Diet Tip: Or, not And.

I don’t believe any diet method is enjoyable for the rest of your life, and I have yet to hear of a diet that you can unsubscribe from without unsubscribing from the weight loss it brought.

If diets are temporary, so are their benefits.

Instead, I choose. Or I try, for the will is strong, but the flesh just sucks.

I choose: 
1 big serving of spaghetti for supper vs. 1 small serving + a movie snack later
1 apple vs. 1 Snickers
1 box of cookies vs. 1 bag of chips
The burger or the fries
The fries or the Coke
The cake or the falafel

When I feel like eating, whether it’s just appetite or actual hunger, if it’s not a craving for something specific, I try to choose between my options rather than eating everything I feel like. My appreciation for the food’s taste is boosted because it doesn’t get contaminated by that of other foods or beverages, and knowing I’m having just this one thing makes me eat it more consciously.

In the beginning, your choice doesn’t need to be the wiser one. It’s not about the healthy apple vs. the fattening Snickers. It’s about reducing the total intake. The apple may be way healthier than the chocolate, but if you have both, you have the sugar content of both, so 1 Snickers will still be better than both the Snickers plus the apple. 

Think less about the calories of your choice, but about how your choice will affect your mood. Mood is a major factor in eating behavior. The apple is probably going to energize you more than the Snickers and also tickle your senses more for its rich, fruity flavor and juices. The Snickers may be more filling.

If you’re thirsty, and really just thirsty and not also hypoglycemic, try the oh so boring, lame mineral water. Drinking water mindfully while really paying attention to how it feels and tastes on the tongue, will make it taste like heaven. 

The same is true for those lame carrots. Fry thin slices of carrot in a tiny amount of vegetable oil and eat the carrots slowly and really run them over your tongue. You’ll see their taste is so much more than “kind of sweet and juicy”. They taste like no other vegetable, go great with any dish. I love having egg omelette with sliced carrots, no spices needed. But take your time to explore and savor the taste. 

Apples are very different depending on brand/color. The green ones are firm and sour and make my gums bleed. The yellowish-green ones are soft, juicy and sweet and cure my suger lows within seconds. The dark red ones actually taste rather boring to me, and they’re firm, do not want. 

A mandarine within season, is an orgasm. A chocolate bar tastes good as long as you suck on it, but the mandarine affects every last one of your senses. The juice just tastes so intense, you have the gratifying rush of sourness, the pleasant sweetness, the bite is just right to let you chew on something without being challenging or harmful to the teeth. 

Take a handful of chips out of the bag and put the rest out of reach. Eat the handful as slowly as you can manage, hell, lick the taste off of each chip. You may find yourself satisfied with that handful, and you’ll have more left for later.

Remember every intake of food or drinks other than water, means an intake of calories, of sugars, or of fats. No matter how little that intake is, it is an intake that adds to your weight unless you run it off asap. But don’t go into withdrawal, don’t walk past your favorite cookies for weeks making a sad face, just choose every time you eat something: which is it going to be? If you’re going to have the cookies now, you will not have the banana or the peanuts, too. For breakfast, try choosing between the egg and the toast rather than the egg on the toast. Toast bread, plain, can actually taste great. I love baked stuff, plain or topped. I could binge on toasted white bread with nothing on or with it.

So pick. As much as possible, pick, don’t combine. I’m not saying “no peas with the steak”, but not 2 kinds of snacks or main courses in the same sitting. 

Pick what you like. If you’re depressed, pick chocolate. If you’re tired, pick an apple. don’t be too hard on yourself if you end up taking both, but try not to as much as possible. It means you’ll have more for later, and reduced your intake of fatass. You’ll learn to choose and accomodate your appetites better because you eat more consciously and pay more attention to how each food tastes and how it makes you feel. You’ll learn what to pick for what situation, like a basket of apples for work and the chocolate for PMS. You’ll learn to appreciate “boring” foods and water for a new awareness of their flavor and sensory aspects. Like, I think Coke feels awful on the tongue when I pay attention, and leaves a gross aftertaste. Water feels like playing in a pool and I feel it cooling my veins.

Pick. Don’t deprive yourself, but choose what to treat yourself to.

Diet Experience: Pro-Ana

WARNING: Pro-Ana is a movement promoting deliberate efforts of becoming and staying anorexic. That shit isn’t funny, it kills you, and before it does, it makes you ugly, sick, and miserable. Ironically, these Ana girls tend to know that.

Desperate, I tried it 2010. Being actually morbidly obese, made it sound safe and reasonable, and it’s one of my best non-surgical attempts yet. Here’s how I did it:

1. I collected Ana and Thinspo (“thinspiration”, images and quotes glorifying exreme thin-ness) to look at at all times, and instructions. Basically things to keep me focused on my goal. My goal wasn’t to be sickly thin, but to lose huge amounts of weight and fit into whatever I liked.

2. I threw away all food, all table ware etc. except the bare necessities. 1 plate of each size and shape, and one piece of each kind of silverware basically.

3. I bought food that was Ana-approved, and only as much as I’d eat in the coming days, no stocking. I made sure it was food I liked that that would kind of fill me or at least keep me in good spirits. Fish, white cheese, broccoli, etc.

4. I obsessed over how much I hated my body. I deliberately obsessed and hated. Even in a good mood, when I felt silly about it, I still sat down and told myself I was hideous. I did this and looked at my thinspo every time I wanted to eat. Slept a lot to pass time without thinking of food, this includes sleep aid abuse. Went outside much, as I had trouble eating in public. Looked at pictures of fat people thinking hateful thoughts.

