I finally got the results of my thyroid aspiration test and the tumor is benign. My worst fear appears not to be coming true. However, I still have to have the left half of my thyroid removed because it's big and isn't getting any smaller. I'm having surgery shortly before Christmas (thanks, Santa, for the early gift of a follicular adenoma), but at least this can be put to rest as an issue before I go home and live an insurance-free life.
One thing about this experience, among the many other things about it, is that it illustrates (yet again, really, this is a lesson I never needed to learn, let alone need repeated reinforcement) that losing weight solves nothing and you can't "earn" good health through virtuous lifestyle habits. Life has been a good deal harder at sub-200 lbs. than it was over 300. Crap still happens. More crap happens because I'm out there more and subjecting myself to medical tests. That's not my way of saying I shouldn't take those tests, but merely a recognition that I was happier when I was ignorant.
Another thing I can say is that at no time was my weight loss in my thoughts about this. Frankly, I was concerned about dying not continuing to lose weight. The surgeon says that enough of my thyroid will remain after surgery that I will not be hypothyroid so I'm not worried about it in any event. However, it would probably be prudent to monitor my weight more frequently immediately after surgery in case all of the slicing and dicing in the area creates an unforeseeable problem.
It was also of interest in terms of my weight loss to know that my thyroid function was not affected by the tumor. That is, I have neither high nor low thyroid function now. So, in the end, my weight was all about what I ate and did rather than my body itself. I already knew that. Now science has confirmed it.
Thanks to Rebecca for the kind note in e-mail. I'm sorry that I didn't reply, but I've been in a really dark place mentally throughout all of this. Functioning at all was difficult at times. I had to take it moment by moment until the outcome was revealed. I really appreciate your concern and that you took the time to write.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The Thyroid Test
I finally had the thyroid test done, and the results were not what I had hoped for. Half of my thyroid is enlarged and has a tumor on it (a "lesion"). Because of the bureaucratic health care system in the country I'm residing in, I have to struggle to get a biopsy done quickly. Essentially, I have to call for an emergency appointment along with all of the people who have a cough or stubbed their toes and believe they absolutely need to see a doctor.
This is very stressful for me, and the worst part of it at this point in time is not knowing exactly what my disposition will be and feeling that no one in the medical system is particularly interested in how leaving me in limbo about my status causes me difficulty. The doctors won't tell me anything about possibilities and say "they can't be sure". They're more interested in covering their asses than informing the patient and answer the questions with responses which are little different from a shoulder shrug.
I'm treating this at present as a condition to be treated rather than a death sentence or an imminent diagnosis of cancer. I know that many women suffer thyroid issues which do not result in cancer diagnoses, but my fears that, if I ever lost weight again and resolved most of my issues, "God" would give me cancer seem to be headed for some sort of realization. I know this is a pessimistic attitude born of years of suffering and feeling that I am destined to be unhappy. It does not serve me well, and I will fight it.
Monday, October 17, 2011
The Lady Bits Inspection
Today I had my second round of long-neglected medical tests. The first round consisted of a standard battery of tests on blood, urine, and stool samples as well as an EKG, blood pressure, and a cursory exam by a doctor ("open up and say, "ah"). The results of those tests were all in the normal range. The one disease that most obese people fear, type 2 diabetes, was not an issue. My blood sugar was normal and my HbA1C test was 4.4 (and 4-6 is "normal").
The tests I took today were for "lady's problems", as my mother would so quaintly put it. I had a pelvic ultrasound, a pap smear was taken, a mammogram, and a breast exam. The pelvic ultrasound revealed nothing but a benign cyst on one of my ovaries which I suspect has been there all of my life based on a certain pain I feel during ovulation. The doctor said it's no problem and is the sort of thing which changes in size based on menstrual cycles. The breast exam also revealed no abnormalities. The mammogram and pap smear have to be developed and examined by physicians and the results will come in two to three weeks, but my husband was in the room during the mammography and saw the images. While he's no doctor, he saw nothing strange on the images (no dark spots or shadows).
My sense is that all of the tests will come back fine. My last pap smear was about a decade or so ago, and I know how foolish it was to put off the test for so long. However, I'm a virgin who married a virgin and there's zero risk of HPV so I'm on the lower risk side for cervical cancer. Also, I've never taken birth control pills so there's little risk of hormonal contamination affecting my reproductive health.
The reason I resisted the test for so long was my weight, though not because of the weight itself. One of the last two pap tests I took resulted in a doctor trying to use an mechanical table to elevate me and I was too heavy for the motor to work. The doctor angrily asked me what I weighed and then scolded me because I might damage their table before scoffing in disgust and moving me to an old-fashioned table. She then hastily did the test and scurried away after an experience which she obviously viewed with distaste. I could not bear the humiliation again, so I put off the test until my weight was in a range that I felt would not yield a similar experience.
I had another bad pap test experience at a clinic in which I struggled to get there with terrible back pain only to have the doctor refuse to give the test because the speculum wasn't big enough and caused me pain. I told her to just go ahead and do the damn test and get it over with and I'd put up with the pain for the brief time she did it. She said she had to order a bigger one rather than pinch and hurt me with one that was too small. I was extremely angry that she wouldn't do the test, and even madder that the clinic attempted to charge me for the office visit when the doctor was the one who refused to follow through and do it. I refused to pay and I never went back.
This time, the experience was fine. The doctor was kind and the chair, which was different this time and incredibly comfortable, had no problems moving my 182 lb. body into position. A standard speculum was used with no pain or problem and, while not the most comfortable experience, it was not painful or negative. After reading so many horror stories on the internet from people who were harassed about their weight by gynecologists, I had myself practically whipped into a nervous wreck thinking that I might get derided for my BMI. No one said anything, though my husband did mention to the gynecologist that I had lost a lot of weight so that she would not be alarmed by the extra skin hanging off of my body.
Having this generally positive experience is the first step in healing the damage done to me from my bad experiences in the past. When all of the tests are done and (what I am sure will be) normal results are in, I feel like I can start over with my relationship with the health care system. Part of what happens when you avoid getting routine care is that the longer you avoid it, the harder it becomes to face it. You develop a mindset through time that makes you think that going to the doctor will confirm your worst fears so you live in denial of the truth about your health. You believe that finding a problem on a medical test makes it real, rather than deal with the fact it was real all along. You imagine all sorts of things, and just keep avoiding "confirmation." If you did routine checking, you'd catch them at an earlier time, but the fear of humiliation and degradation keeps you away from that and the fear compounds as the years go by.
I'm absolutely certain that if I regained weight and exceeded 250 lbs. again (or got near 400 as I was before), that I would find the experience of these health check-ups far more difficult and very likely traumatizing. People who have lost weight like to say that people treat you better because you change your outlook, but I will never believe that. I am the same except for my body. I was regarded as an object of disgust before, and now I'm treated like a human being.
These tests, which I have avoided nearly all of my life, are the next leg along the path to "normality" that I'm attempting to tread down. It's extremely hard emotionally for me to do what I'm doing even though it's the sort of thing people without my fears take for granted as necessary and an undesirable but routine task. I asked a work acquaintance how she felt approaching her annual physical (which all people in the country I currently reside in can take part in for free) and she said she felt nothing at all about them. That is, she experienced no stress, anxiety or fear because she didn't form a set of neurotic responses from being treated poorly at such times. It was just what she did as part of her normal life to catch health problems and deal with them. This is "normal", and I have to desensitize myself to the experiences of having medical tests if I want to keep moving in this direction. I'm two steps in, and have one more to go when I finally take the thyroid test that was recommended during my initial check-up.
The tests I took today were for "lady's problems", as my mother would so quaintly put it. I had a pelvic ultrasound, a pap smear was taken, a mammogram, and a breast exam. The pelvic ultrasound revealed nothing but a benign cyst on one of my ovaries which I suspect has been there all of my life based on a certain pain I feel during ovulation. The doctor said it's no problem and is the sort of thing which changes in size based on menstrual cycles. The breast exam also revealed no abnormalities. The mammogram and pap smear have to be developed and examined by physicians and the results will come in two to three weeks, but my husband was in the room during the mammography and saw the images. While he's no doctor, he saw nothing strange on the images (no dark spots or shadows).
My sense is that all of the tests will come back fine. My last pap smear was about a decade or so ago, and I know how foolish it was to put off the test for so long. However, I'm a virgin who married a virgin and there's zero risk of HPV so I'm on the lower risk side for cervical cancer. Also, I've never taken birth control pills so there's little risk of hormonal contamination affecting my reproductive health.
The reason I resisted the test for so long was my weight, though not because of the weight itself. One of the last two pap tests I took resulted in a doctor trying to use an mechanical table to elevate me and I was too heavy for the motor to work. The doctor angrily asked me what I weighed and then scolded me because I might damage their table before scoffing in disgust and moving me to an old-fashioned table. She then hastily did the test and scurried away after an experience which she obviously viewed with distaste. I could not bear the humiliation again, so I put off the test until my weight was in a range that I felt would not yield a similar experience.
I had another bad pap test experience at a clinic in which I struggled to get there with terrible back pain only to have the doctor refuse to give the test because the speculum wasn't big enough and caused me pain. I told her to just go ahead and do the damn test and get it over with and I'd put up with the pain for the brief time she did it. She said she had to order a bigger one rather than pinch and hurt me with one that was too small. I was extremely angry that she wouldn't do the test, and even madder that the clinic attempted to charge me for the office visit when the doctor was the one who refused to follow through and do it. I refused to pay and I never went back.
