Toxic

 Let's talk about "diet culture".  If you're anything like me, most of your life, whether it was from parental force (how my story begins) or from restrictive behavior you put upon yourself, you have dieted in some form or another.  I remember being taught there were good and bad foods, even before the "clean" eating crew came along.  Good foods were things like turkey bacon, low fat or even fat free cheese, or egg white omelets which honestly is like eating tasteless hot jello with a hint of egg flavor. Bad foods were sugary cereals, regular bacon, BUTTER, Poptarts.  I fell for all of it.  I did Weight Watchers, lost weight, gained weight on it, and was JUDGED at meetings. I ate nothing but a pot of cabbage soup for 5 days straight! All in the pursuit of being thin. Why on earth do we think this is a healthy way of living? 

Diet Culture has trained us to view food and eating this way. And we have turned it into an Olympic event.  Patting ourselves on the back when we restrict calories and stick to 1500 a day, making sure to tell everyone around us.  

I even did KETO for about 3 years.  Eat all the fat you want but carbs are of the devil.  Satan lives in a loaf of bread.  

Guys, I was miserable.  Guilty for not going to the gym often enough, and hungry.

Then I discovered counting macros.  I learned food is food.  Not good or bad, food has no moral standings.  It nourishes you and keeps you alive.  But I was still handcuffed to calorie counting, and this time it also included weighing every gram of food that went in my mouth.  While it came with  more freedom, if I wanted a cookie, or wine, I could make it fit, but it was still restrictive in nature.  Better, but not great.

Enter my AN son.  All the pieces fell into place.  He didn't weigh his food, he wasn't counting calories, he wasn't exercising non-stop.  He simply eats barely anything.  Want everything you have ever thought about dieting, weight loss, and working out until everything hurts to be flipped on its head? Have a loved one with an eating disorder.  

It made me realize that restricting and eating in a "painful deficit" isn't healthy.  Not mentally and not physically.  See, the truth of the matter is, if you want to be a healthy weight, then its calories in and calories out.  Exercise if it makes you happy.  If you want to lift weights because you love it, do it.  If you lift weights because everyone else is doing it and you'll do anything to look like that model over there, stop it.  If you would rather do yoga, but your neighbor runs marathons and is naturally thin so you run too, STOP IT.  Go do some yoga.  If you want a cookie, eat the damn cookie.  Don't eat the entire sleeve of Thin Mints, that my friend is called binging, (and probably also involves eating some feelings).  Don't let celebrities with their "skinny teas", friends touting gross MLM shakes, and instructions to only eat "clean", rule your life.  

Diet Culture is toxic.  Evil.  In the US alone, this year, there are 24 million people suffering from an eating disorder.  This of course, are the ones that are known.  From eating disorders alone, there are about 10,200 deaths.  Read that again.  

Think about it, we allow our brains to be rewired by social media, by commercials, by people we don't even know personally.  Telling us that if we want to look just like them (which is impossible by the way) just eat the way they do, do their workout 2 times a day.  Cause yourself pain, and misery so you can be someone else's perfect ideal.  Isn't this also self-harm? It may not be taking a razor and cutting your skin, but it is harming yourself on purpose to feel better.  

Listen, I want to be thin and pretty.  Just like you.  Why do I have to hurt myself to do it? 

Much love!

Thoughts? Leave a comment :) 

Chaotic

Chaos seems to be the name of the game this week.  Monday was crazy, not because of my son or any AN issues rearing its ugly head.  Instead, both dogs and one of our cats decided right before I ran out the door to head up to my office and get some work done, to pee everywhere.  I cleaned up what I saw, only to come home to more!  Including all my bedding.  And my new curtains downstairs. I spent hours doing laundry that night.  Super fun Monday night, right?

Tuesday was full of the business of grocery shopping, which is an all day event.  My son came along for the ride along with his brother.  He was laughing, joking, helpful.  When we got back home, he was just exhausted and lightheaded and dizzy.  Then his brother, thinking he was funny, called him chunky.  I addressed it, letting his brother know this was not ok. Period.  As a 16 yr old, I get he doesn't understand the gravity behind words like that.  Later, I was already heading to bed, it was going on 10pm which in our house, means go upstairs and get ready because lights out is 10:30.  I have to get my 16yr old up at 6 am so he can get to school shortly after 7.  The oldest was giving me a hard time, but then ended up going upstairs but left every light on downstairs.  I turned them all off, begrudgingly, I was all cozy in my bed, and then I went to sleep.  

11pm roles around and my oldest is waking me up.  I am always scared when he does this because it could be because he is in pain, or any number of reasons.  He came in and said "Mom, I want to apologize". I thought he was wanting to say he was sorry for acting like a jerk that evening.  That was not the case.  He then told me he wanted to apologize for what he had done.  This got my attention and scared me even more.  I sat up, turned on my lamp, and he showed me how he had cut his upper arm, deep, although not deep enough for stitches.  In sheer desperation, he had taken apart an old dull razor to get to the blade and used that to cut his arm.  I cannot even begin to tell you how thankful I was that he came to me, in a dark moment.  He was able to stop himself from doing more.  When I asked him why, again it was the same anguish of feeling like no one was going to be able to help him and get him better.  

This, my friends, is heartbreaking.  Why isn't the fact that a child needs help, who wants to find away out of the madness in his mind that tells him he is gross, and fat, and that it's ok to hurt himself, enough to have a doctor RUSH to help??  Insurance companies play a part in this as well, I hear stories day after day about how someone's child had to leave treatment because the "insurance gods" figured they had enough treatment and must be all better now! 

The good news at the end of this particular week is that I reached out to our insurance, I had some things I needed to take care of, and managed to connect with someone who really wanted to help me out.  I had received a print out from the doctors office and noticed that the referral said it was "processed, but missing information".  I asked the lovely insurance lady what that meant and what did we need to do to get it pushed through.  What was missing, was a very specific term.  Tricare needed to know why we needed a referral to the treatment center in the first place.  Is the diagnosis of AN not enough? If you are wondering, it is not.  The missing term is "medical necessity".  I called the doctor's office and let them know (they are less than helpful as front desk staff so who knows if they did what I asked) what needed to be changed.  There is hope, although I am not holding my breath.  If I did that, I might die.  

Much love