Do You Look in the Mirror?

August 07, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Clothes, Food

I’ve been eliminating a lot of clothes from my wardrobe based on how they fit. If pants or shorts fall down and a belt is not an option, I simply can’t wear them. With my weight consistently going down, this has been the case with a number of items. But then there are the things I’m eliminating based on how they look: my black camis, my J. Crew 3X T-shirts, a Hanes V-neck tee. Today I looked in the mirror and realized that my linen pants look huge and really don’t fit right anymore. And that’s where I decided to draw the line.

These pants are still hanging on comfortably in the waist, they’re roomy and airy, I love the fabric, and they’re perfect in this heat. I also love the wide-leg style and the muted color. I like that they go well with both sneakers and boots. But the real clincher is how they feel. In terms of tactile pleasure, these pants just feel so good. The fabric weight and texture, the roomy and billowy quality to them- that’s way more important to me than how they look in the mirror. So now that I’m in this in-between phase with my weight- not at the point where I fit into the majority of my clothes (that’s still 20 pounds and at least 4 months away) but not at the point where my bigger items fit either- I’m trying to just make do with whatever works best regardless of how it looks in the mirror. This all makes me question- should I even be looking in the mirror in the first place?

When I look in the mirror, I tend to be self-critical. First I look at myself from the front. At best I give myself a nod of approval- nothing looks too tight, I like the drape of things, and I find my outfit “flattering.” But then I turn to the side, like in a mug shot, and the criticism begins. “I look like a mountain” is my usual thought. My stomach sticks out, my neck and chin look pudgy and thick. And then I throw up my hands and resign myself to the idea that “I’m just fat” and start in with some negative self-talk. The crazy thing is that this criticism doesn’t stop at any certain weight. It certainly hasn’t reduced as my weight has over the past several months. Even when I was at my thinnest I remember how I would judge my flabby belly and try to conceal it strategically with clothing. This is clearly a problem that will not go away by simply losing weight. So I wonder about this critical voice when I look in the mirror. I wonder how much of that voice is just my internalized male gaze.

There is a theory that as women in this society, we have learned to look at ourselves through the lens of how men see us, through the lens of the male gaze. I suspect that this is what is happening when I judge myself in the mirror. I try to think of ways to get around these thoughts so I can focus on my personal style, so I can just focus on the clothes. But I don’t know if this male gaze is escapable, no matter what our own personal fashion aesthetic happens to be.

There is something about wearing men’s clothes that seems to override this judgemental part of my brain- I love how my men’s pants, boots, and belt look and feel. That says to me that by dressing as a man, I am circumventing the image of myself as a woman and thereby disengaging my own male gaze. And that seems to keep the judgements from persisting. So I love wearing men’s clothes. I feel better about myself when I do. But it’s the height of summer and it’s just more practical to wear lighter clothes, more traditionally feminine clothes. And since I can’t seem to shut off that criticism when I’m in feminine clothes, I’ve made a decision. As someone who loves fashion, who really enjoys the aesthetics of clothing, and who chooses clothing at least partly based on how it looks, I’ve decided that for the time being, I’m not going to worry about what I look like in the mirror.

Because I don’t want to spend my life looking for men’s approval, trying to look like someone men want to have sex with. That’s just not what I’m going for. I’m trying to develop my own style, to home in on what I authentically like to see in the mirror. I’m trying to dress for myself and not for other people. I like to think that dressing for myself can include enjoying the appearance of clothing. But it’s hard to tell when the male gaze is having a say- especially because its voice can sound like your own.

I saw a YouTube video the other day that suggested various “styling tricks” to make you look more fashionable or “chic” (cuffing your jeans, wearing a belt, tucking your shirt in in the front, wearing jewelry). I looked at the Before and After shots of the outfits and strongly identified with the Before. Basic shirt and pants, shirt not tucked in, no jewelry, no shape. And I wondered if these “tricks” could help me look better. But then I wondered what exactly “better” meant. Does it mean I conform more to what my authentic, personal aesthetic is? Or does it mean looking like someone men want to have sex with? Or does it mean looking like a woman on Instagram who wants to look like someone men want to have sex with?

It’s hard to deconstruct these things. Aesthetically, I preferred the shirt tucked in in front. I’m pretty sure that’s in line with my own personal opinion. When I wear my men’s pants with a belt and I tuck my shirt in in the front, I like how I look a little bit more. It doesn’t feel like I’m succumbing to the patriarchy. But what about jewelry? Does wearing jewelry make me more attractive to men? Perhaps. But what matters is taking that out of the equation and figuring out how I think it looks. How it looks in my own mind, in my own little world of style that has nothing to do with gaining mainstream approval or attracting men. In my own little world, I love my linen pants even if they’re not very “flattering.” I still love my J. Crew T-shirts because they’re soft and comfortable and lightweight, even though they’re not my size. I love the drape of my black camis and the way they feel against my skin even if they’re too big. None of these things would make it into the After category of a styling video, but I’ll wear them all the same (okay, maybe not the camis- I don’t want to flash anyone). And I’ll consider this time, this in-between-sizes time, as an opportunity to let myself go. To explore how I want clothes to feel and let go of how they look. Because I think how things feel is often overlooked in the name of style. I still care about how clothes look- I love fashion and I don’t feel bad about it. But sometimes it’s good to just take a break from the mirror and ask some tough questions. It can’t hurt.

Weight Change Capsule Wardrobe Update

July 24, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Clothes, Food, Minimalism, Capsule Wardrobe

Since coming home from Germany and finding out my current weight, I’ve been reassessing my wardrobe and have decided some things will have to go. My blue men’s pants are officially way too big; even with a belt cinching them in, they look ridiculous. I’ve had a bit of a shift in how I see myself in my grey joggers. I no longer find them flattering, and I think part of the reason could be that they’re too big. Or else it’s because I’m wearing boots a lot and have gotten used to having some volume and weight at my feet and ankles. The way the joggers taper in at the ankle suddenly feels just not right, even when worn with my Adidas sneakers. This whole shift came from seeing myself in joggers in a shop window- I tend not to look at myself in the mirror before I leave the house, so I haven’t had an accurate view of them in a while. There are two pairs of those, so that puts me down 3 pairs of pants. I’m also surrendering my black Ann Taylor trousers that won’t stay up anymore, so it’s a total of 4 pairs altogether.

I still have my wide-leg linen pants, my grey men’s pants (which now require a belt) and two pairs of clearly-too-big black shorts. I’ve been trying to ride out the summer with them because it’s hard to find shorts I like when thrifting and it doesn’t seem worth buying new shorts when they probably won’t fit next year anyway. But then I was feeling desperate with only 2 pairs of pants to wear, one of which doesn’t work so well on hot days. So I broke down today and ordered a pair of linen blend pants from Old Navy. I’m wearing my current linen-blend pants almost every day, definitely favoring them over the shorts, even on the hottest days. I think in general I just like to feel more covered when I’m sweating, like there’s some fabric between me and public seating. So as long as the new pants fit, the shorts will be going soon.

As far as tops, my T-shirts are still going strong with one exception. My light blue DIY-ed Hanes tee is bothering me, and it’s definitely the V-neck. For some reason V-necks look terrible on me, so this purchase was a bit outside the norm. I liked that I found it at the thrift store (sustainability-wise), and then I liked the color of it after I bleached it, but now I can’t unsee the glaring V-neck. In terms of other tops, I put on one of my silky black camisoles today, hoping to wear it out to the cafe. It looked OK at first with a bralette underneath, but after packing my bag and putting sunblock on, the bralette had inched its way down and created a most unflattering “anti-cleavage” look. If the camisole fit me better, I think it would cover my chest enough that this wouldn’t be a problem. But if I’m honest with myself, the camis are officially too big as well. I’m down to 9 T-shirts, one silky blouse, and one striped tunic for tops. My 3 sweaters and 5 layers are all still good; I like oversized things anyway, so none of my jackets bother me, my hoodie and corduroy shirt included.

I’m still wearing the same pajamas and workout clothes, though my T-shirts are getting kind of wide at the neck- it’s only outside or at the gym that I notice it, so no one cares, myself included. I did pull out from storage a couple of sports bras that just about fit now, so that helps in terms of laundry going from 2 to 4 sports bras. And I find myself reaching for the black cotton underwear from storage (which got pulled out during the lost luggage crisis) over my old microfiber briefs. I only have 6 pairs of the cotton ones, so I’ll have to hang onto some old ones for backup- probably the 3 black ones. One advantage of the cotton underwear is that it’s not high-waisted, so it eliminates the sliding issue I was having with my Under Armour leggings. The leggings were falling down with the high-waisted, slippery, microfiber underwear underneath, but now they’re fine.

