It goes without saying, I have a very unhealthy relationship with food. I have been a chubby child, an overweight teenager, and am now a heavy woman. Whatever euphemism one chooses to use, basically I am fat. I have never been okay with being fat. I don’t knock those who embrace the “body positive/body love” movement but it isn’t me. I know there are things that being fat have prevented me from doing and on top of that, my self-esteem is shit. I am unhappy. I always have been. Maybe it’s because of the weight or maybe the weight is from me binge eating due to my unhappiness. Whichever came first, I struggle with terrible bouts of depression as a result.
About 10 times a year I will have these, “I’m taking my life back” moments where I am so inspired and motivated to lose weight. I will bust my ass weighing food, planning meals, working out, etc. But then something will happen in my life and I am unable to cope. All my progress will go out the window as I quickly slip into a depression and I binge. I take on this “fuck it, if I’m going to be fat I may as well be happy” attitude and I just chow down on anything that stands still long enough. After I am done and feeling sick from overconsumption, the shame spiral starts. I get on the scale after my binge and see the number and I just cry. Like some sick choose-your-own-adventure book I am then faced with either making the next day the day I do it all over again or I say fuck it and go deeper down the hole.
On the most recent reclamation of my life, I decided to do something I never have before. Instead of the fad diets, pills, teas, fasts, cleanses, or outright starvation I was going to see a nutritionist. In addition to the nutritionist, I was going to see a therapist to discuss specifically my mental dependence on food. Both appointments were on June 7th. I first saw the therapist. She came recommended from my previous therapist who moved out of state. Our first session was mostly housekeeping, but we did talk a little bit. There were a couple little things that made me go “hmm…” but for the most part, I thought she was fine and was hopeful she could help me. That same day I saw the nutritionist. She was fantastic! She was realistic but tough and I liked that. I left her office feeling super inspired and spent the weekend shopping for proper foods, planning out meals, and cleaning out my fridge/cabinets of improper foods. I will tell you right now, I was doing well. For about 3 weeks I was doing great. I was feeling great and I was proud to be sticking to my new way of living. I even started to see some good loss. The nutritionist had only asked for me to lose 4lbs after a month, I lost 6lbs after 3 weeks. I was really proud of myself. Then last week things started to go south.
Last week I had my second appointment with the therapist, and this one didn’t go as well as the first. For some reason, she seemed really distracted in our session. In the middle of our conversation, she starts drinking from a plastic disposable water bottle and drinks to the point that the bottle starts to kind of collapse and it makes that awful crushed plastic sound. She seems to realize this is annoying and stops but then a few minutes later she appears to have lost something (the plastic bottle top, maybe, I never found out) and begins looking around for it. It’s so frigging distracting I start to stumble over my words because I am watching her look for something that literally DOES NOT MATTER. Then, at three different points in our conversation she yawns—SHE FUCKING YAWNS! I should mention, at one of the points when she yawns I am in the middle of telling her about something very traumatic from my past and I am crying. If all that isn’t bad enough, when I would cry, she never offered me a tissue. I know that’s stupid but who doesn’t offer someone who is crying a tissue? Fortunately, I had some in my bag but had I not it would have been a snotty disaster. All of this really bothered me. I’ve been to therapy for most of my adult life and while I didn’t always jibe with certain therapists, I can’t ever recall ever feeling so ignored.
Adding to that has been a week of fighting with my son’s unemployed, alcoholic father. The crux of the fight was that he has started drinking hard liquor again after losing his part-time job earlier this month (he’d managed to hold this one down for about 3 months). It wasn’t him losing the job that angered me—he has always been in some state of unemployment since we met (he is one of the bad choices I made due to my lack of self-esteem), but his lack of motivation to do anything but sit on the couch or porch and drink is what is problematic. Then this came to a head when on Friday he picks our son up from camp and then me from work and I can smell liquor on his breath. I’m fuming. He insists he was drinking much earlier, but I am seething because he knows he cannot drive to pick our son up when he has been drinking. Fine to drink at home, I do, but goddamn it, DO NOT get in the car and pick up our son when you’ve been drinking. This results in a huge fight all weekend. And what do I do? I binge.
I begin with a trip to Chik-fil-a for not one, but 2 spicy chicken sandwiches with extra chik-fil-a sauce. I eat both along with waffle fries and a Diet Dr Pepper to the point I want to throw up. Then a trip to Carolina’s Kitchen for dinner Saturday night. Now I don’t get the salad at Carolinas Kitchen, I get fried chicken, potato salad, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes. Sunday, I share a large McDonald’s fries with my son for lunch and then have Denny’s for dinner where I gorge on a Santa Fe Skillet AND Zesty Nachos. In addition to this, I ate the bag of kettle corn in the cupboard purchased for my son, the Belgian thins dark chocolate, some tortilla chips and black bean and corn salad, a min bag of caramel M & M’s left over from Easter, Starburst jelly beans (who knew these even existed?), a pack of 6 dollar store almond snicker minis, two bottles of cherry cola, some cheez its, and probably a bunch of other shit I can’t even remember stuffing in my face.
Needless to say, I gained all 6 pounds (and an additional .30 ounces) from Friday night to Sunday night. I am now, as of this morning, at my highest weight since January 1, 2018. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why am I like this? I dread going to see my nutritionist this month because how do I explain this to her? I need to find a new therapist, but I can’t bring myself to go through that whole process again. What the fuck am I going to do? Please tell me how you deal with depression and weight loss. I desperately need some advice.
TL; DR: Desperately want to change my eating habits but depression, dealing with an unemployed partner, and an unhealthy need to emotionally eat keeps me from doing what is right.
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