I want to make one thing very clear: we as a society gaslight fat people
First off, I’m speaking as an abuse victim that has experienced gaslighting and spoken about it often with my therapist, so I do not use the term either lightly or loosely.
The scientific understanding of obesity post-WWII is incredibly fucked. Before WWII it was largely understood that obesity was caused by hormones, and it was studied by endocrinologists specifically. Weight loss, gain, and maintenance is intricately tied to hormones. This is why endocrine disorders often result in weight loss or weight gain and why dfab folks who go through menopause tend to gain weight.
Long story short, the reason people have become larger on average isn’t because we suddenly got lazier and hungrier. Calories in/calories out is a fad diet that was born of the very poor nutritional science that has been conducted after Ancel Keys came dicking onto the scene. What your calories consist of matters far more than the number of calories you’re taking in. For instance, a 2300 calorie diet that is 60% carbohydrates will likely cause more weight gain in your average person than a 2300 calorie diet that is 60% fat.
But it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is different. Insulin is a fat storage hormone, and that’s what’s released to deal with glucose in the system. Some people release more insulin than others in order to deal with the same level of glucose in their body, and in this way, two people can eat exactly the same diet and have wildly different body fat percentages.
But we don’t recognize any of this. We don’t recognize even the basic realities like the fact that your body handles different calories in different ways. The way your body breaks down bread is not the same as the way you break down bacon.
Instead, we shame fat people. We do not recognize the drastic changes that have taken place in the human diet, that agriculture is only something like 12,000 years old, that processed foods, refined sugar, vegetable oils, and high fructose corn syrup are brand new and our bodies aren’t equipped to handle them in these amounts.
But yet these are the only foods many people can afford. Or we tell people that severely unhealthy foods are in fact healthy for you.
So we tell fat people that they’re lazy or gluttonous. Even when they work out or eat less, we mock and judge them. They can tell us of their struggles to lose weight, and we roll our eyes and say you must not be trying hard enough. Fat people can be anorexic, and we don’t believe them. We assume they’re lying or hell if we DO believe them we congratulate them on their self control. Fat people follow strict low fat diets that are then in turn high in carbohydrates and don’t lose weight or lose weight only temporarily, and we tell them they’re lying when the reality is that their body does not handle carbohydrates well.
Dieting as we understand it in our society has a SERIOUSLY low success rate, and yet we pretend that the rare exceptions prove somehow that this bullshit fad diet of CICO works.
I lost a significant amount of weight by ignoring all of this and learning about actual legit nutrition science, not bullshit. And what this has taught me is that we fucking gaslight fat people left and right and that this idea that everyone can be thin if they want to is bullshit. Some people can lose weight by going low carb but you know what? Not everyone will. I advocate low carb diets for the health benefits for most people, but the reality is that some people can’t go low carb and some people will never be thin even if they do, and that’s okay.
Let fat people be fat. Believe them when they tell you what they’ve done to try and lose weight if they have because chances are they’re telling the truth. Recognize that the diet industry advice works VERY rarely in the long term and nobody NEEDS to be thin in order to be worthy of respect.
I could go on about this but I’m already not articulating myself very well.
You feel like shit is a website set up to help you get out of that funk/improve things just enough to not feel horrible and miserable all the time. It’s amazing.
Whether you struggle with mental health problems all the time or whether this is a new/temporary state for you, this guide is an easy and judgement-free self-care tool.
PLEASE TRY IT OUT! Really! You just click through the questions to answer and follow simple instructions that in the end, ideally, will help you to feel more comfortable and stable on a daily basis.
Good luck! Have fun!
Wow this self-care took is incredible.
I’m feeling ok right now and am about to settle into bed (but this was scheduled hence the early morning post) but I flipped through it for awhile just to see what it is like and holy crap it’s like a choose-your-own-adventure of self-care activities that not only aims to engage you in positive feel good behaviors but also tries to match its suggestions to your level of energy/ability/can even.
I think I am going to use this definitely when I am having a bad time but maybe also try to incorporate it into my life on at least a weekly if not a daily or semi-daily basis.
This is super super awesome!
Adding this to my resource list.
I LOVE this. Love this.
I use this on a daily basis and I LOVE it! it’s kept me from forgetting to take my meds and being all pissy the next day lol.
This is absolutely fantastic! I haven’t tried out every option on there but I went through it once as a test and was super impressed.
For Traitor: neck retraction exercise. While lying in bed with your head flat against the mattress, give yourself the biggest double chin you can. Repeat 10 times.