But as far as my capsule, I’m down to 23 items for the year. This is certainly no emergency for me- I have plenty of tops and just enough bottoms to get by (the two pairs of shorts soon to be replaced by the linen-blend pants). I’m just disappointed I won’t have my camisoles for the summer, and sad to let go of the pivotal blue men’s pants. They really changed my view of myself and my style and that was a significant moment. They inspired the purchase of boots and Adidas sneakers and a men’s leather belt, not to mention my current grey men’s pants. I’m starting to wonder how far this shift in style will go. I’m not looking to switch over to completely wearing men’s clothing. I still like certain women’s styles, especially in tops and jackets, because they fit me better. I’ve never found button-down Oxford shirts or men’s tees flattering on me, so I don’t see those coming into the mix. But I would like to explore more interesting shapes in women’s clothing- more modern, minimal pieces that don’t look traditionally feminine or masculine. Something different.

11 Pounds Down, Hard To Get Up

July 23, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Mental Illness, Food

I saw my psychiatrist yesterday and got weighed in. I lost exactly 11 pounds over the course of the last 9 weeks. Last time I was 192.6 and this time I was 181.6. But it didn’t thrill me. I’ve been wanting so much to lose weight, wanting it to go faster and focusing so much on my size. But here’s this good news in that department, and I basically feel the same. I’m glad it wasn’t bad news; I’m not disappointed. But losing weight isn’t really making me happy. Now in theory, I could have told you a long time ago that that would be the case. If I’ve learned anything from Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach, it’s that losing weight doesn’t make you happy in the end. Most people gain it back. They have a fantasy that weight is their only problem, and if they could just lose it, everything would be OK. But in order to maintain this fantasy, you have to keep gaining the weight back. If you stay thin, you have to actually deal with your life.

So I’m trying to focus more on my real problems, but that’s not something I really want to do. I feel stuck in my recovery from my mental illness. I feel like I’m in the same place I was in for years- generally depressed with occasional bouts of rage or anxiety. The really bad stuff from last year when I was off my meds completely has gone away, and for the most part so have the suicidal thoughts. But instead of raging and throwing things and planning my imminent death, now I’m “just” depressed. I feel generally unmotivated, I find it hard to get out of bed, I absolutely despise the gym, and washing my hair is a big deal. I relayed all of this to my doctor and was met with basically a blank stare. In his mind, I’m sure, I’m still improving, still doing a little more each time I see him, and I guess to some extent that’s true. I went to a meditation class this week as well as two OA meetings. I had a grueling 3-hour dental procedure and an appointment with a genetic counselor screening for cancer risk. That appointment was all good news, but the dentist was a nightmare. I’m scheduled for gum surgery and then for a new permanent crown. I’m trying not to disturb the temporary crown and still eat, but it’s not an easy feat. I’m having more smoothies and blended soups than I’d like to. I succumb to the urge to just eat frozen yogurt for lunch more often than is probably healthy. So it’s been two steps forward, two steps back for the most part.

But my overall sense is that I’m stuck in this general depression, hopelessness, and negativity. I have a fantasy that I can solve all of this by starting a meditation practice and doing lots of yoga. This fantasy was even encouraged by my psychiatrist. But I’ve been down this rabbit hole before. I simmered with rage as he explained how to meditate, something I’ve done for years at a stretch and for which I require no instruction. I’ve done yoga for many years as well, and never has either practice put a dent in my mental illness. But I have this little glimmer of hope now that maybe it’ll be different now that I’m medicated. Maybe my meds give me enough of a boost to actually benefit from meditation and yoga. I think an experiment is in order. God knows I’ve experimented with enough drug combinations over the years. I think I could handle a daily meditation for a month to see if it helps.

I picked up a flyer for one of those 3-weeks-for-$30 yoga deals (I used to rotate around NY on those deals, trying all the studios for the trial period since I couldn’t actually afford to pay for class). For this one you get unlimited classes for the 3 weeks, which sounds promising. But I’m still so self-conscious about my weight that I don’t know if I could handle the scrutiny of a yoga teacher or other yoga students. Maybe I should just start with meditation.

The meditation class I attended was pretty stupid- it was a 90 minute session and we only actually meditated for a total of 27 minutes. The rest of the time was this rando white guy talking real low into a microphone trying to explain “Buddha nature,” pandering to the typical 9-5 office worker with kids and a full social life. Since I relate to none of those things, and because he didn’t have any brilliant insight into the subject at hand, I was bored out of my mind, watching the clock and hoping we’d just meditate already.

My psychiatrist suggested just doing it on my own, which sounds a lot better than all that bullshit. It’s just so hard to self-motivate. Having a time and place and people around to help you motivate really helps. But I do have a little stool in the corner in my closet for this very purpose. I just usually err on the side of lying on the bed and ruminating about the wreckage that is my life. Maybe scheduling a specific time for it would help? Well, it’s all I’ve got to work with for now. The only medication change I have to report is to take out the Metformin (a blood-sugar regulating drug). Matt read an article about how it might be holding me back with exercise endurance-wise. Since I’ve lost over 40 pounds now, taking it out couldn’t do any harm, so my doctor agreed to it. Maybe this will make exercise less tortuous? We’ll see.

Trying to Stay On My Diet with a Six Hour Time Change

July 16, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food, Mental Illness

Let’s just say right now that this was not exemplary eating behavior. This time-change meant my day was six hours longer than a normal one. Plus I was downing breakfast at 8am in Berlin, which is about five hours earlier than I was normally eating breakfast anyway. I’d like to thank motion sickness for getting me through the tough parts. Really came through for me there. And I’d like to thank my husband for sacrificing his 100-calorie bag of Cheez-Its to the cause. Because I made it: I stayed under 2,000 calories which is my absolute daily limit- coming in at 1,910 for the day, including my nighttime snack with my Latuda.

Let’s go through the exciting play-by-play. 7am: Wake up. 8am: Matt goes to the supermarket across the street from the hotel and scores me a big yogurt and a bag of fresh cherries. I eat these with in-room espressos (yes, with creamer and sugar) for a total of 400 calories. A thoroughly nauseating cab ride to the airport ensued, Matt actually having to yell at the driver in German that we wanted to go to the airport, not the police station. Thank you, Rosetta Stone for that. Once camped out at the not-so-glamorous bus station of an airport that is Berlin-Tegel Airport, I drank a large bottle of Coke Zero. If this day had a sponsor, it would be Coke Zero. Some time passed and I thought I might pass out from sheer exhaustion. I got a soy latte, approximately 90 calories. Not much help for the exhaustion, but it did extend the car-sick feeling all the way to Amsterdam, where we connected flights. There may have been an in-flight Coke Zero there; I blacked out on how many I actually drank, partly to help with the nausea, and partly to stave off hunger. We power-walked, well almost flat out ran, to our gate and settled in for a 7-8 hour flight on Delta. I was confused by the pre-packaged pillows and blankets at 2:30 in the afternoon, but I understood once we hit the 4-hour mark and I tried sleeping on my tray-table. Food-wise, there were about six Coke Zeroes (come on, they’re tiny cups) and a cup of coffee (also tiny) with creamer and sugar (30 calories). But the real excitement was when they handed out a little card with a list of scheduled food service and different menu options. No prices on it- so I searched on the little TV for food prices, but nothing. My heart fluttered- was this food FREE? The last time I ate on a plane, I think I paid about $18 for a box of cheese and crackers, so this was truly shocking. And yes, it was free. It was.

First came a round of drinks (Coke Zero) and the 100-calorie Cheez-Its. I ate Matt’s bag too, so 200 calories there. And then they came around later with warm towels (okay, paper ones, but STILL). The first meal (yes, there were two) had a Caesar salad on the menu, so I got that, but there really wasn’t much lettuce involved, just croutons and a hunk of chicken. I ate the chicken with a packet of salt sprinkled on it, and a pretzel-roll that had the calories stamped on the wrapper. 200 more calories there. I turned down the wilting fruit salad, the cheesecake-cup dessert, the cheese and crackers, the sad lettuce and dressing, the croutons. I had a Coke Zero to make up for it. A little while later I caved and ate a protein “raw bar” Matt had in his jacket (200 calories). I was up to 1,120 calories and it was only 11am in our new time zone. The second meal I had to forego altogether- it was a choice of pizza or a ham and cheese croissant, both colossal in terms of calories, plus they came with a fancy chocolate ice cream bar on a stick. At this point, I was feeling deprived, so I recruited my husband to try and score me an extra pack of Cheez-Its, but the evil flight attendant claimed she didn’t have any more (obvious bullshit to avoid a tidal wave of Cheez-It requests from surrounding passengers). I had a Coke Zero.

