I was an extremely young girl when Beans started popping into existence right before my eyes. I was also a pretty big girl. After Bean Two I weighed in at 380 pounds. At 5'6" it was neither a healthy state of being nor a popular look. I was big all through high school as well. Oh, if only I could go back in time and tell adolescent me a few things. I'd let her know those fuckers do not matter and only a very few select people will be there for her at different points in life. Fuck the rest! Who cares about them!?!
But i did care, didn't I? To what extent, to what degree, how far might I go to lose weight during points in my life. Don't buy into that crap about exercise. I was hanging sheet rock and ripping up carpet in my youth. I walked like ten miles every day for 3 years. That scale only budged when it wanted to confirm yet again what a big fat loser I was. It's eighty percent diet and fifteen percent genetics. We were eating deep fried Schwan's gourmet delivery every night and the genes were stacked so effin high against me that I couldn't see over to the other side.
In high school I heard about pills you could buy to make you stay awake to study. Study, pft! But if you took enough of them you were supposed to lose enough weight to look like Claire Dane. What? She was hot shit back in her day. So I bought into the snake oil since my physical activities had not panned out. I was taking no doze all day and night for quite some time. And while I only lost five pounds I knew it was working because I lost five pounds. Forget about the side effects! Shakes and palpitations aren't that bad. Ya know ?! Then I rediscovered pot and everything slowed waaaaay down as the pounds went waaaaay up. Who cared if no one wanted to go to prom with me. I totally didn't want to go anyway. Then Bean One and Bean Two. What the hell!! I couldn't catch a break.
So when the first two little Beans and I moved into a converted garage, I was at my heaviest point. But to support my Beans I had to start working. I was offered a job as a waitress in a very special restaurant where it was possible for wait staff to walk dozens of miles a day. With all my focus on the Beans now, and getting blazed to unwind after they went to bed, I had no time to reflect on the fact that I was dropping weight like crazy. My clothes were practically falling off. I had an ass ladies and gentlemen!!! Eureka! I had cracked the code to losing weight. I was walking literally my ass off and eating much less since I was working so much. Then I had a brilliant idea!!! Maybe I could speed up the process by eating little to nothing at all. My perfect diet was born...one oatmeal cream pie cookie and one bottle of gatorade in the middle of the day. And a splif rolled in black and mild at night. Boom!
Somehow I managed to survive like this for a year. Dropping trays as a waitress because you're too weak or had a small blackout is the exact opposite of how you get tips. That's when I got preggers with Bean Three, my little man. So I had start eating again anyway. Did I learn my lesson? Of course not. I picked right back up where I left off when I had Bean Three. You may judge, but unless you know what it feels like to carry the weight of two extra people, you will never understand the desperation in wanting it gone.
There I was with my ass again. It was beautiful. I would totally do me. And I wasn't the only one who noticed. Being in a new position managing a lot of young men certainly had its perks. But it also had its incentives. I continued starving myself for the attention of men. A few heartbreaks, a dash of questionable behavior, and a few scandalous affairs later and it didn't even seem real anymore. I didn't seem real. After a few more episodes of passing out, one of which I had my little Beans soaking in the tub, I realized this wasn't sustainable. I had to start eating again. And poof! Just like that I grew back half of what i had lost. That was with having to force myself to eat.
In the early 2000's obesity treatment was still very much in its infancy. At a 150 pounds over weight, I wouldn't have been received well asking for help with anorexia. Or maybe my lack of protein and mineral enrichment in my diet had caused paranoia. Either way, how hilariously tragic does that even sound!? I would have been mortified to have anyone, any one single person, to ever associate me to the term obese anorexic. What the actual fuck? I think this is still a very tender subject as more and more of the medical arena becomes privatized. Gone are the days Doc Brown says, "Christ! Jim, how many meals are you eating?! Knock it off or you'll die ya stupid fart!" No, doctors are now part of a mostly privatized industry who need to, on some level, keep their patients happy. They don't even say patient any more, they say client. Ooo how professional! Since their clients are free to take their business elsewhere, it would stand to reason at least some of these providers are not pointing out to Jim that he far into the morbidly obese range when he shows up for a bump on the head or high blood pressure.
Lots to think about there. Thank you all for being my therapist!
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