May
25
I was at a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and the first thing she said as she came in and got settled in front of my records on her computer was, “How’ve you been doing?” This is such a common small talk question I feel like my normal response is an automatic affirmation of some kind, the verbal equivalent of a quick thumbs up. “Good!” “Fine!” You know. But this time I just sort of sat there in the chair and looked at her until she looked back at me and I was like, “Myyehhhhhhh” with my hand flipping back and forth and she was like, “MmmHmmmm” with her cheeks kind of tucked and her eyebrows raised, and it was somehow a WHOLE ASS CONVERSATION, probably one of the more authentic ones I’ve had lately.
I had been a little worried going into this appointment because there were a couple of things flagged in the results of the lab work I’d had done ahead of time. My cholesterol was high, as well as my LDL cholesterol; HDL cholesterol normal. So of course I was all in an ill-informed tizzy because I can never remember which cholesterol is the good one and which is the bad, and oh no are my abysmal dietary choices finally transforming my arteries into a golden spongelike substance with a delicious yet deadly creamy filling?
When she got to that report of the report, though, she asked if I’d been fasting before the draw and when I said no (because no one told me I needed to, dammit) she was like, “Oh well then pssshhh, they’re not accurate, and I’m not worried about it.”
“Great!” I said, and then pointedly asked if it was maybe important to go ahead and check in on those numbers with a proper test, but only inside my head because that is exactly the kind of medical patient I often am: HUGELY AND WEIRDLY SUBSERVIENT.
Anyway, I’m probably not actively dying, which is good, because I’d like to stick around and see things getting better, which they will, because they always do if given enough time.
May
20
I would say that starting in, oh, March of 2020 and extending well through December, I was deeply mired in feelings-eating mode. I can remember many many MANY days of being like, well, everything is terrible and both figuratively and literally on fire, it’s just too much to put limits on one of my favorite coping mechanisms so obviously I am having that ninth cookie.
If you think of intuitive eating as giving yourself permission to eat what you want whenever you want, that’s sort of what I did, except instead of being mindful and listening to my body’s cues I went full self-medication mode and honestly got weirdly disconnected from what actual hunger feels like for a while. I didn’t unfuck my view of “good” or “bad” foods and instead reinforced my internal bad wiring when it comes to assigning morality to food, I didn’t opt out of diet culture even a little bit.
Soooo pretty much the exact opposite of intuitive eating, actually.
One thing I didn’t do is stop exercising, which is kind of a breakthrough for me — I feel like for most of my adult life I’ve had an all-or-nothing approach to both fitness and eating healthfully, and they became so entangled in my head I felt like I couldn’t do one without the other.
(It probably doesn’t sound like major personal progress to keep up with workouts while also turning myself into a human garbage disposal between the hours of 6 and 9 PM every single blessed day, however: IT IS.)
This year has been better, I definitely still do a lot more evening snacking than I wish I would but I don’t often find myself in that mindless, numbing mode like I used to. I signed up with Noom to get more educated and aware of my eating habits, I do a daily mindfulness practice with yoga, I try to use the tools in my tOoLbOx instead of always going for the Avoid Feelings route.
It’s a work in progress, but hell, what isn’t?
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