After the devastation of turning away free pizza and ice cream, I decided to just go to sleep. That would pass the time and keep me sated. But it didn’t work. I watched two movies on the little TV- Bohemian Rhapsody and Colette. We finally started our descent (Coke Zero) and I focused on the nausea again. We deplaned, went through customs, and waited for our luggage to never appear. We stood in line to tell them it never appeared. And as we were about to board a bus to the train station, I insisted on buying something salty and greasy to help with the nausea (I don’t know why this works for me, but it does). I ate a bag of Lay’s potato chips from the news shop while sitting on the bus: 390 calories there. Up to 1,510. Bus to train, wait for train (bottle of Coke Zero), train to Lyft, Lyft to home. Remove disgusting clothes and shower, settle on painting shorts for attire. Take pills with two more “raw bars” for 400 calories and fall into deep sleep. I did it. 30 hours on 1,910 calories. Wouldn’t advise it. Never want to do it again. But I felt I had to in order to maintain my sense of control over the food issue. I need to stay on my diet for the sake of my mental health right now, so I did it. I did it.

Fat Thoughts: Are They Real?

July 04, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food

I think I’m experiencing some form of body dysmorphia. You see, in my mind, I’ve already lost the weight. In my mind, this whole gaining-100-pounds thing never happened. In my mind, I’m thin, the way I was for many years. This is part of why looking in the mirror can be so traumatic for me. To see my size, the shape of my face, my neck, my belly sticking out- it’s just a shock, really. And once I see it, I look enormous in my mind. I think of myself as looking like a mountain. I reprimand myself for “parading around” like any thin person, walking down the street, wearing my enormous clothes, oblivious to how huge I am. It seems impossible that I was ever any heavier than this, despite the fact that I’ve lost 30 pounds, because I can’t imagine anyone being heavier than I am right now. When I look in the mirror, I think it’s not even possible to be bigger than I am. And it’s occurred to me that neither one of these ideas is true- the thin-in-my-mind and the fat-in-the-mirror. My body, in reality, is somewhere in between. And by flipping from one extreme to the other, I avoid the fact of what my body looks like right now. It’s like I don’t want to see anything until the weight loss is over, and until I’ve reached that magic weight, I’m just going to delude myself with these extreme fantasies. And while I’m tempted to think that of course I’m shocked and horrified when I see myself in the mirror- I’m huge, after all- there is a part of me that knows I’m not the biggest person in the world, and that even if I was, it does not mean that I need to be horrified by what I see.

There is a theory in Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol Munter’s book When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies that says that “feeling fat” or having negative thoughts about our bodies actually has nothing to do with our physical state and everything to do with our emotional or mental state. In the book, they go so far as to say that thinking you’re fat is never about being fat. It’s just a code we use for something else that’s bothering us. To give an example, Jan gets a promotion at work. Suddenly she looks in the mirror and feels fat. Upon reflection, she realizes that she feels “too big” because she has grown professionally into a bigger role, and is not comfortable with the change. The subconscious shame of becoming “too big” disguises itself as a “fat thought” - the thought that she is too fat. Another classic example would be if Sally got dumped. Her partner said she was too needy and that was why they had to break up. Later, Sally “feels fat” and that thinks that she eats too much. Upon reflection, she realizes that she is ashamed of being too needy for her partner, and that the feeling has nothing to do with her body. These are the most basic examples I can think of, but hopefully they get the point across (for a better explanation and more examples, see When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies).

The theory here is that “fat thoughts” are never about being fat. Even if you are fat. Because it is possible to be fat and not think about it, or even to be fat and feel good about the way you look. When we start having fat thoughts, they are triggered by a metaphorical situation in life that has nothing to do with what we look like. For me, this theory rings true. When I start feeling fat, it’s usually related to feeling self-conscious about my mental illness. There are plenty of times when I’m going about my business, exercising, walking to the cafe, eating a meal, when I don’t think about my body, when I feel perfectly fine about people seeing me in public. These are times when I’m “thin” in my mind, or just anonymous, unnoticeable. When I start feeling fat, it is often because I am actually concerned that other people can tell that I am mentally ill. When I space out mid-conversation, or when I start crying in public. In my mind, fat is code for being depressed.

One way to apply this theory to your own fat thoughts is to focus on the words you use to berate yourself when you feel fat. For me, I think I “look like a mountain” and am ashamed for “parading around” as if I were thin. If I focus on the image of a mountain, I think of its immovability, it’s permanence. When I relate these ideas to my emotional life, it makes me think of the immovability and permanence of my mental illness. I am truly upset by the idea that I will never get better, not that I actually look like a mountain. When I think of the words “parading around,” I think of being in public for all to see, acting like someone who isn’t depressed. I think of “passing” as someone who is healthy. Knowing the truth of my condition, I am ashamed for acting like a normal person. Either the behavior is false, or the illness is false- it doesn’t fit. And this thought is encoded as a fat thought.

Even my “thin thoughts” are code for something else. When I imagine myself thin, I imagine myself as mentally healthy. This is a fantasy for me. I still have many days where I’m unable to leave the apartment, stuck in bed with despair and depression. I am not fully recovered, and my thin thoughts are a fantasy that I am.

This way of talking about our bodies instead of our feelings is a socially acceptable way of expressing ourselves. It is easier to say “I feel fat” than “I feel depressed.” But if we believe those fat thoughts, we miss the real problem, and stay focused on our bodies instead. This may seem easier at the time, and difficult to even be aware of, but in the long run we are denying ourselves a real experience of life. We are denying the truth of our situation and our ability to change it.

The Donut Hole

June 27, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Mental Illness, Food

I’ve been thinking about buying a donut. Major decision, I know. But for me, it is. Donuts were the food I gained a lot of weight eating last year. At the worst of my mental illness last summer, in between crying and screaming at people, between going running and lying down seething, I ate a lot of donuts. Sometimes 9-12 a day? Something like that. And they were giant fried crullers with glaze on them, aptly named a “glazed stick” at our Dunkin Donuts. They probably had 4-600 calories each, as they were larger than the standard glazed stick at 370 calories. Multiply that by 12 and you get at least 4,800 calories a day in donuts alone. But let me explain.

Despite my horrific mental state on little to no medication at that time, I was also trying to “legalize” donuts. This is part of the process of overcoming overeating introduced in Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol Munter’s books Overcoming Overeating and When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies. The idea is to eat certain foods freely until they lose their taboo and therefore, attraction. They become like any other food. The legalizing process usually doesn’t take very long- in my twenties, it took less than a year. I went from compulsively bingeing to eating freely and normally. I was thin and could eat whatever I wanted. I’ve been chasing that state ever since, trying to legalize foods and find more effective ways of dealing with my emotions instead of eating. After a certain amount of time (and weight gain), I would get scared, start counting calories, and go back to dieting. This time, I thought, if I could stick it out long enough, it would work for me again. I committed completely to the process, keeping the freezer full of donuts and eating them for almost every meal, waiting for the inevitable day when their allure had run its course. It never did. I was either eating for comfort from my extreme duress or I was ravenous from Seroquel all the time. I couldn’t even find a sense of fullness, never mind satisfaction. I couldn’t relax around food because I couldn’t ever relax at all. I was in the worst way in terms of my (Bipolar II) depression and rage. My husband and my mom were trading shifts babysitting me, all day, every day, always at the ready to take me to the hospital if it came to that. I was wishing for death, fantasizing about suicide constantly as an escape from my unbearable situation (I should have been in the hospital, but I refused to go). It was the first time in 10 years that I’d been unmedicated. And then I was prescribed Seroquel, and gradually worked my way up in dosage. The Seroquel made me tired and hungry, but it did nothing for my agony. My rages settled down, but so did my ability to exercise. It’s difficult to even think about that time. Apparently, it was no time to legalize donuts. It’s better to do that when you’re mentally healthy and can think clearly and take care of your emotional needs.

Since I started counting calories and dieting again, I haven’t even looked at a donut. I eat cookies every night with my Latuda (you need to eat 350 calories with it), but somehow that’s been just fine. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling awfully deprived. I walk down the street in Berlin, seeing people eating whole “personal” pizzas themselves, thin people eating “kuchen” or cake with their coffee, eating ice cream in public- huge, elaborate sundaes made in the shape of a plate of spaghetti or piled high with waffles and sauces (yes, there is something in Germany called “Spaghetti Eis” with vanilla ice cream “pasta”, red raspberry “tomato sauce”, and white chocolate “parmesan” on top). And I’m not eating any of it. It’s too hard to estimate the number of calories in even a bite of cake, so I just don’t eat it. It’s also really difficult to fit cake into your 1,800 calorie allotment for the day.

And so, the donut. Going to the grocery store here is a real trigger for me. There are all kinds of junk foods we don’t have at home. And the last time I was in Germany, I was bingeing on them. At the bakery counter with my husband the other day, he was buying a loaf of bread for himself. I was eyeing all the things I can’t eat. The cheese danish, the “Schwein Ohr” (“pig’s ear”- kind of like a giant Palmier), and especially, the jelly donuts. Strawberry filled, generously glazed perfection. I brought up the idea of having one as my night time snack with my husband. He saw it as a potential Pandora’s Box, something not worth playing with. I argued, claiming it would be easy to estimate the number of calories, since they were comparable to a Krispy Kreme and the calories in those are listed online. And then he reminded me: I have a history with donuts. And it’s not one I’d like to relive. So the donuts are staying behind the case for now, and perhaps forever. I will not fall down the donut hole again.

