I don't want the world to see me, 'cause I don't think that they'd understand.

Often times double-standards are equated with issues between the sexes, but I think an ever-growing double-standard in American society (perhaps elsewhere, though I cannot speak on behalf of "elsewhere") is that being being extremely overweight is much more offensive than being extremely underweight. It's not really limited to the actual weight, though, it's more the disorders that generally lead to such results. 

Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa, for example, are not only much more recognized in our country as significant health problems, but there is a much greater understanding that they can be helped through the combination/integration of therapy, nutrition education, and sometimes even medication. They are not simply physical problems, they are psychological problems as well. Binge-eating disorder, or any of a variety of complications or scenarios that lead to weight gain, are scoffed at by so many people because there seems to be some underlying belief that overweight people have no self-respect, no control, and no real reason for being overweight. Is that to say that underweight people do have self-respect, control, and a real reason to be dangerously skinny? I think not.

In terms of "getting help," most overweight people are simply told to go to the gym and workout, but as I've said in previous posts, that's like looking at a person afflicted with Anorexia Nervosa and suggesting s/he "go eat something." Or, in yet another phrasing, it's akin to putting a Band-Aid over a bullet wound: if only the treatment really were so superficial and simple.

When people are recognized, or perceived as having an eating disorder that has caused them to lose a significant amount of weight, it seems more people are inclined to want to help in a positive, constructive way. When a person with Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa is partaking in destructive behavior (such as purging, refusing to eat, etc.) others jump in to help them, but when an overweight binge-eater is shoving pizzas and ice cream down her throat rude comments are made -- if anything at all. Binge-eating might just seem to be something that overweight people do, but that's not true. Not all overweight people binge-eat.

The fact is that people are overweight for a variety of reasons: lack of exercise, poor diet, health conditions, etc. Or even a combination of several factors, but not necessarily because they binge-eat and/or don't exercise; additionally, plenty of people are still clinically overweight, but they exercise a great deal. I say this to illustrate the diversity within a subculture that is more often than not boiled down to one unflattering stereotype, a stereotype that makes it incredibly challenging for people to seek out help from others or for others to feel comfortable with helping. 

Despite the growing epidemic that is obesity, people do not feel as inclined to help on a personal level. Instead, obesity and binge-eating are treated as physical results attributed to poor diet and laziness with little concern shown for the person beneath the layers of excess weight.

This is one reason I am simultaneously angry and defeated -- I want to be healthy, not necessarily "skinny,"  but how can I get there when instead of being seen as a person struggling on the inside, I'm categorized as a lazy heifer. That's incredibly unfair and hurtful; I wish someone could understand that, for me, I really don't believe the biggest issue is learning to eat healthy or making time to exercise. 

My biggest issue is how to get past all the voices in my head that tell me I don't deserve to treat my body like a temple, that I will never be beautiful enough regardless of my weight, that I am not worth all that time and effort required to be healthy. For that reason, I've got to get control of my mind before I can get control of my body, but I'm too ashamed to ask for help in that arena because a) fat girl with low self-esteem is so cliché these days and b) who can really understand the whys and hows of needing to work from the inside out? The general theory is that if I look good, I'll feel good, but that sounds more like a direct path to failure for me.

I guess I don't understand how people can look at Girl A and Girl B (pictured below), yet only be willing to take the extra time to talk to Girl A to help her appreciate herself and see how beautiful/worthwhile she is and always will be whereas Girl B just needs to go to the gym and she might be attractive or at least be skinnier. I think it's hard for people to imagine just how much shame both girls would have to overcome before getting on to a truly healthier way of living, but shame is hard to overcome alone. Trust me, I know.

Girl A:

Girl B:

After all this, my biggest question is this: why can't we all give and get a bit more compassion? I believe there are enough helping hands to help us all, it just may require that some people open their minds a bit more -- their hearts, too.

- - - - -

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, 'I'll try again tomorrow.'"
[Mary Anne Radmacher]

This is some heavy stuff!