For Jackass: stop hiking your shoulders up to your ears. This is pretty much a stress thing, it’s human instinct to protect our neck when we’re under stress so that predators can’t get at it. Easiest way to do that is be elevating the shoulders, so. Periodically take not of where your shoulders are at.
Absolute Fuckwaffle: stretch out your chest. The rhomboids on the back work to keep our shoulder blades back, so when we’re hunched forward they are constantly straining to do their job. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as telling you to stand up straight, since our pectorals get chronically tight and prevent us from doing so. Step one: pectoral stretches. Hold for at least 20 seconds.
Asshole: Superman exercises. Like the rhomboids, the ESGs are straining against the slump. Stretching the chest will help them, too, but then you e got to strengthen your back. Do 20 of those per day.
I honestly believe the whole “adults require less sleep” thing is honest to god probably a myth created by capitalism
It is.
i honestly believe that sleep deprivation is the biggest ignored/neglected root cause of health dangers that prematurely kill adults
ask me sometime about the role of sleep in the leptin ghrelin cycle and how its interruption destabilizes weight homeostasis
or about the new research showing that heart disease is not caused by fat, like we thought for years, but by inflammation in the circulatory system whose root cause is unknown but one of the prime suspects is, you guessed it, sleep deprivation
but nobody wants to hear that lack of sleep is killing people. employers don’t want to hear it. and god knows that having sold their waking hours to capitalism to survive workers don’t want to lose the only time they have left to them to live their lives, mostly stolen from sleep
i mean even i don’t want to do anything about it and i love sleep, i just love overwatch more
this this this this this
our society places almost zero value on sleep
on enough sleep
on uninterrupted sleep
on regular, predictable, cycling sleep
all the evidence we have suggests sleep is really, really, really important to the processes of the human body, including both mental and physical health, and yet when was the last time you heard somebody suggest that people had a *right* to sufficient, regular sleep?
Reminder that
– Humans are not meant to sleep for extended periods of uninterrupted sleep.
By this I don’t mean “humans shouldn’t have 8+ hours of sleep a night”; I mean that we are supposed to sleep for four to five hours (ish), then get up and do something relaxing like reading for a half hour to an hour, then get another bout of four to five hours. This is what our bodies were designed for.
Sleeping the whole night through was a fad started with the advent of the lightbulb. Sleeping the whole night through is so recent (and artificial) that First Sleep and Second Sleep are mentioned in Dickens’ novels.
– Lack of sleep for even a single night severely compromises your immune system.
If you’re planning on getting little sleep or pulling an all-nighter, make sure to eat lots of fruit and veggies/take vitamins that day. Or even better, get yourself some bee propolis. It’s a natural remedy used for thousands of years in Latin America and is insanely good for boosting up compromised immune systems (if you get the drop kind, put 3 to 4 drops in a spoonful of honey and mix well with a 2nd spoon to mask the strong taste). It has no side effects and is all but impossible to overdose on.
– According to several government bodies around the world, chronic lack of sleep is literally tied for 1st place as the worst kind of torture (the other is solitary isolation)
– Expecting a teen to get up for 8:30 classes is the equivalent of expecting an adult to be at work at 4 am.
After babies, teens are the age group that needs the most amount of sleep. Puberty is exhausting, and the body needs time to recharge. Ideally, a teen should be getting between 10 to 12 hours of sleep at the bare minimum. Most teens are lucky if they manage to get 8. And that’s a gigantic problem; not only does lack of sleep affect mood (which is extra significant when your hormones are already riding a rollercoaster to begin with), but also has massive effects on growth, which is kinda what the whole puberty thing is supposed to be about.
– Humans were not designed to have the same sleep cycle across the species. Much the opposite in fact.
Night owls and morning people are an actual thing. Because we’re pack creatures, Nature came up with a clever way for our ancestors to always have someone on the lookout for predators and threats: make people naturally alert at varying times so that there’s always someone alert to keep watch.
Forcing night owls to follow morning people’s sleep cycle means night owls live with what researchers have referred to as “permanent jetlag”.
well TBF the first trimester of pregnancy is SHIT. it’s where you probably feel absolutely awful, but you don’t get a seat on public transportation because you don’t have a visible bump, so people won’t give you one. And if you take one then a lady with a cane looks at you pointedly and probably goes home and writes a thinkpiece about entitled millennials and you’re like “I’m pregnant,” defensively, head spinning, except you’re not supposed to tell anyone yet.