What Do Minimalists Wear To Go Swimming?

June 22, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Clothes, Food, Mental Illness, Capsule Wardrobe

Maybe they just don’t go swimming? Or maybe they go naked or in their underwear? It’s a mystery to me. Personally, I do own swimwear. I guess I’d consider it a tiny seasonal capsule: a two-piece bathing suit, rash guard shorts and top, and neoprene swim shoes. This little ensemble was acquired last year when my husband and I were attempting to take a mini vacation. My parents have a little cottage in Cape Cod, and we’ve twice now attempted to take some time off there. The first time, we had an Ebay mishap and had to drive home (about an hour and a half) in order to ship a package in time. We returned to the cottage, but threw in the towel (so to speak) after another day or two. At the time I was feeling pretty bad, having akathisia and demanding of my husband a constant card game or round of scrabble. I was incapable of relaxing. Our second attempt was a little better. We did actually make it to the beach two or three times- and once we actually swam.

For this much-planned-for-but-barely-achieved swimming, I wore my bathing suit: pretty standard bikini bottoms with a folder waistband and a fitted camisole top with a flowy crochet overlay, all in navy blue. I also wore the swim shoes (there are lots of rocks and crabs at the Cape). On dry land, I wore the black rash guards over the top, both for modesty and for sun protection. The rash guards consist of a stretchy short-sleeve top, bought in way too large a size so it would be loose, and a pair of fitted mid-thigh shorts. I went through a lot when shopping for these items, ordering different sizes, returning them, finally settling on a suit from Amazon in a 2X. The top fits well and doesn’t ride up or anything, but the bottoms are designed for wider hips than mine. This just means the seat bags out a little bit unless I jack them up really high (not a good look for me). I tried and returned a blouson top and shorts set from Walmart which was really cute, but had a serious foam-cup shelf bra inside it, which I suspected would float even when I didn’t. Originally, I was trying to keep it simple and just go with the rash guards as my bathing suit, but I didn’t want a tight top which would roll up when I moved, and the loose top has the same issues with the foam bra top- it floats. In any case, I’m happy to see that the world of swimwear is finally catching on to the idea that not everyone wants to be wearing what looks like underwear at the beach. There are all kinds of swim shorts, skirts, dresses, and different styles of tops out there to choose from, in many different sizes. Plenty of people, plus-sized and straight-sized alike, love the traditional underwear-type looks and that’s all well and good. But for me, it never felt right. I mean, post-childhood, I wouldn’t even wear shorts until a couple years ago.

I’ve tried, over the past several years, to figure out the swimwear conundrum - how do I look like myself and still get to go swimming? I’ve gone through various styles of suit, some traditional, some less so. My last suit was just a stretchy tank and running shorts (with the little underwear inside) bought in haste from a Target in Virginia, where Matt was working, and where our building had a pool and hot tub. This worked well for that trip, but the chlorine pretty much destroyed the fabrics by the time we left. Before that, there was a black deep V-neck one-piece suit from the Gap. I got it on clearance and wore it in our building’s pool in Palm Beach, again where Matt was working. I never felt like it looked very good, at least not how I’d imagined it would, and so at some point it disappeared. Before that, I do recall a vintage-look suit from TJ Maxx in a deep teal. It had ruching throughout, so it masked my rolls of flesh and made me feel less exposed. That one didn’t hold up to the elements for very long, either, so it, too, disappeared. The last time before that that I remember owning a suit was in college when I cut a lavender leotard in half at the waist and wore that to the beach. And then there were my high school years: my freshman year, my family went to Mexico for a week, and I wore one of my bikinis from my early adolescence. I remember feeling like I was spilling out of it since my weight had increased a bit over the years, and I also remember bingeing on candy bars from the hotel gift shop alone in our room while everyone else was at the beach. The bikini was one of a couple suits that I wore when I was 10-12 years old. I’d lost a significant amount of weight since my chubby childhood, starting to diet and count calories when I was 9. Wearing a bikini seemed like a natural benefit to being thin. It never occurred to me that I might not want to show so much skin. So I acted like the people in the Dexatrim and Slim-fast ads on TV- I lost the weight and stripped down to my underwear. Wasn’t that the whole idea?

I’ve promised myself that I won’t do that again. I won’t expose myself simply because I’m thin. I truly believe that part of the impetus for my weight gain has been my subconscious’s attempt to protect me from all that: If I stay fat, then no one gets to look at me in my underwear. But now being fat and exposing your body aren’t mutually exclusive. Plenty of people love the more body-positive movement in swimwear, lingerie, and sexy clothes. But I’ve realized that fat or thin, I just like to be covered. I don’t like to be objectified or on display for everyone to see. Sure, I have bathing suit fantasies of being thin and on some tropical beach somewhere, but in reality, I need to feel clothed in order to feel like a person.

Travel Workout Routine and Jewelry

June 20, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food, Clothes, Minimalism, Capsule Wardrobe

It’s astonishing to me that despite my recent travels, I have yet to default on my workout routine. That said, not having access to a gym makes things a little different. Strength training happens inside our own apartment in what little floor space we have. We have two alternating workouts, which we do every other day, if that makes any sense. So, for instance, one week we do chest twice and back once, and the next week we do back twice and chest once, with cardio days in between. So we’ve kept the same routine here in Germany, but we’ve had to change the specific exercises. Chest day is simply push-ups (on my knees) and then squats. Back day is bicep curls with water bottles in a backpack, then squats, then “Superman holds.” That’s what I call the move where you get on your hands and knees and extend your left arm and right leg for 20 seconds, then switch sides and do the same. We still do 3 sets of everything, just like at the gym. After these mini strength workouts, we walk uphill in the park across the street. It just happens to have an upward climb that ends at a monument with lots of steps at the top. If we wander around a bit, it takes about the full required 10 minutes. Alternate days are simpler: We walk at the park for 5 minutes, run for 5 minutes, walk for 5, and run for 5 more. The uphill/downhill element changes pretty randomly, but psychologically I’ve accepted that it’s about the same as what I do at home. We’re also walking around a lot every day, so that helps me ignore any discrepancy between the home workout and the travel one.

Walking down the main drag here today, I stopped in a couple of shops with some lovely jewelry. I’m carefully considering whether to buy anything since I’m trying to maintain a pretty minimal jewelry collection. But it’s been my ritual to bring home one piece from each trip to Europe (my peacock earrings from Germany, my bird earrings from Paris) so I am considering it. I packed with me for this trip 4 items from my current collection: blue round glass studs, pink round glass studs, silver bent-wire hoops, and a brown beaded bracelet. I go through phases with jewelry, usually cycling through a few pieces for a few months at a time, and that’s what’s in the current rotation.

My complete collection consists of 27 pieces:

9 Earrings:

Blue glass studs: These were a gift from Matt’s mom, one of those randomly spot-on gifts that ends up becoming a favorite. I liked them so much that I went on Thredup and looked for some like them in another color.

Blush pink round glass studs: I found these on Thredup. I love how subtle they are.

Bent-wire silver hoops: These are from LOFT. I find them much edgier than what you’d expect from LOFT, but you never know where you’ll find things sometimes.

Gold mushroom-cap studs: These are from a beautiful gift shop in Providence called NAVA. I’m not sure they work on me- too yellow, perhaps?

White circle earrings: These are from Old Navy. I bought them when I needed some non-dangly earrings to wear to work at a coffee shop. Apparently the dangles might end up in a latte or something.

Blue dangly beaded earrings: These are from a random trip to Kohl’s with my mom. I’m sure a coupon was involved.

Aged brass painted bird earrings: These are from a Paris vintage shop. I lost one of the original coral beads, so I changed them out for jade green ones I got on Etsy. My husband made me a matching necklace out of the extra beads (see green wedding necklace).

Peacock dangly earrings: These are from our first trip to Germany in 2010. I got them at a fast fashion store called Pimkie.

Rhinestone drop earrings: These were found in the vacant apartment at my brother’s house where the tenant had left behind loads of stuff, including our current sofa and armchair.

5 Necklaces:

Grandma’s medals: These are little Catholic medals my Grandma gave me as a kid, all strung onto a long silver chain. My favorite is the tiny full-color Virgin Mary.

Blue tassel necklace: This was a gift from my mom one recent Christmas. I picked it out and she wrapped it.

Green wedding necklace: These beads were first strung onto a white ribbon, which I wore long at our wedding. Later I was afraid of the ribbon breaking over time, so we got some wire and a closure at a craft store and made a choker.