This time, the experience was fine. The doctor was kind and the chair, which was different this time and incredibly comfortable, had no problems moving my 182 lb. body into position. A standard speculum was used with no pain or problem and, while not the most comfortable experience, it was not painful or negative. After reading so many horror stories on the internet from people who were harassed about their weight by gynecologists, I had myself practically whipped into a nervous wreck thinking that I might get derided for my BMI. No one said anything, though my husband did mention to the gynecologist that I had lost a lot of weight so that she would not be alarmed by the extra skin hanging off of my body.
Having this generally positive experience is the first step in healing the damage done to me from my bad experiences in the past. When all of the tests are done and (what I am sure will be) normal results are in, I feel like I can start over with my relationship with the health care system. Part of what happens when you avoid getting routine care is that the longer you avoid it, the harder it becomes to face it. You develop a mindset through time that makes you think that going to the doctor will confirm your worst fears so you live in denial of the truth about your health. You believe that finding a problem on a medical test makes it real, rather than deal with the fact it was real all along. You imagine all sorts of things, and just keep avoiding "confirmation." If you did routine checking, you'd catch them at an earlier time, but the fear of humiliation and degradation keeps you away from that and the fear compounds as the years go by.
I'm absolutely certain that if I regained weight and exceeded 250 lbs. again (or got near 400 as I was before), that I would find the experience of these health check-ups far more difficult and very likely traumatizing. People who have lost weight like to say that people treat you better because you change your outlook, but I will never believe that. I am the same except for my body. I was regarded as an object of disgust before, and now I'm treated like a human being.
These tests, which I have avoided nearly all of my life, are the next leg along the path to "normality" that I'm attempting to tread down. It's extremely hard emotionally for me to do what I'm doing even though it's the sort of thing people without my fears take for granted as necessary and an undesirable but routine task. I asked a work acquaintance how she felt approaching her annual physical (which all people in the country I currently reside in can take part in for free) and she said she felt nothing at all about them. That is, she experienced no stress, anxiety or fear because she didn't form a set of neurotic responses from being treated poorly at such times. It was just what she did as part of her normal life to catch health problems and deal with them. This is "normal", and I have to desensitize myself to the experiences of having medical tests if I want to keep moving in this direction. I'm two steps in, and have one more to go when I finally take the thyroid test that was recommended during my initial check-up.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Is it mental?
One of my cousins was born with type 1 diabetes. That's the kind which reflects an innate deficiency in ones body's ability to regulate insulin rather than the type which is brought on by lifestyle. In terms of current thinking about health, it is the kind which one for which a person cannot be "blamed".
I didn't know this particular cousin especially well, but I did see him occasionally. He was about 5 years older than me and was always thin. He also seemed to have some emotional or mental difficulties. Though he wasn't in any sort of special education classes, he was not particularly bright and had some temper issues. He was capable of doing certain types of work and eventually married and had children.
Despite having grown up with his illness, my cousin was never capable of regulating his diet. In particular, he consumed candy bars and other sweets such that his diabetes was not under control. Though he never gained weight or got fat, his body was constantly being damaged by his diabetes as a result of a poor diet. In the end, he died young as a result of his inability to control his eating. He wasn't fat, but he literally ate himself to death.
There is no doubt in my mind that my cousin experienced a certain biological pressure to consume sweets. However, my uncle (not the father of this particular cousin) also was born with type 1 diabetes which he has kept under control for his entire life through medication and a controlled diet. The main difference between the two was emotional. One could not control his relationship with food and the other could.
The question that I'm throwing out there for myself after pondering their respective situations is whether or not the inability to regulate your diet when you have a life-threatening health issue is a question of mental health. Very often people approach diet as if there were a single "best" way to eat which would result in all people experiencing optimal health. Bodies don't work like that. There are people who can eat a candy bar (or two) everyday and experience no ill effects. There are those who can eat bread all day and those who can't tolerate a single slice. All processing of food by a particular body is individual with varying consequences.
This fact is one I realized long before I thought about my cousin's situation. Some time ago, I finally internalized the fact that there are people out there who can gorge on junk food and not get fat while I am likely going to have to be very careful about what I eat to simply avoid being morbidly obese. Some people will remain or get fat on 2000 calories. Some will stay thin on over 3000. That's the way it is and railing against it and the unfairness of it doesn't change the biological reality. Just as my cousin's reasonable desire to indulge in sweets that he likely saw his sister and others consuming resulted in his death, my diet, "healthy" or "reasonable" though it might be in some eyes, can result in a physical state which will make me miserable.
Getting back to the main point, however, if my cousin could not adhere to a diet which was stricter than most, was it a matter of mental health? Is the inability to control your behavior above and beyond what "average" folks are required to do because of your particular special circumstances an issue of psychology? My answer would be, "yes." Psychology isn't a matter of averages anymore than biology is. Maximum quality of life cannot be achieved by applying a template of actions or thinking patterns according to what everyone believes is best, but rather what is best for the individual. My cousin could not do what was best for him, even though similar actions would not have been destructive to someone lacking his health issues. If there had been behavioral intervention to help him master his destructive urges, he may have lived a lot longer.
There is a lot of debate about whether or not obesity is the result of a mental health problem and there are vociferous folks who rail mightily against the idea. However, I think context is very important. If someone washes their hands 30 times a day, do they have a disorder? They do, unless that person is a doctor who sees a lot of different people and washes his hands between patients and for regular routine hygiene. If someone becomes so fat that their mobility, joint health, or blood sugar are affected and their quality of life compromised by their weight and they cannot alter their habits to affect a positive change, is it a mental health issue? I say it is. If you can't make behavioral changes in your life to be happier, then it is a matter of psychology and it doesn't matter that only you need to make those changes. It's about mastering your own life, not living as an "average" person. That goes for everything, not just weight and food. If you can't control your temper, concentrate long enough to study, etc. and these conditions are particular to you, they are issues of mental health.
Note that I am in no way saying that these are psychological issues which must be dealt with. No one is obliged to deal with their particular problems at all. Just as I do not believe physical health is an obligation, I do not believe mental health is one either. People have the right to live as they please, even to their own detriment. However, I increasingly believe that thinking about our lives and choices in a relative fashion (i.e., "everyone does it and I should be able to as well") is a big part of what erodes quality of life for people. We often say fatalistically that "life isn't fair", but we don't internalize that reality and consider it when making choices in our lives. We still compare ourselves to others and feel that similar choices should yield similar results, and more so when it comes to health than many other areas. I think it's time to develop more sophisticated thinking in this regard and work out that "life isn't fair" isn't a pessimistic conclusion, but the starting point for understanding how to make the best choices for each of us as individuals.
I didn't know this particular cousin especially well, but I did see him occasionally. He was about 5 years older than me and was always thin. He also seemed to have some emotional or mental difficulties. Though he wasn't in any sort of special education classes, he was not particularly bright and had some temper issues. He was capable of doing certain types of work and eventually married and had children.
Despite having grown up with his illness, my cousin was never capable of regulating his diet. In particular, he consumed candy bars and other sweets such that his diabetes was not under control. Though he never gained weight or got fat, his body was constantly being damaged by his diabetes as a result of a poor diet. In the end, he died young as a result of his inability to control his eating. He wasn't fat, but he literally ate himself to death.
There is no doubt in my mind that my cousin experienced a certain biological pressure to consume sweets. However, my uncle (not the father of this particular cousin) also was born with type 1 diabetes which he has kept under control for his entire life through medication and a controlled diet. The main difference between the two was emotional. One could not control his relationship with food and the other could.
The question that I'm throwing out there for myself after pondering their respective situations is whether or not the inability to regulate your diet when you have a life-threatening health issue is a question of mental health. Very often people approach diet as if there were a single "best" way to eat which would result in all people experiencing optimal health. Bodies don't work like that. There are people who can eat a candy bar (or two) everyday and experience no ill effects. There are those who can eat bread all day and those who can't tolerate a single slice. All processing of food by a particular body is individual with varying consequences.
This fact is one I realized long before I thought about my cousin's situation. Some time ago, I finally internalized the fact that there are people out there who can gorge on junk food and not get fat while I am likely going to have to be very careful about what I eat to simply avoid being morbidly obese. Some people will remain or get fat on 2000 calories. Some will stay thin on over 3000. That's the way it is and railing against it and the unfairness of it doesn't change the biological reality. Just as my cousin's reasonable desire to indulge in sweets that he likely saw his sister and others consuming resulted in his death, my diet, "healthy" or "reasonable" though it might be in some eyes, can result in a physical state which will make me miserable.
Getting back to the main point, however, if my cousin could not adhere to a diet which was stricter than most, was it a matter of mental health? Is the inability to control your behavior above and beyond what "average" folks are required to do because of your particular special circumstances an issue of psychology? My answer would be, "yes." Psychology isn't a matter of averages anymore than biology is. Maximum quality of life cannot be achieved by applying a template of actions or thinking patterns according to what everyone believes is best, but rather what is best for the individual. My cousin could not do what was best for him, even though similar actions would not have been destructive to someone lacking his health issues. If there had been behavioral intervention to help him master his destructive urges, he may have lived a lot longer.
