Chatting with fat

Part 1

Throughout the decades I’ve attempted numerous times, too numerous to mention. to journal as a therapeutic process. It’s never really worked very well for me. However, for some reason the idea of a blog feels more hopeful, as the thought that there might be a witness to this journey – some compassionate pair of eyes reading and maybe even saying, “yes, this has happened to me”, makes it seem more possible. It also means that what I write has to be real, honest, authentic, because other people may have the opportunity to learn from what I have to say.

I probably waited ten years too long to start blogging, because as I begin to write I realize that I have scores of pent-up subjects to dig into. For the time being, I’ll label each topic area Part 1, part 2, etc. and hope readers have the patience to follow along in this fashion.

On  that note, It might be useful to read the Body Dialogues Intro, at least part I, before delving in here.

While a student at the School for Body-Mind Centering(BMC) I vaguely remember sessions where we dialogued with subcutaneous adipose tissue – fat. The fact that I barely remember the sessions is telling. Ask me how to find the “mind” of the bones? I’m there. Wanna feel your connective tissue wrapping and defining the structures inside your body, and supporting, moving from solid to gel to solute, with the warmth of my hand?  Wanna watch me effect a visible difference in skin tone, color, radiance, by focusing in the endocrine system, right before your eyes?

Got a few minutes? Watch me lower my blood presser to 90 over 68.

When it comes to the somatic awareness of the purpose of fat – being able to feel comfortably like I am in the “mind” of it, and understand it’s purpose from an experiential, visceral perspective, I draw a blank.

Subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT). Taste that acronym, feel it in your mouth. It’s soft, round, takes a while to say.  Smooth, but with some definition. Fat. SAT. It’s onomatopoetic – it feels like it sounds.

When I was in my 20s and doing BMC work, I was slightly overweight, but I pretty much liked my body. I did not desire to be thin. I have wide shoulders and a larger than average skeleton, as does everyone in my family. My wrist bones are larger than almost any woman I know. At 127 lbs at 5’3″ I looked too skinny. I spent most of my 20s between 127 and 140 lbs and was more or less okay with that.

Today, on the Equinox, with a whisper of new moon and a bright fall day, a month before I turn 48, I look down at the pad of fat which emerges right below the breasts and falls straight down into my lap, covering the crotch.

I am sitting in the big comfy chair in my sunny little home, naked, writing about my “weight issue” for all the world to see.

I am trying to be detached, observant, just observing what I see and feel.

I feel embarrassed, and really really angry and frustrated that I, who has overcome nearly every obstacle in my life, still has to deal with this impediment to beauty and health and to being the dancer and performer I want to be. I, who has had so many years of therapy, formal and nonformal, and has worked so hard to overcome the trauma of my youth, and to achieve a life with love, a career, a home, and a creative artistic life.

But still, right there, hanging down in the center, the fat.

Not really hanging, cause I don’t have the really pendulous fat, more like the protruding/slightly hanging down.

I note as I write that the disgust and shame I feel thinking of pendulous fat, and the revulsion I sometimes feel when seeing that on other people. Shame at my self, for being fat, shame for being judgemental, being reviled by other’s fat. Then pity  because I know that other fat people are surrounded by eyes, judging, weighing, torturing them, making their lives a living hell. I have never known what it is like to be fat like that.

Over the years I have dialogued with the fat, using somatic awareness technique.

Why are you here? What do you want?

What it tells me is both something I already know and somewhat mystifying. It tells me that it is there to protect me.

Protect – from what?

Maybe I am afraid to be too attractive because I am afraid I might get what I want, which is an attractive boyfriend. Huh. Well I have one, we’ve been together six months, and he really loves me, and even enjoys “plushiness” – is more attracted to women who are not thin.

Or maybe being attractive will allow me to be even more effective as I give men  the business when they piss me off, and I don’t want to deal with the added guilt of that, so I pad on the fat. Well, that angry phase is over with, was over with that a couple years ago when I consciously worked through those angers with the help of a wise 12-step Master. I no longer have any need to consort with the kind of wounded men who circulate through the online dating scene who had become the ready target for my anger. And besides, I gained the weight before my marriage 15 years or so ago.

I have over the years noted that when I feel anxiety, stabbing rushes of fear or anxiety in the solar plexus, they feel deadened or softened by the pad of fat right over that area of my body. When I am able to get over the frozen sense of paralyzed fear that comes with the anxiety and massage that area of my body, it is comforting to have a roll of flesh to roll my fingers in, gently using it to soothe the knots underneath.

But honestly, the benefit of having the fat over the anxiety knot seems pretty minimal. I seem to feel the anxiety just as much as I used to, when I was younger and not so overweight.

I do have instant triggers of wanting to eat to comfort myself when things are going awry in a day, especially chocolate. I do get an instant boost of well-being from chocolate which doesn’t compare to any other high. It can happen from unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate as well as any other form. It will be interesting to observe, over the course of this experiment, how often I crave it in the high calorie, super sugary form, and when I am happy with a small 80 percent cacao square of 25 calories.

But I digress.

In the past when I’ve chatted with the fat it seemed to be telling me it was like an insulation, a storage mechanism – not, as it is often said, to insulate against external input, to protect me from feeling the insults of the world – but internal.

The research shows that eating animal fat both makes one hungrier – turns off the mechanism in the brain which signals satiety – and contributes disproportionally to the development of belly fat and metabolic syndrome, or insulin resistance.

As a colitis sufferer, I have been grateful and thankful for many years for the ability to eat animal fats, and the easy availability of them. Animal fats are metabolized into butyric acid (especially butter and cream products) which is an important and beneficial nutrient for colonocytes, the cells which line the colon. I have been off meds for what I was told was a lifelong, really serious condition, for over five years due to a diet which includes animal fat. My LDLs have been slightly elevated, 118 at last test, but that seemed a small price to pay for a healthy digestive system which has resulted in shiny hair, good skin, and a generally strong and healthy body.

I was never thin in my youth, maybe averaging about 5-10 lbs more than I wanted to weigh at any one time. But I ate a lot of apples. Living in New England, they were a plentiful and common part of my diet throughout the year. Now that I live in the Southwest, it’s been hard to adjust to the hard or mushy, tasteless knobs available in the supermarkets here. Back East we picked our own, visited farm stands, farmer’s markets, or the local coop, where they were purchased from local farmers.

Apples, it turns out, esp. in the form of apple sauce, if I remember correctly, contain compounds that are also metabolized to butyric acid, thus conferring a considerable health benefit to the colon.

According to the Volumetrics dietetic research, foods like apples which are high water and fiber and low calorie- density as a result, are helpful in losing and maintaining weight. Dr. Barbara Rolls did research which showed that people feel more full eating these foods.

As I write this I am biting into a crisp Washington apple. Not as nice as the firm-skinned, dark-red Cortlands and other varieties of my youth in New England, but it tastes good.

Interesting that people with metabolic syndrome are called “apple shaped”.  My partner has added applesauce and apples to the shopping list for this week. Will keep you all informed about how it goes.