I kept this up for about a month and if it weren’t for the 2 facts that ruined it all, I might have stayed Ana. The 2 facts are:
1. That kind of diet exceeds my discipline. I can’t work the hours I signed for at my job, how am I gonna keep Ana-ing? I like food, not just for boredom, I actually enjoy good food. I enjoy life (or I try). That is why I like to eat.
2. There is no way in hell to stay healthy, strong, and beautiful on Ana. Beauty isn’t just an issue of weight. The hair of anorexic or severely malnourished people, is hideous.

I lost 4 kilos that month. Gained 7 the month after because for fuck’s sake, come on, after a month of cottage cheese and water, you just need that box of fudge cake. Make that 10 boxes of fudge cake. Actually, I learned that giving in to cravings and temptations regularly, but not excessively, does more to prevent weight gain, than strictly and obsessively, yet unhappily abstaining and then breaking and binging when the temptation becomes unbearable. No, 10 boxes of fudge cake are not the example of healthy regular craving satisfaction, but of the latter: binging after withdrawal.

Nowadays, when it comes to snacking, I do snack, but delicately. Instead of binging on a whole bag of chips or a whole box of chocolates, I enjoy a bit of it until it’s all melted and drool-dissolved, and leave the rest for later, or I buy a very carefully selected, but small quantity of something. Like 1 Snickers to kill my urge for sweets for the entire day. Keep it as long as possible, and enjoy it thoroughly when I cave. Believe me, it’ll be enough. When you’ve eaten healthy and consciously all day, or all week, even better, even if you think you need a whole cake, a small slice will taste rewarding and do the job. The trick is that your small snack is high in the otherwise evil carbs. Carbs make you happy. Sugar does, too. And so does chocolate. So take something small that unites all of those. Like 1 Nutella-covered fresh egg waffle. 1 Snickers. 1 small bag of M&M’s.
Yeah yeah, I do binge when PMSing or otherwise moody. Fuck off.

Anorexia against Feminism?

Yes, yes, misleading title, I know. Not all super-thin models are anorexic, and gender equality should not be labeled “feminism” but “a matter of course”. But I got your attention, right? There.

I just thought of something: What if the modern Western culture’s obsession with unhealthily skinny females (and muscular men) doesn’t so much spring from beauty ideals, but power issues? Being very skinny, so skinny you could jam a third leg between your thighs, isn’t sexy to most men. Super-skinny girls are often difficult in bed. They are difficult in relationships what with their constant obsession with weight and looks rather than just relaxing and cuddling instead of getting up early to look perfect for the day. 

But what they are first and foremost, is fragile-looking. They look fragile, weak, helpless, like that young child princess you want to carry on your arms and protect because she really, really needs it. And didn’t the whole skinny craze kind of start around the same time as the “liberation” of women and women rights? Isn’t it suspicious how the more independent from men women become, the more the beauty ideal of the super-thin, super-pale, super-fragile looking girl-woman is propagated? Young, thin, innocent, and maybe a bit dumb (blonde). Aka utterly dependent on the strong, authoritarian male. Like a child or a sick person. I mean, if it’s female but flat as hell, it’s easily described as child-like, and what are children, if not dependent and subject to adult male authority? Just like women used to be?

So, is the whole skinny propaganda really due to insecure males who fear for their position of power in the human society, government, and economy, the human hierarchy system? Is it because they want women to become/stay weak and dependent? By promising to consider them beautiful and desirable on the one innegotiable condition that they be weak? Is it brain wash, under that objective, maybe?

I think I might be on to something.

“His loss” when he doesn’t like’em fat?

The trope I’m sick of hearing, is when people, usually women about men, say that if a man rejects a woman because of her appearance, he’s an asshole and doesn’t deserve her.

Wrong.

Well, kind of. See, the human brain is wired to make you feel good when you’re looking, tasting, touching, hearing, or smelling something you consider good/pretty/tasty. Pleasant. The opposite of this, elicits the opposite or at least leaves you cold. This is true for food, and this is true for people. It is especially true for sexual attraction.

For ease and brevity and to stay on the general topic of obesity from my female POV, I will focus on men’s likes and dislikes, and narrow those down to weight.

I’m not saying that all men always feel repulsed by all fat women, but when an individual man considers obesity unattractive or ugly or otherwise unpleasant, he can’t make his brain give him a boner regardless. You can’t make yourself like something. It’s not about being a bad person. It does not make you a bad person for rejecting someone whose appearance makes your brain ooze chemicals that say “Noooooooo!”. Being an asshole about it, makes you a bad person. Be nice with your rejection. Be nice to all who haven’t wronged you.

I have tried feeling attracted to people for their being a perfect fit or available to me. This included fat guys. They were great friends and I loved them dearly, but their appearance told my brain to not give me the hots for them sexually. Sadly so. I had an emotional attachment because of our pleasant mutual experiences, their affection for me, but when it comes to sexual attraction, being ignited by someone’s physique does matter, and the brain decides whether or not their looks ignite you.

In this sense, I’ve had many crushes but only felt sexually “ignited” as in attracted, by those I and my brain agreed were good-looking. I could have had and probably enjoyed sex with the others too, but “the hots” would not have been there. It would have been “nice” for being with that emotionally dear person, but I would not have been attracted physically and the sex would therefor have been kinda lame, nice but not steamy. And I’m only talking about those I didn’t consider downright ugly.