There is a lot of debate about whether or not obesity is the result of a mental health problem and there are vociferous folks who rail mightily against the idea. However, I think context is very important. If someone washes their hands 30 times a day, do they have a disorder? They do, unless that person is a doctor who sees a lot of different people and washes his hands between patients and for regular routine hygiene. If someone becomes so fat that their mobility, joint health, or blood sugar are affected and their quality of life compromised by their weight and they cannot alter their habits to affect a positive change, is it a mental health issue? I say it is. If you can't make behavioral changes in your life to be happier, then it is a matter of psychology and it doesn't matter that only you need to make those changes. It's about mastering your own life, not living as an "average" person. That goes for everything, not just weight and food. If you can't control your temper, concentrate long enough to study, etc. and these conditions are particular to you, they are issues of mental health.
Note that I am in no way saying that these are psychological issues which must be dealt with. No one is obliged to deal with their particular problems at all. Just as I do not believe physical health is an obligation, I do not believe mental health is one either. People have the right to live as they please, even to their own detriment. However, I increasingly believe that thinking about our lives and choices in a relative fashion (i.e., "everyone does it and I should be able to as well") is a big part of what erodes quality of life for people. We often say fatalistically that "life isn't fair", but we don't internalize that reality and consider it when making choices in our lives. We still compare ourselves to others and feel that similar choices should yield similar results, and more so when it comes to health than many other areas. I think it's time to develop more sophisticated thinking in this regard and work out that "life isn't fair" isn't a pessimistic conclusion, but the starting point for understanding how to make the best choices for each of us as individuals.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The Acquisition of Health
Unless you live under a rock, you have heard the news that former head of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs, passed away. I'm not going to turn this post into an off-topic homage to Mr. Jobs, despite the fact that I was once a Mac enthusiast and an Apple devotee and am still a dual-platform user (I use both Windows and Mac, favoring neither). There are likely thousands, possibly millions, of writers of all stripes who are doing just that, and I see no value in adding to the pile. Those who care, will say something. Those who do not, will close the browser window or tab.
What I want to talk about is Mr. Jobs's lifestyle. From all external observation and by reading what insider's said about him, he lived an exemplary lifestyle. He has been a vegetarian for nearly all of his adult life, practiced meditation, exercised regularly, and was trim and fit in appearance. Even after his liver transplant and treatment for pancreatic cancer, he walked every day and had incremental goals to improve his fitness and stamina. What is more, Mr. Jobs was someone who could afford the best medical care in the world and certainly received regular check-ups and attention for any and all health problems. Mr. Jobs did everything "right" in his life in terms of supporting good health, but he still died at the relatively young age 56.
Since fat people are constantly having their lifestyles scrutinized and they are blamed for any and all health problems they have, I think it is valuable to look at the life of someone who one might arguably be viewed as a paragon of lifestyle choices. People so often look at others and believe that, "if only" they did the right things, they would be healthy. It is absolutely true that there are lifestyle diseases which can be improved or eliminated if one makes choices which are more conducive to good health. However, we must accept that health is not something everyone can acquire with a "better" lifestyle. What is more, the degree of change necessary to improve health is not equal across individuals. One person may improve by making small changes and another may improve marginally making huge changes. Every body is different and it is only the illusion that we can control our destiny through making the "right" choices that makes people so keen to judge. If they believe Fatty McFats over there could be healthy by eating better and moving more, then they can believe that they can also acquire health by making the "right" choices.
Unfortunately, as Mr. Jobs's unfortunate and premature death illustrates, good, even stellar, lifestyle choices don't always result in the acquisition of health. We all have a different genetic make-up which influences how healthy we can be. Sometimes, it means we get cancer at a young age no matter what we do. Sometimes it means we get diabetes even if we eat well and are exercising regularly. It's important not to view sickness and disease as something people buy with their choices, and to understand that life and being healthy are a good deal more complicated than we'd like to believe.
What I want to talk about is Mr. Jobs's lifestyle. From all external observation and by reading what insider's said about him, he lived an exemplary lifestyle. He has been a vegetarian for nearly all of his adult life, practiced meditation, exercised regularly, and was trim and fit in appearance. Even after his liver transplant and treatment for pancreatic cancer, he walked every day and had incremental goals to improve his fitness and stamina. What is more, Mr. Jobs was someone who could afford the best medical care in the world and certainly received regular check-ups and attention for any and all health problems. Mr. Jobs did everything "right" in his life in terms of supporting good health, but he still died at the relatively young age 56.
Since fat people are constantly having their lifestyles scrutinized and they are blamed for any and all health problems they have, I think it is valuable to look at the life of someone who one might arguably be viewed as a paragon of lifestyle choices. People so often look at others and believe that, "if only" they did the right things, they would be healthy. It is absolutely true that there are lifestyle diseases which can be improved or eliminated if one makes choices which are more conducive to good health. However, we must accept that health is not something everyone can acquire with a "better" lifestyle. What is more, the degree of change necessary to improve health is not equal across individuals. One person may improve by making small changes and another may improve marginally making huge changes. Every body is different and it is only the illusion that we can control our destiny through making the "right" choices that makes people so keen to judge. If they believe Fatty McFats over there could be healthy by eating better and moving more, then they can believe that they can also acquire health by making the "right" choices.
Unfortunately, as Mr. Jobs's unfortunate and premature death illustrates, good, even stellar, lifestyle choices don't always result in the acquisition of health. We all have a different genetic make-up which influences how healthy we can be. Sometimes, it means we get cancer at a young age no matter what we do. Sometimes it means we get diabetes even if we eat well and are exercising regularly. It's important not to view sickness and disease as something people buy with their choices, and to understand that life and being healthy are a good deal more complicated than we'd like to believe.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Health Test Results
Today I received the results of the first round of regular health check tests which I mentioned in the previous post. All of my results were within the range of "normal" except for one. That one was, quite predictably, my BMI which is 30.9%.
Personally, I'm not especially bothered that this number is highlighted in red to indicate that it is a problem because I planned to lose more weight anyway. However, I can't help but feel that the HAES (health at every size) movement would take issue with this. If all of my results are okay, why is weight even being tagged as an issue?
What I realize is that this isn't about any sort of personal choice on the part of the health care provider to point at my weight and say, "bad girl!". This is about bureaucracy and a system which looks only at numbers and reaches conclusions. With this type of health care, I'm essentially being judged by a machine rather than by human judgment. The machine prints out a report and if the range of numbers is outside of certain parameters, it prints it in red. If the number is high, it spits out particular advice. If the number is low, it spits out different advice.
When I learned the results, I was not overjoyed or proud or whatever. I know some of the results could likely be better in the abstract (though there is nothing "wrong" with them now). For instance, my fasting blood sugar is 94. That is on the higher end of "normal", but is nonetheless normal. This number isn't on the high side of normal because I'm overeating or eating poorly. It's where it is because I haven't been sleeping well due to knee pain and my stress levels over the past 6 months have gotten higher and higher (due to taking on a new job and various other issues such as living close to a crisis zone). Insulin is affected by these factors in addition to diet.
The bottom line is that there are things I can do which would favorably impact these statistics and things I can't do. I can't instantly cure my knee, and, in fact, my efforts to date to improve it with self-prescribed physical therapy (exercise, bending, baths) have only made it worse and I'm abandoning that line. Right now, the pain gets better if I do nothing rather than do something. If I can't fix my pain, I can't fix my sleep problems.
The other thing which I think would improve my health is engaging in more vigorous exercise. While I walk and lift weights 5-7 times a week, I can't do strenuous aerobic exercise due to my physical fragility. Mainly, this is due to my knee, which barely tolerates the walking I do everyday. My back is generally better, but if I push it too far too fast, I will pay for it. Even now, I'm having some pain from various stretching exercises which create strain on my back. I can't change the fact that I'm unable to do more challenging exercise due to physical pain and damage.
My main concern about the numbers I was going to receive was that they would be poor and I'd feel that I was already doing almost everything I possibly could to have better health. I eat exceptionally well from a nutritional balance viewpoint. Sure, I eat a few treats a day, but I think only a nut job who derives all of his or her self-esteem and a sense of moral superiority from something as trivial as food choices would believe that a few bites of something sweet a day make a huge health difference. There's no way the equivalent of eating 3-5 Hershey's Kisses per day is going to have an appreciable impact on my health when my calories are kept consistently within a range of 1500-2000 the vast majority of the time and I eat a very good balance of nutritious food.
The tests I took validated my sense that I'm generally pretty healthy now, but I had an odd sense of foreboding even getting them because I know that a person can do everything right and still fail. Health is not something you can attain merely by connecting all of the proper dots. You can increase your chances, sure, but there are no guarantees. Each person works with particular predispositions. I'm genetically lucky in some ways since my body fat is hanging off of my behind and belly instead of collecting around my organs and in areas which tend to contribute to Type 2 diabetes. There are people at my weight or lower who have more problems, not because they are making poor choices, but because their body reacts differently.
At the moment, I'm still in limbo on the thyroid concerns that I mentioned in the previous post. I wasn't permitted to make an appointment for a test until after this first round of test results arrived. I still believe this is a precaution, but a seed has certainly been planted that I have cause for concern. I'd like to dig that seed up and throw it away before it grows any further, but I can't do that until I have another test.
Beyond the thyroid test, I've still got to have a pap test and mammogram. These are other tests that I've avoided for years because of humiliating and degrading experiences due to my weight. Last time I attempted to have such a test, the doctor put me on an electronically elevated table which would not move up due to my weight and angrily asked me how much I weighed and reacted with great and overt disgust that she had to move me to an old fashioned table to conduct the exam. Since then, I haven't gone back. Of course, I know that if I don't take such tests, I'm the one who will pay the price, but I couldn't bear to face it again after that.
