In browsing the new 100 Books For $3.99 Or Less on Amazon I came across this weight loss memoir.
Half-Assed is the captivating and incredibly honest story of Jennette’s journey to get in shape, lose weight, and change her life. From the beginning—dusting off her never-used treadmill and steering clear of the donut shop—to the end with her goal weight in sight, Jennette wows readers with her determined persistence to shed pounds and the ability to maintain her ever-present sense of self.
It sounds like a fairly typical diary of personal change, and ends with the author at 180lbs.
I noticed that the book was published in 2008, which meant that the weight loss was at least in 2007 if not earlier. We’re at that magic 5-year mark. So I did a bit more research and came up with this article.
She has, however, experienced a small setback. After maintaining her weight at 180 pounds for about a year, she developed the chronic headache that has ruled her life for the past year or so. Medications to treat the headaches caused her to gain about 30 to 35 pounds.
“It is so ironic, I am literally in the best health of my life, and I got this disease or illness that I have had to deal with,” she says.
I’m not at all rejoicing in this setback for this woman. Not. At. All. As A Health At Every Size advocate, I’d just like to point out a couple of things.
1. Even at her end weight of 180lbs, when she’s running marathons and going on television touting her new body she was at least overweight, if not obese, according to BMI.
2. She lost weight in order to be healthy, presumably, and ended up with one of the most common side effects of body shock and malnutrtition–the chronic headache.
3. She gained weight because of medication. This last is the most important thing for me to emphasise. Ever since Oprah carted out that wagon of fat, there has been a standard weight loss legend that I’ve no doubt applies to many people. The belief is that fat people–especially fat women–are overweight because they turn to food for love or security or acceptance or comfort or a replacement for sex or…or… It’s this legend, the legend of the glutton, that gets repeated endlessly and is now programmed in everyone’s responses to fat people.
Yet over my years as a fat person I’ve talked with literally thousands of other fat women and I’ve learned three things:
1. While many fat women did at one point use food to deal with an emotional hunger, that point is usually long past. The fat, however, doesn’t go away. So when you encounter a fat 35 year old, she may have been an emotional eater for 4 years in her teens or twenties. She’s not necessarily the same woman now. But like a woman who got pregnant out of wedlock in her teens and kept the baby…that fat’s still hanging around. It can’t be sent to school for 8 hours a day and doesn’t have soccer practice on the weekends.
2. Nearly every woman who has lost a large amount of weight has significant health problems in the wake of the weight loss. Headaches, kidney disease, heart problems, digestive diseases, food tolerance issues, malnutrition, malabsorption, gallstones, depression. The list is nearly endless. While the propaganda is that you will be healthy once you lose weight the fact of the matter is that you have put your body through a trauma. A trauma not unlike a car accident or a battle with serious disease. There’s a reason why all the statistics about how much healthier weight loss is are for losses of 10% of body weight or less. It may make you healthier to drop 5-15lbs. Dropping 100lbs is not as great a plan, unless you do it veeery slowly.
3. Most women over 30 who have gained weight in excess of 25lbs have either done so because they were unable to lose pregnancy weight or because of prescription medication. “Eat Less Move More” just doesn’t cover it all.
There is so much we don’t know or understand yet about weight gain and loss. Our knowledge about bariatric science is on par with the leeching and humours school of medicine from 400 years ago.
Oh boy. I have struggled with my weight for years – and the health conditions I have made it worse. PCOS. Thyroid problems. Depression. Then a hysterectomy. Then a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. My weight went up. I managed to get it down. Then I gained it back. Over and over. And it just ticks me off to no end when my very fit and athletic brothers tell me that if I REALLY WANTED IT BAD ENOUGH I could lose 50 pounds easily. I just don’t want it bad enough, apparently, to get up at 5 a.m. every morning and go to one of those fitness boot camps, and eat nothing but carrots and broccoli, and work out all the freakin’ time. Maybe I DON’T want it bad enough – because I suppose I could try doing all of that. But my body won’t let me. When I get flare-ups, I curl up into a ball and can barely walk, let alone do any kind of strenuous activity. Yet if I WANTED it bad enough, I’d put aside the pain and do it anyway, right? Sigh…
That’s the myth. I’ve heard it for years. “You just have to want it bad enough.”
Strangely, one of the first internet acquaintences to say that to me was a young man who was something like 21 and working part time as a personal trainer. He had the metabolism of a maturing male–somewhat different than that of an over-35 female, to be sure. He also had no physical setbacks. To him it was a matter of seeing the whole world through his lens.
Now that he’s older and has broken limbs he talks about how you have to “modify your workouts and listen to your body and learn to accept your limitations.” It’s a shame that so many people are unable to exercise empathy as much as they exercise their bodies.
FWIW, on my good days I do Pilates. On my great days I do mild aerobics. On my bad days it takes all I can muster to let the dogs in and out. But I do it anyway. Wanting something badly enough doesn’t even work when you’re two. It’s certainly not a strategy for maintaining one’s health and wellness.
I joined Curves and I try to get there three times a week when I’m feeling good. I used to take nice long walks through the park, but my feet have put a halt on that as they hurt too much on such long distances.
Neither of my brothers has ever had to worry about their weight – with the exception of back problems, they are both very healthy and have always been involved in sports. I was the oddball sister who would rather sit on the couch and read a book in the summer months instead of going outside to play baseball with them, so it’s true that I’ve had to learn how to exercise. But I just wish they could spend one month in my body to see what it’s like and how the medications I take affect me.