I mean, yeah, that sucks hard. It might get better. If it doesn’t, I have faith in you. If it gets to a point you can’t handle then trust your instincts, and get whatever partner(s) you have to help you, and get yourself to a medical institution of some sort and scream.
Many people have an experience where the first trimester is a challenge because of the hormonal and physiological and immunological fighting, but they have a nice experience in the second and/or third trimesters. Apparently one may get a “burst of energy” and the fabled “glow.” It’s when some birthgivers claim to become particularly interested in sex, and take photos of their cute little bumps, and take up pregnancy yoga or a childbirth class or some other thing that makes them feel excited/expectant/proud. I can’t promise you’ll feel any of that, but hopefully that’s something for you to feel curious about.
As for the end result, having the baby will be an entirely different country, but once you have it, you’ll be in that country! And before then, you can’t control it! So you may cultivate some serenity, or you may panic, or you may quietly arrange for paid help to come to your house for the first few weeks after the baby is born, to take care of you.
If you have the money I do recommend doing that. I didn’t have the money, but I had really planned to do it, because I didn’t have a scrap of family or anyone to come round and help, and I didn’t think I could do it. But the baby came early and I didn’t have the money but it turned out I could do it so it all worked out. I also had a very good birth partner in Dr Glass, who cooked me a steak that I still think about today.
If I’d had the money I would also have hired a doula. A doula is an experienced person, usually a woman, whose job is to be calm and comforting and wise and supportive for you during pregnancy and labor.
There are also many books on the topic, written by Actual Authorities on pregnancy and childbirth. They are authorities and I am not. “What to expect when you’re expecting” is a classic, and surprisingly, when you open it, it doesn’t just say “sickness pain, unending horribleness and pain and grim shit, THAT is what to expect, fuck off.” It’s actually an entire book about what you might expect! And it says things like “you may have a burst of energy.” So that can be nice. That book is like an antidote to Parenting Hyenas and their General Uselessness (“Expect to feel awful! Forever! Hahahaha”), although it is just full of Heterosexual Humor and stupid wordplay that made me feel violent. There are also books that get into the Science of Pregnancy, and they can be comforting.
I don’t know if you find The Science of Pregnancy comforting, but here is some to explain what you may be feeling, but there is a content warning for Pregnancy Loss. So if that feels too sensitive, then please stop here, and go with my best wishes. Send me another ask in a few months and tell me how it’s going, ok?
DO YOU KNOW ONE REASON WHY YOU PROBABLY FEEL SHIT, it’s because your body is at war with the fetus, testing it for weakness. If the fetus wins the fight, then it gets to develop. If it doesn’t, the pregnancy ends. Your body quite naturally has a tendency to regard the fetus as a foreign body, and the uterus is actually a harsh and unforgiving place, designed to flush out impurities (including flawed embryos) in a monthly blood sacrifice. The fetus, meanwhile, is fighting back hard.
“There is literally a foreign body inside us,” says your immune system suspiciously.
“Fuck offfff,” says the fetus, disabling any system that looks at it funny.
The sperm donor’s DNA is roiling and boiling and fighting hard: “KEEP MY DNA ALIVE AND INSIDE YOU,” it roars at your body.
Your own DNA contribution to the fetus is going “Calm down, body, this is one of ours, it’s totally part of us! Also, fetus, let’s not grow too big or too fast – we don’t want to harm the birthgiver.”
“GROW BIG AS FAST AS POSSIBLE TO MAKE IT SAFELY PAST THE FIRST TRIMESTER,” says the sperm donor DNA inside the fetus.
The sperm donor DNA is invested in the survival of the fetus, hoping to shape the best possible fetus. The birthgiver DNA is invested in the survival of the birthgiver. The birthgiver’s body will terminate threats if it identifies them in time. Somehow, in this competition, a human fetus is prepared. The first trimester – the window in which most pregnancies are lost – is a battleground.
The fetus and your own body are dashing about flipping switches. Your body is running a checklist of checks and balances to protect you from wasting investment in carrying a “flawed” fetus, or allowing the parasite to deplete your resources too much. The fetus is running about trying to flip all the switches back, trying to pass every test, and redirect all of the life support systems to itself.
Morning sickness is associated with stronger fetuses that are less likely to miscarry. By destroying your appetite, the fetus protects itself; you won’t be eating any bitter herbs or dangerous shellfish if you’re too sick to eat.
