I can relate

Mo at Mr. Ointy wrote a post yesterday that I can't get out of my head (I can't seem to figure out her permalinks, so click "Mr. Ointy" and look for the last 9/11 entry...the one about doctors).

From the time Noah was born until around Christmastime of last year, I was in serious denial about my weight problem. Well, not really so much my weight problem, but my food problem. I never wanted to admit that I just ate too much. I'd blame it on anything else...I work at a pizza place, Noah keeps me too busy to exercise, I waitress so I don't need to exercise anyway, my metabolism changed after the baby...on and on. After I graduated and moved to Texas, the excuses changed, and the pounds piled on faster than ever--I had more money so I could eat more often, I was more sedentary, Texans know food, I'm already dating someone so I don't have to look beautiful, etc., etc. I gained 30 lbs. between June of 1998 and July of 2000. Sometime in there, I also stopped having periods and began my rounds of gynecologists.

I had never had HMO medical insurance before, so this whole notion of primary care physicians and whatnot was foreign to me. I also was very shy about my ever-growing body, and didn't know what to say or how to explain my problem. For a while, I never knew whether or not I could be pregnant either. I didn't really know anyone but Rob in Houston, so I just closed my eyes and pointed into the provider directory when I wanted to find a doctor. The first one was a glorified nurse's aide. Didn't examine me at all, just diagnosed "amennorhea" and sent me for an MRI. I didn't like her, so I didn't bother to go back. For 2 years. By this time, I had moved, and went to another doctor closer to my house. This was the guy that Mo's post reminded me of.

By the time July of 2000 rolled around, I weighed about 200 lbs. I had tried a personal trainer for a while, with almost no results (because I was eating too much). I had just lost a job, and with it my health insurance. I went to him for a UTI (I was prone to them that year, for some reason), and for my lack of periods. I picked him out of the directory because he was 2 miles from my house. I verified how much everything would cost, and decided that the antibiotics for the infection were worth it. And if I went to a gynecologist instead of a general practice doctor, I could kill two birds with one stone.

So off I go to the doctor. He was the most condescending son of a bitch I have ever met. Talked to me like I was a child, made all kinds of assumptions about my weight (doesn't eat vegetables, doesn't know about nutrition, etc). At one point, he said something like "People at a normal weight can eat potatoes and rice, but Joy can't eat those things." Who talks to another adult like that? I wanted to say to him, "Look, man. I'm 26 years old and not retarded. You think you could pretend for a minute that you have any respect for me whatsoever?" He didn't see me as an equal coming to him for medical advice. He saw me as a clueless fat girl.

I left there with some diet guide that he had written himself (and apparently not edited for spelling and grammar, but I'm a stickler for that crap. My atrocious grammar on this site notwithstanding, of course), a prescription for antibiotics, and a burning hatred for this man.

I avoided doctors for nearly 3 years after that, despite the fact that I still wasn't having periods and I now had a job with benefits again. I gained another 20 lbs. by stubbornly refusing to do a single thing he proposed in his little diet pamplet. Besides, my weight gain wasn't because of how I was eating...it was because of *insert any of the above excuses here*.

One of the phrases in Mo's post that had me nodding was "We don't do it until we're ready. And how do we get ready? If only I knew for sure."

What was my turning point? Thinking back, I realize there were several. The first was hitting size 20 last November. The next was seeing the picture taken at my company Christmas party and thinking how huge I looked, then hearing everyone else say..."Oh, you look so good!" Meaning that, holy shit, I really do look like that! And finally, about a week before my 29th birthday, I read an article that said that obesity shortens your life by 7 years. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel.

After I started to write down everything I ate, I started to realize how much I had been eating. Before January, I was eating over 3000 calories a day, easy. No wonder I was packing on the pounds. I look back on how I used to eat, and I can't believe I didn't see it. I had this humongous blind spot when it came to diet--My diet was FINE and I didn't want to hear anyone tell me otherwise. But once I came to that realization on my own, there I was slapping myself on the forehead and never turning back. But I had to come to that place on my own. How did I get there? Like Mo says, I wish I knew.

I'm much better now. I still eat the same foods I ate 3 years ago. I just don't eat them every day, or in mass quantities like I used to. I have come to terms with my food problem. I still get touchy when people tell me what I should and shouldn't eat, but I'm working on that. My inner 4-year-old is very, very strong, and it takes a bit of doing to get her to quit shouting "You're not the boss of me--I'll do what I want!". :)

Still, it pisses me off that even though that doctor in the summer of 2000 was totally right, he still set me back a year by treating me like a stupid fat girl. I was 15 lbs into this weight loss journey before I even considered going to a doctor again for my lack of periods. And what got me there? Reading a post from another journaller who had the same problem. She was going to a doctor, and reading her post about it gave me the courage and will to do it also. I researched, I asked women that I knew about their doctors, and found one that I really love. Even though I still felt like I had to justify my 204 lbs by saying "But I've already lost 15!", it didn't seem to matter to her. She treated me with respect from the start. Maybe she was the Fat Girl once too.