Tiny star necklace: This was a NYC garment district purchase. There are tons of these cheap jewelry places with loads of beads and things.

Rhinestone antique necklace: This was from Bee-bop-a-lula, the vintage shop of my high school days. I wore it for a number of formal singing occasions, including my senior voice recital.

3 Bracelets:

Brown beaded bracelet and Pink faceted beaded bracelet: These are both from a stack of bracelets that my mom picked out for me one Christmas in college. They created this great boho-style look with some other bracelets that have since departed due to weight gain.

White seed-bead bracelet: This is the one bracelet remaining from a stack my uncle got me for my senior recital. The others were pink and purple, not really my colors.

4 Brooches:

Turtle, Crown, Pointy star, Round star: These antique brooches were my grandmother’s, just some costume jewelry trinkets she gave me to play with when I was little. I love the tiny turtle one, but I wish it still had more of its stones.

6 Miscellaneous:

White stone ring: This was something I got at Forever 21 when I was looking for jewelry to wear with a red dress for my best friend’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid and she was kind enough to give me some red-stoned jewelry to wear, but I still hung on to this ring.

White faux-leather watch: This was from my working days at Brown University when it was just practical. I think it was from Target.

Turquoise clear-lensed glasses: These are definitely from Target, I think when Matt and I were in Miami for his work. I wear them when I need a bit of distance from the world.

Pink sequin clip: This might be called a “fascinator” or just a hair clip, but it has a little alligator clip on it, so I’ve used it to clip scarves as well.

Sunglasses: These were $3 from Job Lot, a ubiquitous discount store only in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. An absolute steal.

Necklace extender: I grabbed this in NY when I was there for a concert. It hadn’t occurred to me that my necklace wouldn’t fit since I’d gained weight, but apparently it has occurred to other people and they’ve solved the problem.

Over the past couple of years, I haven’t even bothered to wear jewelry very much. But much like my high-heel collection, I consider it “aspirational clutter” - things I don’t use now, but hope to as I get better. I have edited it down quite a bit to just my very favorite and very practical things, storing sentimental items away with mementos. It’s funny, a lot of times when I was getting dressed for a psychiatrist’s appointment, I might think to put earrings on, and then quickly change my mind. I’d think how doctors might look for clues like “patient is wearing jewelry” as evidence that you’re doing better. And I didn’t want to give anyone the impression that I was doing better than I really was. And so I wore jewelry just about never, almost as a protective measure. But maybe there’s a way to think of it as more protective to wear the jewelry than not. I’m thinking of those with punk or gothic inclinations who wear jewelry as a rejection of the mainstream, not as submission to it. Basically, I’d like to wear it on my own terms, not just in a traditionally feminine way.

How I Gained the First 30 Pounds

June 09, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food, Mental Illness

This isn’t your typical story of weight gain. I wasn’t falling off the wagon of a diet and just eating more. I didn’t stop exercising, keeping up with running consistently from 160 pounds to 190 pounds. It all started when I was in Germany last time, about a year and a half ago. At the time, I was taking Adderall- not a common drug for symptoms of bipolar depression- but it was working well for a number of months. At some point around the time of our trip, the Adderall stopped working. No longer was I waking up early to beat the crowd at thrift stores and spending hours on my feet. Exercising got a lot harder, and I just couldn’t motivate to do any Ebay listings, despite the huge stash of photos I had at the ready. Aside from the decline in energy from the Adderall, I was all of a sudden in a foreign country with none of the same foods and with frequent holidays where all of the shops would close for days. And as my diet started to unravel, I decided to deal with it in the best way I knew how: to eat whatever I wanted.

This will sound crazy to most people, but I swear this method has worked miracles for me in the past. At the end of high school all the way through college and into my twenties, I followed an anti-diet program that I still swear by for curing compulsive overeating. Two female psychologists in New York City wrote books on the program in the eighties and nineties, and there are still monthly workshops in one of the authors’ offices. The basic idea, which is difficult to explain in a sentence or two, is that when foods are no longer forbidden, when you stop dieting, when you eat according to your hunger, your body achieves its natural weight. It may sound like a fantasy to eat whatever you want and be thin, but this method gave me just that when I was younger. Dealing with compulsive eating since childhood, I was able to learn the difference between stomach hunger (physical hunger) and mouth hunger (emotional hunger). I learned to take better care of myself emotionally, and slowly my mouth hunger decreased. And then once I was eating mostly from stomach hunger, my weight went down and stabilized. I enjoyed any and every kind of food that popped into my head when I asked myself, ”What am I hungry for?” And I enjoyed a low, stable weight without dieting or intense exercising. The brilliant feminist theory behind these books is absolutely mind-blowing. They are: Overcoming Overeating and When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Carol Munter and Jane R. Hirschmann. (Ms. Munter still runs the monthly workshop in NYC, as well as an annual conference.) Both books draw from the classic Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach which was first published in the seventies. I am a true believer in this method despite my current circumstances and would defend it regardless. But when I tried to implement it that day in Germany, I did not get what I expected. Initially with this method, you binge. This usually lasts a matter of weeks or months until you’ve rebelled against dieting enough. Then food is no longer taboo, you start to get a handle on the emotional self-care component, and your weight drops down to rest at its natural level.

So I started out bingeing and waited for it to taper off. Having done this before, I knew about all the little psychological traps that can keep the process from happening. I persisted. I surrounded myself with an abundance of food, I listened to my emotional needs, and I fed myself according to my hunger. But this time, it wasn’t working, at least not as quickly as I’d expected. I was going through true agony with my mental illness since the Adderall had stopped working. I sobbed every day, my husband gave me intense foot massages every night, and I found it unbearable to be seen in public. I forced myself to go running in the cold, but aside from that, I was in a downward spiral. A plummet is more like it. I couldn’t go see my doctor, and my mood continued to decline until I decided to go home to the States several weeks early. Throughout this time, I was still trying to “legalize” food and stop dieting. I believed wholly in this method and could not accept that it wasn’t working for me at the time. But my emotional needs were a bottomless pit due to my mental illness. And so no amount of bingeing got it out of my system. I steadily gained weight throughout the month-long trip, the months following at home, and then ultimately when I started taking Seroquel. I’ve often referred to my weight gain from Seroquel here on this blog, but that was only the last 30 pounds. I was already up to 190 when I started on it. And I attribute that weight to my insatiable need for comfort. I could not comfort myself emotionally; I could not talk to myself in a kind or compassionate way. And so I could not remove the need to overeat in the middle of my violent depression. And that’s where those first 30 pounds came from. From trying and failing at a brilliant anti-dieting method, because I could not get a handle on the emotional component. I truly believe that if I were not suffering so deeply and chemically, the food would have worked out fine. But I was a black hole, both emotionally and physically.

The only other example of this type of failure that I can compare it to would be my failure with meditation. In the throes of my worst symptoms, akathisia particularly, meditation was a nightmare. It only made me more acutely aware of how horrible I felt, and did nothing to help it. Lots of experts prescribe meditation for any and every ailment, from general stress to back pain, but I don’t feel mental illness should always be one of them. At certain times meditation has only increased my symptoms and my suffering. And so I put this anti-dieting method in the same category with meditation: brilliant and life-changing for the average mentally healthy person, but not necessarily good for those with severe mental illness.

Crying at the Psychiatrist, and Bras and Underwear

May 21, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food, Mental Illness, Clothes, Minimalism, Capsule Wardrobe

I had my psychiatrist's appointment yesterday and it went unexpectedly downhill. I should have been glad to hear that I lost 5.4 pounds, down from 198 to 192.6. I still cried and felt it wasn't enough. My doctor asked me why I felt like the weight loss wasn't working, and I said that I guess it's because it's so goddamn slow. I told him how I never miss a workout, I never eat above 1800 calories a day, how hard it is, and how seemingly slow the results are. He said that from his perspective, 30 pounds in 7 months was better than most people do. And the fact that I'm doing the exercise and diet (despite how hard they are) sounds positive to him. Then I cried about the afternoons I spend lying in the dark, ruminating on how I've screwed up my life. I cried about how hard it is to take a shower, to brush my teeth. He questioned whether the afternoon mood seems like a time-of-day problem or a circumstantial issue when I'm left alone without a car and without the motivation to do anything. Since Matt and I have tried going to cafes in the afternoon and had a fine time, I told him I don't think it's a time-of-day problem. It's because aside from Matt, my life is garbage. I have nothing to show for 20 years of my life in the arts, and now I'm having to start over at 40 (almost 41) years old. He looked blankly back at me. He seemed genuinely confused as to why I was so upset. We'd just told him how we are going to Berlin for the month of June, partly for Matt's work, and partly just to get out of Dodge. He must have thought I should be happy and looking forward to the trip. He must have thought how I should appreciate the fact that I'm on disability and can leave the country at the drop of a hat. But I don't feel lucky. Everything feels like too little, and that I'm too late to do anything of significance with my life. 41 years old and starting a blog? It's 2019 and everyone else has been doing this for more than a decade. And how will I get anyone to read it anyway? I've shunned social media for so long that I don't know how to even approach getting back into it. My Facebook account hasn't been touched in about 10 years, mostly out of shame. It still has photos from 10 years ago, when I lived in New York and was at my thinnest. I was actively doing plays and auditioning and had friends. So I left my profile frozen in that time. I've had the thought that maybe it's time for me to "come out" on Facebook as fat, and as mentally ill. My husband has told me about friends of ours coming out as gay on Facebook, even an acquaintance who transitioned genders. They are not ashamed of these changes, and yet I'm ashamed of my weight gain and my mental illness. I guess it's a different (though obviously no more difficult) type of stigma around my issues. No one congratulates you or posts "Good for you!" when you announce a hundred pound weight gain. And while there may be an occasional shout-out to a suicide hotline when a celebrity dies from suicide, there's just not the same passion involved when it comes to chronic, treatment-resistant depression. But still, I just might take a stand on my own behalf and challenge my "friends" to accept me as I am.

