What a morning I’ve had. I went to see a new doctor today, about some issues I’ve been having with my hormones. He’s highly respected in the community, and I felt lucky to get an appointment with him on relatively short notice. I felt confident that he would listen to my story and hopeful that he would be able to recommend a solution to my problem.
Of course, I was also anxious. Would he be critical of my weight? Would he tell me all my problems would be resolved if I just lost weight? His website, which is pretty extensive, has not one but several sections dedicated to that dreaded word “obesity.”
As we spoke about my health history, I eventually came to the part of my story that involves my 90 pound weight loss, my 30 pound regain, and my inability to budge the scale since that time. I mentioned that this coincided with my hormone problems, and he interrupted me to say, “So someone told you that if you get off hormones, you’ll lose weight?”
No, no one told me that. And the issues I was there to see him for were not weight-related, at least not directly. Now I was getting really anxious. Then this happened:
“What was your highest weight?”
I tell him.
“And what is your current weight?”
I tell him: “I don’t know what I weigh. I don’t want to know what I weigh.”
He tells me that it’s important that I know my weight. He doesn’t offer a reason why.
I tell him: “I disagree. I do not want to know my weight, and I do not want to discuss this.”
He then showed me an article in Newsweek that he’d just been reading (what luck!) that he thought I should photocopy and take home to read. I asked him to please give me an overview of what the article was about. Any guesses?
Food addiction.
That’s the point when I burst into tears.
Listen up, medical professionals: When I tell you I work out five to six days a week, have completed nine half marathons, and eat a nutritious diet, don’t you dare tell me that scientists believe some people are addicted to high-fat food just like some people are addicted to drugs. Don’t you dare sit there and disbelieve everything I’ve just told you. Don’t you dare shove your smug, fat-shaming attitude in my face.
I don’t even have a good conclusion for this post. I’m exhausted.