A goal I have for myself is to look in the mirror, look into my own eyes, and not feel completely ashamed or begin berating myself for any of a slew of self-ascribed inadequacies. Some days I can do this much more easily than others, but it takes quite a bit of coaching. It's a gratifying moment, though, when I close my eyes and open them again to see a small semi-confident smile on my face.

Despite this goal and the effort I've taken to get there, part of me believes it isn't right for me to be as confident as I have been in days past, while another part of me suspects (or knows?) that it's mostly false bravado. I'm not entirely sure that I've gotten more confident because I think I've just become a better actress -- go figure!

The reason I mention this is because earlier this week I, quite fittingly, stumbled upon a new show featured on A&E, "Heavy," and I admit that in the beginning I was interested only very superficially, but the more I watched the more I realized that every word these people were saying about themselves and their Food Relationships completely fit how I felt. Sure, I don't weigh 400 pounds, but they weren't always so heavy, either. It has to start somewhere and I really think that this could be the "somewhere" for me if something doesn't change soon.

It also caught my attention when, in the second episode, a younger girl (26 years old -- just two-and-a-half years older than I am) was on the show and I could see myself standing in her shoes given a couple of years. She talked about how she acts more confident and upbeat than she really feels so that people won't see her "weakness." She also has an alcohol problem and I know I don't have an alcohol problem (not to the degree she does, anyway), but it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that in the past 3 months I've drank more than I ever have in my entire life...

Two other things really caught my attention about this show: the "enablers" and the people who spot the problem. My life is full of the "enablers," or, as I call them, my family. My family is almost entirely overweight and/or obese people, especially on my dad's side. When our family gets together it's very food-centric and it's incredibly obvious why we all have weight problems! The fact that I'm overweight, then, is not seen as anything out of the ordinary and so no one in my family is going to sit me down and say, "Alana, we've noticed that your eating has gotten out of hand and we'd like to help you get back on track to a healthier lifestyle." In order for THAT to happen they'd have to get their own lives back on track and I just don't see that happening for them because they are so acceptant of it. Overweight is just... how we are, apparently.

Except... it's not how I want to be. I want to be strong enough to resist the temptation my "enablers" throw in front of me holiday after holiday. The thing is, I also want someone to say, "Alana, we've noticed that your eating has gotten out of hand and we'd like to help you get back on track to a healthier lifestyle." I need someone to support me, to notice the fact that I've gained 25 pounds in less than year, to care enough about me to step in and help me navigate through all this "stuff." I don't need someone to say, "Why don't you just go to the gym and lose the weight?" because that's literally like telling someone who is anorexic, "Hey, why don't you just eat something and get over it?" It's a lot more complicated than that in so many ways.

Yes, going to the gym would be a huge step in the right direction, but I am so scared to take that step alone because in the past when I've taken that step alone I failed. I cannot fail again. It's also not the only step that needs to be taken and I need someone to keep me motivated, optimistic, and on the right path. I need someone who truly understands how complicated and deeply-driven these problems are for me, someone who will talk with me without being disgusted and/or appalled when or if I lapse into another binge.

I'm not sure that I have that support though, which is another reason why I'm here. It looks as though I have to be my own support system for a while, or at least until I get away from the "enablers" and find someone who doesn't scoff at obesity or belittle my problem(s) with food. Of course, in order to find that person who will support me, I've got to be willing to share all this with people, but this is just about the most humiliating kind of (heart-breaking, soul-crushing) problem to have to share with anyone and, let's be honest, no one likes to see fat people cry...

- - - - -

"It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not."

[Author Unknown]

When it's time to find something that fits, somedays are better than others.

A few weeks ago I was sitting by myself in the one bedroom apartment I share with my mother and I mentally cataloged all the foodstuffs I had ingested in my time alone. My roommate (re: mother) was in NW Ohio for the better part of the week and it occurred to me that my eating habits had spiral-rocketed out of control.

