My struggle with my weight

I have really started to struggle with my weight in recent years, I was in a very minor traffic accident that left me immobile for several weeks, and a lot less mobile than I was before the accident even now. Don't get me wrong, I can do most normal things as long as I don't carry much but we are now three years later. Initially after the accident I couldn't even walk.

 

Truth be told, the accident is only partly to blame. I have been overweight most of my life, save a few years in my early 20's when I lost a lot of weight unexplainably. The accident just made things worse I guess and I am the biggest I have ever been, and for the first time I am truly unhappy with my weight.

 

It seems that no matter what I have tried to do before and after the accident I just can't get the weight off, at most I lose a few pounds but then stop and get disheartened and eventually give up. Just now I have lost two kilos (a little over 4lbs) since around the end of last year, no more will come off no matter how often I visit the gym.

 

I know that the biggest part of the problem is my diet, and I honestly don't know what I can do about it. I was advised by my practice nurse to join a slimming club, but how can I do that when I can't physically eat the things they get you to eat? The nurse did seem to be trying to understand and asked me if I thought I could modify the recipes somehow to make them edible to me, but the only way to make these things edible to me would be to make them a whole lot less healthy.

 

I have tried just about everything, taken all sorts of tablets that are meant to speed up your metabolism but none of them help and they just leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, quite literally. I go to the gym twice a week most weeks, sometimes more sometimes less but I make sure I go at least once every week and try my best to go more often. I have a crazy schedule which doesn't always allow gym time but I have joined a gym that is open 24/7 now so that will hopefully make that side of things a bit easier.

 

I honestly don't know what else I can do, other than try to get to the gym even more. I am trying my best with my diet, of course no one believes me when they see the things I eat but I do honestly go out of my way to make them as healthy as I possibly can. I think people think you need to eat salad to be on a diet, I can't eat much salad and could never eat it on its own, like all other veg I eat (all four of them) I have to eat it with something to sort of hide the flavour of it.

 

I know the effect being this heavy is having on my health and I am lucky that so far my health is ok, but I know it won't always be that way if I don't do something about it now.

Organising the food makes life easier

I have two weeks left at university and to celebrate myself and two friends decided to organise some food and stuff for the last day. I like volunteering to organise these types of things, partly because I just like to be helpful but mostly because organising the food means I can make sure there is something I will eat.

 

I obviously take other peoples likes and dislikes into consideration and I don't expect to be able to eat everything, as long as there is something I can eat I am quite happy and I don't feel like an outcast.

 

My biggest responsibility is the cake, I am the only member of the group with a Costco membership and since their cakes are both delicious and cheap that's where we decided to get it from. Ordering the cake means that I can make sure there is no jam in it, meaning I might actually be able to eat a slice, not that I am a massive fan of cake but people always think you are a bit odd when you don't eat cake so I will usually take a small piece as long as there is no jam in it.

 

I was also able to make sure that the girl who is organising the pizzas gets at least one plain cheese one so I can have a slice of that. That's more than enough to keep me happy, a slice of pizza and a slice of cake will do me just fine.

 

The girls said they like having me help organise because if they make sure there are things for me to eat, surely there will therefore be something for everyone. I think this is the first time that anyone has ever taken my picky eating as a positive thing.

 

Today was definitely a positive food day!

Being fussy Vs having an eating disorder

A lot of people don't think that people like me actually have an eating disorder, they seem to think we are just fussy. So what is the difference between having an eating disorder and simply being a fussy eater?

Being fussy

Most people have a few foods that they don't like and of course that is perfectly normal. I guess being a fussy eater means that you have a few more foods that you don't like than average. How someone determines what this average is I have no idea.

What I do know is that most people who are simply fussy eaters will have tasted the things they don't like and actually know that they don't like them. I also highly doubt that fussy eaters are anywhere near as repulsed by certain foods as people like me are. I doubt they have problems choosing a place to eat for fear that there will be nothing on the menu they can even look at, or that they have panic attacks at the thought of an unfamiliar food environment.

Selective eating disorder

People like me who have selective eating disorder (SED) have often never tasted many of the foods they don't like. A lot of us are simply repulsed by the way something smells, or even how it looks.

Thankfully it doesn't happen to me, but I know some people with SED who have full blown panic attacks if they are invited out to dinner for fear that someone will order something that they simply can't be in the same room as, or that there will be nothing available for them to eat. Many people with SED find social situations involving food terrifying, maybe because people will order things they cant be around or there will be nothing for them to eat, but more so because eating in front of other people is a source of panic for some. Some people are so embarrassed by the way they eat, or just hate everyone asking questions like 'is that all you are having?'