Now while we're getting personal, here is the current state of my bras and underwear (20 items in all):

8 Bras:

2 Low-impact white (sort of graying) sports bras. I got these in the garment district in NYC. I have no idea of the brand or origin of these, though I've had them for at least 12 years now.

4 Lace-back bralettes by Marilyn Monroe Intimates, one black, one navy, one pale pink, and one rosy pink. I found a 2-pack at Marshalls and stalked down two more packs in my size at a different Marshalls. I did a bit of an illegal switcheroo and re-tagged the garish fluorescent pink ones and returned them. These are super comfortable and look fine even when you can see them under a top. The lace even covers an itchy tag on one of my sweaters.

2 Foam-cup, proper bras, one nude, one black. The brand is Vanity Fair, specifically the “Beauty Back” bra. I rarely wear these lately, but they're good for times when I want to look put together. Because they're a larger size, the band is nice and wide and has 3 hooks instead of the standard 2 you get in smaller sizes.

9 Underwear:

9 pairs of Ellen Tracy microfiber briefs in mauve/beige/black, all bought at Marshalls or TJ Maxx.

3 Other items:

1 Maidenform shapewear bodysuit. This can feel like body armor when you need it- sometimes I just feel too vulnerable having other people see my wobbly fat rolls through my clothes.

1 Cotton Kimono Robe. This was stolen from my husband- his parents got it for him in San Francisco. I adore it, though one sleeve is ripped and needs repair.

1 Lands' End white terry-cloth robe in XL. A classic right out of the shower, or great as an added layer of warmth on cold mornings.

I do have other undergarments in storage, though nothing that fits right now. I still have yet to lose enough weight to downsize in the underwear department. When that time comes, I have some new-in-plastic underwear that I bought online with a bit too much optimism. At one point at my higher weight, I tried to find cotton underwear instead of microfiber or polyester. It was just about impossible to find what I wanted in plus sizes- hence the still-in-plastic Warner “no-muffin-top” cotton underwear waiting for their turn in the wardrobe. I also have 12 pairs of Warner “no-muffin-top” microfiber underwear in a smaller size, and two Beauty Back bras in a smaller size. I'm chomping at the bit to get back into my smaller things. It's just so hard to wait.

Why Do I Write About My Weight When It's None of Your Business?

May 19, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food, Mental Illness

I found myself asking this question when I remembered an incident at a party a couple years ago. I had lost a significant amount of weight, partly due to my new-at-the-time medication, Adderall. I was also restricting my calories and running at the time, so the weight loss was pretty dramatic. But at this party, someone I barely know was very excited and enthusiastic about my weight loss. She kept saying, "You did it!" And "How do you feel?" And "You look great!" I mumbled something about it being the result of my medication change and tried to leave it at that. But she kept pushing, repeating herself and goading me for some kind of excited response like, "Thank you!" And "Yes, I feel great that I did it- and you know, the secret is to just never eat cheese!" She just wasn't getting it. I thought my body was none of her business and found her quite presumptuous and rude. I finally muttered, "Thanks," and walked away. I was so uncomfortable and offended by this person's interest in my body- my private, self-contained body- that I had to leave the room. In another room, I fumbled around looking for a beverage, making sure not to drink grapefruit with my meds, when I had another unwelcome encounter. A woman across the room who I don't know very well caught my eye and mouthed, "You look beautiful." I mouthed, "Thanks" and looked away. It was at this point that I knew I had to get out of there. I gave my husband the eye and we left. He was just as horrified as I was by the events of the party. I know comments like that are socially acceptable and people expect you to act grateful for their compliments and congratulations, but you just end up feeling horrible on the receiving end. Even if consciously you enjoy it, on some level, there's a retort at the back of your mind- "What, did I look so bad before?" Or simply "Mind your own business about what's happening to my body." It's just such an invasion of privacy to be called out like that, and it makes me so self-conscious that all I want to do is eat and go back to hiding behind my fat. And if I feel so strongly about this, you may be wondering why on earth I share the details of my weight changes online? Isn't that just inviting some kind of unwelcome response? And my answer is simply- I hope not.

I hope that I have better reasons for revealing these private details about myself than just fishing for compliments or encouragement. I imagine that there are like-minded people out there who can relate to what I'm going through and are relieved to hear that they're not alone. To hear that there are other women who are conflicted about weight loss. I may be actively trying to lose weight, but I'm not saying it's noble and I'm not saying it's easy. There's nothing wrong with being the exact weight that you are right now. Being heavy or fat or "overweight" or whatever you want to call it does not indicate any flaw in character. It doesn't even indicate that you eat too much; our genetics dictate so much about our physical appearance that we really can't make those kind of assumptions. And even if someone's weight is the result of overeating or under-exercising or medication side effects or any other reason, there's still nothing wrong with being "overweight." But I talk about my weight loss because it's part of what I'm going through, the same way I talk about my struggles with mental illness. For me, it's also related to my mental illness: one of my motives for losing weight is to avoid exacerbating suicidal thinking and any other symptoms a higher weight triggers in me. I exercise not just for vanity, but because it's been reported to help with the symptoms of many mental illnesses. If it were not for these reasons, I might not even pursue such a goal. But I want to say that there is also nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight either. I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not feminist enough just because I'm losing weight. I'm a feminist, and I believe that my body is my business, and I decide how much or how little I want to eat and exercise. And the results of that are my business, not that of any passers-by who want to chime in. I don't even see it as the business of my husband or my family. No one is allowed to get excited for me when I lose weight, no one is allowed to judge me when I gain weight, and no one is allowed to keep tabs on my behavior or my body. And I hope these opinions come across in this blog. I want to lose weight for my own personal reasons, many of which I choose to share. At the risk of eliciting the wrong kind of attention, I want to share these things so other people might not feel so alone. This is the reason I share what I do with regard to my mental illness, my wardrobe, and my weight. Most weight loss-related messages out there are pretty one-note: Weight loss good, weight gain bad. I want to say more than that, because we are people, not just eating and exercising robots. I want to say that it's OK to do whatever is right for you and not listen to what anyone else has to say about it. And if getting that across means exposing myself to commentary, so be it. It's my choice to write about it, not yours.

Smaller Clothes and Warm Weather Dressing

April 29, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Clothes, Food

I've come to a bit of a crossroads with my wardrobe. I think I'm finally at the point where I need to start swapping out my current clothes for the smaller ones I have in storage. I was wearing a pair of cotton poplin pajama shorts the other night; they have an elastic waist as well as a ribbon drawstring. The elastic is way too big on me, so they were being held up by cinching the ribbon in really tight. But ribbon is slippery, so they kept coming undone and falling down to my husband's great entertainment. So with great trepidation, I dug into my bottom dresser drawer that is currently used for storage, and pulled out three pairs of smaller pajama shorts. I tried a pair on and they fit, but I haven't actually worn them yet. I'm very hesitant to start pulling out smaller clothes- what if they're still too small? I don't want to jump the gun and then be disappointed. But I tried wearing a pair of blue skinny jeans the other day and as I moved around, they, too, fell down comically. And then I noticed my navy J. Crew T-shirts were looking a little big in the bust and the armholes were a bit revealing. I had been drip-drying them after washing them in cold, but since this development I decided to take the risk and throw them in the dryer on low to shrink them up a bit. That worked out fine- I don't see a huge difference, plus it makes laundry easier. And today when I put on my Vince grey cashmere sweater, I looked in the mirror and was surprised to see that it hung pretty much straight down in front, unobstructed by my belly. I've already downsized in the bra department; I started wearing some bralettes that were too small a few months ago. And my sports bras have switched out from two white low-impact ones to two black high-impact ones. Since I've started running intermittently, I needed the support, and since the weight loss, they do fit now. All of these little adjustments have snuck up on me. Until now, I haven't admitted that my clothes are getting to be too big for me. But I guess that time has come where I need to reach into the recesses of my storage bins and see what's what. I keep trying to remember what I was wearing before I sized up to my current clothes. I know the grey Gap joggers were in there- I remember them being too big when I first got them and having to cinch in the drawstring. But aside from that, I don't remember much. Some T-shirts probably stayed the same, along with my silky oversized blouse and striped top. But what was I doing for pants? And at what point did those old pajama pants fit? And why don't I have any summer shorts in between my current ones and the smallest? Maybe I didn't need warm-weather clothing at this weight. But yes, I did- my current shorts are what I wore last spring at 197 pounds (I'm around 198 now). It's weird to think that a year later, I'm right back down to the same weight. And two years ago I was actually down to 152 at some point. That's a lot of weight to be gaining and losing. Clearly I need to bite the bullet and take a full inventory of my storage. Especially now that the weather is (annoyingly) getting warmer and sunnier.