Even at my current weight (around 185), I approach all medical experiences with trepidation. I am going to have all of the tests that I should have done completed despite my fears and anxiety. I'm scheduled to get the pap test and mammogram as soon as possible (around mid-October). I'm saddened that it took extreme weight loss to work up the courage to do what normal people do to maintain health and I'm angry that negative experiences made me avoid them for so long. As I've mentioned before, I often wonder if the higher mortality rate among obese individuals is related to not seeking regular health care due to the shoddy treatment they receive rather than obesity-related illness. If you don't go until something is seriously wrong, it is likely too late to deal with the issue.
For now though, I'm satisfied that I'm okay on the fronts which have been measured and relieved that doing everything I reasonably can just so happens to be "enough" for all of the machines to say I'm healthy.
Personally, I'm not especially bothered that this number is highlighted in red to indicate that it is a problem because I planned to lose more weight anyway. However, I can't help but feel that the HAES (health at every size) movement would take issue with this. If all of my results are okay, why is weight even being tagged as an issue?
What I realize is that this isn't about any sort of personal choice on the part of the health care provider to point at my weight and say, "bad girl!". This is about bureaucracy and a system which looks only at numbers and reaches conclusions. With this type of health care, I'm essentially being judged by a machine rather than by human judgment. The machine prints out a report and if the range of numbers is outside of certain parameters, it prints it in red. If the number is high, it spits out particular advice. If the number is low, it spits out different advice.
When I learned the results, I was not overjoyed or proud or whatever. I know some of the results could likely be better in the abstract (though there is nothing "wrong" with them now). For instance, my fasting blood sugar is 94. That is on the higher end of "normal", but is nonetheless normal. This number isn't on the high side of normal because I'm overeating or eating poorly. It's where it is because I haven't been sleeping well due to knee pain and my stress levels over the past 6 months have gotten higher and higher (due to taking on a new job and various other issues such as living close to a crisis zone). Insulin is affected by these factors in addition to diet.
The bottom line is that there are things I can do which would favorably impact these statistics and things I can't do. I can't instantly cure my knee, and, in fact, my efforts to date to improve it with self-prescribed physical therapy (exercise, bending, baths) have only made it worse and I'm abandoning that line. Right now, the pain gets better if I do nothing rather than do something. If I can't fix my pain, I can't fix my sleep problems.
The other thing which I think would improve my health is engaging in more vigorous exercise. While I walk and lift weights 5-7 times a week, I can't do strenuous aerobic exercise due to my physical fragility. Mainly, this is due to my knee, which barely tolerates the walking I do everyday. My back is generally better, but if I push it too far too fast, I will pay for it. Even now, I'm having some pain from various stretching exercises which create strain on my back. I can't change the fact that I'm unable to do more challenging exercise due to physical pain and damage.
My main concern about the numbers I was going to receive was that they would be poor and I'd feel that I was already doing almost everything I possibly could to have better health. I eat exceptionally well from a nutritional balance viewpoint. Sure, I eat a few treats a day, but I think only a nut job who derives all of his or her self-esteem and a sense of moral superiority from something as trivial as food choices would believe that a few bites of something sweet a day make a huge health difference. There's no way the equivalent of eating 3-5 Hershey's Kisses per day is going to have an appreciable impact on my health when my calories are kept consistently within a range of 1500-2000 the vast majority of the time and I eat a very good balance of nutritious food.
The tests I took validated my sense that I'm generally pretty healthy now, but I had an odd sense of foreboding even getting them because I know that a person can do everything right and still fail. Health is not something you can attain merely by connecting all of the proper dots. You can increase your chances, sure, but there are no guarantees. Each person works with particular predispositions. I'm genetically lucky in some ways since my body fat is hanging off of my behind and belly instead of collecting around my organs and in areas which tend to contribute to Type 2 diabetes. There are people at my weight or lower who have more problems, not because they are making poor choices, but because their body reacts differently.
At the moment, I'm still in limbo on the thyroid concerns that I mentioned in the previous post. I wasn't permitted to make an appointment for a test until after this first round of test results arrived. I still believe this is a precaution, but a seed has certainly been planted that I have cause for concern. I'd like to dig that seed up and throw it away before it grows any further, but I can't do that until I have another test.
Beyond the thyroid test, I've still got to have a pap test and mammogram. These are other tests that I've avoided for years because of humiliating and degrading experiences due to my weight. Last time I attempted to have such a test, the doctor put me on an electronically elevated table which would not move up due to my weight and angrily asked me how much I weighed and reacted with great and overt disgust that she had to move me to an old fashioned table to conduct the exam. Since then, I haven't gone back. Of course, I know that if I don't take such tests, I'm the one who will pay the price, but I couldn't bear to face it again after that.
Even at my current weight (around 185), I approach all medical experiences with trepidation. I am going to have all of the tests that I should have done completed despite my fears and anxiety. I'm scheduled to get the pap test and mammogram as soon as possible (around mid-October). I'm saddened that it took extreme weight loss to work up the courage to do what normal people do to maintain health and I'm angry that negative experiences made me avoid them for so long. As I've mentioned before, I often wonder if the higher mortality rate among obese individuals is related to not seeking regular health care due to the shoddy treatment they receive rather than obesity-related illness. If you don't go until something is seriously wrong, it is likely too late to deal with the issue.
For now though, I'm satisfied that I'm okay on the fronts which have been measured and relieved that doing everything I reasonably can just so happens to be "enough" for all of the machines to say I'm healthy.
Monday, September 12, 2011
My Secret Fear (Played Into)
I have had a secret fear related to my fatalism about life for quite some time, and I wonder if it stopped me at times from losing weight. That fear has been that, if I ever pulled me life together in any substantial way, that I would be struck with cancer and die. My feeling was that whatever force or forces of the universe conspired to make my life to date as miserable as possible by having me born to messed up, poor parents and a biology which seemed to conspire to make and keep me fat would not "permit" me to be happy.
I realize that this is irrational, but there was always this nagging fear that if I overcame all of the emotional and psychological issues and became stronger and more capable, something bad would befall me to sabotage my happiness. I formulated the idea that my destiny was to be miserable and I think I often felt I'd rather be food-addicted and self-hating than risk whatever wrath was to befall me at the end of self-repair. This is the mindset that grew from the handful of cards that fate had dealt me.
Despite this nagging feeling, I've pressed on to be a better person in every way. I try to emotionally be better by dealing with negative emotions more positively. I've spent a good part of my life trying to turn my glass is half empty thinking around to at least a little more glass is half full thinking. I've tried to gently talk down the voice in me which is all too keen to tell myself that the sky is falling. The notion that I have fewer options in life and have to remain in a bad situation for fear of being worse off if I walk away from what I have has really been hard for me to talk myself out of, but I've made progress. I've learned to be less defensive and more open after years of feeling combative toward the world which seemed to lash out and hurt me at every turn. And, of course, I've dealt a lot with my food relationship and body issues.
So, I've made a lot of progress in my life at this point. That progress pre-dated this blog by many years. Psychological changes to my outlook in life, temper control, etc. are things which were not hampered by being very fat. One of the reasons that I don't look back on my life between 300-400 lbs. with regret as many people do is that I know how much I grew during that time regardless of my weight. In fact, I think it was part of the culmination of my mental growth that I was able to lose weight in the past two years. One could not have happened without the groundwork of the other.
Yesterday, I went for a physical examination. The results are hardly in as this was just the testing stage. No concrete results will arrive for two weeks as I'm living in a place with socialized medicine which is highly bureaucratic in nature. It rushes for no one. During the cursory exam, the doctor asked me if anyone had ever suggested I had thyroid problems. I said "no" (but later remembered that someone had suggested it in another exam about 8 years ago). He spent a few seconds feeling my neck and then suggested I should have it checked because he thought it was enlarged a bit. When I asked what it would mean if it were inflamed, he hemmed and hawed and essentially said he didn't know until they did an ultrasound, but they wouldn't give me one until I had a follow-up exam which wouldn't occur until I got the test results in two weeks. After that, I left for the next test in the battery I was being given, and a nurse came out and gave me a pamphlet on cancer detection.
Even though the doctor didn't use "the C-word", the nurse's delivery of such a document sent me into a state of numbness and fear. Here it was sitting right in front of me, my deepest fear being supported by medical professionals. I spent much of the rest of the day feeling as if destiny was going to be fulfilled, then I got angry.
The doctor didn't ask me any questions about anything related to thyroid conditions or my health aside from a few broad questions about diarrhea, constipation, smoking, medication, smoking, and alcohol. His exam was extremely cursory in every way because part of the socialized medical system in this country is a free annual health check-up. For the hospital to get more money out of me, I need to come for a follow-up (which I will pay 1/3 of the expense for) and do tests which are outside of the free regimen. While I don't think the doctor was intentionally recommending a test he felt was unnecessary, I do believe he was doing a sloppy diagnosis based on my age, weight (which he did not mention in the exam at all, but I'd be shocked if it didn't come up later in the follow-up), and a vague tactile exam of my neck.
The thing is that I was at the beginning of a cold when I went in for the exam. My throat was a little sore and a lymph node under the left side of my jaw was slightly swollen. The doctor never asked if I had a cold or was coming down with something and I never thought to mention it in the brief exam as I didn't think it had anything to do with anything. My husband later did research on enlarged thyroids and noted that colds can cause that (among many other things unrelated to cancer). The doctor should not have intimated that I could have a serious problem, which he did by telling a nurse to give a pamphlet about cancer, without at least asking about underlying conditions, but this is a bureaucratic type of health care and such behavior on the part of doctors is not rare. Dire and sloppy diagnoses have been given to friends of mine, and even to me on one occasion before, and they have been wrong.
