Homicidal Impulses
Dec. 24th, 2002 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikI just got back from my annual exam. (And as a complete side issue, I think I managed to leave without get a refill on my birth control prescription, which is my main reason for going in the first place.)
Now most of you have probably heard more about my physical health and fitness over the last year than you wanted to, but a brief recap. This time last year I was still on half medical leave from my job at micrososft, I'd just taken most of the month of December off from work because I hurt too much to continue, and I was about to decide that I was leaving that job because unemployment was better than ruining my body. I wasn't sure if I was every going to be able to work again.
Since then, I've left that job, turned my health around, I'm taking five martial arts classes a week, practicing extensively outside of class. I've gained an inch or two of height (my spine is straighter). I've gained an awful lot of muscle. I've lost two jeans sizes -- at least, the last ones are pretty loose, but I haven't gone shopping for new ones, and I don't think I'm quite in the next one down. I'm able to wear a lot of the clothes -- not all yet -- that I wore in college. (My weight fluctuated over about a twenty pound range when I was in college. All of it rather lower than I am now, but then I was a lot less active and *way* less muscular. Which is not to say I was happy with my body even at the lower end of that spectrum when I was in college, but that's kind of another issue. Um. Having to do with moronic doctors as much as anything else.) The muscles in my arms and legs are getting visiably cut.
Now, am I at my goals? Am I satisfied with my body? Hell, no. But I'm trying not to obsesss about my goals (and be fairly flexible about them) and I'm pretty happy with my progress for the most part. And if it's not fast enough, for the most part I'm more annoyed about things like ankle flexibility than weight. I'm *happier* with my body than I have been for years.
So, I come in to the office, oh, and by the way I find that I've lost another ten pounds since I was there before, a few months back. Does my doctor say "Good for you! My heavens, you've really turned things around, keep up the good work!" No. He does congratulate me on my overall improved health... and then he decides that this is a good time to talk to me about my weight. Specifically, to chastise me that it's too high. He mentions that I'm probably more fit than 95% of the people that come through his office. (I contemplate using him as a pell, demonstrating my aforementioned fitness.) He agrees in theory that the BMI chart, being based only on height and weight, does not take into account individual difference in musculature and skeleton, however, he continues to defend it. (The BMI chart! That wretched piece of crap that was only ever designed to be used to track populations! that they recently posted above the scale in the office.)
He even agrees, when I confront him with the actual numbers derived from the BMI chart, that no, if probably wouldn't be a good idea for me to loose that much weight.
He recommends Slimfast and Weight Watchers. Okay, up until that point, we were debating philosophical issues, and from my end at least, though I don't know if he got this part, mental health issues. (Hello, here I am being actively sane and healthy and I come from a family where both of my full siblings have had problems with eating disorders. No, I don't think I'm that fragile... but I don't need this crap. And if he is giving it out to me, he's giving it out to people who probably are that fragile. And it's crap, and it shouldn't be given out to anyone.) But this is ridiculous. Both slim fast and weight watchers have horrible records when it comes to long term weight loss (and this is what this is all about, right -- yo-yo dieting isn't a good idea). In fact, the only strategy that I've seen data supporting when it comes to long term weight loss is... gradual weight loss from exercise.
Which is what I'm doing.
Successfully, as it happens.
Fucker.
Oh, did I mention that this was from my doctor of the last several years who I had liked and trusted?
So, obviously, I'm now in the market for a new doctor. And now I'm going to add philosophy of weight loss issues along with attitudes towards sexuality to my interview criteria.
And meanwhile, I'm pissed as hell.
Now most of you have probably heard more about my physical health and fitness over the last year than you wanted to, but a brief recap. This time last year I was still on half medical leave from my job at micrososft, I'd just taken most of the month of December off from work because I hurt too much to continue, and I was about to decide that I was leaving that job because unemployment was better than ruining my body. I wasn't sure if I was every going to be able to work again.
Since then, I've left that job, turned my health around, I'm taking five martial arts classes a week, practicing extensively outside of class. I've gained an inch or two of height (my spine is straighter). I've gained an awful lot of muscle. I've lost two jeans sizes -- at least, the last ones are pretty loose, but I haven't gone shopping for new ones, and I don't think I'm quite in the next one down. I'm able to wear a lot of the clothes -- not all yet -- that I wore in college. (My weight fluctuated over about a twenty pound range when I was in college. All of it rather lower than I am now, but then I was a lot less active and *way* less muscular. Which is not to say I was happy with my body even at the lower end of that spectrum when I was in college, but that's kind of another issue. Um. Having to do with moronic doctors as much as anything else.) The muscles in my arms and legs are getting visiably cut.
Now, am I at my goals? Am I satisfied with my body? Hell, no. But I'm trying not to obsesss about my goals (and be fairly flexible about them) and I'm pretty happy with my progress for the most part. And if it's not fast enough, for the most part I'm more annoyed about things like ankle flexibility than weight. I'm *happier* with my body than I have been for years.
So, I come in to the office, oh, and by the way I find that I've lost another ten pounds since I was there before, a few months back. Does my doctor say "Good for you! My heavens, you've really turned things around, keep up the good work!" No. He does congratulate me on my overall improved health... and then he decides that this is a good time to talk to me about my weight. Specifically, to chastise me that it's too high. He mentions that I'm probably more fit than 95% of the people that come through his office. (I contemplate using him as a pell, demonstrating my aforementioned fitness.) He agrees in theory that the BMI chart, being based only on height and weight, does not take into account individual difference in musculature and skeleton, however, he continues to defend it. (The BMI chart! That wretched piece of crap that was only ever designed to be used to track populations! that they recently posted above the scale in the office.)
He even agrees, when I confront him with the actual numbers derived from the BMI chart, that no, if probably wouldn't be a good idea for me to loose that much weight.
He recommends Slimfast and Weight Watchers. Okay, up until that point, we were debating philosophical issues, and from my end at least, though I don't know if he got this part, mental health issues. (Hello, here I am being actively sane and healthy and I come from a family where both of my full siblings have had problems with eating disorders. No, I don't think I'm that fragile... but I don't need this crap. And if he is giving it out to me, he's giving it out to people who probably are that fragile. And it's crap, and it shouldn't be given out to anyone.) But this is ridiculous. Both slim fast and weight watchers have horrible records when it comes to long term weight loss (and this is what this is all about, right -- yo-yo dieting isn't a good idea). In fact, the only strategy that I've seen data supporting when it comes to long term weight loss is... gradual weight loss from exercise.
Which is what I'm doing.
Successfully, as it happens.
Fucker.
Oh, did I mention that this was from my doctor of the last several years who I had liked and trusted?
So, obviously, I'm now in the market for a new doctor. And now I'm going to add philosophy of weight loss issues along with attitudes towards sexuality to my interview criteria.
And meanwhile, I'm pissed as hell.
