0 comment Thursday, June 5, 2014 | admin
So, this is going to be a hell of a downer read....
I've booked a spa trip, hurrah and yay. It's the first time in a very long time I've done this sort of thing for myself and it feels incredibly irresponsible and overly self-indulgent. I spend money on my child, or my friends, I don't spend it on myself; just feels like I'm wasting cash. I have constant aches and pains and I was actually quite looking forward to attending these pools as they are considerably warmer than is offered elsewhere.
There were several other things being offered which I shied away from without looking at too closely. Full body treatments would be useful but I just couldn't get myself to want to do that. I know massage and stuff like that is supposed to help my condition but I have adamantly refused to do it - again, I just didn't want to think about that too much so I shoved any squicky moments aside and opted for a facial as I can just about tolerate that.
Went to book my appointment with a very uber-efficient and not particularly friendly appointment taker, and I got the confirmation email last night. To my horror, she booked me for a full body massage. I use the word "horror" with precision here; not irritation that I had been misunderstood or annoyance that I was going to have to call in and change.Horrified. As in "Oh my god, there is no way I'm going to subject a stranger to touching me" horrified; bursting into tears horrified. The idea of having to subject these poor massage therapists - who probably work on yuppies every week - fills me with utter revulsion and sympathy. They didn't sign up to massage fat people, and I'm well aware of it. It's the stupidest over-the-top reaction I've had in a while and I had to sit down and just realise where it's come from.
Every went to see those "body swap" comedy films? White man in black man's body. Man in woman's body, child in adult body. Hilarity ensues! Well, I'm the athlete in a fat woman's body. And it ain't a funny place to be. I hate what my body has become right now, and no amount of "fat awareness" or shiny-happy-talks-with-psychological-phonies is going to change that (I don't agree with Scientology on any level but I have never felt charging a fortune to talk in a room has ever really cured anyone). The only thing which will change it is if the weight comes off, and no one knows how to make that happen yet, least of all me and I know the whole nutrition spiel back to front - any GP who tells me I should see a nutritionist gets a blank stare and I then break things down thanks to over a decade of diet balance to workout ratios.
I've heard how the NHS thinks I've "done this to myself" and how the taxpayer doesn't want to pay for my health problems - being overweight is considered to be a self-inflicted illness. There's no empathy at all, I've found, even when I ask for help; the assumption is I must be a devout McDonalds patron to look the way I do. Everyone thinks I've done this to myself somehow - that when I reached the peak of training, when I had less bodyfat than my trainers, I suddenly decided to go home and eat cake and soda. I've stopped bothering to argue my caloric intake is less than 1000 a day. Instead, I have to tell them my hair hasn't grown in over ten years; I haven't bothered to get it cut in all that time because I haven't had to. It's been the same shoulder length for over a decade. This immediately wipes the resigned she's-just-going-to-want-a-gastic-bypass look off their faces and their eyebrows shoot up. Suddenly I'm actually a real case rather than just a binge eater in denial, but it still doesn't seem to help much; they don't know why my system is doing this.
There's only one way for me to lose weight - and I know because I've done it before; eat one meal a day and work out for at least an hour. Sometimes, I did two hours a day. Six hundred calories a day. That was it. No, it doesn't sound even remotely healthy or sensible, but it worked. And when the only thing anyone cares about is how you look, no one - not even my doctors - particularly cared how I got there. I wasn't doing this when I was training, but it's how I took the weight off which had plagued me all my teenage life and was what got me interested in body-building in the first place; knowing that I could take the weight off and keep it off.
I have been told not to work out anywhere near as much, and I know that - I seem to have developed a workout intolerance (another horror, considering how much I loved it). It will damage my bones, make me more fatigued, put undue stress on my body - but to be perfectly honest I've pretty much decided I don't care. There are wheelchair body-builders out there, and I'd sacrifice being able to walk in order to NOT look like this. So, this year against all advice I'm going to start training again - I will need to use something other than free weights as I do not trust my hands to hold them anymore, and going to the spa once a week to swim in water my body can tolerate will get expensive, but I'll do it. The GPs and experts who give me all this well meaning advice aren't the ones who have to live in this body and deal with the derisive looks and whispered-aloud-so-I-can-hear-it comments on my appearance.
If there's such a thing as a fat phobia, I seem to have it. However thanks to society's own issues with weight the only cure which will satisfy anyone is that I lose it, at whatever cost.
So. I'm still not sure I'm going to the spa tomorrow. I am honestly considering cancelling the whole thing - as I will also be wearing a swimsuit around other people, with my cane, and probably will look a sorry sight. But I'm going, not to enjoy myself, but to gird my loins for war; to work out in water I can tolerate, to massage my muscles after the damage I do to it, and to feel the disgust coming from the masseuse to remind me of why I'm doing it. I'm walking today, even though I am well aware I shouldn't - there's damage in my feet somewhere and I haven't had the x-rays or podiatry appointments to figure out where it is, but screw it. Every walk is a deathwalk, every minute standing is agony and potentially risking my ability to ever stand up again. I know it. I don't care. Infinitely more acceptable that I'm crippled for life and thin than being a fat woman using the mobility aids I should be - people just think you're lazy otherwise and I'm tired of it.
Let the NHS patch me together after I've lost a hundred pounds - at least then they'll be happy to do so.
