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I want to hear the science. I want desperately to do the science. But opportunities keep disappearing. I’ve become quite bitter, actually.
In early 2000, I had a job where I could eat as much salad as I wanted, for free. I got a Torso Track from late night TV and dropped from 210 to 190 in a single summer. I was in the best shape of my life. Then I moved on from the dishwashing job with free salad to custodial at a gym. I wasn’t allowed to use the equipment, and ironically, I got bursitis of the knee while kneeling to wipe the floor mats under the machines and impingement of the shoulder from all the mopping. I could not use my Torso Track anymore. I went over 210, because I now had muscle weight and a bigger frame to hang fat on.
I had a nightmarish two decades of codependency and sedentary jobs, piling on the weight of another small dog, never making 25% more than minimum wage for Albuquerque despite the dollar amount of my wages rising; trapped in the inflation trap.
I joined a gym with a pool in January 2020, free to me because of the ACA’s gym benefit, planning on swimming my way down from my now larger weight. Then COVID LOCKED THE GYM DOORS.
When I got a new job after the lockdowns lifted, my new schedule included time on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work to go to the YMCA, and I started doing so. Then my schedule shifted again, and I couldn’t anymore. My membership has languished.
Then I saw the 2022 film The Whale in theaters, directed by Darren Aronofsky and adapted for screen by Samuel D. Hunter, the original playwright. The film stars Brendan Fraser, an actor I admire, whose struggles I’d read about. It was like a punch in the gut. I joined an anti-obesity twelve step program and started learning why I had spent twenty years making excuses and drowning my sorrows in calories. I was actually doing things differently with my food consumption, and moving away from seeing overeating as an inevitability.
I had developed an eating plan and started to use it. Then I got a medical issue because I was trying to help someone move a cabinet, and I could no longer use that eating plan, nor is it safe for me to exercise much.
Oh, and I could have afforded GLP-1 after I finish paying off my car this autumn, but my living situation is going to change and the cost will rise by the amount I’ve been paying for my car.
I can’t hear the science over the racket of all my spoons being constantly taken.
The lack of spoons phenomenon feels incredibly cruel. You've felt awful for a while and as though that's not bad enough, your ability to self-motivate is now diminished simply because you've been feeling bad for a while, which makes you fall even deeper down the hole. Our hormonal systems are great at short-term crises but appallingly awful at long-term ones.
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I sympathize. I'd love to help, but I can't quite tell from your comment the reason why you can't use that eating plan, so I can't really do much to help point you in the right direction to create a new one that will work for your new situation. I'm not asking you to disclose your medical issue, and I really don't need to know in any way. But you'll likely need to find someone who you can be close enough to to talk about it with and work out a game plan for the future that fits your individual scenario.
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