On being fat, part II.

Part II.: The background.

Gentle reader, let me reassure you that I didn't wake up one day, thinking that it would rock to gain some 10 kilos, or even better, 30. I was living my happy, borderline anorexic and severely depressed live (sarcasm), matters were slowly improving until my GP decided that my sick stomach is "just nerves", sent a note to my shrink who started me on some stuff that should work on the psychosomatic symptoms. Well, the antipsychotics didn't do anything about sick stomach as it was some intolerance thingy which resolved after I stopped eating processed meat and dairy. What the meds did was a nice case of false pregnancy. I gained maybe 15 kilos in some three months while having a busy life, walking across Florence and back, taking 8 hours of ballet classes per week and eating mostly fruits and vegetables in less than reasonable amounts.
After some poking and prodding and hearing Well, it may be some hormonal imbalance or brain cancer, young lady, rest assured that we'll find out, it was discovered that it was the meds I didn't need. I tossed them along with the shrink, the weight gain happily remained. I was still in the sorta okay territory, though. However, depression is a bitch and with every epizode that included lying flat and doing nothing, I gained some more. Two and half years ago, I landed in a job which was okay at the beginning, very stressful very soon but at least it was sort of exciting and new and now I'm mostly burnt out, left with severe depression, pretty crushing anxiety, a hefty dose of social phobia and a shitload of guilt for all this, my very mediocre work performance and a few more. I spent the last summer, me, once a passionate hiker and amateur botanist, either working or lying flat and doing nothing much - knitting, sleeping or watching crime shows is not enough to keep one in any sort of shape.

In theory, and as my mother would say, it's all about a lack of good will. If I exercised more and ate less, things would rock in no time. But. I'm a stranger in a small village, I'm a manager of that big building over there, everyone seems to know who I am. I can only run away to the woods, and alas, I don't have time for that. Or maybe I did if I could do my work more efficiently but I just have my limits because I'm pretty much burnt out.
In other words, before one starts randomly accusing all fat people of being gluttons with self-control, well, there may be another thing to it.

The previous bit was written at the beginning of June and remained laid aside to be finished tomorrow or day after tomorrow as on the 6th, two receptionists decided to give their notice and I needed to do the bills and stuff. Did I mention a lot of stress in my job? No? Well, there's a lot of stress that happens without warning so I forgot about half of a blogpost and life limped on.
I had a discussion about my horrendous eating habits with the shrink and he gave me a homework - he likes giving me homeworks, apparently - to stop eating things past their best before just because they're not bad yet but they need to be eaten up or week-old leftovers but, instead, something I actually like. And to try keeping it within the realm of reasonable because, let's be frank, everyone who lived through an eating disorder is a pretty decent nutritionist. I found some food intake tracking thingy that has a bajillion of useless functions and a few annoying bugs but within a few days, I found out that most likely, I don't get enough protein while having too much fat and sugar. And for sedentary people, it's better to gorge on protein instead of the two others. I bought a bucket of quark and well, I eat a lot of quark. Low energy density so I can eat a lot which is important. Give me a head of iceberg lettuce and I'm all happy and full. Give me a dessert of the same energy value and I'll be hungry and frustrated. So, a lot of quark.
At which point I could probably start touting it as a cure-all because without moving much, I lost some three kilos and my GERD almost stopped acting up.

And all fat acceptance aside, if I could choose, I'd prefer to be stick thin, thankyouvery much, and I need to lose some ten kilos so that I'd be able to get a dress made from one length of fabric, not a dress and a lot of leftovers from two lengths. At the end, it may be all about money after all. And now I'm getting ranty so I'll grab those 12 bottles of wine, take them to my den for tasting and to write the goddamn wine list. By the way, do you know how much sugar does wine contain? A lot. And on the top of that, I have some grapes that need to be eaten up...