As I thought back on all that I had eaten, I became more and more upset--not only about what I was eating, but also because I began thinking of the reasons I had eaten in the first place. This is one of my primary problems: I don't just eat when I'm hungry, I eat to fill voids, ease frustrations, and soothe hurts. When I sit down and think about all the food I've stuffed into myself, I can't avoid the reasons I found to do said "stuffing," and of course that leads me down that same path again--only now with the added angst of realizing that I'm shoving calories down my throat faster than a hurricane uproots a palm tree.

The night I hit my breaking point was my last night "alone" for that week. I'd went to the store with ten dollars (ten dollars that I very much did not have to spare) and I bought all the high-calorie goodness I could manage. I left the store with two Totino's Party Pizzas, one (40-count) bag of generic pizza rolls, and a quart of Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream. I'd purchased all these items and returned home by 9:30 P.M. and I ate the two party pizzas and half the ice cream that night, by 2:30 in the morning. The next day I woke up, ate the pizza rolls, and finished off the ice cream. In less than 24 hours I'd eaten that much food and I wasn't so much "ashamed" as I was conscious of the fact that I should have felt ashamed.

Actually, I did feel a bit of shame when I ate the second pizza when I was already full from the first and then went on to eat the half quart of ice cream. What really set me off in the "shame" department is the fact that the pizza rolls were absolutely disgusting; they had a terrible flavor and the texture was mealy, and even though I had told myself at several points that they were the worst things I'd ever put in my mouth, I ate every. single. one.

Though that night was a low point (or a turning point?) it was not an isolated incident by any stretch of the imagination. In the past few months I've had so many moments of inhaling a high volume of food in a short amount of time. The bright side is that the "low point" prompted me to do a little search on disordered eating, and what I found seems to fit. According to the information provided by the Mayo Clinic, I've got a very clear-cut case of a Binge-Eating Disorder. I say "clear-cut" because it all fits. The depression, the anxiety, the eating alone, the secrecy of what/why/how I eat, and all the thoughts and worries I have "post-binge."

I'm here though, to sort through all that because it's not enough just to say "This is my problem." I still need to figure out the whys and hows of it so that I can fix the way I think about food; I want to understand this so that I can, someday in the future, be truly better. I just have to take it one step at a time and I'll get where I'm going, eventually.

- - - - -

[Katy Perry: "Firework"]

So, this is where it all begins?

This is a last-ditch effort to save myself from... myself. My current lot in life has me struggling with many issues, not that this is different from what anyone else is going through, but I've realized that my coping mechanism is no longer helping me to cope.

My way of coping with the day-to-day stressors, heartbreaks, confusions, and anxiety-inducing moments is to burrow deep into the always-welcoming arms of food.

Food is, and always has been, very welcome in my life -- whether in moments of actual hunger or not. The problem, though, is that food has become something more than a way to keep me alive and well, it has become more than the "occasional" indulgence in delicious decadence, it has become more than just three healthful meals a day. 

As of late, food has become my crutch, my weakness, my ever-present enemy, and it has held me at such a low point for too long. Recognizing this decline in my relationship with food, I knew I needed to take action.

Yes, I am significantly overweight, but this is not about a "diet." I am not starting this blog so that I can drop the 80 pounds and be "skinny," instead I am starting this blog so I can break through the psychological (for lack of a better word) side of my eating habits. Or, in other words, why is my relationship with food what it is and how can I change that? After I'm able to answer those questions, and feel good about the answers, then--and only then--can I work on long-lasting, sustainable physical changes and results.

If I don't allow myself the opportunity to work through the interior "stuff" then working on the exterior will only put me in a position to fail. If I don't understand the whys and hows of my Food Relationship then I'm infinitely more likely to undo any positive results by falling back into my old habits.

So, this is where I'm starting, but with a lot of hard work, a bunch of persistence, and a hearty dose of dedication this is not where I'll be ending.

- - - - -

"Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend."

[Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat Pray Love]