A fat sweaty guy repulses me, sorry to say. Am I a bitch for enjoying his company as a friend, appreciating his wit and humor, his knowledge, his helpfulness, our adventures together, but shudder at the thought of sleeping with him? Hello – I don’t believe in courtesy fucks. The guy is a great friend for all intents and purposes, EXCEPT for fucking and for the relationships built partially on fucking, like boyfriend or husband things. The same way, my male friends adored and respected me as their friend, but cannot be blamed for not wanting more when it’s the skinny flat girls that happen to “ignite” them sexually. Though one recently admitted he’d had a secret crush on me back then.

It’s not just about weight. Others are repulsed or attracted by height, skin color, hair, teeth, racial features etc. Physical attraction does matter however, when you want to connect sexually. While I consider language skills sexy in a guy, in the end I don’t give a fuck about his degree when I’m supposed to lick his belly. That’s when his belly matters. I realized long since that my fetish for power and authority only works in theory/fantasy. When the uniform comes off and the gun is hung at the coat rack, he better be toned, tall, and Middle-Eastern. Hookers are only picked by intellect and personality when needed to accompany you to some show-off event or when you actually just want company, yes, some pay just for talking and eating. A man who only or mainly wants sex, picks looks his brain tells him he likes. I’ve read reviews on hookers that really trashed them for “bedside manners”, but hailed their sexy bodies and announced many more visits in the future. Lesson learned: when it comes to fucking, your looks matter very much. A committed relationship of course requires both: sexual attraction and emotional connection. But it really, really, does need both, whatever either entails or is based on.

Yes, sometimes emotional connections are so strong that you just accept the unattractive body of your partner and marry and love and hump them anyways and that’s beautiful, but very often such partners end up being cheated on because while they are loved for their inner values, the sex isn’t hot enough for lack of attraction. Even if there is no adultery, there is likely to be more attraction and temptation by other types, looks, secret fantasies, and lots of secret porn with “better” bodies. There’s a difference between hungrily humping someone because you love being close to them (inner values), or because the blood rushes to your genitalia (physical attraction). Both can work without the other, but it’s only natural when they don’t, which is the case more often than not. You will not love and screw your unnatractive partner for their looks, but in spite of them. Egh, sounds less than great.

So not wanting your best friend because she’s fat, doesn’t make you a horrible person. Being mean about it, does.

Regardless and by-the-way-ish, some reject their fat admiror in spite of physical attraction being there. This is especially the case in young men who reject fat girls because they are or believe to be socially expeced to want the type that is commonly considered hot. They want a show-off girlfriend while secretly yearning for that nice chubby class mate. They are scared it hurts their pride, respectability, or manhood to show up with a fatty; this is very similar to closet gays obsessing over how they love tits in public while hurting inside and wanking off to gay porn when alone. Coming out of the closet, or openly dating fatties, often comes with age and experience and the confidence these factors bring along. On discussion platforms revolving around free love, swingers, and hookers, many men will tell you that while skinny girls are pretty to look at, those with love handles and cushions are often preferred for both physical attraction, and handling rough sex better. Men tend to like big tits and big asses, but only with age comes the reconciliation with the reality that big tits and asses usually mean that everything else is big, too. And who in his right mind, would say no to a nice pair of big tits, just because they come with a sizable belly?

A note I just remembered: a person can consider certain features attractive or unattractive in general, but still feel genuinely attracted to or repulsed by individuals with those features because other features of theirs are perceived as more important on a case-by-case basis. For example, if 10 men reject me for my fat ass and can’t focus on my pretty face instead because the ass matters more to them, 10 more men may not like my fat ass, but feel so attracted to my facial beauty that the weight is outweighed by it. And yeah, some man really love a fat ass.

Self-Love – the big Lie

“Nobody can love a person who doesn’t love themselves”

Bullshit. Hitler was full of self-loathing and Eva Braun literally died with and for him. You can perfectly love a self-hater. A self-hater can perfectly love someone else. And the suggestion that self-love is the condition for receiving love from others, is even bigger bullshit. I’ll explain.

Being selfish, instinct-driven creatures, children first and foremost love themselves. They love, or attach to, their providers, but mainly they love themselves very naturally. Self-doubt, self-criticism, and self-loathing start when others, especially those you look up to (parents, teachers, peers), start doubting, criticizing, and loathing you. Only when the outside shows you hate, will you start considering the option that you can be hated. 

When the outside gives you enough hate, you’ll have to be exceptionally strong to not end up believing at least some of it. It is only normal to be affected by the opinions and behavior of others when aimed at you. Think: you’re that fat but happy kid, you meet the world with a big fat smile on your first day of school or kindergarten, and you end up drawing flak. Why? You were so nice!? So pretty in that new outfit?? I mean – your mom TOLD you you looked perfect!! What’s happening? You get told very clearly that it’s because you’re fat. Fat cow, fatass, fatso, whale, etc. – you’ll “know” (or be told convincingly and repeatedly) that you are a lesser person, a person not worthy of respect, love, or friendship, and many other things we, as human beings, crave, for being fat. Also that you’re ugly as fuck. Beauty is NOT overrated. Beauty activates good feelings in our brains. Chemical programming, no helping it. We need beauty or at least the current interpretation of it. It changes. Ugly people don’t elicit those good brain feelings in others. People don’t feel pleased or pleasant looking at ugly people unless there are personal positive memories or feelings for the person involved, so they respond negatively.