If I hadn't had my fatalistic notions about my future if I lost weight, I don't know if I would have been more level-minded about what happened. I doubt that I would, but this experience has taught me that I need to continue to work on my outlook. Unfortunately, I also have to have a test on my thyroid in the near future because nothing will quell the nagging sense of fear that I could have a serious issue if I don't. However, after thinking it through and my husband's research on the topic, I'm pretty sure that I don't have thyroid cancer and that what I did have was a doctor who is part of a system which deals with people in what amounts to a cattle call system of health checks and who has a poor bedside manner as a result of both culture and a system, which is better in many ways than America's, but is still flawed.
I realize that this is irrational, but there was always this nagging fear that if I overcame all of the emotional and psychological issues and became stronger and more capable, something bad would befall me to sabotage my happiness. I formulated the idea that my destiny was to be miserable and I think I often felt I'd rather be food-addicted and self-hating than risk whatever wrath was to befall me at the end of self-repair. This is the mindset that grew from the handful of cards that fate had dealt me.
Despite this nagging feeling, I've pressed on to be a better person in every way. I try to emotionally be better by dealing with negative emotions more positively. I've spent a good part of my life trying to turn my glass is half empty thinking around to at least a little more glass is half full thinking. I've tried to gently talk down the voice in me which is all too keen to tell myself that the sky is falling. The notion that I have fewer options in life and have to remain in a bad situation for fear of being worse off if I walk away from what I have has really been hard for me to talk myself out of, but I've made progress. I've learned to be less defensive and more open after years of feeling combative toward the world which seemed to lash out and hurt me at every turn. And, of course, I've dealt a lot with my food relationship and body issues.
So, I've made a lot of progress in my life at this point. That progress pre-dated this blog by many years. Psychological changes to my outlook in life, temper control, etc. are things which were not hampered by being very fat. One of the reasons that I don't look back on my life between 300-400 lbs. with regret as many people do is that I know how much I grew during that time regardless of my weight. In fact, I think it was part of the culmination of my mental growth that I was able to lose weight in the past two years. One could not have happened without the groundwork of the other.
Yesterday, I went for a physical examination. The results are hardly in as this was just the testing stage. No concrete results will arrive for two weeks as I'm living in a place with socialized medicine which is highly bureaucratic in nature. It rushes for no one. During the cursory exam, the doctor asked me if anyone had ever suggested I had thyroid problems. I said "no" (but later remembered that someone had suggested it in another exam about 8 years ago). He spent a few seconds feeling my neck and then suggested I should have it checked because he thought it was enlarged a bit. When I asked what it would mean if it were inflamed, he hemmed and hawed and essentially said he didn't know until they did an ultrasound, but they wouldn't give me one until I had a follow-up exam which wouldn't occur until I got the test results in two weeks. After that, I left for the next test in the battery I was being given, and a nurse came out and gave me a pamphlet on cancer detection.
Even though the doctor didn't use "the C-word", the nurse's delivery of such a document sent me into a state of numbness and fear. Here it was sitting right in front of me, my deepest fear being supported by medical professionals. I spent much of the rest of the day feeling as if destiny was going to be fulfilled, then I got angry.
The doctor didn't ask me any questions about anything related to thyroid conditions or my health aside from a few broad questions about diarrhea, constipation, smoking, medication, smoking, and alcohol. His exam was extremely cursory in every way because part of the socialized medical system in this country is a free annual health check-up. For the hospital to get more money out of me, I need to come for a follow-up (which I will pay 1/3 of the expense for) and do tests which are outside of the free regimen. While I don't think the doctor was intentionally recommending a test he felt was unnecessary, I do believe he was doing a sloppy diagnosis based on my age, weight (which he did not mention in the exam at all, but I'd be shocked if it didn't come up later in the follow-up), and a vague tactile exam of my neck.
The thing is that I was at the beginning of a cold when I went in for the exam. My throat was a little sore and a lymph node under the left side of my jaw was slightly swollen. The doctor never asked if I had a cold or was coming down with something and I never thought to mention it in the brief exam as I didn't think it had anything to do with anything. My husband later did research on enlarged thyroids and noted that colds can cause that (among many other things unrelated to cancer). The doctor should not have intimated that I could have a serious problem, which he did by telling a nurse to give a pamphlet about cancer, without at least asking about underlying conditions, but this is a bureaucratic type of health care and such behavior on the part of doctors is not rare. Dire and sloppy diagnoses have been given to friends of mine, and even to me on one occasion before, and they have been wrong.
If I hadn't had my fatalistic notions about my future if I lost weight, I don't know if I would have been more level-minded about what happened. I doubt that I would, but this experience has taught me that I need to continue to work on my outlook. Unfortunately, I also have to have a test on my thyroid in the near future because nothing will quell the nagging sense of fear that I could have a serious issue if I don't. However, after thinking it through and my husband's research on the topic, I'm pretty sure that I don't have thyroid cancer and that what I did have was a doctor who is part of a system which deals with people in what amounts to a cattle call system of health checks and who has a poor bedside manner as a result of both culture and a system, which is better in many ways than America's, but is still flawed.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Seesaw
People who are "getting healthy" love to talk about all of the things they gain as a result of their "lifestyle changes". They talk about increased energy, feeling stronger, and gaining health. In many cases, it is true that changing your habits will add to your health in appreciable ways. However, it's not all sunshine and roses.
I try to be honest about what it has been like to lose weight, and part of that honesty is talking about the bad along with the good. While the benefits have outweighed the demerits, there have, nonetheless, been things which have been a problem. Sometimes I feel like I'm on a seesaw in which one problem vanishes, and another pops up on the other side. Here is some of what I'm talking about:
I try to be honest about what it has been like to lose weight, and part of that honesty is talking about the bad along with the good. While the benefits have outweighed the demerits, there have, nonetheless, been things which have been a problem. Sometimes I feel like I'm on a seesaw in which one problem vanishes, and another pops up on the other side. Here is some of what I'm talking about:
- Walking has largely eliminated my back pain (as has weight loss), but the increased movement has left me with strong and painful knee issues. Before I started walking, I occasionally had knee pain, but what I have now is persistent and troubles me at night when I'm trying to sleep, especially if I lie on my side. Even modest exercise (just regular walking, usually for between 40 and 90 minutes most days) can cause difficulty depending on your age and history, and I have a history of two or three accidents in which my knees have been slightly damaged/twisted.
- I have not caught a cold since improving my diet and exercise. I have, however, suffered from persistent cold sores on and off (one in my nose at present which I'm having problems shaking). Losing weight is very hard on your body. My husband used to catch a cold shortly after going "on a diet" in the past. It stresses your immune system, even when you are following a nutritious diet.
- I have patches of an itchy rash on both of my hands. These are not contact rashes, but due to stress. I've had this sort of rash before in very small spots on my fingers during times of difficulty, but the patches are bigger and in greater number than before. This is because my increased ability as a result of decreased disability has me doing more than I have for quite some time which has resulted in stress. My body is reacting with this rash and in a slightly more severe fashion than before.
- I have increased stamina, but I still experience fatigue which comes in waves and is stronger on some days than others. This is likely related to age, but it's also probably connected to weight loss since, as I said before, it is hard on your body and immune system. It takes it out of you, especially over the long run.
I'm going to have a very complete physical exam in four days. If there are any underlying issues, all will be revealed. Frankly, I don't expect any serious issues, but rather that this is all a reflection of running at a caloric reduction for a long time. Though my caloric reduction has been quite modest (1500-2000 calories most days, hitting near 1600-1700 more often than not), it's still enough to cause bodily stress.
When I see a doctor in the next several days, I will mention it, but I expect any mention of my knee issues will yield the advice that I always get, "lose weight". I think a doctor is unlikely to do anything for me until I ring a bell on the scale and "deserve" treatment, but it would be nice if I was taken seriously. Since my expectations of getting any help are so low, I'm trying to deal with the knee issue as best I can on my own. This mainly involves painful exercises in which I attempt to stretch what feels like very tight muscles over the inside of my kneecap and efforts to strengthen supporting muscles in my legs.
So far, this has resulted in more pain overall as the muscles are so sore and not really feeling any stronger, but better flexibility than before. I've been doing these exercises both in the tub while soaking in warm water and while working (I can stretch and hold muscles under the desk while talking with clients). Over time, it is my hope that there will be a reduction in pain. I've only been at it for about a week, so it's hard to tell if this is helping. It doesn't feel like it is making it any worse though.
I wanted to make this post because so many people act like weight loss is a form of refreshing rebirth. They underplay other issues, such as poor skin health or hair loss (neither of which I have suffered in any way). On balance, I'm certainly better off now than I was two years ago, but I'm not waking up every day bursting with energy and thinking how great it is to be alive. I'm waking up wishing my knee pain didn't cause me to sleep poorly and that my sinuses weren't screwed up or my hands weren't itchy. I'm going off to work knowing there will be two or three times throughout the day when I'm going to feel so tired that I'd like to lie down. Things are definitely better, but far from perfect. However, it's not like going back to things as they were is even an option.
