I had sinus surgery just under two weeks ago, and spent a week basically asleep and eating jello. I had a couple of decent meals, thanks to my dad. When I got home and stepped on my scale out of curiosity, I wasn't entirely surprised I was down about eight pounds. Mostly muscle, I'm sure, since my gut feels as big as ever. :) The plus to it is that I can wear bras that I couldn't before. It's so obnoxious how five pounds affects the fit of my bras.

Since coming home, I've been eating a couple full meals a day and snacking on whatever a couple times a day. It's not a great eating pattern at all; but at least I've cooked for myself a few times, which I hadn't done in a long time. I even made my favorite beef and broccoli. :) It's not a lack of time preventing me from cooking and eating more; it's that I'm not hungry often, and thanks to a combination of circumstances I have very little money so I can't go get all the things I need to make all the things I want.

Hopefully, after I start working again (but only at one job!), I'll still feel like cooking. Of course, then I'll be frantically packing and preparing to move. And after moving I'll be unpacking and organizing and re-adjusting and working, and a month after moving I'll start school. But that's life, right? Nothing's ever perfect. I'm trying to remind myself of that. I've finally quite saying "I'll do x, y, and z when I'm thin"; now I need to work on maintaining establishing and maintaining some sort of organization and schedule to my life, and not thinking "I'll get organized when x, y, and z are better."

I'm roughly three semesters away from a degree in "food science and human nutrition". There were a variety of reasons that I failed my last three semesters of school, none of them very good. To sum it up, Life Fucking Sucked because of things both in and out of my control, and I couldn't cope.

Now ... I'm thinking it's time to go back. I was always planning to--in fact I'd planned to go back last fall--and now I think it's time. And I realized something today while looking over courses I have left to do: I don't feel afraid.

See, when I was taking my classes before, I felt ridiculously out of place. I was always the fattest person in any of my classes. I always felt inferior to the skinny, "healthier" people around me. When I think about it, none of them ever discounted what I said or ignored me. They were all perfectly polite and friendly and willing to listen to my opinion, just like anyone else's. I was just so ready to be shot down that I expected it, and censured myself because of it.

Why? Why did I do this to myself?

Partially, I think, it was because my well-meaning father always asked me why I was pursuing that degree when "Nobody's going to listen to a fat dietician". But more, I think it was just a habit ingrained into me from middle school (mainly), when people DID discount and ignore me.

I'm not saying I failed my classes because of this perception, but I do think it was in there somewhere. There were a lot of things causing me to feel so defeated that I let myself fail, and I just realized today that might've been in there.

I was cleaning my bathroom today, and had to moved my scale to clean under and around it. The top was liberally covered in cat hair and dust because I hadn't stepped on it in months. It still has the typical prominent placement in my bathroom, mostly because I'm too lazy to find another home for it. :)

I stepped up on it for the hell of it today. 246. I had zero reaction to this. I don't remember the exact number the last time I stepped on, just that it was in that range; and I didn't have any "that's so huge" response. It was fabulous. That one device no longer has the power to ruin my day.

I love self-righteous skinny people who have no idea about the biochemical underpinnings of the human body, or how psychology factors into weight loss, and think that telling someone who struggles with craving to "JUST STOP EATING" is going to create some lightbulb moment. :) Thanks, I've never heard or thought that before in my entire life.

***

I've been chugging along; haven't gained or lost any ground, and haven't been trying. Some of which, yes, is laziness; some of it is exhaustion; some of it is being broke and unfortunately ramen noodles are much cheaper than broccoli; and a lot of it is I just don't care enough to put the effort into it. I'm not unhappy with/because of my size, and the health problems aren't related (unless my body is storing fat in my turbinate bones in my sinuses and that's why they're blocking my airways :) ), and so I just don't have a motivation to put the time and effort into planning meals and cooking, etc.

So, in short, I've had nothing of note to post here, because ... well ... I'm fat and happy, and working two jobs, so I don't usually have time to expound on the aforementioned fathappiness. :)

I was reading this article at Junk Food Science and the picture just made me so sad:



Poor rhino. :(

I'm just glad that I quit beating myself up, punishing myself for not being "perfect", and hating myself. For the most part, anyway. I feel like I'm very lucky to not have developed an eating disorder--there've been times I've been afraid that I've been right on the brink of bulimia. I've overeaten and hated myself for it, and I can't say the thought hasn't crossed my mind a few times. On the other hand there have also been a few times I've eaten to the point of feeling like throwing up and I wouldn't let myself even though I would've felt better physically, because it would've been too much like binging and purging.

Even setting aside the extremity of eating disorder, I don't understand people who go on crazy low calorie diets. What's the point of being thin if you're so exhausted from malnutrition that you can't enjoy anything? I was thinking about that while I was at the dog park yesterday. I was just following my dog around the park, occasionally running with her, and I felt light. So what if I weigh almost 240 pounds and wear a size 22? I was happy and enjoying my life. I couldn't do that if I was starving myself to be "thin". I feel good because I'm eating things that are good for me, I'm feeding my muscles and getting the nutrients I need. If I lose some weight, okay; I am, gradually, and I am tracking it, but it started out secondary to feeling better and is moving further down the list.