While some, maybe even many, people will still be loving and supportive, you’ll still be forcibly thinking about why a significant amount of people is hating on you and/or people like you. It is a psychological truth that the opinions of others can contaminate our own. So imagine 10 out of 25 kids in your class expressing very meanly their opinion that your fat ass makes you unloveable… Daily… With words, fists, and pranks… Hate mail, hate pages. Don’t think for a second that the other 15 will rush to your defense with equal force. And then you see that the mass media, who cater to the demands of contemporary society, agree with them that being fat makes you an ugly lump of shit. Slim people glorified everywhere, fat people humiliated everywhere. And they want you to remain unaffected, yes? LOL.

And then they blame YOU for ending up hating yourself. When you cave under the massive hate everyone sends your way all the time, YOU are told to get YOUR shit together, that YOU are a head case, and that YOU should fight on your own to regain self-love or else you don’t deserve love, period. Against THOSE shitty odds. When only your closest loved ones – who would also very explicitely like you to be slimmer and possibly prefer you then – and a few weak voices in public, defend who you are rather than what society wants you to be.

Come the fuck on. 

Being Fat makes you Fat and only Fat

People of all ages, but younger people (up to 30) especially, tend to reduce fat people to just being fat. They blatantly disregard everything else. Not even big tits distract so much from other aspects of a person’s appearance or personality or background, as obesity. You can be a black cyclops with 3 feet dreadlocks and 4 arms, your obesity will probably still be what people remember you for. Skinny celebrities often have their eyes or tits or hair mentioned. Fat celebrities are just fat. No one cares about their eyes, their hair, their fashion sense – unless it emphasizes their fatness. Britney Spears is very pretty and makes very replacable (as in: un-unique) music. If she were fat, her music would not sell. Hell, when she gained weight, her entire performance was shit-talked all over the media for that sole reason. When you’re fat, you’re only fat. You’re not pretty, not talented, not generous, not smart, not educated, not witty (maybe “funny” thanks to your potential to elicit fat jokes). You’re just fat.

I’m fat, always have been, though I was born tiny. My diapers could serve as sleeping bags. Well, but I got fat. Don’t know how exactly. I think it was partly because the medication I had to take for my severe epileptic seizures made me irritable and hugry, and the irritability was only soothed by eating. Or something like that. So I had a good reason. But then the good reason became a vicious cycle because constant irritability made me eat all the time, and so I got fatter, and more irritated what with the anti-fat bullying, and when the bullying broke me and made me hate my body, food was the only comfort.
Great.

But while being fat, I was a lot of other things and still am, but nobody cares.
On both sides of my family, I have by far the prettiest face. Very Jewish, except that I do have a chin. Big eyes, and haven’t aged in a decade. Full lips that don’t need make-up. A straight nose, hollow cheeks and prominent cheekbones. No double chin. Actually, I have the face of an anorexic, strangely, while I have the ass of Beth Ditto. My face is timeless; I still get away with saying I’m 19.
I have a very womanly shape. Big rack but not excessive, narrow waist, and wide hips. Hourglass shape, basically, and very much so. Wide, narrow, wider. Big-as-fuck hourglass, but damn well more womanly formed than many skinny chicks.

I fuck well.

Since age 3, I was lauded, prized, commissioned, and praised by many, not only those who liked me, for my artistic skills. This includes graphic arts, but also literature. Well-respected photographers have sat down with my father to see how to market me. I’ve had short stories and poetry published in anthologies and competitions. 2,608 people have subscribed to my artwork on deviantART, and more do every day. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by commissions and requests, that I ignore them all. I’m a damned good graphic artist, photographer, and writer. I don’t have a college degree and still got a job normally reserved for people who do, for my self-taught writing and largely self-taught language skills.

I speak 6 languages fluently enough to hold intelligent conversations. These languages include Hebrew and Japanese.

I’ve rescued animals in ways most people would be too dumb to even think of; this includes thermos bottles and acting skills to smuggle them on international flights. And are you familiar with Israeli airport security for those who do not hold an Israeli passport? I still did it. Speaking of rescues, I’ve raised hundreds of newly-hatched axolotls, and seemingly hopelessly sick kittens. I’ve nursed dying rodents back to health. I gave all for some of my pets and shied no efforts.

I have strength and stamina. While I can’t run or climb much, and while I have piss-poor waterborne coordination, I can walk for hours without complaining, much unlike many of my skinny to normal friends of various ages. I can walk for hours with heavy luggage under a brutal sun with no protection, without complaining. I can stand in the sun all day without food or water and only get a bit cranky. Don’t get me started on sex; I’d probably win any gang bang competition if I wanted my fat ass that exposed. I can go all night and still want more, let’s leave it at that. Never walked the awkward walk of too-much-sex. After a botched thigh lift, I dragged my bleeding, butchered, gaping, 15 inch thigh wounds from Lebanon via Hungary to Belgium with no wheel chair, no assistance, and a heavy-ass suit case and a dog. Having had no money for a cab, I walked, stood on public transport, and dragged myself and my stuff up and down stairs with thigh lift wounds that were far from closing any time soon. None the weaker. I carry my 15kg cat food on my shoulder, up the hill of my city, by myself because I’m too cheap to get a cab or tip delivery guys. When my 35 kilo Akita broke down from the heat, I carried him for half a mile. When that same dog was in trouble, I saved him by hurling him single-handedly over a fence higher than myself and I’m 175 cm tall. My first attempt at push ups: 15 successful push-ups. Spontaneous I’m-so-bored push ups: 24. Static cycling at high resistance level, record 40 minutes waiting for my trainer like a dunce. 3 days hunger strike out of sheer anger. None the weaker. When I get sick, rarely a fuck is given and I still function. If I don’t, it’s usually because I enjoy the days off obligations and meditate myself into a sickly state I can snap out of any time to convince sceptics.