Monday, August 1, 2011
BP
I haven't been to a doctor in ages, because I know that all they will tell me is "lose weight". I also haven't had any health problems that I felt could benefit from treatment (my back pain was addressed, and not helped long ago) so I've avoided doctors both because they treat me rudely and poorly (as in, they don't do anything but look at me and conclude all problems stem from my weight) and won't do anything to actually help. Telling me "lose weight" wasn't helpful, since obviously I couldn't at that time.
Today, I went to a place which happened to have a public blood pressure cuff which you could put your arm in and test yourself without scrutiny or judgement. My blood pressure was 122/67 with a resting heart rate of 78 bps. I didn't even know what those numbers meant as I'm always worried being too medically knowledgeable will just send me into some sort of hypochondriacal stress fit, but my husband said they were quite reasonable. Looking them up online, I now have no concerns about blood pressure for now.
I'm still planning to go for a full check-up in September, but this was an encouraging start and a way of desensitizing myself to the tests I'll be receiving before I actually take them.
Today, I went to a place which happened to have a public blood pressure cuff which you could put your arm in and test yourself without scrutiny or judgement. My blood pressure was 122/67 with a resting heart rate of 78 bps. I didn't even know what those numbers meant as I'm always worried being too medically knowledgeable will just send me into some sort of hypochondriacal stress fit, but my husband said they were quite reasonable. Looking them up online, I now have no concerns about blood pressure for now.
I'm still planning to go for a full check-up in September, but this was an encouraging start and a way of desensitizing myself to the tests I'll be receiving before I actually take them.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Fat Acceptance
In addition to reading a lot of personal blogs and weight loss forums, I also read what I call "fat subversive" blogs. These are written by people who are focusing not on changing themselves to conform to society's wishes, but talk about how society should accept fat people and focus on health rather than appearance. I'll be upfront and say that I don't often agree with about half of what is said, but I agree with the underlying goal of acceptance. People should be allowed to live their lives any way they like without censure, particularly in regards to something as personal as their weight or appearance.
I often find myself a bit torn between two viewpoints on the issue of the fat acceptance movement. No, those viewpoints are not to accept or not to accept. The viewpoints are whether or not most fat people (myself included) would be happier and healthier if people just minded their own business and left them alone. Personally, I think actually getting healthier and losing weight would be easier if I weren't constantly made to feel as if my weight defined my value as a human being. It's the self-loathing and censure that greatly assisted my nearly reaching 400 lbs., after all. However, that's not the issue at hand.
The issue at hand is whether or not I'd be just as happy remaining fat if the world stopped judging and punishing me. How much of our lack of happiness is externally inflicted, and how much is personal misery as a result of the difficulties we endure because of the size of our bodies? As I read fat-acceptance bloggers labor to justify their remaining at their size and proclaim their contentment, I ponder this question. At least two of the more prominent ones suffer from various health problems which may or may not be brought on by weight, but are certainly aggravated by it. (And both of them are charismatic writers and come across as very nice people.) One has a rapid heartbeat when exerting herself in strenuous situations like walking up steps. Another has joint pain issues. Both of them are relatively young, and I know all too well that these problems get worse with age as the strain on your body turns to damage of the overburdened parts. My pain, after all, has kept me close to house-bound (just going to work and doing what I had to do) for over a decade. Losing weight has alleviated a lot of that pain. At around 260-270 lbs. (my best guess of my current weight), I still suffer, but far, far less than around 380 lbs.
There are also issues of flexibility and mobility. At higher weights, it is harder to navigate around your own body parts. Your own flesh gets in your way. You can't move quickly or as easily. I tried doing yoga at my high weight, and it was impossible to achieve many of the positions even for my arms because my flesh was too voluminous to manage. I can also say with confidence that sex, which was very difficult before, is a lot better at my current weight because I can move more easily and my husband has to fight my obtrusive flesh a lot less.
Finally, there are issues with stamina. I have never been a lazy person. In fact, I move around a lot more than most thin people that I know. That being said, I was exhausted and tired nearly every day from all of the movement that I did, not to mention the ravages of the pain I felt. Now, I rarely reach that level of fatigue, and I move even more because it's easier to do so. Moving around a bigger body makes you tired much more rapidly than a smaller one. This is simple logic and is the reason why basal metabolic rates are higher for loftier weights. It takes more fuel to drive the bodily equivalent of an 18-wheeler than a compact car.
So, I do wonder if living in some perfect world of fat acceptance where all furniture were wide enough to accommodate our big behinds and all opportunity doors were equally open to us based on merit and not appearance would mean we'd live fat and contented, or not. I'm not a person who is disposed to vanity, as my handful of readers may have guessed based on my wearing the same clothes after losing somewhat over 100 lbs. I'm not looking to show off a better figure or admire myself in the mirror. I am looking to escape my health and mobility problems, have no difficulty navigating a world designed for thin people, and escape daily abuse based on weight. If you remove the last two, there is still the great incentive of living in less physical misery on a daily basis. That really has nothing to do with how accepting the world is, and it's more than enough to make me unhappy with remaining fat.
I often find myself a bit torn between two viewpoints on the issue of the fat acceptance movement. No, those viewpoints are not to accept or not to accept. The viewpoints are whether or not most fat people (myself included) would be happier and healthier if people just minded their own business and left them alone. Personally, I think actually getting healthier and losing weight would be easier if I weren't constantly made to feel as if my weight defined my value as a human being. It's the self-loathing and censure that greatly assisted my nearly reaching 400 lbs., after all. However, that's not the issue at hand.
The issue at hand is whether or not I'd be just as happy remaining fat if the world stopped judging and punishing me. How much of our lack of happiness is externally inflicted, and how much is personal misery as a result of the difficulties we endure because of the size of our bodies? As I read fat-acceptance bloggers labor to justify their remaining at their size and proclaim their contentment, I ponder this question. At least two of the more prominent ones suffer from various health problems which may or may not be brought on by weight, but are certainly aggravated by it. (And both of them are charismatic writers and come across as very nice people.) One has a rapid heartbeat when exerting herself in strenuous situations like walking up steps. Another has joint pain issues. Both of them are relatively young, and I know all too well that these problems get worse with age as the strain on your body turns to damage of the overburdened parts. My pain, after all, has kept me close to house-bound (just going to work and doing what I had to do) for over a decade. Losing weight has alleviated a lot of that pain. At around 260-270 lbs. (my best guess of my current weight), I still suffer, but far, far less than around 380 lbs.
There are also issues of flexibility and mobility. At higher weights, it is harder to navigate around your own body parts. Your own flesh gets in your way. You can't move quickly or as easily. I tried doing yoga at my high weight, and it was impossible to achieve many of the positions even for my arms because my flesh was too voluminous to manage. I can also say with confidence that sex, which was very difficult before, is a lot better at my current weight because I can move more easily and my husband has to fight my obtrusive flesh a lot less.
Finally, there are issues with stamina. I have never been a lazy person. In fact, I move around a lot more than most thin people that I know. That being said, I was exhausted and tired nearly every day from all of the movement that I did, not to mention the ravages of the pain I felt. Now, I rarely reach that level of fatigue, and I move even more because it's easier to do so. Moving around a bigger body makes you tired much more rapidly than a smaller one. This is simple logic and is the reason why basal metabolic rates are higher for loftier weights. It takes more fuel to drive the bodily equivalent of an 18-wheeler than a compact car.
So, I do wonder if living in some perfect world of fat acceptance where all furniture were wide enough to accommodate our big behinds and all opportunity doors were equally open to us based on merit and not appearance would mean we'd live fat and contented, or not. I'm not a person who is disposed to vanity, as my handful of readers may have guessed based on my wearing the same clothes after losing somewhat over 100 lbs. I'm not looking to show off a better figure or admire myself in the mirror. I am looking to escape my health and mobility problems, have no difficulty navigating a world designed for thin people, and escape daily abuse based on weight. If you remove the last two, there is still the great incentive of living in less physical misery on a daily basis. That really has nothing to do with how accepting the world is, and it's more than enough to make me unhappy with remaining fat.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Losing at a "healthy" rate
I read a news article late last year about a woman in England who went on an extreme diet that allowed her something like 500-600 calories per day. The diet was overseen by a doctor, and included some sort of nutritional supplements that were supposed to ensure that she got enough nutrients during rapid weight loss. The incentive for her desire to lose a lot of weight fast was a wedding, unsurprisingly. Weddings seem to be the biggest push for many women to shed weight rapidly.
Since this woman weighed quite a lot, perhaps in the 300 lb. range, she dropped about 60 lbs. or so rapidly. One day, she decided to actually eat, and she ate quite a lot relative to her highly-restricted diet, though nothing ridiculous. She may have consumed something on the order of 3500 calories at most, possibly as little as 2000 calories. The number of calories she ate is unknown because there’s no concrete report of exactly what and how much she ate because, you see, she dropped dead.
Everyone who wants to lose weight wants to lose it fast, but weight loss is a tremendous strain on your body including your heart. Your heart is a muscle, and shrinks during rapid weight loss. That means it is in a weakened state. This woman who lost so much weight under a doctors care died from heart failure because the consumption of a larger number of calories so stressed her body that her heart couldn’t deal with it.
My husband and I have talked about my weight loss and he’s pleased that I’m losing weight, but he always cautions me when I say I wish it were going faster. He has said that he believes that a more rapid loss would be unhealthy, and that a slow steady loss (around 1-2 lbs. per week) is better not only in the long run, but also in the short run for my immediate health. The news story that I read last year, while somewhat extreme, provides a good lesson in why that is so. Yes, I’m impatient to feel better about myself, stronger, and healthier, but I’d rather get there with a strong heart and a body that has burned fat to reach my goal rather than a weak heart and a body that has consumed muscle and released fluid-based pounds.