Dressing for summer at this weight is certainly no great joy for me. Wearing a regular underwire, foam-cup bra is just asking for a rash, so that's where the bralettes have come into play. They have a T-back with lace running down the back, so they look fine even when you can see them. I remember finding a two-pack at Marshalls and going on a "quest" for more. It was a success, but I didn't like the color combinations in the two-packs. So I used my tagging gun (so worth the $9 investment) to put the two offending colors back on the hanger and returned them. I am truly shameless, but I am happily left with four colors I like: black, navy, pale pink, and a rosy pink. Those two white sports bras are good for wearing under T-shirts in hot weather, too. But aside from the bra issue, there is still plenty of chafing to look forward to. I bought some rose-scented talc-free powder on Amazon last year that worked well for between my thighs and under my bralettes. For exercise, I always stuck with my leggings as opposed to shorts for any outdoor running or walking no matter how hot it got. Which means that those leggings in my bottom drawer might actually fit me now, so I could get rid of my current workout pants which are almost completely worn through in the crotch (sorry, there's a lot of TMI in this post). But I still feel great trepidation in making these changes. Is it just the fear of finding out I'm not as thin as I think? Or is it really the fear of gaining the weight back and not having any clothes? I had planned on selling my too-big clothes on Ebay, but maybe I'll hold off for a while until I feel more confident in my new weight. And a lot of my clothes can stay the same- I like oversized things anyway, so plenty of my tops will still work just fine. But today just might be the day for finding out what's what: for trying everything on that I think might fit and facing the mirror. Hopefully my head isn't too far ahead of my body and I won't be too disappointed.

I Found the Sneakers, and the Fat-Thin Fantasy

April 24, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Clothes, Food

I found the sneakers. They have black stripes, not silver, but they are super comfortable and exactly the look I was going for. My mom and I went on one of our famous "quests," hitting up a TJ Maxx in another town in search of the shoes. And like so many times before, we were successful. Until we started to drive out of the parking lot and realized we had a completely flat tire. My father was called, yet proved useless in this situation, claiming he hadn't changed a tire in 20 years. So we call Triple A and walked over to a nearby Starbucks to wait. They arrived much more quickly than we'd expected, so I had to chase after my mom who had broken into a run back to the car, coffee in hand. When I relayed the conversation with my dad to the extremely nice mechanic, he told me to tell my dad that "the same rules still apply" from 20 years ago. Once we had the spare on and got in the car, my mom immediately asked if we should continue on to another TJ Maxx to look for a silver-striped pair of sneakers. When my mom is on a quest, she is unstoppable. I laughed and suggested we head home on the little donut-tire instead, but since then, I can't say the thought of hitting another TJ's hasn't crossed my mind. Frequently. And this is the point where I start to wonder about my mild hoarding tendencies with clothes: my propensity for buying multiples. I rationalize this behavior with my capsule wardrobe mentality: I'm very selective, and I wear clothes more frequently, so I should stock up for when they wear out. To some extent this is extremely practical. I often long for items I've loved that have acquired holes and are beyond repair. You can never find them again- they always change the style or just discontinue them completely and you're left misty-eyed and pining for that perfect T-shirt or pair of shoes. So my secret obsession has set in with these sneakers. I think about them several times a day, arguing the pros and cons in my head. Buying a second pair means I have a backup- and since these are pretty cheaply-made shoes, that seems justified. But oftentimes my tastes change and I'm left with multiples, tags still attached, and end up selling them on Ebay for less than I paid originally. The other consideration is that maybe it's good to leave the possibility for something new to come into my wardrobe. Maybe I'll find something I like even better, and my backups will just be cast aside. I'm really on the fence in this case after my failed attempts at online shoe-shopping. Another factor in all this has often been my fluctuating weight. While less of an issue with shoes, I've often been left with multiples that never got worn because my weight changed dramatically. And when my weight changes, often my style changes too. Historically, when I've gained weight, I've gone for drapier, stomach-camouflaging styles. And when I've lost weight, I've gone for more feminine, tighter-fitting, more objectifying styles. It's strange that no matter how firm my feminist convictions seem to be, when I "pass as thin," I fall into that trap of dressing in more revealing clothing, despite my true preferences. I dress in clothing that is typically pleasing to men, that simultaneously dilutes my personhood. There's an exercise in Overcoming Overeating by Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol Munter where these types of clothing associations are explored. It's called the Fat-Thin Fantasy. First you are to imagine yourself growing larger, very fat, and really try to feel what that would be like. Then imagine where you are- where do you see yourself? What are you doing? What are you wearing? How do people see you, and you them? While at first you may see the situation as obviously negative: dark, baggy clothes, isolating yourself, appearing very serious, etc., you can eventually see positives in the situation. How is this situation serving you? Maybe it allows you some much-needed privacy, some longed-for solitude, some groundedness, some respect from people for your ideas and not your body. Perhaps there are perfectly good reasons for wanting to be fat. And then the exercise asks the reverse: imagine yourself getting very thin, smaller and smaller, until you really feel in your body what that would be like. And at first, all you can see are the positives- getting attention, wearing sexy clothes, being very social, laughing and chatting casually. But eventually, when you look deeper, you can often find negatives to being thin. Perhaps you feel vulnerable, childlike. Perhaps you feel overwhelmed by sexual attention, valued only for what you look like and not for who you are. And you find that thinness is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be. These hidden meanings are significant for me in my struggle with my weight. And when I'm thin, I inevitably find myself tempted to objectify myself, even though that's not what I want. And perhaps I eat more and grow fat in part to prevent this phenomenon. I gain weight to be taken seriously and as an excuse to be anti-social. And so this time around, as I lose weight, I'm trying to promise myself that even when I'm thin, I will maintain my integrity. I will wear men's pants and boots. I will allow myself privacy and solitude. Just because I'll be thin, I won't be required to be sexy or social or even happy. I won't need to be fat to hide. I'll still be a complete person, still be allowed all of my moods and complexities. I'll stay me.

These two books are amazing:

Someone Tried to Take My Boots at Savers

April 13, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food, Clothes, Mental Illness

I'm feeling pretty chuffed after an incident at Savers the other night. I was there with my mom trying on more men's pants, since wearing the same pair every day has gotten a bit impractical. I tried a bunch of pairs on, and at one point left the dressing room in my socks to put some rejects back on the reject rack. My mom was watching the dressing room to be sure no one took it. But there was a man of somewhat small stature wearing construction-type clothing who walked by just then. According to my mom, he did a double take when he saw my boots lying on the floor of the dressing room and picked one up to inspect it. He seemed very excited to have spotted them, possibly especially because they were his size, but I had to disappoint him and explain that they were the shoes I was wearing. I sensed some mild surprise and maybe even a nod of approval at my choice of footwear. And I felt validated in some way, that wearing practical boots of good quality was something I'd done right. I felt almost admired that as a woman, I'd chosen to belong to the "club" of fellow boot-wearers, and therefore deserved as much respect as a man. My shoes are not frivolous or delicate, so I am not frivolous or delicate. And this sums up my entire attraction to the boots in the first place. I sense some respect from other people when I wear men's construction boots. Just in a small way, but every little bit helps. As I recover from my worst symptoms of bipolar depression and re-enter society, a small thing like that does a lot for my self-esteem.

As far as the pants shopping, I selected two pairs to take home with me. One was $3.99, the other $3.49, and both were 30% off for a grand total of $5.24. The first pair is a beige/khaki colored cotton chino from Old Navy. They're really wide-leg, a rare find these days, and have extra deep side pockets. They're only a waist size 40, not my usual 42, but they're so worn and broken-in that they seem to fit just fine. The edges of the pockets and waist are even a little bit frayed, which gives them the feel of an old favorite right from the start. The second pair are a lightweight grey flannel dress pant with a 40" waist and a 30" inseam which is perfect for bunching up a bit at the ankle over my boots. These seemed brand-new, but after washing and drying them, I've determined that they are a bit too small. I'm afraid I was a little optimistic in trying on size 40 pants, and in this case it went awry. I'll keep them in hopes that they'll fit soon if I continue to lose more weight.