I’m persuasive. When I talk to people face-to-face, whether I end up getting my way (more often than not) or not, they will be impressed. I’ve hijacked the authority of many a teacher, got the entire class room to revolt or join me on a trip, lead a gang at age 11, and many parents wanted me away from their kids because my influence was too strong. I can talk my way into nice discounts at many check-in counters and talk my way out of tickets, fines, and arrests as long as I keep my calm. The smuggled kittens I mentioned before, well, I didn’t hide them. I talked them onto the plane.

I’m brave. I may have my little phobias, I’m scared of interpersonal conflict and emotional clashes with loved ones, but when it comes to reasonable fears or dangerous situations, I keep a-thinking all the while keeping a good response and reaction time. This goes for standing amid 5000 rioting Palestinians as the only and overt Zionist and taking pro-level pictures with the calm of a dead rat, and this goes for dodging cars on a no-shoulders muddy freeway in the pouring rain (as a pedestrian). This goes for getting lost in a village in the arse of rural Japan at night, and this goes for standing up to 5 thugs and evading their attacks at the same time as planning mine.

I’m intelligent above average. My IQ tested 137 at age 6, but regardless, if I weren’t an overthinker who can’t let go of inner emotional and moral conflict, aka bad conscience, and who doesn’t want to get caught and locked up, I would be a criminal mastermind. For fun, and in anger, I’ve plotted many a perfect crime. One was posing as a messy and confused cleaning lady who forgot her cleaning cart near a room crowded with people I disliked (a dislike unknown to most). My cart would contain a bucket of what my persona would’ve considered a safe and strong mixture – bleach and ammonia. I’d run like hell before being affected because, hey, diarrhea, bad tiramisu. Credible reason for not being gassed along with everyone else. I would actually have deliberately made myself sick to prove that was why I fled the crime scene. Mass murder, and I’d be believed to be too flaky to know any better. No one could accuse me of ill will: I am known to be flaky and messy and do stupid things in moments of ADHD-overload, and remembering a few difficult moments from my past would have provided face and tears of phony remorse. I don’t get why the Mossad don’t want me.

I’ve traveled more countries than I can remember, am well-read and know a lot of not so mainstream shit. I’ve been to Japan, the Palestinian territories, war zones, New York, and wrestled a dolphin. I’m book smart and street smart, I learn fast how to operate most devices without reading the manual, I assemble my furniture alone, I’m great at puzzles, trivia, and animal stuff. While I’ve walked out of all my college studies before getting my degree, and failed most exams for ADHD-related concentration issues, I’ve learned nearly enough to hold my own in the applied subject matter of film making, from the summary to marketing the finished product. And crafts you throw at me, if it intrigues me, my first attempt is likely to turn out nice. If something interestes me, I master it without sitting down with the text book. I like + I try = I can.

I’m damned funny and manage to make most people laugh effortlessly whenever I want. Not fat-funny but jokes/remarks/impressions/anecdotes funny. I have interesting stories of all kinds and come from a hardly sheltered background. If it weren’t for stage fright and forgetting brilliant jokes the moment I think them up, I’d upstage your favorite stand-ups.

I’m caring, generous, patient, I’m thoughtful to a fault and happily wipe after my incontinent old dog. I’d make a great mother. But while I’m really fucking awesome, I’m also fat, so I’m unmarriable to most quality men.

The only thing I really suck at, is anything to do with music. And getting Mr. Right.

But I’m still really fucking awesome. Too bad nobody wants to look past my fat ass.

Gastric Bypass – Psychology

A very neglected aspect of the gastric bypass surgery is the psychological one. I thought it was just American sensationalist mass media trying to score with the gullible public when I read about raised suicidal tendencies in gastric bypass patients/victims.

Wrong.

I will not deny that the operation helps many. I can only speak for myself, yet I have read a lot of scary testimonies from others as well, so this procedure MUST be performed with greater attention to the psychological aspects.

Fat people who don’t want to be fat, are sad people. They feel ugly. Undesirable. Often rightly so, because like me, they actually do go unnoticed by the opposite sex (or whatever sex they’re attracted to). They feel lonely, ugly, undesirable, we’ve listed that so far and don’t need to explain the Whys of these feelings. While many see the inner beauty, or outer-beauty-aside-from-the-fat, rarely do attractive people find fat people as attractive and beautiful as they do people with a normal weight or only a slight over- or underweight. And fat people have standards too, and being fat isn’t = liking fat. So personally, I don’t want a fat guy just because he’s the only one who’ll take fatass me because he can’t do any better. I find obesity as disgusting as do many skinny people. That’s not hypocrite, it’s normal. Taste is not based on state. Meaning: so what if you’re fat or black or short, doesn’t mean you have to feel attracted to other fat, black, or short people. You think anyone with Borderline would wanna be dragged down even deeper by dating another suicidal borderliner? Maybe some, not me. When I learned a potential date suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, I became sceptical of whether I should really sign up for this, while just like me, he’s a lovable person otherwise. That “double standard” is very acceptable and can’t be helped. I mean, why do you want to change? Because you hate the way you are, so why would you want to date someone who is what you hate about yourself? Makes no sense.