To this end, I decided to go against my assertion about not weighing myself again for a long time to see what my one-month progress tended to look like. As before, I thought very carefully before I dragged out that scale and considered what the numbers would mean to me. In particular, I was considering the effect of it not changing as much as I might hope or more than I might expect. I wasn’t going to do it if I believed the number would have an appreciable effect on my plan. In the end, I decided that I could be sanguine about it and that the value of knowing my progress after one month, something which I have never looked at before, was greater than any potential emotional consequences.
The number was 284, which is 11 lbs. lighter than when I last weighed myself on February 12. This number was not surprising and my emotional response to it was what it was last time. That is, a small amount of satisfaction. It’s really about where I expected to be in terms of monthly loss (which I hope to be around 10 lbs. per month at my present weight and possibly lasting to the 250 lb. range, at which point I expect a slow-down) and where I thought I was in terms of my losses since I started this last year (about 100 lbs. lost by now). This is a range that falls in line with what I feel to be healthy, so I’m pretty happy with it.
Since this woman weighed quite a lot, perhaps in the 300 lb. range, she dropped about 60 lbs. or so rapidly. One day, she decided to actually eat, and she ate quite a lot relative to her highly-restricted diet, though nothing ridiculous. She may have consumed something on the order of 3500 calories at most, possibly as little as 2000 calories. The number of calories she ate is unknown because there’s no concrete report of exactly what and how much she ate because, you see, she dropped dead.
Everyone who wants to lose weight wants to lose it fast, but weight loss is a tremendous strain on your body including your heart. Your heart is a muscle, and shrinks during rapid weight loss. That means it is in a weakened state. This woman who lost so much weight under a doctors care died from heart failure because the consumption of a larger number of calories so stressed her body that her heart couldn’t deal with it.
My husband and I have talked about my weight loss and he’s pleased that I’m losing weight, but he always cautions me when I say I wish it were going faster. He has said that he believes that a more rapid loss would be unhealthy, and that a slow steady loss (around 1-2 lbs. per week) is better not only in the long run, but also in the short run for my immediate health. The news story that I read last year, while somewhat extreme, provides a good lesson in why that is so. Yes, I’m impatient to feel better about myself, stronger, and healthier, but I’d rather get there with a strong heart and a body that has burned fat to reach my goal rather than a weak heart and a body that has consumed muscle and released fluid-based pounds.
To this end, I decided to go against my assertion about not weighing myself again for a long time to see what my one-month progress tended to look like. As before, I thought very carefully before I dragged out that scale and considered what the numbers would mean to me. In particular, I was considering the effect of it not changing as much as I might hope or more than I might expect. I wasn’t going to do it if I believed the number would have an appreciable effect on my plan. In the end, I decided that I could be sanguine about it and that the value of knowing my progress after one month, something which I have never looked at before, was greater than any potential emotional consequences.
The number was 284, which is 11 lbs. lighter than when I last weighed myself on February 12. This number was not surprising and my emotional response to it was what it was last time. That is, a small amount of satisfaction. It’s really about where I expected to be in terms of monthly loss (which I hope to be around 10 lbs. per month at my present weight and possibly lasting to the 250 lb. range, at which point I expect a slow-down) and where I thought I was in terms of my losses since I started this last year (about 100 lbs. lost by now). This is a range that falls in line with what I feel to be healthy, so I’m pretty happy with it.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Pleasure Without the Price
Sometimes I walk around the supermarket looking at all of the tasty-looking treats and knowing from my experience checking labels that the price to be paid for the enjoyment is not worth it. That nice-looking slice of Swiss cake roll over there is going to be 300 calories. That's as much as I spend on breakfast or 2/3 of a substantial snack. That innocent looking bit of cheese is 100 calories for two nibbles and I could have a banana for that cost.
For many years, I realized that there was a price for bad eating choices, but I pretended that price didn't apply to me because I was already fat. I was like the credit card user who sees the balance going up, but keeps spending because what's another $5, $10, $15, or $20 a month in payment on the bill when I can have what I want now? I'm already in debt, what's a little more? It's not like denying myself is going to change my status any time soon.
When I think about those tasty foods, I'll wish, on occasion, that I could have the pleasure of those foods without the price. I'll wish that someone would invent wonderful food that had great texture and flavor for zero calories, or for a fraction of the current price. I think that this wish is not one that only I have had and is part of what has us eating so much manufactured and processed diet food. We want the good without the bad, and when someone offers us a chance at this gustatory brass ring, we grab it. It always ends up that the ring is cheap plastic painted the same color as brass and we're sorely disappointed, but we keep grabbing anyway.
Part of coming to terms in a meaningful way with my problem has been recognizing that the price of overeating applies to me even if I'm already fat. Because I've been overweight nearly my entire life, it took health problems that were frightening and painful as well as a looming life change to make me wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. You can hate yourself everyday and still not change if you think that the change is never going to be meaningful enough to sacrifice the pleasures of food. And if you've spent more years fat than thin, it's going to be damn hard to believe you'll ever be thin. Even now, I'm not sure I'll ever actually be thin, but I'll settle for healthy.
Another part of coming to terms with my problems has been realizing that piling more food "debt" on my current debt is not staying in the same state, but rather getting worse and worse. Being fat is bad. Being obese is worse. Being morbidly obese even worse yet. It took my heart pounding on random occasions while I was sitting down or walking short distances to make me see that I was about to go bankrupt on the health front from accumulating too much food "debt". With the weight I've lost and the changes I've made, the heart pounding experience has almost completely vanished.
The next point that I really want to come to terms with is the idea that there will never be pleasure without a price when it comes to food so I need to stop wishing for that and just accept that the hot fudge sundaes are like buying a diamond ring whereas the carrot is like a dollar bauble from a kid's vending machine. There's never going to be a free ride, and I need to stop hoping and looking for it if I'm ever going to have a healthy relationship with food.
For many years, I realized that there was a price for bad eating choices, but I pretended that price didn't apply to me because I was already fat. I was like the credit card user who sees the balance going up, but keeps spending because what's another $5, $10, $15, or $20 a month in payment on the bill when I can have what I want now? I'm already in debt, what's a little more? It's not like denying myself is going to change my status any time soon.
When I think about those tasty foods, I'll wish, on occasion, that I could have the pleasure of those foods without the price. I'll wish that someone would invent wonderful food that had great texture and flavor for zero calories, or for a fraction of the current price. I think that this wish is not one that only I have had and is part of what has us eating so much manufactured and processed diet food. We want the good without the bad, and when someone offers us a chance at this gustatory brass ring, we grab it. It always ends up that the ring is cheap plastic painted the same color as brass and we're sorely disappointed, but we keep grabbing anyway.
Part of coming to terms in a meaningful way with my problem has been recognizing that the price of overeating applies to me even if I'm already fat. Because I've been overweight nearly my entire life, it took health problems that were frightening and painful as well as a looming life change to make me wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. You can hate yourself everyday and still not change if you think that the change is never going to be meaningful enough to sacrifice the pleasures of food. And if you've spent more years fat than thin, it's going to be damn hard to believe you'll ever be thin. Even now, I'm not sure I'll ever actually be thin, but I'll settle for healthy.
Another part of coming to terms with my problems has been realizing that piling more food "debt" on my current debt is not staying in the same state, but rather getting worse and worse. Being fat is bad. Being obese is worse. Being morbidly obese even worse yet. It took my heart pounding on random occasions while I was sitting down or walking short distances to make me see that I was about to go bankrupt on the health front from accumulating too much food "debt". With the weight I've lost and the changes I've made, the heart pounding experience has almost completely vanished.
The next point that I really want to come to terms with is the idea that there will never be pleasure without a price when it comes to food so I need to stop wishing for that and just accept that the hot fudge sundaes are like buying a diamond ring whereas the carrot is like a dollar bauble from a kid's vending machine. There's never going to be a free ride, and I need to stop hoping and looking for it if I'm ever going to have a healthy relationship with food.
Friday, November 27, 2009
So Creaky and Clumsy
I mentioned several posts ago that I had bought a DVD to try and do some more exercise. The disc I bought, incidentally, is "Moving Free Longevity Solution" by Mirabai Holland. I chose it because the reviews mention that it's good for people who have never taken a class in aerobics, and it mentions that it is good for older people. Though I'm 45, and not a boomer or senior, I feel like my mobility due to back and knee problems, as well as weight, is poor and I need something which won't tax me too much as a start.
I tossed the DVD in the player yesterday and gave it a try and I can't say that I was impressed with myself at all. Either because of poor coordination, lack of fitness, or weight-related issues, I couldn't keep up with the instructions. Ms. Holland is often a step or two ahead of me, even on the slow moves. I also have problems with my knees cracking like they're filled with broken glass on some of the positions so I'm going to have to modify things a bit.
The truth is that I got through only about 3-5 minutes of the dance before I stopped. I may be exceptionally clumsy, or just horrifically bad at free-flowing motions, but I just felt like I couldn't keep tabs on what I was supposed to be doing.
Despite what a big, lumbering ox I feel like, I'm going to keep at it slowly but surely. It seems that all of my exercise attempts have to be done by inches rather than by miles, or even feet. I feel like I'm crawling in terms of physical fitness improvement, and it can be discouraging. However, if I can walk up to 40 minutes when I couldn't walk even for 5 at first, I know that those inches will add up eventually and I'll get stronger.
