Starting Over, Take 1,847

Maura Kelly’s blog article Should “Fatties” Get a Room? (Even on TV?) on the Marie Claire magazine’s website in which she says:

…I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

it’s tearing me up, and I don’t really know why or how to stop it. I think I’ve read almost every one of the 2549 comments on the article (as well as the articles and comments on the “counterpoint” blog posts - and their comments too).

Even though most of the comments were critical of Maura Kelly (and many dowright hostile - more hostile than I personally feel), the supportive comments are the ones sticking with me - reminding me that there are a lot of people like her, hating me and finding me disgusting just for existing.

I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a shovel. It’s taken me years to convince myself that I do have an unconditional right to exist (not only so long as I’m trying and succeeding at being slimmer), and that I was safe to swim, bicycle, walk and even just be in public, because no one was thinking all of the horrible things I imagined they were.

Then Maury Kelly proved me wrong - some people really are thinking those things. Some people are disgusted with me simply at the sight of me walking across a room.

On one hand I feel “she’s an idiot, and why do I care what she thinks,” and on the other, I’m sitting here balling (and I usually don’t cry), and it’s not the first time since I read the article.

I was really excited about going to a Halloween party tomorrow night (decided on a Wagnerian Valkyrie costom, that I thought was pretty nifty), and now I’m afraid to go. It doesn’t sound fun anymore.

This isn’t me. At least it’s not 44 year old me. This is 12 year old me.

Why do I care what Maura Kelly thinks of me? Why am I now afraid of all the Maura Kellys in the world, when I’ve spent so many years unafraid?

Before I read the Maura Kelly blog post, I can’t remember the last time I felt like I didn’t deserve to exist. Since reading it, those feelings have been washing over me over and over and over again.

I think I’d rather be hit by a bus than feel this way.

I know I’ll get over this, because I am intelligent and emotionally strong, but I feel like I’ve been kicked in the face, over and over and over again.

I don’t feel intelligent and strong, I feel sad and tired and I feel fatter than I’ve ever felt. Twice as fat as I ever was. It’s been a really long time since I hated being me. I didn’t think I could ever feel that way again.

For all of my life, I’ve been “on a diet” far more than “off a diet”.  I used to (only half-jokingly) tell doctors that if I was lucky, I had only a one week opportunity to lose weight every month.  I gained 10-15 lbs every month during my period, which took two weeks of fierce dieting to lose, and if I was lucky I’d have a week to actually lose some weight.

Most of the weight (in theory) was water-weight.  I still put on 8 to 10 lbs every month just from water-retention.  I know it’s water weight, because if I manage to stay religiously on-plan, all of the extra weight will disappear in a few days.

Unfortunately most of my life that’s not what happened.  I’ve always found it very difficult to stay on plan during the days before and into my period.  I’d have intense and obsessive pms/tom cravings for beef and chocolate specifically, and fat and sugar generically - and seeing the huge “unfair” weight gain, combined with the constant cravings,  I’d get so discouraged that I’d give in to the cravings (making some of the “temporary” weight gain, actual permanent weight gain).

I’ve learned to stay mostly on-plan during “meat week” (as hubby calls my pms/tom), so I don’t gain any more than 8-10 lbs “that week” and all of that is gone by the next week.  I don’t often lose during that week, but at least I’ve changed my “odds” for potential weekly weight loss from 1 in 4,  to 3 of 4.  I don’t always lose 3 weeks out of 4, but at least I don’t have to spend most of the month fighting to lose what I gained during “meat week.”

I still find it hard not to get angry and frustrated at the inevitable monthly weight gain.  I’ve tried all manner of things to prevent that monthly weight gain, and have never been able to do it.  Eating very low-carb and drinking lots of water does help get the water-weight to disappear faster, and birth control helps reduce the intensity of monthly cravings, but I still find my first reaction to seeing the “unfair” weight gain is to console myself by giving in to the comfort-food cravings.

In the scheme of things - it’s only a week.  I should be able to resist the cravings for a week, and usually I remember this, and usually it works.    Yet sometimes I feel just as helpless and hopeless as I did when I was gaining or maintaining my weight.  Being on a downward journey hasn’t made the monthly detour any easier.  In fact, sometimes it almost makes it worse, as the irrational voice inside myself says I should have learned a way to beat this by now.  I should have found a way to prevent the inevitable.

Maybe there is a way, but maybe my body just needs that 8 lbs of water every month.  It’s just for a few days, I should be able to accept it by now (after 35 years of the monthly experience).  And the truth is most months I do, but it’s a grudging acceptance.  It still feels “unfair,” and it still feels like I should be able to indulge the cravings (as a consolation prize for the weight gain?)

As “unfair” as the weight gain seems, I have to remember that giving in to the cravings is even more unfair to myself - because it results in making some of the temporary water-weight -  permanent fat weight.

Today I was excited to see fresh Rambutan in a local asian grocery.  I’ve seen pictures of the fruit before, and have seen it cans, but canned fruit doesn’t really appeal to me.

Rambutan, longan, and lychee are related fruit.  They all have leathery skin, that when peeled off yeilds a fruit that resembles a large peeled grape.  Inside each fruit is a large pit about the size and shape of an almond (but it’s smooth, firm and shiny - almost like an almond-shaped buckeye)

The name rambutan is derived from the Malay word for “hair,” and it’s the rambutan’s hair that set it apart from the other lychee-like fruits.  The wikipedia article calls the hairs “fleshy pliable spines,” which I think describes the texture better than hair.  

(to see a photo and a description of the fruit, here’s a link to the wikipedia article on Rambutan) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan

When I saw them, they reminded me of tribbles, those furry little pet/pests from Star Trek, but when I touched them, I decided they weren’t tribbles so much as kooshballs (those soft rubber balls with hairs/spikes). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koosh_ball

Adorable, and tasty - what more can you ask from a fruit?

So they’re cute, but are they good?

Oh, my yes!

Similar to both lychee and longan, and almost a flavor cross between the two.  The lychee has a very sweet and floral scent and flavor.  The longan has a milder, more subtle, but also more complex flavor (but be aware that there are at least two types of longan that are sold in the US.  The grocery store owner told me that the longan sold still attached to their branches are the more expensive and the better flavored.  The ones sold loose are cheaper and the flavor is more musky, almost a fermented flavor, like that of beer.

The first longans I tried were sold off the stem, and I did not like them at all.  They tasted like warm, flat sweetened beer (I hate beer, so I was not impressed).  Then I tried the higher quality longan and was very impressed. 

The rambutan fall right in the middle of they lychee in terms of the flavor and aroma.  Less perfumey than lychee, more so than longan.  The lychee is very sweet and the flavor lingers on the tongue longer.  The longan is slightly less sweet and the flavor disapears from your mouth quickly.  The rambutan again falls in the middle.