Fat people are people who are constantly being emotionally abused by society and the media: they get the hot-and-cold treatment. On one hand, they are told to accept themselves the way they are, and they try so hard, but on the other hand, these attempts are crushed by the ever-present obsession with “LOSE WEIGHT NOW!”. The best fashion comes in small sizes, popular celebrity and models are slim, their love interests are slim, protagonists in works of fiction are slim and even truth-based movies prettify the people they’re based on. Many are near-impossible, rarely obtainable: super-skinny with big ass and tits. Get up in the morning with perfect skin and hair, tight tits, no bed sores, clean teeth. Weight loss tips, products, promises, pills, encouragements/orders, everywhere.
Fat people get bullied as children and teens, and overlooked, neglected, ignored, or not sufficiently respected as adults. Unless you’re ridiculously rich, being fat ironically puts you at the bottom of the social food chain of who is desirable – not just for love – and who is not. Of who deserves respect and attention, and who does not. Whose opinion matters, and who can be silenced by “Shut up, fatass”. The best of causes recruit skinny people for their campaigns because fat people aren’t even wanted when it comes to promoting animal rights or cancer awareness. Beautiful people in the media are always slim, and only beautiful people are desirable to society and media, according to society and media.

Fat people who don’t want to be fat, hence are and/or feel more often than not:
-sad
-desperate and hopeless
-yet hopeful and gullible to any promise of any form of improvement, dietary or socially
-lonely
-reclusive for lack of demand by peers
-unloved
-unlovable
-susceptible to false hope
-depressed
-disrespected
-unheard
-excluded
-self-conscious
-misunderstood
-hurting emotionally and physically (when I curl up in my bed, my fat rolls tend to hurt me)
-wasting their lives on whatever gives comfort, often food = vicious cycle

This makes them a great target for all kinds of weight loss promises. While the gastric bypass may work great for some, whether it works or not the side effects often apply to all, weight loss or no weight loss. The side effects tend to be severe. Disabling. Disgusting. Ending up making you slim and disgusting or sickly, rather than fat yet sturdy and presentable. Appearance: improved. Quality of life: not so much. Not always, but often, this is the case.

Yeah, yeah, “most surgeons” (not mine) will warn you ahead of the surgery that it isn’t a magic spell that will work without involving effort beyond fasting before surgery. They will tell you that you will have to adjust your life style. But a) they tend to play down these adjustments and the side effects or use soothing terms (“digestive changes” vs. “anal incontinence” could come to mind though luckily it doesn’t happen to everyone), and b) and this is my main point, the warnings are lost on the desperate.
I was desperate.
I’ve tried much. I’ve tried gastric band, I’ve tried severe and punishing gym sessions (I told her I wanted to join Israeli combat forces and that was how she worked me: her “baby steps” were 15 push-ups while I could hardly squat without cramping), I’ve tried pro-Ana, I’ve tried Slimming Drops (yuck), I’ve tried those silly “As seen on TV!” craptasticnesses, I’ve tried atkins, I’ve tried laxatives, I’ve tried lots of sex, I’ve tried appetite supressants, I’ve tried diet gum and pills and shakes, I’ve tried walking the dog for no less than 2 hours every night for years, I’ve tried jogging. Reading of the promises of the gastric bypass would often make me cry and I’d even get angry and scared with disbelief that such great hope could exist and I’ve been missing out all those years. I was so happy for the chance of finally becoming desirable and beautiful and a human being considered valid when I signed up for the surgery.

My point is: downplayed warnings, in comparison to the raised hopes, are lost on the desperate. The desperate will read and understand the warnings, the implications, all that shit, they will believe that they get it, but the false hope prevails in the end and the ever so understood warnings turn out to have been taken too lightly after all. The hope sings louder and nicer than the warnings.
The hope, when crushed, will turn into a nightmare. If the promises aren’t kept or at the very least if the weight loss isn’t acceptable in proportion with the side effects, you are looking at crushed hope, often your LAST hope (having your stomach cut up is drastic), and a life time of disabling and disgusting side effects. A life time, unless maybe if you reverse the surgery, killing the shreds of hope that one day your bypass will suddenly start working after all. Your surgeon may even have discharged you with a Pro-Ana-esque diet plan but no further support: your guts are maimed, you’re told to eat crap forever, and is that diarrhea you feel coming on? You’re on your own with your “1 tomato and a slice of white cheese for breakfast” diet plan. You may not have got sufficient warning that your small stomach pouch can, and will, stretch very far, very fast, if you’re not careful, rendering the procedure useless.

You cannot expect the desperate to fully understand the implications and the limitations and conditions of success. They understand the words, they may picture the meaning, but the hope for improvement outweighs that. It’s blinding. 

Fucking tell the desperate that not just “they may become lactose intolerant” but give them a graphic description of how that lactose intolerance looks like [well this is so disgusting I decided to delete this part]. Good luck with that at a  first date. Good fucking luck keeping that guy around after he signed up for you when your post-OP issues turn the cozy warmth under the blanket into fucking Auschwitz.

Fucking tell the desperate that dumping syndrome doesn’t just feel unpleasant, no, it may force you to take a day-long nap.
Fucking tell the desperate that if the malnutrition affects their hair, a nice conditioner won’t keep it from falling out in bundles while you’re trying to out-pretty the other girls at a club to finally find love. You will pull your scalp hair out of your ass crack. Your hair will become pale and bland and dry and straw-y. It will stand off because it’s so thin gravity no longer impresses it.

