Month: February 2010

Survivors (1)

Fête

“On a day to day basis, it’s fine. I deal quite well with my cravings, I don’t feel distressed by food, I indulge and stop almost all the time when I’ve had enough. But now, for example, I’m going for a week-end away with friends, I know that we’ll party, that there will be no set time for meals, that there will be temptations all the time and that I won’t be able to do like I do at home, namely leaving the table when I’m done, to avoid temptations. Thus, I’m getting distressed”, so I explained last week to doctor Zermati.

To which he answered: “You need to really trust yourself now. To trust regulation first and foremost.”

“Yes, you will most probably eat more than usual, in exceptional circumstances, exceptional food behavior. If you think it is possible to always eat according to your sensations, eating exactly what your body need, you’re totally wrong. People who never take a break, who have linear diet have a problem, precisely with food. They are the unbalanced ones. For that matter, honestly, I don’t know any”, he added.

What a relief, once again, to hear such things. Life is not a long quiet river and neither is food. As result, would you believe, I was chilled out during those two days, not denying myself anything and, above all, not thinking about what was too much or too little. And at the end, no mess on the scale.

And even if there had been a mess, I think it would be sorted, because when I came back, chock-a-block with toasts, pastries, champagne and beer, I craved furiously…

Braised chicories.

I know, it’s crazy.

In short, what I’m trying to understand and integrate, it’s that fearing extra kilos will make me put on weight. What I understand too, it’s that yes, it’s nicer to spend your evening dancing with a light feeling, yes, compliments from friends I haven’t seen since my figure was at its biggest last year are flattering. But no, it doesn’t change much the pleasure they’ve had – or haven’t had- to see me again and even less the one I felt.

I also understand, since doctor Z’s scientific explanations, that in order to put on weight like I can do, you must suffer from two pathologies. The first one is being unable to handle emotion without eating. We’ve spoken about it already, it’s independent from willpower, it’s a Pavlov classical conditioning, some will cry when they are sad or worried, others will need a drink, others a piece of Milka. Sometimes, you are even lucky enough to need all three at the same time. The other disorder, genetic this one, causes fat cells to multiply, an irreversible multiplication that make your set point evolve towards higher numbers inexorably. This, either you have it or you don’t. People who don’t have this genetic mutation will put on weight if they eat a lot but their cells will only increase in volume and this volume will be lost as soon as their diet reduces. People like me produce plenty friends for their adipocytes. And it’s only a combination of both disorders that causes weight gain.

I add that according to Doctor Z, if more and more people are obese it’s also and very simply because over the course of wars and famines, beings who were not able to multiply their fat cells have disappeared for lack of surviving abilities. Basically, us fatties, we are a bit like winners, survivors1. How about that huh? I would have loved to throw this in the face of the moron who wanted to start a ‘carothon’ to make me lose weight in secondary school…

In short, only one solution to stop the process, act on emotions. Not on the cravings they trigger, once again, you can’t help it, it’s a reflex you’ve had for too long. But when these emotions are coming, understand in which situation you are vulnerable, find the origin of the ill-being. I am currently working on this, a process which is much less simple than behaviorism from the beginning or knowing my sensations. It’s a quest which brings me back in my childhood, my teenage hood and I don’t know exactly what it will enable me to find out. But it’s fascinating and, oddly, I have very little compulsions currently. I have too, and it’s even better, more confidence in front of the ones who usually have me go to pieces (and there are many, I’m a corridor big mouth, may I remind you).

In short, no magic in all this, no evidences, lot of introspection and sometimes a few brain-waves which help me understand the reason of some snack times that, long ago, lasted until dinner…

 


[1] TN: In English in the original text

 

Liking yourself and or loving yourself?

Sifnos

“Is it necessary to like yourself to love yourself?”

Yeah well it’s all fun and game but I am supposed to work on this subject for my next session with doctor Z.
And I’m lightly drying up.

Let me tell you that the Doc has his thoughts on the matter and from what I’ve understood – we’re starting to know each other well – the answer is no.

