Time for an update on how I’m doing with my sugar addiction and weight. I continue to work with the NRT practitioner at Gnosis Natural Health who recently targeted my hormone levels as a part of why I’m still fat. So she has me on supplements to help my body balance its estrogen level, release excess cortisol and increase insulin resistance. That’s been going well and I’ve been very slowly getting a bit smaller each month, but it’s all been inflammation reduction. In seven months of altered diet and supplements, I’ve lost a size but had no change in how much I actually weigh (almost 200 pounds when I’m only 5’2″). (That’s 90 kg or over 14 stone and 157.5 cm tall.)
I see the NRT practitioner every two weeks, unless I’m doing particularly badly and need an appointment every week (most of her clients need one appointment every three or four weeks, but I’m extra messed up). I bring her lists of symptoms such as rash on the hands, trouble falling asleep, urinating every 30-45 minutes, trouble swallowing, lower back ache, itchy eyes nose and throat, extra sweatiness, arthritis-like pain in fingers, muscle cramps, and of course, sugar cravings. She identifies what organ or organs need help and for me it’s usually the spleen or kidneys. Then she either prescribes a vitamin, nutritional blend, homeopathic remedy or food. (She only prescribes food that the client likes, so once she told me to eat a sardine a day because I like sardines. The practitioner also prescribes things like a certain quantity of blueberries, sweet rose tea, sesame oil, etc.) Most clients see her for less than a year to achieve good, stable health. For me it’ll be four years in January.
Lately my sugar cravings have been very bad and and I’ve been giving in and feeling demoralized. Last week she said they’re because of internal organ connections that are blocked, so she suggested a specific therapist for a lymphatic massage (at Chicago Area Rehabilitation Experts).
I saw the therapist last night ($65+tip) and she worked on my body for an hour (a lymphatic massage is very non-invasive and doesn’t even need lubricant). She said everything’s stuck in my gut. Well, duh, my belly has always been the biggest part of me. She identified my fatness as 1) water that I’m holding because of those lymphatic blockages that the NRT practitioner had found, 2) scar tissue and trauma from my 2017 hysterectomy, and 3) childhood trauma I’m still holding on to. The therapist can fix the lymphatic blocks and scar tissue, but the last one is my homework.
Weight loss is complicated!! In addition to food and hormones and thyroid and whatever else, another factor keeping us fat might be emotions from childhood trauma. Goddamned childhood. So the 31 years and thousands of dollars I’ve spent on therapists and healers have still not gotten me where I want to be. So angrifying.
And guess what? The massage therapist said when I let go of my childhood, I’ll lose weight quickly. Uh, yeah, I’ve heard that before. Detoxify and the weight will come right off. Balance the hormones and the weight will come right off. Eat for the health of the spleen (or liver or kidneys) and the weight will come right off. Do this kind of exercise and the weight will come right off. Stop eating wheat and wheat products and the weight will come right off. I actually do believe that others can do one or two of those and lose weight, but I have so much wrong with me that my body has needed me to fix a hundred things before it will release any weight.
I see the NRT practitioner every two weeks, unless I’m doing particularly badly and need an appointment every week (most of her clients need one appointment every three or four weeks, but I’m extra messed up). I bring her lists of symptoms such as rash on the hands, trouble falling asleep, urinating every 30-45 minutes, trouble swallowing, lower back ache, itchy eyes nose and throat, extra sweatiness, arthritis-like pain in fingers, muscle cramps, and of course, sugar cravings. She identifies what organ or organs need help and for me it’s usually the spleen or kidneys. Then she either prescribes a vitamin, nutritional blend, homeopathic remedy or food. (She only prescribes food that the client likes, so once she told me to eat a sardine a day because I like sardines. The practitioner also prescribes things like a certain quantity of blueberries, sweet rose tea, sesame oil, etc.) Most clients see her for less than a year to achieve good, stable health. For me it’ll be four years in January.
