Fat-or-exic

It's 5 pm. I have eaten a total of 439 calories so far today, 400 of that being in liquid form. I have to eat something substantial for dinner, but I'm really not that hungry. I mean, I am a little... but I can wait.

I'm planning to have ravioli and roasted veggies. It seems a little heavy but I'll do my best to get up to 1000 calories today.

This has been going on for months, and, for the 100th time, I wonder if I am not actually anorexic.

Except...I'm fat.

Morbidly obese, they tell me.

No one except my husband believes that I eat that little.

They all assume I'm eating a full cake or two every day, like I'm Honey-sempai or something.

I'm constantly active too, working 10 hour day, running errands, scrubbing dishes... I can't sit still for long. (Yes, I get my heart rate up.)

Discount that as activity all you want, but my fitbit says that I burn a minimum of 2000 calories a day.

So, what the fuck, I ask myself.

I can't ask others, because they say I'm just clearly lying. Calories in, Calories out...end of story.

But I'm not lying, so you can SHUT IT, random reader!

If you made it this far, feel free to stay for my story...

I was a kind of pudgy kid. Not fat...just not thin. My mother did a shitty job of feeding us. She just...didn't sometimes. When she did, it was fast food or stuff like mac and cheese.

I was often either hungry or constipated. Sometimes both.

My step mother entered the scene when I was 5. She thought I was just plain disgusting- fat and lazy. She made me work out daily, sometimes until I fall down, and would limit my food. I ate half of what the other kids did. I also had 5x the chores. I was afraid to eat around her, and she kept a close eye on the food of the house. I wasn't even allowed to eat the cookies I made...

She was just a terrible cook anyway. It wasn't usually too much of a loss.

I didn't lose weight, after 14 years of this.

I ran away. I couldn't handle it. I was hungry and exhausted.

But...then I ate less. Not eating for a whole week less.

You better believe I lost weight then.

Waaay too much weight.

I almost died of starvation.

Only THEN did people think I was pretty. A starving homeless teen. My bones were literally breaking from lack of nutrition. I did not get my period very often. I was always sick.

But...society finally saw me as pretty. Beautiful even.

I cannot impress upon you all how much I hated this. I found it intolerably repulsive.

I WAS DYING. DIDN'T ANYONE CARE!?

No. They didn't.

It was what society expected, after all; for women to starve themselves in the name of beauty. Who cares that women are biologically prone to weight gain, and for very good reason too! BMI tests are a sexist bullshit practice...but I digress...

When I was finally rescued from the streets, I became a healthier kind of thin. I rounded out a bit. Started a healthier diet. I knew eating too much too fast was bad.

But...then I got a job at Burger King, and moved in with well meaning people who wanted to feed me because I was too thin.

They were mayonnaise on pizza people.

I tried to hold them off, but I was in the bathroom throwing up most nights. I got ulcers that sometimes bled. They would not be treated for 10 years because doctors did not believe me.

Anyway, I gained 50 pounds quickly.

I was still not too fat, but about a size 10

I started walking a lot, moved out on my own, and became vegetarian. I didn't lose much weight...but I was healthier.

Then I got pregnant.

The doctors were quite concerned I wasn't gaining weight. They pushed me to eat more, and drink whole milk.

I craved eggs and hash browns during my whole pregnancy, so I ate a bunch of those too.

Then I gained weight too fast. 50 more pounds.

It never came off. Even after I resumed my workouts and heavy diet.

I found out I was anemic around 21, so I added fish and just tons of spinach to my diet.

I cut out all sugars, processed foods, fast-food... but I lost no weight.

After a whole year of this I gave up.

I grabbed a candy, some soda, and a dicks hamburger and swore off diets.

I expected to gain weight, but I didn't. Not one pound...until my 2nd pregnancy. I craved meat and cheese for this one, and gained, you guessed it, 50 pounds. It's my thing I guess.

I tried to get back into eating well, especially for my daughter's sake. I had a nice balanced diet, without the strict no sugar rule; just limited sugar. I worked out less but still stayed active. I...didn't lose any weight.

I met and married my husband, and caught another health bug. He was disabled, and needed a special diet. So I followed his low sodium, as healthy as possible diet. I stayed home to care for him, and swore off fast food again. I cooked all our meals for 6 years, and started up Zuma and other fun activities. I felt better, but...no weight loss.

I was stuck at 250.

I got pregnant again, against all odds...then the worst happened and I wasn't pregnant anymore. I don't want to talk about it... yet.

I gained just half of the expected 50 pound in the process.

I was now stuck at 275.

I kind of gave up. I ate as best I could. But then I kind of gave up eating too. Bein hungry felt right somehow. Maybe a masochistic yearning? I thought I deserved it. I don't know. Food just no longer comforted me. Nothing did.

I just stopped caring what went in my mouth when. Some days I had fast food all 3 meals, sometimes I had practically nothing.

I started writing down what I eat recently, and was very surprised to find that I was eating less than 1000 calories most days, and burning twice that many. Almost every day. My binge days were nearly nonexistent, and they barely scraped the 2,000 calorie mark. Some binge day, amiright?

I was starving myself again.

I reached out for help and was put on a special diet for weight loss...but it was just too much food. I couldn't eat that much. The doctors simply couldn't believe me, and treated me like I'm crazy pathetic liar.

Almost every doctor I have seen has given me weight advice. The highlights: when I went in for the stomach flu and the doctor wrote me a literal prescription for exercise, when I hurt my sternum exercising and the doctor gave me antipsychotics, and when I went to the ER because I was having an allergic reaction and I got a 30 minute lecture on weight.

A close fourth "favorite" is when a doctor came in, exclaimed I was fat in a loud voice, diagnosed me on the spot with sleep apnea (which I didn't actually have), and lectured me for an hour on diets (I was there for nightmares and anxiety).

Most women have stories like these. Half the larger women I speak to have this same problem. It's not ok. We are starving ourselves to death while receiving never-ending diet tips.

Doctors don't find us attractive, so we get no help. Disgusting!

I can't even get a gastric bypass because of this crap. Not that I think it will help- I already eat the diet expected of gastric bypass patients and have seen no results.

A few doctors, nutritionists, and articles I have read that state there is more to weight gain and loss than just what you eat, but those voices are unheard in the din of this obsessive weight loss culture.

I am in earnest; I need help, and I just can't wait.

I need someone to believe my story...To understand the way my body has been abused over my 40 years. How to help me get out of this "starvation mode", if that's what it is. I need doctors to see beyond the fat. I need them to stop seeing me as a crazy fibber. I just need them to understand...

So long as I look like THIS,

however, it is all they will see.

(BTW-made it to 830 calories today, with 4 servings of veggies and two of dairy included...then I burned 2,352 calories.)