It could even be the reason for all our misfortune, this confusion we make between being liked and being loved.
No, you’re welcome, it was a pleasure.

Edit: The picture is there just because, right now, I wish I were in Sifnos. And also I like the mise en abyme: I’m taking a picture of you taking a picture of me. And finally, it is not that far from the question of liking our image or not. Ok, I talking shit now.

Over exposed

DSC_0025

“You are exposing yourself too much, be careful”.

It’s doctor Zermati who warned me on Monday. Wait, no value judgment in this warning, neither criticism of my articles about the therapy. No, what he wanted me to understand, is that giving here details on how many kilos I’ve lost wasn’t necessarily good for me.

Why? Because somewhat, I put myself under pressure. The pressure not to « deceive », to have to hold on absolutely, not to fail, in order not to then be ashamed and have to confess here that yes, I’ve put on weight again.

“I often saw more or less famous people who were supposed to lose weight for a brand of health food and whose weight loss became a selling point. They all ended up putting on weight again”, he added.

On the spot, I have to admit, I’ve been shaken. After all, I do what I want, and on this blog I’m used to telling everything, and I’ve also shown myself when I was bigger, and the idea is not to talk big, simply to share my experience. No, I’m not using it as a selling or communication point, rubbish man!

Excep that… hum.

Of course, I talk big.

Just like a kid who sports her hard fought medal, I gave in to temptation to pin up the lost fat on these pages. With great many flattering pictures and victorious announcements, minus one, minus two, minus three, minus ten, minus… stooooop.

That’s right, if I think about it, it puts me under pressure. Because putting on weight again would be, wrongly most probably, a failure. For sure. A failure all the more so stinging that it would be public and observed by all of you.

“I don’t wish you this at all, I even touch wood, but it’s possible that one day you will put on weight again. Even if you respect your food sensation for all your life, there are mainly external factors that can play de role. You could be forced to take medicines (antidepressant, anticancer or others which act on the metabolism), suffer from menopause’s hormonal effects and so on. On that day, will you be worth less?”.

Wow, then too, needless to say, I’ve been a bit shaken. Wait, I’m the perfect Zermati good student and here is what I receive? No but where are the gold stars, huh?

More seriously, I believe it’s the way to calm down my hysterical goose euphoria from being able to fit into a size 12 again.

Yes, it’s good, yes, it’s normal to be happy and appreciate yourself again. But no, over-highlighting this change in my figure is not good on the long term. Because it’s getting the idea into my head that gaining two kilos would be tragic. And the odds are that it wouldn’t be two kilos that would add up but ten more, as a result of stress and generated anxiety.

All these remarks, the doctor expressed them after reading my list of how I would feel if I were gaining weight again. It was clearly highlighted that, for me, obesity and self-esteem don’t get along so well (actually that’s not really a scoop, huh)

In other words, I have a slight tendency to consider myself as person with a higher worth when I slim down.

“What matters is not how other people look at you, you can’t do much about it. What matter is that you are convinced that you haven’t been fat during all those years because of a lack of will, weakness or lack of tenacity. Because, yes, I assure you, it has NOTHING to do with willpower. Actually too much will in those cases just damages the system a bit more.

To make a comparison, a goal keeper can stop one penalty. If twenty persons kick at the same time twenty balls towards the goal, he won’t be able to stop them all. It’s what happens with the urges to eat with people like you who suffer from a slight eating disorder. One urge to eat, you can, with willpower, stop it. Two, three, maybe, But if your brain sends 50 per hour, it’s impossible. Whether or not you are a stubborn person”.

He also explained the whole process of gaining weight over the years. It’s a bit complicated and tedious to explain, but if you are interested, I will try to express it with my words. But basically, what I remember, it’s that yes bitch mother nature. Or not actually, because according to doctor Z. I’d better stop moaning at her. Because I’m really lucky to have lost so much in so little time, it’s the proof my body is not completely damaged by all the diets I’ve put it through.

What I’ve retained too is that, unwillingly, I take the same malevolent look at me (and thus overweight people) than the boys who were bullying me at school when I was a child. And as long as I won’t stop despising this ingrate teenager, I will not move forward much. 10, 15 or twenty kilos won’t change it.

