The first thing I thought about when contemplating writing this is “What would Lil BUB do?” And I realize that Lil BUB would write this somewhat personal post that makes me look less than invincible. So, I will write it.
A cardiologist has recently diagnosed me with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This means that my heart muscle has stiffened up and my blood flow has some backsplash. I have obvious heart murmurs. I have likely had it for at least two years, because there’s evidence of it in a stress cardiogram two years ago when the doctor had apparently missed it. It means that I get winded easier (but that could also be because I am big and out of shape). I’m being treated with a simple higher dose of blood pressure medication; it is irreversible, but we can keep it from getting worse.
Mayo Clinic, on their website, says that I will have almost as long a life as if I didn’t have it. Almost. That’s a sobering word, and it hints at an eventual demise not as pleasant as I had been hoping for. I’m 60, however, at the age when things like this develop. Other sources discuss other treatments for it in case it gets worse. Many of these are invasive.
I can’t quite grasp what I’m reading. Some sources (such as Mayo and my cardiologist, make it sound like it is not a big deal, while others make it sound dire. Mayo says most cases are familial, but my cardiologist says I would have lots of people dying young in my family if mine were so.
I’m not used to not knowing. I will talk to my primary care physician when I can get in, and maybe then I will understand. In the meantime, I will lose weight and take my hypertension medicine. But I feel fragile now, older, less certain of life.
But what would Lil BUB do? She would go on living her life with a joyous, silly smile.
Me before the weight lossMe now, thirty pounds lighter
I didn’t get any likes from any agents in #sffpit yesterday, but I celebrate myself for thirty pounds lost. To make my doctor happy, I have to lose thirty more pounds. Please understand that I will still be overweight by American standards, because it would take putting myself in danger in losing any more weight than that. But my doctor will be happy, I’ll be healthier, and I’ll get to wear cuter clothes.
In this blog, I will talk about dieting (and the “non-dieting” that passes for dieting now), weight and health. I am approaching this as an obese person who is now being asked to change my way of eating and exercising in order to get healthier. I struggle with lifestyle changes, often because the instructions seem vague to the obese person.
I will not use the word “fat”, which has been used to shame people with a specific health issue, unless mentioning fat-shaming. (If you don’t believe this, ask yourself this: Do I shame athletes with fractures and pulled muscles by calling them “gimps”? You know, they did it to themselves.)
Me.
What it means to diet
I have been dieting all my life, or at least half of my life. Anyone with weight issues has. It’s an alarming lifestyle, spending half of one’s life eating bowls of green leaves, and the other half trying to make up for the feeling of deprivation by eating ribs at Applebee’s. My true nemesis, though, is really sweet things like good chocolates, toffee, and gooey butter cake.
Other people eat sumptuous things much of the time. Those of you who are less than twenty pounds overweight for your height and age, you’re unaware of how lucky you are. You don’t have to work as hard to be your weight, whether this be that you can eat anything, or that your body moves the way your heredity designed a good body to.
After a doctor’s visit
A few weeks ago, I went to see my doctor, and it turned out that my “numbers” were not good. Not only the weight, but the glucose and other numbers that weight may affect. This was something I’d never experienced as an obese person before, and I found it alarming. As a result, my doctor easily convinced me to eat a plant-forward diet with low fat and moderate carbs.
The advice from my doctor was simple: half your plate should be vegetables. The vegetables should be colorful. Eat lean meats. Cut back on bread. Don’t weigh yourself. Exercise more.
Easy-peasy, I thought.
So now I’m eating a plant-forward diet
The plant-forward diet takes a lot of work. It takes a bit more cooking and less “here’s two hamburgers for dinner.” It takes a bit more variety — sugary foods had been my substitution for boring dinners. Sometimes it takes eating frozen vegetables for convenience, and I’m not always hungry for those at the moment (I’ve had some terrible frozen vegetables). It takes menu planning, and as I’m not the menu planner in the family, it takes a certain amount of patience.
I have questions
Now, after a couple of weeks living this way, I have questions. Lots of questions.
If you have a small (of course) bowl of spaghetti, do you count the tomato sauce as a vegetable? How much of the plate does it take up?
Are potatoes a vegetable? Corn? Lentils? Edamame? A veggie burger?
How whole-grain does the bread have to be? (I’m living on Wasa crackers)
Can I have desserts? Ever?
How do I know how much I’m progressing if I can’t weigh myself?
If I haven’t been exercising at all, does walking to the parking lot count as more exercise?
How do I motivate myself if I lose weight really slowly?
How perfect do I have to be at this? How often can I not be perfect??
These are questions I’ve never seen answered. I know well that this dietary and behavioral change will have to persist for the rest of my life. I wish someone who coaches lifestyle changes could answer these questions for me.
I will never be of normal weight
The thing to remember here is that I am not doing this to be of normal weight — my body will never be of normal weight. My lifestyle change will take me from obese to overweight. I will be healthier, but I will still be “fat” by judgmental societal standards, and I will have to accept that. If I could afford a tummy tuck, that might put me in the weight range for my size. But the insurance industry considers that cosmetic surgery and not a matter of health. So I have to accept that I can only be smaller, not actually small.
A note
We all have different lives and different choices. I won’t say “wherever you are on the journey”, because that sounds incredibly condescending, like my journey is best. I don’t know if my journey is best, because I lose that identity of “fat culture”, and that’s a great togetherness space. And I want gooey butter cake. My goal is to help my health, and maybe this “lifestyle change” does nothing for that.