“But we can’t destroy our health,” your body shouts, fighting it. “We need food to live.”
“Live on your fat stores,” the fetus says sweetly, if it’s a powerful fetus, doing a manual override if it’s REALLY powerful, and preventing you from being anywhere near any form of meat. “That’s what they’re for. Me.”
“That’s not sustainable,” your body says, taking systems abruptly off autopilot and frantically trying to put passwords on them, so that you feel like shit and catch a horrible cold.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s sustainable,” says the fetus, “All that matters is my survival. I don’t NEED siblings,” it adds, changing the password for your immune system.
“What I DO need is all of your blood,” it goes on, politely putting in a request for increased blood supplies, with your own signature forged on it. The bureaucracy of your body glances at it and signs it off. You feel extremely faint, and take a seat on public transportation without actually meaning to, because it is already occupied. The lady with a cane sneers at you pointedly. And maybe you write to me. If it is of any comfort whatsoever: you are host to a battleground, at the beginning of a war. It is a war all of your foremothers – and you – won. Most gloriously.
and it is a LOT! It really is a huge amount, for something that is right now so very small. These are big feelings.
So it’s Flu Season again, and this recipe for Tea To Fix What Ails You was given to me by a Christian friend, and I’ve taken to calling it JESUS TEA due to it’s miraculous properties. Even though it, technically, contains no tea. This tea is as caffinie-free as anything processed in a US plant can get, but be sure to check the provenance and all ingredients in case of allergies.
You will Need:
A Bigass Pot, becuase this is something you make in large quantities
working stovetop
those lil cloth sachets you use for wassail/empty teabags/those lil reuseable loose-leaf tea steepers.
Recipe:
about a quart of water
1 cup apple cider
about half a lemon’s worth of juice
a shitwhack of honey- try to get as local as possible and generally the less-processed the better if you want to build a resistance to local allergens. If you have allergy concerns or don’t like the taste of honey, go ahead and use more processed stuff/another sweetener instead.
three tablespoons/three bags chamomile tea
three tablespoons/three bags rooibos tea
teaspoon crushed cloves
1 cinnamon stick (more if you like it spicier)
¼ tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cayenne or white pepper
Bring water to a simmer in the pot. Add the chamomile, rooibos and spices to steep about 4-5 minutes or longer if you like tea-flavored tar which given you have the flu you probably do. Add Cider, Lemon Juice and Honey until dissolved. Drink all of this in the course of an hour to stay hydrated, make more pots as needed or until you pass out.
FOR MAXIMUM EFFECTIVENESS: gargle warm salt water first for as long as you can, it’ll break up the mucus in your throat and soothe the soreness.
This stuff is hecking delicious, and my dad claims it cured his cold. I’ve taken to drinking it just because it tastes good! Thank you for sharing! 😀 I also found that you can freeze this stuff in convenient single serving sizes, ready to be heated in the microwave when you don’t have enough spoons to make it fresh. Granted fresh is usually best for most food and drinks, but it’s still good.
I also calculated a single serving version, which I’m putting here in case anyone wants to make it that way:
1 cup hot water
¼ cup apple cider (or more, I prefer 1/3 cup)
1 tbsp honey (or more, to taste)
a dash of lemon juice
½ tsp spice mixture
1 ½ tbsp tea mixture
Mix the spices together in one container, and mix the two kinds of tea together in another. Measure out of these the above amounts. (Don’t try to store the two things together, the spices will sink to the bottom and you won’t get the right measurements.)
Use a tea infuser/tea bag/cheesecloth/whatever to keep the herb bits from floating off into your drink. Steep for the usual 4-5 minutes, then add the cider, honey, and lemon.
Side note: ground cloves is cheaper for me so I use ½ tsp of
that instead of 1 of whole. I also like cinnamon a lot so I use ¼ tsp
ground cinnamon instead of a stick (also sticks are really expensive here). If you use a stick, break it into
little pieces. The downside of ground cinnamon is that it
kind of congeals if you don’t stir it periodically, so keep a spoon
handy as you drink.
Since people have been asking for this (I guess the flu/common cold is going around agian), have it again, NOW WITH SINGLE SERVING SIZE, THANK YOU @snowfox102 for doing the math for me!
Is it possible to substitute the chamomile for something else?
Pretty much any herbal tea but mint will work? Rose hip’s good, or you can just double the rooibos. You can even put in black or green tea. I don’t becuase those both have caffiene and I want to be awake as little as possible when I’m sick.
i'll apple your turnover 