question. Each breast is like a weight that I have to lift every time I do a sit-up. I'm not being lazy. It hurts, especially my neck muscles, which get strained from all the tension. Then my back starts to get sore. Doing 100 is like crazy painful and I've never made it that high in one exercise session. There was this contraption at the community college I used to go to: a board with two arms rests. You step up and hang there, putting your weight on your arms, and you lift  your legs up. That was nice. I used that thing every class period. It not only toned my flabby tummy but it also made my arms a lot stronger.

Ellipticals are good, too. It's more like skiing than running. The University gym has a bunch except I hated the locker room experience and everybody else was thin or buff and I felt so out of place in my overweight frame that I quit going and went back to lifting a 10 pound weight at home. I'll give it a go next semester since I guess I'm being silly about feeling so out of place.

I've heard pilates is really, really amazing for everybody, regardless of size, but I haven't tried it yet. It looks like I'd need to buy a good DVD, invest in a mat and a giant inflatable ball, and find a place to exercise with lots of space (my room is little). So, maybe I'll try that later on. Another thing I'd like to try is resistance training but my mother banned any more exercise equipment after I spent about 2 hours in the living room trying to figure out how to put the rower together. My family complained about the giant pieces of rower they had to step over to get to the kitchen. I finally got it together and dragged it outside, but my mother was all, "was a rower something you HAD to have?" and "No more exercise equipment!"

What I really need is a good sports bra. But in my size that's pricey, around 40 bucks or even more! There's this woman who went on British television arguing that bra manufacturers should stop charging more for larger size bras. I agree. If you charged 30 bucks for a size 2 pair of pants and 40 bucks for a size 5, people would be howling. It's only because bustier women tend to be a little heavier (there are exceptions) that people feel it's right to overcharge them. It's fat discrimination. Not fair! People like to argue that it's because you use more fabric but it's not. Look at some of the 34AA bras out there. Sure, they're little, but they're always stuffed with expensive padding and dolled up in shiny fabric, lace, and other types of bling that isn't used on full figure bras. Full figure bras don't get the same flashy treatment, which should actually make them cheaper since manufacturers don't have to pay for all that padding, print designs, lace, and more padding. It's like they know we have no choice but to wear a bra since we're well-endowed and they feel free to charge whatever they feel like. A flat chested person can run around with no bra if she chooses and the manufacturers know this so they cater to them with pretty designs and padded cups. A busty woman is frowned upon if she steps out in public with no bra. The last time I went out bra-less (my ill-fitting bra had left a red welt on my torso and it hurt to wear it so I went without a bra) I was hooted at, leered at, and some jerk yelled, "Nice tits." I felt pissed off, powerless, and very conspicuous. As soon as that cut disappeared I wriggled back into a bra. Manufacturers know that large chested women have little alternative than to shell out a wad of cash. Considering that there are plenty of heavy busted women nowadays and not that many 30AA cups, you'd think the profits they make in a year would justify lowering the price just a little bit. But no, I have to shop at expensive places for custom bras. Or "specialty bras" as they're humorously called. What's so special about them? There's like a trillion overweight, large busted women running around and it's totally normal now. Why am I being segregated from department stores and fashion outlets? Anyways, I'm done griping.

I got 4 cute bras in the mail today through Cacique. 38DDD bras. They fit alright. Mostly, I like that they're not matronly or minimizing or plain. What is the deal with minimizing bras? It's like saying, "Sorry, you don't fit the acceptable range of boobs, please flatten those out so they don't distract my boyfriend." Plunge bras are way better than any minimizing bra. They're much more flattering. Especially if you're overweight like me and want to move attention away from your plump figure, a plunge bra with a low cut blouse works nicely. By the time men realize I'm fat they're already hooked! I was very insecure, being an older student at 28, going to the University my first semester with very slender and pretty sorority girls, so I started wearing cleavage-revealing tops. It might not have made me fit in with the thin sorority girls, but it didn't hurt my grades, either!