“In the street or elsewhere, when you’ll come across overweight people, look at them as they should be looked at. As people who are not to blame for those kilos, for which they are not responsible. It will be a good start “.

I left with those words and since Monday they are in my head. I don’t really feel like talking big anymore, I understood, I think, that the game is far far from being over. And I try to convince myself that, indeed, to see the scale’s needle going up again would noy be a proof that I’m worthless…

Edit: From now on, thus, I will keep talking about all this but without giving figures on my performance, which shouldn’t be considered as such.

Edit2: I think it’s obvious but I’d rather point it out, the words I report here are correct in their sense but I don’t take notes and so I write it with my style. Doctor Z. is kind enough to let me tell all this without ever judging or making a remark when I think he reads it, maybe not all but still. These texts are firstly my version of our discussion.

Edit3: I also want to add that I don’t tell everything from the sessions and each patient lives things in his or her own way. Each patient is different and what is true for me might not be for someone else…

Edit4: No, nothing.

Edit5: Yes, the picture is from a shooting from 3 years ago from a shampoo brand which wanted it likes all women, like Dove right. For those who are interested, I wrote about it here and there.

If I were

Tutu
If I slimmed down more…

– I would easily fit into a size 12.

– Buying a swimsuit would make me enthusiastic.

– I might be able to climb on 10 cm high heels.

– I would enter public places with slightly more self-confidence.

– I would feel more attractive.

– I would tell myself tales where I’d be desired only for my body.

– I would look at myself in the mirror all the time.

– I would pose on my blog with my knees inside, like a professional.

– I would feel younger.

– I would be, maybe, less scared to talk in public. Or not.

– I would always be Caroline, 38 years old, married, 3 children.

– I might be less inspired.

– I would be bankrupt but on the other hand La Redoute and American Vintage would be taken as examples of blossoming companies in Davos from all over the world.

– I would still be so scared to die.

– I would put my hands on my jutting out hips and, without understanding why, I’d like it.

– I would create a scandal assuring that you never feel as good as when you’re slim. And I wouldn’t see the issue.

– I might be less funny.

– I would feel fragile.

– I wouldn’t ask myself anymore if the person next to me in the train is too squeezed because of me.

– I wouldn’t be afraid of people letting me have their seat in public transport.

– I would suggest to my GP check my weight, even for an ear infection.

– I would weight myself in a pharmacy, in front of everyone.

– I would go back to La Pitié[1], in the consultations-maternity ward, I would jump on the scale and ask the midwife to tell out loud the displayed figure. I wouldn’t even beg to be allowed to take off my shoes.

– I would go to Comptoir des Chiffonniers[2] to try all their pants on.

– I would offer my mother a shopping session together, to rewrite history for that dramatic episode in Nouvelles Galeries[3] never to show up again,  she and I crying in the fitting room, because I was twelve and the only skirt that fitted me was a brown flannel skirt size 14.

If I were putting on weight again…

– I would want to tear off that muffin top which prevents my pants from fitting without being too tight.

– I would retrieve my clothes that are too big from the bottom of my wardrobe.

– I would put in the bottom of my wardrobe all the newly purchased clothes.

– I would wake up again with this existential question if any: what am I going to wear today. Fuck.

– I would move the scale’s needle to cheat, only for the pleasure of postponing what’s ineluctable.

– I would invent hormonal issues, I would curse water retention.

– I would end up informing everyone, even before it’s visible, that, here you go, another knock for nothing.

– I would anyway go to the beach and the sea would be at the same temperature than with 10 kilos less.

– I would enjoy this coming spring in the same way.

– I would drop the whole tutu idea (ok, it‘s to justify the picture)

– I would always be Caroline, 38 years old, married, 3 children.

– I would fall again head first in the cookies packet, this explaining the gain too.

– I would let him stroke my hips, trying to forget they don’t jute out anymore.

– I would have plenty money again in my account and would shout to anyone who might be listening that everything is ugly this summer in the shops.

