Extra Floaty

I just spent the last hour writing for this post.  I had to save it as a draft because I realized that it was a huge justification for how I got this way.  This post is supposed to be how I feel about being this way.  So without further ado...

I am fat.  I am very very fat.  I just weighed myself (I need to throw the scale out) and I'm 270lbs on a 5'2" frame.  My BMI went over the 40 mark a few years ago.  I have gain 50lbs since getting sick three years ago and I've lost a good deal of muscle mass so I've gain more than 50lbs in fat alone.  I'm huge.  I'm now a 3x-4x depending upon brand.

To say that I HATE it is an understatement.  I LOATH it.  I wish it would stop.  I already know a lot about body weight and fat loss.  I know a lot about how my own body functions and how it is broken.  What it comes down to is that my body likes keeping weight on.  I can NOT loose weight by diet alone no matter what foods I eat.  I have only had successful weight loss when I have exercised for three or more hours per DAY.  Yup.  Each and every single day.  Three hours of weight lifting, aerobic activity and stretching.  Don't get me wrong I LOVE exercising but if you work full time and have a family to take care of three hours per day is NOT doable.  I trained harder than many athletes but had the body of a Sumo wrestler.  Not fair!  Best I can hope for is maintenance which I managed to achieve for well over a decade.

Then I got sick.  Housebound and often bedridden I'm having a good day if I mange to circumnavigate my backyard never mind do a solid ten minutes of exercise.  I changed my diet, again; for energy maximization, again.  I've tracked calories and fat/carb/protein grams on myftinesspal.  I should be loosing weight.  I'm not.  I'm steadily gaining.  Each season I have to buy new clothes because I no longer fit into the ones from last year.  I HATE this.

I feel like that fat disabled lady who's edges squish out the sides of her wheelchair.  I've always looked at these people with disgust and hatred.  Now I am one of them.  I am the fat old lady that needs to be pushed around oozing out of my clothes and my chair.  My ass just fits into the chair.  If I have stuff in my pockets I get stuck in it when I try to stand up.  If I get any bigger I will have to buy a bariatric chair.  God I even hate the name of it.  I will be a bariatric patient.  Beyond morbidly obese.  One of THOSE people.  Fat and ugly and sick and HUGE.  This fat hatred.  This body hatred.  I learned this from somewhere.  It doesn't matter where.  All that matters is that it HAS to stop.  I have no control over my body at this point.  I have adjusted my food for energy levels which is the most important point right now.  Weight loss will have to wait.

In the meantime, I have a massive problem with body image.  I have to stop hating on myself and others.  So I've joined fat acceptance facebook pages.  I'm in a Fat Fitties group even though I can't exercise.  I'm following several fat activists.  I'm learning even more about fat loss or lack there of.  How it isn't our fault and it isn't a huge moral failing.  I'm starting to see that a lot of the food bloggers have hidden eating disorders.  Even the writers themselves often don't see the disordered thinking.   I need to distance myself from it.  I can easily get sucked in to the "correct diet" mentality.  Punishing myself for eating a piece of bread or having one too many eggs at breakfast.  I want to establish a new set of food rules for myself but even that is suspect to me.  Maybe I'll wait.  I think I need to do more fat acceptance work instead.

Right now I'm angry that Paleo hasn't cured me of CFS.  Paleo hasn't led to weight loss.  Paleo seems to have led to weight gain (but it might just be my body is that fucked up that any diet would lead to weight gain).  I seem to be eating too much but if I eat less I don't feel well.  I'm confounding health with diet and sometimes it just doesn't work that way.  The food bloggers I follow are all of the mind that you can cure anything via diet and regular western medicine is evil.  Sometimes illness is just too great to be overcome by diet.  One of the bodies that was found frozen in the ice in the arctic had Lyme.    Infection was the number one killer of Paleolithic people.  Diet can't always fix you.  It might make you way worse but it doesn't always make you better.

So I'm sad.  I'm confused.  I'm not sure what road to take next.  I know I can't calorie restrict because it will make my illness so much worse.  I've maxed out my diet to provide my body with the best building blocks I know of for self repair.  Yes I cheat but not too much.  If I cheat too much my body is quick to remind me of what I shouldn't be eating.  Cheating shouldn't be a 'thing' anyway.

In the meantime, I'm reading about fat acceptance.  Even if I get healthy again and start exercising regularly I seriously  doubt that I would get anywhere close to my "normal" BMI for my height.  I would be happy if I break the 200lb mark.  But what I really need to do is stop hating my body.  I need to stop thinking of large people as ugly and unhealthy.  I need to reclaim sanity and a healthy body image no matter what size I am.  I need to stop the self-loathing.

So right now I am extra floaty.  I call myself this because I float so easily in the water.  I got to go in a pool last week and I was surprised at how buoyant I am.  It made it really easy to swim and walk around in the water.  I managed to stay an entire hour in the water, drifting around.  I'm definitely going to start exercising in the water when I get some stamina back.  Being extra floaty is a good thing with CFS.  It makes water exercise possible and that is the first good thing I can say about being extra fat: I'm extra floaty and extra floaty is good.