Here is the first thrown pot I made all by myself. I am pretty proud of it. It is made with white stoneware clay, with black iron oxide and nickel oxide added to the clear glaze.

Feministe » I am Pre-Pregnant

Jesus Christ! This makes me want to rip out my uterus and shove it down their throats.

Well, I guess it’s high time for me to write a post about my weight. I’ve been putting this off since October, but the recent discussion I’ve been participating in on BFB and Michelle’s blog makes me feel like I’m failing to address the elephant in the living room (so to speak). To make a long story short, I’m taking Meridia.

As for the long story: Back in the spring of 2003 or so, I started sliding into a depression again. It was pretty mild for a while, but I did start to gain some weight since I was eating mostly crap and was completely overcome by inertia. Around the end of 2004, the depression started getting really nasty, and I wasn’t able to seek help ’til around April. When I did, the psychiatrist I saw put me on a drug called Remeron–a drug known for causing weight gain and massive carb cravings.

Now, due to the fact that it seems like all of my previous weight gain was due to antidepressants, I’d vowed to never again take any drug listing weight gain as a side effect. It seems like any time a drug has weight gain as a side effect, I gain massive amounts of weight. Like 50 pounds. I felt so desperate, however, and since I’d already exhausted all of my other options for antidepressants, I felt like I had no choice but to try the Remeron. So I did. It helped me sleep wonderfully, but it didn’t help my depression much, and it caused me to gain enough weight–about 30 pounds–to where I was over 300 pounds. My clothes didn’t fit me anymore, and I hated the way I looked. I didn’t feel right in my body. I was just as healthy and mobile as ever–the weight didn’t seem to affect me physically at all (with the exception of the extra strain on my knees and the annoyance of having more skin folds and hanging fat)–but I was miserable. The weight gain was more than canceling out any benefit I was receiving from the Remeron. I made some behavioral changes (mostly eating less sugar in the form of Coke and other sweets) but my weight just continued rising. I felt disgusting. I wanted the weight off. So I decided to go off the Remeron and start Meridia.

Why is my decision anything to write home about? Because I’m a rabid advocate for size acceptance. I’ve read near to every book on the subject that’s been written, I’ve volunteered my time to fat acceptance organizations, I’ve subscribed to every fat acceptance periodical that exists, I’ve participated in several fat acceptance forums online, I preach the fat acceptance gospel to anyone who will listen and many who won’t, I go to various fat acceptance conventions–the works. And I believe the message, or at least the vast majority of it. I believe that being fat doesn’t have to mean that you’re unhealthy. I believe that being fat doesn’t have to mean that you’re unattractive. I believe that fat people are just as good as everybody else. I vehemently believe that no-one should put off her life until she loses weight. And I know that diets, weight loss surgery, and diet drugs do not work. Since I found the fat acceptance movement, I’ve tried to be a role model, demonstrating that being fat doesn’t have to keep you from living the life you want. So I felt like a traitor to the movement when I decided to take Meridia.

My reasoning went like this: my weight gain was caused by drugs, so why should I feel so guilty about using a drug to try to lose weight? The drugs that made me gain so much weight have generally listed statistical weight gain in the realm of 5-10 pounds, which is about the same Meridia has statistically been shown to help people lose. I always gained way more than the listed statistics, so perhaps I’d lose more than the statistical probability. Obviously my weight is majorly reactive to drugs that tamper with my brain chemicals. I also figured that since Meridia was originally tested as an antidepressant, it might give me a boost in my mood, too, especially since it’s an activating drug and those are the kinds of drugs I’ve had the most luck with. I figured that since my cardiovascular health is just fine, I would be unlikely to experience any of the side effects people wig out about so much. I figured my aunt wouldn’t prescribe it for me if it were really dangerous. I figured that if my appetite did get suppressed, I’d use that as a tool to help me make better food choices. I would not use it “together with a reduced-calorie diet” as recommended. I would absolutely not make any effort to eat less; I’d eat whatever I wanted just as I usually do. I figured that I’d just use it as crank, basically. And lastly, I figured it was worth a try. That if it didn’t work, fine–I would just stop taking it.

My gut feelings, however, went something like this: I’m quite cavalier about my long-term health because I’ve got a mental illness that makes living not so much fun, so I didn’t really care about any potential side effects. I hated the way I looked. I was so miserable that I felt that anything was worth a try. I hated being that fat.

Here’s the kicker–the drug worked. I dropped 40 pounds in six months with no effort or side effects whatsoever. The only thing I sacrificed was some cash. My weight has stabilized now at about the level it was when I was last mentally stable. My clothes fit again, and I once again like how I feel in my body and like how I look in the mirror. That was the most I realistically hoped for, and I’m incredibly pleased with the way things have worked out. Losing weight has not cured all my ills, and I never expected it to. I expected it would make me feel better about how I looked, and it has. But I’m still fat, I’ve always been fat, and I’ll always be fat.

Of course, we all know that the real test of a weight loss method is how it performs in the long run. Will I be able to keep the weight off? I think so, for several reasons: I’ve never dieted, and did not lose this weight due to any calorie restriction. I have a really healthy relationship to food. I think the weight I gained on the Remeron was completely unnatural, so I don’t see any reason why my body would want to return to that weight if I’m not on that drug. I was stable for a few years at this weight, so I figure it’s more or less my set point. The only difference between the way I’m eating now and the way I was eating 40 pounds ago is that I eat a little more fruit and veggies now. I do not restrict my eating in any way. Also, I get 6-8 hours of exercise a week. It does not seem to me that I’ve set my body up for rebound weight-gain due to re-feeding. I think and hope that the Meridia has just corrected whatever the Remeron did to my system that caused me to gain so much weight. Only time will tell.

So, how has this experience changed my views on size acceptance? What have I learned? I think that size acceptance advocates often don’t take fat people’s personal feelings and experience into consideration nearly enough. I think smaller fat acceptance advocates don’t understand what it can be like to live in a supersized body, so the rhetoric they spout can often sound like ignorant bullshit to bigger people. I know that exercise and healthy eating do not always result in a weight that feels healthy for an individual, and that any given individual’s experience will not necessarily reflect the fat acecptance doctrine. I know that there are some things about being fat that suck in and of themselves, and have nothing to do with self-esteem or societal discrimination. I know that just because you’ve accepted yourself at one weight doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to accept yourself at another, or at least not as easily. There will almost certainly be more work to be done. And most likely acceptance will take more work the bigger you are.

So, I’ve learned a lot, and it has given me a different perspective on the fat acceptance movement. Most importantly, this experience has helped me understand that many of the tenets of size acceptance don’t reflect reality. I believe that the fact that the SA movement doesn’t speak to many fat people’s experiences is one of the major factors preventing the movement from both growth and being taken seriously. I used to be one of the mid-sized people who doggedly touted the HAES philosophy as the solution to all fat people’s problems, regardless of their size (the people or the problems). I understand now, though, that sometimes being fat just sucks–because of problems inherent in the at itself, and not problems with society, self-care, or self-esteem–and there’s not necessarily anything you can do about that. I hope this experience can help me convince other SA advocates that the movement will be much more effective if we acknowledge these facts.