Post B6IQdYhI4rDjlS0IXQ by pandora_parrot@beach.city
(DIR) More posts by pandora_parrot@beach.city
(DIR) Post #B6IQdS2ep19X7gwlN2 by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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I want to tell you a story.I was a fat kid growing up. All the other kids made fun of me all the time, and I always felt really bad about it. When I became a teenager, I finally started to understand that I could do something about it and started to try to exercise. For years, I would become exhausted too quickly when I would try to walk, run, or bicycle for too long. But I pushed myself hard and finally began to make progress. Thanks to puberty at the same time, my weight dropped.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdSJJp4TpxMk4LA by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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At my lowest weight since being a teenager, I was around 170 lbs or so. I was super skinny.And I was also having constant migraines and couldn't function. I had to stay out of school a whole bunch.And without me pushing as hard as I possibly could... my exercise dwindled and I gained back all that weight.But... Hm.I learned something about that experience for me.So "exhaustion" That's a word. What is exhaustion? I had it wrong.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdSagmUNIpErwPo by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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No really.I thought "exhaustion" meant "it feels like thousands of tiny little gremlins are running around on my chest stabbing me with icicles."When I pushed through my "exhaustion" what I was describing pushing through was that. The sensation that I couldn't breathe anymore. I would spend hours after mild exercise barely breathing.Yeah that wasn't exhaustion.That was asthma.I was trying to "push through" asthma attacks.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdSn62MIdRifqkq by linear@nya.social
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@pandora_parrot@beach.city ..... huh.well, i think i might have something new to talk to my doctor about.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdU7L6a5PYn9Wwi by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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We don't know what reality is and what other people experience. People don't talk about what "exhaustion" feels like. As a kid, I thought my experience of asthma was what everyone describes and that it was somehow a failing on my part that I couldn't "push through exhaustion" the way other people could.Because they couldn't push through what I had either. Because they weren't going through asthma attacks.When I had inhalers and dry hot air? I found I could exercise LOTS.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdUy9wCKyCbriHA by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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I want to tell you a storyI was a fat kid growing up. All the other kids made fun of me all the time, and I always felt really bad about it. When I turned 24 and started my transition, I decided to do something about it. Starting in 2005, I started to meticulously track my weight and everything I was eating.Weight loss became my obsession. Constant fitness and food focus.It was one of the few things I could even think about.I lost 90 lbs in 2 years.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdVwQK8XjDW3qD2 by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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But as soon as I let go of that obsessive focus, I gained weight. Continually in my life, I gained weight at a rate about 6-10 lbs a year, perfectly.Just look at that curve fit.I frequently needed food to avoid hunger. Between meals, I'd get really hungry. The only way I found to avoid eating too much and fighting that hunger was to focus intensely on it and obsess over it. To focus on eating *only* a certain number of calories or fats or whatever.Let that go, and I gained.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdWkPKIWdiXRl7Q by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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During my biggest periods of weight loss, I was obsessed with it to the exclusion of a great deal of other things in my life. Art and games and such suffered because I was focused on weight loss.As I said, without me pushing as hard as I possible could... my food intake rose and I gained back all that weight.But... hm."hunger" Another word. What is that?Again I had it wrong.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdXYOKSVYDYpg1o by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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No really.I thought "hunger" meant "a buzzing, headache like sensation at the front of my head, similar to a caffeine headache, that gives me brain fog and makes me feel like I'm going to die if I don't eat something NOW."When I fought my "hunger" to avoid overeating, I was describing pushing through that. The sensation that I would LITERALLY die if I didn't eat something NOW.That's not "hunger"That's "food noise."I was trying to fight "food noise."
(DIR) Post #B6IQdYhI4rDjlS0IXQ by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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We don't know what reality is and what other people experience. People don't talk about what "hunger" feels like. As a kid and young adult, I thought my experience of hunger was what everyone describes and that it was somehow a failing on my part that I couldn't "fight my hunger" the way other people could.Because again... they didn't have to. Because they weren't being faced with a feeling that they would literally die if they didn't eat something.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdbSVoGBKKU72Q4 by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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The effectiveness of my work to manage my weight is a testament to my ability to do something incredible.A week ago, I started wegovy, one of those GLP-1 weight loss drugs, and like my inhaler removing my asthma, it removed my "food noise."Suddenly, I can actually just... have *real* hunger without feeling like I'm going to die. Suddenly, I understand how the hell people can skip meals without feeling completely and utterly non-functional.THIS is the typical experience of this.
(DIR) Post #B6IQddBvMu6LhcMoqG by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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I'm on the lowest dosage so far and it's already an astonishing experience to not have that constant food noise. To feel what I think is a more "normal" experience with food.And it makes me so angry. Again.It's not that I couldn't exercise as a kid. I had exercise induced asthma. It's not that I don't have self-control around food. I have overwhelming "food noise" that forces me to eat when I don't want to.It's not my fault, despite what so many told me.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdfOlA9YaY0O67s by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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I've literally had *so many people* tell me that it was my fault over and over again. People I cared for and who cared for me. Literally told me it was my choice to be fat. That I was lazy. All of that stuff. That I just needed to do XYZ and somehow I would lose weight.As if weight loss is the single biggest most important thing in the world as well.They set the standards, judged me to be failing, and then got angry at me for not being able to keep up without finding out what's up.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdgFE15WZAivzu4 by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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And again, it's not that at all. I've had a biological disadvantage in this contest that I didn't even sign up to play in.No wonder I could exercise and exercise and make good meals and never drink soda and nothing, literally nothing, helped besides obsessive, intense focus to the exclusion of all else and the detriment of many other things in my life, including my actual health at times.Health and weight loss may be coupled, but they are NOT the same thing, and I'm mad about it.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdhXLDDbrBCPymO by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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Fuck the beauty standards. I want to lose weight because in the past 3 years I've developed arthritis and severe IT band pain, and being lighter will help me avoid that pain. I'd like to be able to fit in the decreasingly smaller airplane seats without feeling cramped. I'd like to ride bikes without worrying about their weight limits. I want to be mobile again.And this wegovy stuff seems like it might just help me get there without needing to make this the obsession of my life again.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdiu48DNhPy3dq4 by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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...I still remember the first time that I was working out and I felt real exhaustion. When my legs were so tired I couldn't go on. It was a hike I was on. And it was the first time I stopped and took a rest, not to let my lungs recover... but to let my legs recover.It was an incredible feeling. A novel feeling. I just sat there in the sunlight drifting through the trees, my friend next to me, just marveling at this new experience.Exhaustion. Wow.
(DIR) Post #B6IQdjQgAxT937Jgfo by pandora_parrot@beach.city
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And today I just had an experience around lunch. I was really hungry. "Starving" one might colloquially say. But I didn't feel the usual "Eat now or die" food noise sensation I would get around that.It was just a sensation. Information. Uncomfortable, sure, but not urgent in the way it has been my entire life. I sat in my chair, just marveling at this new experience.It was just hunger, the way most people experience it.Wow.
(DIR) Post #B6IQoMUhmvFv6RGhwO by linear@nya.social
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@pandora_parrot@beach.city and, it's worse in cold weather, yes?if this is not normal then that explains why i hate exercise so much more than everyone else around me.(i had friends with asthma growing up and your description matches my experience much more than theirs, and i have just confirmed by asking people around me that they do not experience anything remotely like this, which i do)
(DIR) Post #B6IUyxNHvEqoCK6fom by linear@nya.social
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lol ok i talked to my mom and it turns out she is diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma and i had no idea about it.