Post-Weightloss Considerations:
Considering the ridiculous dietary restrictions, I wonder what the point is. The same diet will cut your pounds even without the operation. Without the misery. The malnutrition. Keeping that ridiculous diet won’t do much for your quality of life unless you really do become and stay as skinny as and toned as a cheerleader. But if you do lose weight as fast as promised, you will not be firm. Rapid weight loss means saggy skin means plastic surgery means scars means more reasons to feel ugly!
Oh, the gym? With some insanely stringent and extreme workouts, you may refill those skin bags with some muscle, but chances are you’ll sag. Your tits will not get firmer at the gym. If the fat is drained from them, they will sag. You will need scars. The gym doesn’t reduce skin. It affects what’s in the skin: it may burn fat and increase muscle tone. It will not lift your boobs or smooth out your cellulite. If you can’t fill your skin with muscle, it will still hang. Honestly, I’d rather be chubby and tight than slim and saggy. Like Dr. Torres from Grey’s Anatomy. She’s not skinny, but she’s firmer and prettier than body lift/tummy tuck patients (often bypass victims!). Really, do you want to trade your fat ass for a 20 inch scar that looks like a caesarian gone horribly wrong? Maybe if you’re not a fan of the water, like me, yearning for the day you can relax in a swimsuit or bikini and enjoy the water  rather than feel stared at and delusionally smoothing down your fat rolls time and again because you think you can. I want to be slim, but I want to be slim AND beautiful, and trust me, they don’t always go hand in hand; sometimes they’re downright impossible to combine, like when you’ve lost so much weight so fast you need major plastic surgery to tighten stuff, leaving horrific scars, and believe me, I’ve done it, I have those scars, they are horrific and some cannot be concealed – some will be seen by your lover but concealed on the beach, others will be seen by both, and some are so gross you want to cut them out with your kitchen knife. I’ve thought about it. Disfigure the area of my scars so they have to open it all up and reconstruct from scratch and hope for improvement. Because good luck finding a plastic surgeon who’ll touch the fuck-ups of another. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
See how far this psychologically impacts you?

Fucking warn the desperate, and do so graphically, explicitely, and disgustingly. Remind them that digestive problems aren’t just icky – remind them why. The expected weight loss is too good to not come at a very high price, but exactly how steep that price is, is often only revealed once it’s too late. It’s like all those fairy tale pacts and wishes.  You get a huge promise, a fine print mentioning that you’ll be paying a considerable price, but only once you’ve agreed and rubbed the lamp, married the vampire, or sang your voice away for that neat pair of legs, will you realize what the price actually MEANS. While Arielle is still dreaming of her legs and her walks on land, she thinks she’ll be able to communicate with her pretty eyes and hands only, and then her voice is gone and she finds herself unable to speak when everything depends on it. THAT is the gastric bypass promise. You get the legs, you lose the voice.

You get the big promise, the small warning, and the huge bill, a bill fatter than your pre-OP ass and the one you take to your bank.

Gastric Bypass – My Experience

I had a gastric bypass (roux-en-y) operation at age 27, on February 17, 2010, in Brussels, Belgium, at a certified and well-respected hospital. I was treated beyond well by nurses and staff who took my meltdowns with smiles and humor and were shocked when I offered a tip. A very funny memory was when I was just off with my blood drainage bag and my visiting friends to sneak into the morgue, and a nurse came with my antibiotics or whatever shot as I left, and just stabbed me in the belly with it as she walked by. This is not a complaint; I actually thought it was funny and time-saving.

Dr. Staudt was my bypass surgeon. He explained the procedure to me and seemed very friendly, yet I should not have blindly trusted him to fully inform me. He said nothing of side effects except the usual surgery risks and a change in diet. He didn’t go into details about the unreasonably strict and restrictive diet that would make you skinny even without the surgery, until after I woke up from the latter; and said nothing about any of these things I am experiencing on a near-daily basis:

-digestive problems, and I mean severe and bothersome
-outbursts of sweat and weakness, called “dumping”, but not just when expectable
-lactose intolerance in all its glory, especially after milk on an empty stomach, aka the end of morning cereal. I can binge on dairy once I’ve eaten something else though, this usually being carbs.
-random adverse reactions to sugar: feeling sleepy and sick and dying with a tad too much, or waking up with a cold sweat and dizziness at 3 am because I need sugar at once
-random adverse reactions to fat: feeling sick and awful with too much on some days, and like I could keep eating forever on others.
-extreme cravings for carbonhydrates. I often set out with the specific urge for a specific dough product
-extreme cravings for apples. Apples save me from all sugar high or sugar low episodes.
-no weight loss
-random weight: 3 kilos DOWN in a week after eating only junk food and lots of it, or 10 kilos UP in a month for reasons yet unknown to me as my daily schedule has changed, yet not my eating habits
-fatigue in spite of vitamin supplements
-massive hair loss that does NOT end after a few months; I shed my hair all over the place until I had no choice but to shave my head completely and let nature decide how to proceed with my hair from there onward