In terms of this DVD, I'm guessing I'll have to repeat the first 3-5 minutes again and again before I catch on enough to do a few more minutes. Eventually, I'll be able to follow and keep up throughout the whole thing. That will be another milestone that I can note when the time comes.
I tossed the DVD in the player yesterday and gave it a try and I can't say that I was impressed with myself at all. Either because of poor coordination, lack of fitness, or weight-related issues, I couldn't keep up with the instructions. Ms. Holland is often a step or two ahead of me, even on the slow moves. I also have problems with my knees cracking like they're filled with broken glass on some of the positions so I'm going to have to modify things a bit.
The truth is that I got through only about 3-5 minutes of the dance before I stopped. I may be exceptionally clumsy, or just horrifically bad at free-flowing motions, but I just felt like I couldn't keep tabs on what I was supposed to be doing.
Despite what a big, lumbering ox I feel like, I'm going to keep at it slowly but surely. It seems that all of my exercise attempts have to be done by inches rather than by miles, or even feet. I feel like I'm crawling in terms of physical fitness improvement, and it can be discouraging. However, if I can walk up to 40 minutes when I couldn't walk even for 5 at first, I know that those inches will add up eventually and I'll get stronger.
In terms of this DVD, I'm guessing I'll have to repeat the first 3-5 minutes again and again before I catch on enough to do a few more minutes. Eventually, I'll be able to follow and keep up throughout the whole thing. That will be another milestone that I can note when the time comes.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Dialing It Back
One of the things that you notice about salt or sugar is that, as you consume more, you tend to get desensitized to the taste. You tend to need more and more of both of these to really experience flavor as time goes by. Lately, I've been trying to dial back my consumption of both of these things (though I actually don't eat a ton of sugar anyway).
I'm attempting to do this in a similar way to how I've slowly reduced portions. I usually put two packets of Splenda in my tea, I'm going to try and start cutting that back to 1.5 and see how it goes. I'm hoping to eventually reduce it to 1. For the record, two packets of Splenda is supposed to be as sweet as 4 tsp. of sugar, so that's pretty sweet tea. To be fair, I have large cups of tea (and tiny cups of coffee) because it's mostly water.
Similarly, with salt, I'm attempting to sample food which has already been seasoned to some small extent during cooking with salt before automatically pouring on more. If I really feel I'm not enjoying it or getting enough flavor after the first few bites, I'll add a bit more. With salt in particular, I'm finding that I don't need as much as I have been using and the taste is fine.
With sweetness, the adjustment is going to take some more time. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to enjoy something with honey or other less intense sweeteners and not have to pour it on massively to get the effect. If I can heighten my sensitivity to sweetness, I might also be able to cut back on calorie-free chemicals.
The biggest reason for doing this is to try and help my taste buds acclimate to more "plain" food. I think that we lose our sense of how delicious and acute the sweetness of fruit is once we become used to lots of external sweetening. With salt, I'm actually just concerned about the health effect, particularly with how it may contribute to the incidence of strokes and high blood pressure (though I don't suffer any issues at present, I'm old enough to start considering these possibilities).
As was the case with portion reduction though, I view this as an extended process. That is, I'm going to do this gradually over months (possibly a year) so that it doesn't feel jarringly different and I don't feel like I'm losing my sense of enjoying the food. I'll report my results here if anyone is interested.
I'm attempting to do this in a similar way to how I've slowly reduced portions. I usually put two packets of Splenda in my tea, I'm going to try and start cutting that back to 1.5 and see how it goes. I'm hoping to eventually reduce it to 1. For the record, two packets of Splenda is supposed to be as sweet as 4 tsp. of sugar, so that's pretty sweet tea. To be fair, I have large cups of tea (and tiny cups of coffee) because it's mostly water.
Similarly, with salt, I'm attempting to sample food which has already been seasoned to some small extent during cooking with salt before automatically pouring on more. If I really feel I'm not enjoying it or getting enough flavor after the first few bites, I'll add a bit more. With salt in particular, I'm finding that I don't need as much as I have been using and the taste is fine.
With sweetness, the adjustment is going to take some more time. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to enjoy something with honey or other less intense sweeteners and not have to pour it on massively to get the effect. If I can heighten my sensitivity to sweetness, I might also be able to cut back on calorie-free chemicals.
The biggest reason for doing this is to try and help my taste buds acclimate to more "plain" food. I think that we lose our sense of how delicious and acute the sweetness of fruit is once we become used to lots of external sweetening. With salt, I'm actually just concerned about the health effect, particularly with how it may contribute to the incidence of strokes and high blood pressure (though I don't suffer any issues at present, I'm old enough to start considering these possibilities).
As was the case with portion reduction though, I view this as an extended process. That is, I'm going to do this gradually over months (possibly a year) so that it doesn't feel jarringly different and I don't feel like I'm losing my sense of enjoying the food. I'll report my results here if anyone is interested.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Healing More Slowly
When you're overweight, you live in fear of diabetes because everyone says you're supposed to develop it if you're fat. As I've mentioned before, I don't have diabetes (despite my weight). I attribute this mainly to genetic luck. I've also read that people who carry more weight in their behind (pear-shaped people) have a lower chance of developing diabetes than people who carry their weight in their midsection or up top (apple-shaped people). My fat can may have been saving me.
That being said, I do watch myself for any indications of diabetes as it is sensible to do so. That is, I look for cotton mouth, frequent thirst, slow healing, etc. When I was eating a lot, I never had any problems healing relatively quickly. The strange thing is that, now that I'm losing weight, I've noticed that I heal more slowly. That is not to say that I heal too slowly (not taking a week or more), but just slower than before.
The reason for this is fairly obvious. When I was eating more, my body had bountiful nutritional resources to draw from to repair damage. Now, it's attending to other issues with less "material" to work with. In particular, your skin and any scratches, cuts or abrasions tend to heal more slowly when you're losing weight as attending to your skin is a low priority for you body. I notice this mainly with pimples (which I scratch, even though I shouldn't) or insect bites (ditto).
At first, this tendency had me fretting a little, but it's not like these things don't clear up. It's interesting to note that there are some extremely minor negative effects from not eating as much as you want. This experience is the tip of the iceberg of why not eating much at all (or severe calorie reduction) may not necessarily be a good idea.
That being said, I do watch myself for any indications of diabetes as it is sensible to do so. That is, I look for cotton mouth, frequent thirst, slow healing, etc. When I was eating a lot, I never had any problems healing relatively quickly. The strange thing is that, now that I'm losing weight, I've noticed that I heal more slowly. That is not to say that I heal too slowly (not taking a week or more), but just slower than before.
The reason for this is fairly obvious. When I was eating more, my body had bountiful nutritional resources to draw from to repair damage. Now, it's attending to other issues with less "material" to work with. In particular, your skin and any scratches, cuts or abrasions tend to heal more slowly when you're losing weight as attending to your skin is a low priority for you body. I notice this mainly with pimples (which I scratch, even though I shouldn't) or insect bites (ditto).
At first, this tendency had me fretting a little, but it's not like these things don't clear up. It's interesting to note that there are some extremely minor negative effects from not eating as much as you want. This experience is the tip of the iceberg of why not eating much at all (or severe calorie reduction) may not necessarily be a good idea.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Fat Myth #3 - fat people have (or will have) diabetes
These days, you hear a lot about diabetes, particularly type 2 which some people develop as they get older and their bodies change. This topic has been at the root of tasteless jokes about people having hands and feet chopped off due to continued sugar consumption in the face of diabetic problems. The Simpsons, for instance, created a character called "Diabetty".
Because weight does affect one's chances of developing type 2 diabetes, there's an assumption that any obese or overweight person is at serious risk of developing it. While it is certainly true that being overweight increases your risks of contracting a variety of diseases, it isn't a lock that you're going to be a diabetic if you are fat.
Every time I discuss health with a doctor or a thin person, they're absolutely shocked that I don't have diabetes because they believe fat = diabetic. If I've been fat most of my life, then of course I must have developed this problem. The truth is that there are a lot of people who are thin who develop it, too. In fact, I've known more moderately overweight to thin people with diabetes than very fat people.
My entire family is overweight and not one of them has diabetes. I'm not trying to undermine the seriousness of weight and type 2 diabetes, but it's wrong to think that every fat person will ultimately suffer from it. It's a myth that is perpetuated in large part to frighten fat people into losing weight. Trust me when I say if the daily humiliation, disgust and anger you experience as a fat person can't push you to lose weight, fear of developing diabetes isn't going to do the trick.
Because weight does affect one's chances of developing type 2 diabetes, there's an assumption that any obese or overweight person is at serious risk of developing it. While it is certainly true that being overweight increases your risks of contracting a variety of diseases, it isn't a lock that you're going to be a diabetic if you are fat.
Every time I discuss health with a doctor or a thin person, they're absolutely shocked that I don't have diabetes because they believe fat = diabetic. If I've been fat most of my life, then of course I must have developed this problem. The truth is that there are a lot of people who are thin who develop it, too. In fact, I've known more moderately overweight to thin people with diabetes than very fat people.
My entire family is overweight and not one of them has diabetes. I'm not trying to undermine the seriousness of weight and type 2 diabetes, but it's wrong to think that every fat person will ultimately suffer from it. It's a myth that is perpetuated in large part to frighten fat people into losing weight. Trust me when I say if the daily humiliation, disgust and anger you experience as a fat person can't push you to lose weight, fear of developing diabetes isn't going to do the trick.
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