– I would say goodbye to my boyfriend jeans and hi to my slim. With no need to buy the latter, nothing’s lost everything transforms.

– I would still know how to write.

– I would still be a journalist.

– I would still be alive.

And the others, what would they think?

I think my friends would be sad for me, sorry even. Maybe some, secretly, would think that finally everything falls back into place and it’s not that bad to keep things the way they have always gone. My mother would still love me but we would forget this shopping idea. She would find me pretty anyway, I think. My kids would tell me that they don’t see any differences and that no, really, nonsense, mum, you are not fat. The man will be very enthusiastic about my breasts coming back.

Maybe once my back is turned, some would tell themselves it’s too bad for it suited me well. And then to my face, they would assure me that, honestly, when you are too slim it makes you look bad, your face is not made for it, it wasn’t you. And it could be that they would be sincere in both cases.

Here you go, all this came out on its own, without much thought. If I’m 100% honest, the most wonderful thing about being slim is that you can get dressed without thinking of it. Is it normal to have studied for years, to claim the fact that a great-head is ten times more important than a perfect body and to however long for such a futility? Not so sure…

 


[1] TN: Hospital in Paris

[2] TN: sarcastic nickname for the brand Comptoir des Cotonniers, chiffonnier meaning ragman.

[3] TN: French shopping mall

Set point and match

Pensive
In the comments on my article from Friday, I’ve been asked how many kilos I have lost and how, in the end, I cope with this weight loss. It’s funny because it’s sensibly the same subject as the one we discussed during my last session with doctor Zermati.

“If you were to stop losing weight, if these 10 kilos were the maximum you could lose while keeping eating like you do now, how would you feel?” he asked.

“I would be perfectly fine with it”. It came out just like that, without second thought, and I think it was totally honest. You could think that 69 kilos for 1m63 – less 11 thus to be precise – it’s far from the current ideals. You could even say that in terms of ambition I play it safe. But I have to remind everyone that I’m a yo-yo backpacker. And being 38 years old, you are indeed not always reasonable, but you know certain things. Like you haven’t been programmed to be in the same category as Charlotte, Vanessa[1] or Kate.

The doctor seemed rather surprised by this cry from the heart but in a good way. During our first conversation, after discussing my weight history over the years from when I was 15, he evaluated my set point (weight for which, a priori, I am genetically programmed – bitch mother nature) around 67-68 kilos. Meaning we are reaching the target, if there were a target.

But despite everything, he warned me, it might well be right now that it really begins. Simply because we’ll have to identify how I manage what he calls the “weight stress factor”. Namely the fear of putting on weight again. Thus the necessity not to lose too much, I guess. The more you try to maintain a weight that is not your set point, the more stressed out you are not to succeed and the higher the risk to put on weight again. I point out that this is my own extrapolation, the doctor did not deal with it in depth but this is what I’ve deduced and what I deduce from my past experiences.

While if you content yourself with your “set-point”, a priori it is possible to eat your fill, according to your desires, without triggering the infernal mechanism.

Nevertheless, even in this case, the fear to put on weight again is there and I won’t hide it. If I were Dalai Lama, we’d know it.

It’s actually to deal with this fear that doctor Zermati gave me this little exercise for the next session : write what I would feel if a) I were slimmer, b) I’d put on weight again. And also what my kin, according to me, would think in both scenarios.

Objective: working on the image we have of ourselves and the image we think people have of us.

Of course, I haven’t started my homework when it’s due in two days. But I have an idea and promise, if you’re interested, I’ll share what I can say here. I have my decency, eh, even if it’s not always blindingly obvious on these pages.

That’s it, I realise that actually, I haven’t really answered the question from the beginning on how I’m coping with weight lost. Not yet. But the coming list will be, I’m sure, a good start…

Edit: the picture is supposed to illustrate this great coming reflection. Ok, it’s woolly, but sometimes I think hard about the images, right…

 


[1] TN: Reference to Vanessa Paradis and Charlotte Gainsbourg who are two, rather thin, French artists.