Why I am fat

Tuesday last week, I had an appointment with my therapist. I wanted to talk to him desperately about my depression, as all of March had been pretty terrible. I've been finding it very difficult to find any hope in life anymore, both for humanity, and for my future. I feel like I have no more goals or dreams or aspirations. Are we supposed to have these things? That's hard for me to answer, because I truly have no idea.

I worked on answering a multiple choice questionnaire about how depressed I was during the session. After reviewing the test, he decided to pipe up about my diet, once again. He believes that my heavy addiction to carbs is causing my blood sugar to act like a roller coaster, and thinks I need a low-carb diet. I agreed to research it and how that would work for a vegetarian diet.

All the while, this has left me feeling very angry. I went in to talk about my depression. Why is he constantly obsessing about my diet?

One of my internal dialogues insinuates that "he must think I'm fat!" No, that is not true, technically. I also feel he's too driven by "fad diets" and has quoted a vast amount of information that is considered "fad". I personally felt more inclined to align with my dietician's advice, which stipulates that carbs are okay, but you have to be smart about it and limit your quantity of it.

I have noticed over the years I get very angry when someone challenges me on my diet. Last night, I talked about this at length in my support group. This isn't the first time I found myself getting angry when someone suggests "low carb diets". A few years ago, I had a personal trainer try to advocate for a low carb diet, and promptly got angry. Personally, I feel this diet is akin to "The Atkins Diet", and I don't believe that works, as Atkins himself was overweight and died of a heart attack. But I did do the research to see what a low-carb vegetarian diet would look like. In short, very boring.

I'm afraid of giving up my addiction to carbs, in particular the addiction to pasta. While I do eat whole wheat/grain pasta exclusively now, I still have problems reducing my quantities. I'm a food addict to carbs, and have a hard time letting go of that. I know I eat because I can't deal with my emotions. It's a way to keep them at bay so I don't have to deal with them.

I am also a very picky eater. I always have been... Just ask my parents about that! I was worse than Mikey, because I even didn't like that cereal. Recently, I've come to realize that I am a highly sensitive person, and likely had certain aversions to textures. For instance, now I prefer my vegetables fresh, uncooked. I used to have most of them cooked in water, or steamed, as a kid. That made them slimy... I didn't like that texture. I also don't like tomatoes for the texture, and anything cucumber-like (including melons) because it upsets my stomach for some odd reason. I do like tomato-based sauces and ketchup, but not fresh cut tomatoes. I had a hard time eating meat as a kid, and really only liked hamburgers and hot dogs. I have come to believe that that was my conscience talking, saying I didn't really want to eat meat, but I liked the cheese and ketchup on the hot dogs and burgers, and of course the bread/buns. Making the decision to be a vegetarian over half of my life now was the right thing for me to do.

But... I turn to food to conceal my emotions, whether happy, stressed, depressed, anxious, angry, or whatever else. So I will admit I'm not a healthy vegetarian. I am also very much a creature of habit, desiring the same routine every time, including meals. Of course I deviate from time to time, but usually I eat the same things every day. Change is hard for me, despite how much I desire it. So both the picky-eater and food addict in me is screaming that this is not possible for me to do.

In my support group, I decided to get to the underlying message deep down that made me so angry about my therapist's theory. I kept breaking it down and down. After the fleeting feeling that he thinks I'm fat, it started to turn towards an interesting direction. Almost everyone who is overweight believes that if I could just lose weight, I'll be happy! I know I do. But I remember being a normal weight in junior high school and high school... I was depressed then, mostly because those were the particularly bad years when I was being bullied in school. So... the underlying fear or thought I have is that no matter what I do, I will always be unhappy.

BING!!! BING!!! BING!!! We have a winner!

This is why I struggle with losing weight. I've attached my goal weight with the idea that it will make me happy. I turn to food to make me happy when I feel bad. But... I have no real idea what "happy" would look like. What if I lose all the weight I want to lose and I'm still not happy? What will I do then?!!

Clearly, more thinking is required for me do really deal with this food addiction once and for all. I'm working on Emotions Anonymous 12 steps, also food addiction 12 steps via the Russell Brand book. I'm also starting to get into the SMART Recovery program for addictions. I'm trying to figure it out. Hopefully, soon, I will.

I'm tired of being unhappy all the time. I'm tired of being big. I'm tired of being tired.