I've booked a spa trip, hurrah and yay. It's the first time in a very long time I've done this sort of thing for myself and it feels incredibly irresponsible and overly self-indulgent. I spend money on my child, or my friends, I don't spend it on myself; just feels like I'm wasting cash. I have constant aches and pains and I was actually quite looking forward to attending these pools as they are considerably warmer than is offered elsewhere.
There were several other things being offered which I shied away from without looking at too closely. Full body treatments would be useful but I just couldn't get myself to want to do that. I know massage and stuff like that is supposed to help my condition but I have adamantly refused to do it - again, I just didn't want to think about that too much so I shoved any squicky moments aside and opted for a facial as I can just about tolerate that.
Went to book my appointment with a very uber-efficient and not particularly friendly appointment taker, and I got the confirmation email last night. To my horror, she booked me for a full body massage. I use the word "horror" with precision here; not irritation that I had been misunderstood or annoyance that I was going to have to call in and change.Horrified. As in "Oh my god, there is no way I'm going to subject a stranger to touching me" horrified; bursting into tears horrified. The idea of having to subject these poor massage therapists - who probably work on yuppies every week - fills me with utter revulsion and sympathy. They didn't sign up to massage fat people, and I'm well aware of it. It's the stupidest over-the-top reaction I've had in a while and I had to sit down and just realise where it's come from.
Every went to see those "body swap" comedy films? White man in black man's body. Man in woman's body, child in adult body. Hilarity ensues! Well, I'm the athlete in a fat woman's body. And it ain't a funny place to be. I hate what my body has become right now, and no amount of "fat awareness" or shiny-happy-talks-with-psychological-phonies is going to change that (I don't agree with Scientology on any level but I have never felt charging a fortune to talk in a room has ever really cured anyone). The only thing which will change it is if the weight comes off, and no one knows how to make that happen yet, least of all me and I know the whole nutrition spiel back to front - any GP who tells me I should see a nutritionist gets a blank stare and I then break things down thanks to over a decade of diet balance to workout ratios.
I've heard how the NHS thinks I've "done this to myself" and how the taxpayer doesn't want to pay for my health problems - being overweight is considered to be a self-inflicted illness. There's no empathy at all, I've found, even when I ask for help; the assumption is I must be a devout McDonalds patron to look the way I do. Everyone thinks I've done this to myself somehow - that when I reached the peak of training, when I had less bodyfat than my trainers, I suddenly decided to go home and eat cake and soda. I've stopped bothering to argue my caloric intake is less than 1000 a day. Instead, I have to tell them my hair hasn't grown in over ten years; I haven't bothered to get it cut in all that time because I haven't had to. It's been the same shoulder length for over a decade. This immediately wipes the resigned she's-just-going-to-want-a-gastic-bypass look off their faces and their eyebrows shoot up. Suddenly I'm actually a real case rather than just a binge eater in denial, but it still doesn't seem to help much; they don't know why my system is doing this.
There's only one way for me to lose weight - and I know because I've done it before; eat one meal a day and work out for at least an hour. Sometimes, I did two hours a day. Six hundred calories a day. That was it. No, it doesn't sound even remotely healthy or sensible, but it worked. And when the only thing anyone cares about is how you look, no one - not even my doctors - particularly cared how I got there. I wasn't doing this when I was training, but it's how I took the weight off which had plagued me all my teenage life and was what got me interested in body-building in the first place; knowing that I could take the weight off and keep it off.
I have been told not to work out anywhere near as much, and I know that - I seem to have developed a workout intolerance (another horror, considering how much I loved it). It will damage my bones, make me more fatigued, put undue stress on my body - but to be perfectly honest I've pretty much decided I don't care. There are wheelchair body-builders out there, and I'd sacrifice being able to walk in order to NOT look like this. So, this year against all advice I'm going to start training again - I will need to use something other than free weights as I do not trust my hands to hold them anymore, and going to the spa once a week to swim in water my body can tolerate will get expensive, but I'll do it. The GPs and experts who give me all this well meaning advice aren't the ones who have to live in this body and deal with the derisive looks and whispered-aloud-so-I-can-hear-it comments on my appearance.
If there's such a thing as a fat phobia, I seem to have it. However thanks to society's own issues with weight the only cure which will satisfy anyone is that I lose it, at whatever cost.
So. I'm still not sure I'm going to the spa tomorrow. I am honestly considering cancelling the whole thing - as I will also be wearing a swimsuit around other people, with my cane, and probably will look a sorry sight. But I'm going, not to enjoy myself, but to gird my loins for war; to work out in water I can tolerate, to massage my muscles after the damage I do to it, and to feel the disgust coming from the masseuse to remind me of why I'm doing it. I'm walking today, even though I am well aware I shouldn't - there's damage in my feet somewhere and I haven't had the x-rays or podiatry appointments to figure out where it is, but screw it. Every walk is a deathwalk, every minute standing is agony and potentially risking my ability to ever stand up again. I know it. I don't care. Infinitely more acceptable that I'm crippled for life and thin than being a fat woman using the mobility aids I should be - people just think you're lazy otherwise and I'm tired of it.
Let the NHS patch me together after I've lost a hundred pounds - at least then they'll be happy to do so.
Labels: Languishment