Let me elaborate on my sugar episodes. Aside from a cold sweat, dizziness, and needing to sit down, it makes me sleepy for hours. It causes delusions, fear, rage, and PMS-like mood swings. I have had suicidal or rage episodes on post-OP sugar highs and lows. If outside, I would find myself walking very fast (I don’t imagine it; my dog will have trouble keeping up and tires quickly) and as if in a haze, an aquarium, my senses impaired, sounds muffled, sight oversensitive or blurry, and feeling like a cold wind in my head and chest. I would get angry, suicidal thoughts, become aggressive, and start getting scared of being unable to slow down or stop walking. I feel like I’m walking unsteadily or even swaying, with no ground under my feet, feeling light, though I never trip or get glances; every such walk ends without incident. It’s like a huge bad rush of some drug, though I never tried any. It’s more confusing than buzzing on alcohol. I have had manic depressive tendencies, “sorts of” ADHD, OCD, and Borderline before the operation, but they were under control and I have found a pattern in my sugar consumption and these specific episodes. The episodes coincide with only 2 things: PMS once a month, and sugar swings at any other time of the month.
I recently woke up sweaty. Mind you, I was sleeping naked in winter with only 1 blanket. Sweat was pooling on my clavicle. The next morning it had formed thick crumbs in the back of my neck. That’s how bad it was. Dizzy and confused, I was guided as if by instinct or magical pulling toward the fruit bowl where I grabbed 2 apples, a banana, and devoured them within 2 minutes; everything happened so fast and with such urgency as if my life depended on it. The episode was over and I feel asleep right away. I remember being unable to think straight, with just 1 thought: APPLE! Whenever I feel queasy, ill, or dizzy, I grab an apple of the soft, sweet, yellowish kind.

I have never experienced the “dramatic weight loss”. I have never experienced the lack of hunger or the promised mental aversion to sweets. The fear of dumping syndrome may be what they meant, but it does not help as I rarely experience it with the most unhealthy stuff: chips, chocolate, and pizza.
Yeah, sometimes I randomly lose weight very fast, but without significant changes in eating or exercising behavior, and it just returns as fast as it dropped. I can eat large amounts of food including red meat at once with little more than a stomach ache to punish me. I don’t “feel full, fast”. I need to overdo it and let it sit first.
My weight now not much lower than pre-OP. I weighted much less at some point, but it came back over the course of a few weeks and is now hard to lose. The window of “dramatic weight loss” has closed while the side effects will be permanent, rendering me permanently disgusting and undesirable. I need to keep eating to keep my energy up, but random mistakes in quantity and timing of fat or sugar can ruin my day. Too little? Feel crappy. Too much? Feel crappy. Right amount? Random.

Some of the digestive issues can be sort of avoided by avoiding onions at all times, and dairy on an empty stomach. Yet, how am I to function at work without my morning coffee that I hate without milk?
For the digestion I was told to try Psyllium as a supplement. It helps a little but not satisfyingly or reliably and the most effective preparation is one that will make you gag no matter how you take it. Integrating it in an egg omelette helps, but still… Also, it’s ridiculously expensive. The life long vitamin supplements make for a regular hassle at the doctor’s without helping much and most of the time I disqualify to donate blood. Also, having ADHD(-like issues 24/7, never diagnosed but pretty obvious) who will remind me to take them? Hm?

The bypass is supposed to make you skinny AND healthy. It’s supposed to save you diseases to be medicated. Yet – you have to permanently medicate, and permanently suffer side effects. The bypass is a cure for one ailment, while creating another. I frankly don’t give a fuck whether I’m sugar-ill from diabetes or bypass. I don’t give a fuck whether I’m tired all the time from being too fat to endure, or from being malnurished by the bypass. I don’t give a fuck whether men reject me because of my fat ass, or my digestive issues (and I still have a fat ass). The bypass solved nothing other than allowing me to return to fresh produce after the stomach band that I lost more weight with in the first 12 months than I did with the bypass in 2 years. I lost 50 kilos with the band. Yeah, I puked all the time and couldn’t stomach fresh stuff, but thinking back, until it stopped working, at least IT FUCKING WORKED!!!

I’m miserable and none the skinnier. I am still fat, yet now I am also sporting a buzz cut what with the hair loss, and I feel gross a lot of the time – the bypass has made me the opposite of more attractive.

Advantages:
-having had a gastric band for the 10 years leading up to the bypass, I could never deal with fresh produce because somehow it made me throw up and clogged my stomach; now I can eat fresh produce meaning I eat much healthier and can refrain from fattening juices or shakes because I can eat actual apples. I enjoy meat in its fresh and nutricious form rather than the minced crap in burgers.
–I can no longer vomit. I can eat red meat and sit at the restaurant with people without having to run and purge all the time for food trying to burst out of my nose. A problem with the gastric band. I also puked in my sleep or in a doubled-over position. It would just run out my nose. Though, is it a good thing to actually be unable to puke..?
-I tried.

What seems to help a bit:
-Psyllium for the bowel
-lots and lots of protein, but watch your cholesterol with those eggs and mind the lactose intolerance…
-exercise, though mostly it’s been disappointing. Just saying, it helps a little. I walk a lot, my city is built on a steep hill, but still, little effect.
-strangely, I tend to lose more when I care less about what I eat (not: how much)
-4 Snickers bars a day in addition to a diet of mostly produce. No kidding.

Killers:
-Soda
-Diary on an empty stomach
-Fat or sugar on an empty or very full stomach
-Onions (gas)
-Pizza and crackers (specifically; some carbs are okay)
-Coffee (makes me extra hungry, like PAINFULLY hungry and feeling a chilly wind in my gut)

Bottom line:
I fucking regret it and I want to die.