Lately my sugar cravings have been very bad and and I’ve been giving in and feeling demoralized. Last week she said they’re because of internal organ connections that are blocked, so she suggested a specific therapist for a lymphatic massage (at Chicago Area Rehabilitation Experts).
I saw the therapist last night ($65+tip) and she worked on my body for an hour (a lymphatic massage is very non-invasive and doesn’t even need lubricant). She said everything’s stuck in my gut. Well, duh, my belly has always been the biggest part of me. She identified my fatness as 1) water that I’m holding because of those lymphatic blockages that the NRT practitioner had found, 2) scar tissue and trauma from my 2017 hysterectomy, and 3) childhood trauma I’m still holding on to. The therapist can fix the lymphatic blocks and scar tissue, but the last one is my homework.
Weight loss is complicated!! In addition to food and hormones and thyroid and whatever else, another factor keeping us fat might be emotions from childhood trauma. Goddamned childhood. So the 31 years and thousands of dollars I’ve spent on therapists and healers have still not gotten me where I want to be. So angrifying.
And guess what? The massage therapist said when I let go of my childhood, I’ll lose weight quickly. Uh, yeah, I’ve heard that before. Detoxify and the weight will come right off. Balance the hormones and the weight will come right off. Eat for the health of the spleen (or liver or kidneys) and the weight will come right off. Do this kind of exercise and the weight will come right off. Stop eating wheat and wheat products and the weight will come right off. I actually do believe that others can do one or two of those and lose weight, but I have so much wrong with me that my body has needed me to fix a hundred things before it will release any weight.
For instance, the idea was that I’d need one lymphatic massage, but at the end of last night’s session the therapist declared that I need two more. Story of my life. I’ll bet it turns into at least four more (update on 1/19/20: it did turn into four more).
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| Don’t know how to get rid of the fuzziness this image has. |
I feel disgusted with my body and hopeless about ever curing my sugar habit. The therapist said my belly was less swollen after the massage and today the practitioner said my chest and arms are less puffy, but I can’t see any of it.
But I do have to admit that today my bladder is calmer. I’m in the bathroom about every 90 minutes instead of every 45. I’m also not as overheated and sweaty as I was earlier this week. So, fine. This work does make improvements. But fuck it’s incremental.
Compare this photo to the ones I took last June and last December in the same clothes and in the same position.
Next post on fatness: I fasted for three days
I just read the article. Freedhoff is absolutely right that doctors make things worse by wanting to be correct about what it takes to lose weight. They harp on the same methods and if those methods don't work they blame the patients for not doing it right. American medicine is so stupid about what causes fatness. They don't acknowledge hormones (besides running inadequate thyroid tests), emotions, or anything much besides diet and activity.
It's a powerful statement to say that obesity is the only disease we blame the patient for, but it's not true. While doctors are more likely to believe in mental illness, regular people very much blame the mentally ill for our own disease. As with the obese, we're seen as having all the tools we need to cure ourselves if we just had enough willpower or desire to use them.
It's also helpful for Freedhoff to say that weight doesn't measure health, but I'm too self-loathing for that one. I hated my body when I was size 6, so I'm certainly not going to stop hating it now. I'm also in the privileged position of having been thin until age 46 (I'm 53), so I believe that's the body I'm supposed to have and I won't stop hating myself until I'm thin again. Of course, if I ever get back to size 6, I'll keep hating msyelf anyway, so the weight thing is really a kind of front for my lifelong, incurable self-loathing.
I like the way you keep reporting on your fat journey. Also your honesty in all the methods you've tried over the years.
Recently I came across the phrase (and article) "Post-Traumatic Dieting Disorder".
The article is at: elemental.medium.com/weight-doesnt-measure-health-in-any-way-shape-or-form-47d47b6a278
‘Weight Doesn’t Measure Health in Any Way, Shape or Form’
Dr. Yoni Freedhoff on obesity, weight loss, and the need to end post-traumatic dieting disorder
Yes, indeed, fat is a lot more complicated that general myths would have us believe – and maybe much more beneficial.