Ever since I was a little girl I've known that I needed to watch my weight. No one ever said anything to me--you just don't say that to a little kid--but doctors said it to my mom when I was in the room. They waited until I was a teen to say it straight to my face. If you have little kids, or if you work with little kids, then you know they pick up on more then you think. I've known I've needed to watch my weight since I was so little that I can't ever remember not having an intense fear of being fat lurking around in the back of my head.
Here's the logic:
People who have CP have a hard time walking.
People who are overweight have a hard time walking.
People who are overweight and have CP really have a hard time walking
Makes sense doesn't it?
Here's more logic:
The less you move, the less calories you burn.
The less calories you burn, the more weight you gain.
The more weight you gain, the harder it is to move.
What it comes down to is this: MOVE and watch what you eat.
Doesn't everyone need to move and watch what they eat you say? Well yes--but it's worse when you have CP. Being fat can translate into virtual imprisonment. When it's hard to get around to begin with, making it even harder is sometimes too much to bare. In my mind (this probably isn't true) fat people with CP just sit home alone all day. Doing anything else just requires far too much effort. As a skinny person with CP, sometimes doing what I have to do in a day requires too much effort for me. I don't want to try it fat.
The fear of not being able to move is recent. Not the fear I had at 6 or 7 (maybe even as early as 4). It's just amazing how young you pick up on ableism. And a damn shame. When I was little I had this picture in my head of a faceless greasy woman sitting in a manual chair in the dark right next to the couch, watching TV alone. The woman was faceless because I didn't have a concept of how I'd look older, but it was me. It was me fat and alone and very depressed. No one would ever love me like that. Why would a man ever love someone that grotesque? FUCK ableism. Why would you do that to a little girl? Of course overweight people in wheelchairs aren't grotesque. I know that now.
Thankfully there was too much going on in my life to worry about what I put in my mouth on more then just an occasional basis. There was horseback riding and playing and even awful things like surgery and my 5th grade teacher. Even awful things canpush back fears. I always said I didn't need to worry about my weight until I was done growing. Thankfully I was reasonable.
As soon as I stopped growing though, I began the journey of becoming paralyzed with the fear of being fat. At first it was the fear of being ugly and alone. But thank god one day it dawned on me how crazy that was. I'm not exactly sure when that happened. It was a gradual process throughout high school in which I moved towards my new fear--my fear of loss of function. It was at this point that I really began to grasp why I needed to be concerned with my weight. I feel as though I'm a broken record on this blog. I didn't spend my entire childhood in hours and hours of therapy and in the hospital being sliced and diced not to walk.
The phrase "if you don't use it you lose it" applies so much more when you have CP. I've been depressed and laid in bed for weeks to the point that when I finally got out of bed I could barely stand up. It doesn't take long. Being fat would probably expedite the process.
I've weighed myself practically every day since I was 17. I'm 5'1.5" (the .5 matters). I prefer to be below 120lbs. Lately I've been hovering between 121/122. But I have more important things to deal with right now then counting points. I'm annoyed at that number all the same. It's ok though until I see 123 for more then a day or so. Then I know it's creeping. Creeping towards 130. 130 is that magic number I can never be. 130 would cause severe panic. I'd be fat. Well not really. Not until 135 according to a BMI calculator. But still...
The theme for the 39th DBC is "if I knew then..." Sometimes what you've known can be so much more damaging then what you didn't. I've thought about my weight every single day for the last 7 years. That isn't healthy.
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