Electra's Complex 102

Wow, reading that last entry was kind of sad for me.
I didn't mean to vent, I just, well, yeah, I needed to vent.
Anyways this isn't all a suicide survivor blog, it's more like an emotional eating blog, and my issues therein.

But for those of you who run around looking down your nose at obese people, please stop, you have no idea what they have/are going through.

Like I stated in the first blog entry, I whittled myself down from a size 5 to a size 2 at the age of 18 after my uncle's death.

Years later, after being put on Zyprexa, an anti-psychotic drug, I gained a whopping 50 pounds in a very short time span. You may have heard of Zyprexa, it was in the news because hundreds of patients were suing the pharmaceutical company for failing to mention that taking Zyprexa makes one gain upwards of 100 pounds and the drug even causes diabetes in some people. Everyone who was on Zyprexa that I know of had nothing kind to say about it: "It worked, yeah, but I got diabetes now!" It seems the rush to market a miracle sanity drug was a bad move on the part of pharmaceutical companies, a decision that cost lots of people their physical health. Myself, I suffered a huge weight gain from my pre-Zyprexa normal weight of 115 to 160 lbs.
I remember being chastised by an art teacher on my bad eating habits after I brought in a fast food breakfast. I just nodded and went along with it. She didn't know that the pills were making me feel super hungry, especially for foods high in fat, that the pills likely slowed my metabolism down, and that I normally didn't eat at Carl's Jr for breakfast. The rest of the class stared at my new flabby gut and then looked away. I could feel the disgust. I felt it myself. So from that point on, at the age of 22, I began to yo yo diet, binge eat, starve, exercise, and binge eat more. I went of my medication, then back on, then back off, then back on....

At one point, when I was feeling very disliked in my lowly post as a pizza delivery girl, I managed to drop my weight down to 134, slightly acceptable for my height (5'1), but just barely. Of course, I was eating nothing for breakfast, coffee and a small salad for lunch, and a slice of pizza for dinner.  On the outside I had done what society wanted me to do: lose weight. I was no longer a blemish on the face of American culture. No longer another statistic of fat women. I was acceptable. Behind the facade, I was a wreck. I was stuck in an abusive relationship with my high school science lab partner, skipping my medication, and beginning to hear voices telling me how horrible I was. My mother, thankfully, insisted I be admitted to the county psychiatric facility. I slowly improved with medication and distanced myself from that abusive person.
Unfortunately, my weight increased. There's a well known government study that proves if a person starves themselves the body will begin to hoard calories away like  a squirrel with nuts. Once you eat, it is nearly impossible to burn off those calories, as your body knows that you may starve at any time. It's natural. Can't outwit biology. I gained all my weight back, and then some.

I'm 28 now and I've returned to the University as a senior to complete my BA. By the time mid-terms hit, I was sitting around studying for hours, not getting enough exercise aside from daily long walks, and I reached 194. That's obese. I panicked. I began running and dieting. I stopped running because I had such large breasts that people would comment, or leer at me. I went down by about 30 pounds in a matter of months. I was suddenly more energetic and I felt good about myself because I wasn't eating animal meat anymore, which I always considered to be a cruel practice.

So anyways, here I am, medicated, grieving over my lost cousin, and eating a salad with spicy ranch. I weigh 173. That's up from last week, before I was told about my cousin's suicide, but my weight is significantly lower than my worst point.

Yes, I know, Ranch dressing has lots of calories. But I walk around in 100 degree heat for hours because I have no car, so I figure I am burning off those Ranch calories.

Anyways, now you know most of me. The rest of this blog will be on random topics. Mostly, I want to explore my health, both physical and mental. I will be posting lists of books I've read that helped me through difficult times, some good vegetarian recipes, places to buy bras that cater to big breasted women, and blog posts chronicling my struggle with life and death.

Mostly I started this blog because I couldn't find a forum that addressed the issues I find most pressing: how to cope with hardships without taking it out on your body. How to adjust to a highly stigmatized mental illness. How to lose weight without developing an eating disorder. How to exist happily with myself while acknowledging that I don't always make the best decisions for myself.

The next blog will be on a lighter note: how to find a bra that fits.