Many of us get physical symptoms of our disorder, usually being sick if we accidentally eat something we know we can't have. This has happened to me several times, once just because my hotdog had touched an onion!

For some of us, there are days where we can't eat anything at all, not even our 'safe foods.' It's a strange thing, I honestly can't explain it but some days nothing is appealing at all and I often have to force myself to just eat something even though I really don't want to, breakfast cereal is my go to food in this situation.

People with SED are also a lot more worried about the ingredients in food than people who are simply fussy. You might hear someone say that they can't eat onions for example, but they may be able to have onions in their food in small pieces or something. Well someone with SED no only wont have the thing with onions in it, but would be able to spot a hidden onion at ten paces. As I mentioned earlier, I was once physically sick just because my food had touched an onion.

Yet another bad food day

Today was a bad food day, as so many days are for people like me.

 

I had a half day in uni so I had a late breakfast before I went in. I went to my first class and had an hour and a half between classes. I had a lot I wanted to get done in that hour and a half, myself and two friends are organising some stuff for the last day which is in three weeks and I had emails related to that to send.

 

I planned to go to one of the cafes on campus which has a computer room down the stairs, grab a sandwich and take it down to the computer room. Surprise surprise, no sandwiches I can eat. There was egg mayonnaise, savoury cheese and something else that had lots of salad on it. I started looking about at what else was available.

 

This café is my favourite because they mostly do snack foods which I can usually eat at least some of, failing anything else I can get a portion of chips. There was nothing left today by the time I got there which I found odd since it was nowhere near closing time. The only thing I could eat was a baked potato, no problem I like those.

 

My potato was rock solid, completely inedible. I had happened to meet a few friends and they all told me to take it back but what was the point? what could they change it for? There was nothing else I liked.

 

So I went to my three hour class with nothing to eat, although some lovely person had brought snacks to class for someone's birthday. There were all sorts of sweets, and someone had made cake. Only I don't like sweets, or chocolate cake for that matter. Thankfully someone also brought plain, salted pringles, I can eat those. So I had half a dozen of them and bought a muffin on the way home.

 

For the most part I don't mind missing the odd meal here and there. I do it all the time, I know its not good for me but when your diet is as limited as mine and you often have to leave the house without the ability to bring your own food. I just hate it when it happens when I have a class to go to, its hard to concentrate when all you are worried about is people hearing your stomach rumbling!

It is a real eating disorder

I think the thing that annoys me most about my issues with food is the fact that people don't think that it's a 'real' problem. People seem to think I am just being fussy and that being a picky eater couldn't possibly be any sort of illness.

 

Truth be told, I have an eating disorder. It is newly recognised, and much more so in America than here in the UK but it is a real disorder. The medical term being used now is Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), I don't personally like the term. I don't feel that I avoid food as such and I don't restrict my intake of food either, I am just limited in the foods I like. To me that definition seems like its a decision to avoid foods and that's not the case at all.

 

I prefer the term Selective Eating Disorder (SED), although many people like me don't like the use of the word 'selective' as it's certainly not something we choose, I personally feel that it fits me better than ARFID because I honestly don't feel like I avoid food. Although anyone who has ever been out to eat with me would likely tell you that I do in fact avoid certain foods. I prefer to think of myself as selective about the foods I eat, all be it not through choice on my part. This article is great at explaining what SED is http://www.livescience.com/10301-adult-picky-eaters-recognized-disorder.html and it talks a little about the studies that are being done in to the disorder, mostly at Duke university. It also talks a little about the super tasters theory that I mentioned earlier.

 

Over here in the UK it is harder to get a diagnosis, although research is being done on the subject. I have participated in some research recently and I know that the researchers are determined to get SED or ARFID recognised better over here. Just now, if you can get a doctor to believe you have an eating disorder at all, you are likely to be diagnosed with what they call 'Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified' or EDNOS. This article, also from live science explains what EDNOS is and why being diagnosed with one is not always a good thing: http://www.livescience.com/6501-eating-disorders-untreated-experts-debate-definitions.html 

 

Being honest, I don't know how important a diagnosis is to me. I know I have a problem with food and in a way I don't mind if other people don't understand that. I would however like the medical community to understand a little better, there is simply no use in telling me I need to go on a diet to lose weight, it simply cant happen. I don't feel like I need a name for it or anything, it's not like I need a name to validate it to me, but I think the medical profession does. They cant take it seriously if it's not a real thing and if it doesn't have a name then its not a real thing to them.

 

What I do know is that the day I found out that Selective Eating Disorder was actually a real thing changed my life. I had no idea that there was a name for my issues, and I had no idea that there were others like me, some a lot worse. I will save the story of that day for another post, but believe me I have come such a long way since that day.