I had my psychiatrist's appointment yesterday and learned that I lost 2 point something pounds, so I'm down to around 198. 2 pounds in a month is difficult to appreciate when I've been so diligent, but I guess I have to take into account the fact that I backed off on my exercise progress this month. I've also moved my food around so that I'm eating 350 calories of cookies and almond milk right before bed, which probably isn't helping things. I have to stick with this routine so my meds work properly without causing akathisia, but I do have notions of delaying my eating in the morning so that I can get back on an intermittent fasting schedule. Maybe intermittent fasting was working after all- I'm just having a hard time waiting to drink my coffee with creamer in the morning. Black coffee is an option, but I'd need some time to get used to it. My husband insists the weight loss has just slowed down because I'm "gaining muscle." I can actually see a distinct tricep emerging from my chubby upper arms, so there may be some truth to that theory as well.

I can say that for the first time since I started dieting and exercising, a full 26 pounds into my weight loss, I can finally see a slight difference in my body when I look in the mirror. I truly think that my mind just couldn't get around seeing myself at a weight higher than this. I couldn't recognize myself in the mirror for so long, and tried to avoid mirrors altogether. But just this week, I feel like I'm starting to recognize myself again, and I don't look absolutely shocking. This unfortunately has not improved my overall mood.

I think that since the profound relief of not having "the bad feeling" (akathisia) at night anymore, things feel like they've returned to normal, which for me is fairly depressed. The depression has seemed even worse lately when I'm alone in the house in the afternoon and can't motivate to start a project. I explained this to my psychiatrist, and he suggested I find a way to get out of the house in the afternoons and have some structure, the way I do in the mornings. (Going to a cafe and doing my exercise in the morning and early afternoon has become something of a routine lately, and I feel best while doing those things.) We talked about me going to the library and reading a book about something I'm interested in trying- like improving my website or taking photos. He also recommended taking a class at an adult education center, or something equally low-key. I had actually applied for community college a while back, but the money and commitment seemed too great at the time (and still does). But there are some great adult learning programs at nearby RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) that I started looking into. I could try something fashion-related that doesn't involve drawing or sewing, two things I'm incredibly bad at. There's also a course on website design "without coding" which sound feasible. Or maybe a basic photography course would be good. The classes are only a few weeks at a time, and if it does give me the structure I'm after, it would be a welcome relief.

My doctor is really good in this way- he focuses on whatever my major complaint is and makes suggestions to resolve it. Now that "the bad feeling" (akathisia) is under control, it feels like a step forward to address these moody afternoons usually spent in bed watching YouTube. He says that if structure and getting out of the house doesn't help my mood, then maybe it's a medication issue we can address. It all feels very sane and methodical- my doctor is incapable of rash judgement- and it gives me a sense of slow and steady progress. I'm genuinely excited to try taking a class. I've always been really good at school and think it could help with my self-esteem as well as my mood. My self image has gotten pretty bad over the years. My inability to get better, combined with my constantly shrinking world, really ate away at any innate sense of worth I once had. But these small things could start to build into something, maybe something new.

I'm Too Old for iPhoto and Too Fat for Dressing Rooms

April 07, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food, Clothes

I'm feeling defeated. Not by depression or anxiety or any of the usual culprits. I'm feeling defeated by seemingly simple technology. I've wanted to add photos to my posts ever since the beginning, but I felt too overwhelmed by the features on my new iPhone X to even get started. When I was selling a lot of clothes on Ebay, my husband took all the photos on a DSLR camera we got secondhand. I'd sit at the laptop, telling him when a color or angle needed to be adjusted, and he'd do whatever was necessary to make it happen. At some point more recently, I watched a YouTube video on how to make YouTube videos (I know, it gets kind of meta here), and even took notes. I thought I understood things like F-stop and exposure. But these lessons were just about immediately forgotten. I watched another video on how to use the camera app on an iPhone X. I went through all the different features, taking panoramic shots and making things sepia-toned, but once again, I immediately forgot everything I'd done. I've had longtime aspirations to make YouTube videos about capsule wardrobes or minimalism, but again, I find the technical side of things completely overwhelming. And seeing "the kids" these days casually editing their instagram photos really doesn't make me feel any better about it. I try to keep in mind that kids from this generation have been doing these tricks on their phones, editing videos and putting panda ears on people, ever since they could text with two thumbs (another skill I'll apparently never master). Social media has never interested me since I prefer a more hermit-like existence and getting updates on other people's lives just makes me feel bad. But this photo and video stuff that seems to need no explanation for much of the population is really difficult for me. I dream of being one of those Youtuber/bloggers who edit videos in their pajamas while drinking green smoothies. I've got the pajamas and the smoothies down; it's the technology that's holding me back. I mean, when I was growing up we didn't have cellphones. We didn't even have a mouse when typing on a computer. Printers had paper with holes running down the edges, and I was in my twenties and still using dial-up for the internet (if you don't know what that is, it results in your computer loading websites at a glacial pace, and god-forbid there's a photo to load). So I've decided to cut myself some slack in this department and get help. My husband has graciously agreed to teach me what I need to know in order to at least post some photos of clothing items on my blog. We did a photo shoot where he took the pictures of my capsule wardrobe and he edited them, but now I'm learning to actually photograph and edit things on my own. Patience is key, for both of us. Breaking things down into tiny steps is also key. After just the first lesson, I was reduced to tears, feeling incredibly stupid and old. There were some aborted attempts at taking video a couple of months ago, but I was reduced to tears, not only feeling stupid, but feeling fat and hideous. Seeing myself, my actual physical size and features, not as a passing glance in a mirror, but from all angles and in motion, horrified me. That was at my heaviest, so somewhere around 224 lbs, but I just had no room in my head for what that actually looked like on my body. A certain amount of denial when it comes to my appearance was, I think, necessary to keep from panicking every time I passed a mirror. But the shock of the video image was too real to deny. The only other time I've felt this shock and horror was in the dressing room at Marshall's. I was buying a pair of skinny jeans (size 18W) and a dark green sweater (size 3X) when the reality of my physical situation came into view. There's something about those tiny dressing rooms, the mirrors that are a little too close. Something about bringing more than one size in with you and then immediately realizing the bigger one is the only possible option. I know many women struggle with body dysmorphia, thinking they are bigger than they are. But I seem to have the opposite, as some form of self-preservation. That's why it seems to me like I haven't lost a pound, despite the 20 lb deficit. I thought I was already there. Already here. But progress with anything is slow, and the big picture, so to speak, doesn't come into focus for a while. So I'll keep plodding forward with my iPhoto and my weight loss, trying to keep my chin up.

Power Dressing and Exercise Updates

April 06, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Mental Illness, Food, Clothes

I know you're in suspense about which boots I decided on, so I'll get that out of the way first: I went with the brown logger boots. My concerns that they might look too feminine were unfounded, I discovered, when I saw the photo my husband took of me in them. I was wearing them with my men's pants, trying to decide whether to wear them out, and from the photo it became clear to me that they do not look in any way traditionally feminine. The heel is more subtle than I imagined, and so I've finally started wearing them (gasp!) outside. They feel great, comfort-wise, and I feel great in them, more myself. I keep commenting that I just feel normal. I feel like they ground me, the weight of them, and in the way they balance out my body shape a bit. I feel like less of a tomato on a stick. OK, not a great body image to admit to, but it's accurate as to how I've been seeing myself lately. Another thing the boots give me is a subtle sense of power, like they're armor of a sort. And it dawned on me how rarely, as a woman, I shop for clothes that look powerful. I'd say my usual MO would be looking for clothes that a) make me appear thinner or smaller than I am b) look "cute" c) are "flattering" (refer back to a). I think it's good progress for me to abandon these motives and go for something empowering instead. It seems like when traditionally feminine clothing is deemed "powerful," as in a "power suit" or some great high heels, the power comes from sex appeal, especially in reference to men. This ultimately does not seem like real power to me. If objectifying yourself is your only way of feeling powerful, I think there's something wrong there. But maybe there's something more that I'm missing- maybe a power suit feels like armor going into a business meeting, or high heels make you feel taller and in that you feel power. I just personally don't get those things from those clothes- I get them from menswear.

In other news, I am pleased to report relief from "the bad feeling" at night, something that was ruling my entire day for months. "The bad feeling" has been correctly identified as akathisia from the initial surge of medication when I take my Latuda, an atypical antipsychotic. I have had to abandon intermittent fasting altogether, since the solution is to take the Latuda right before bed, and you have to eat 350 calories with it in order for it to work. The idea with taking it so late is that I sleep right through any potential akathisia. The other part of the solution was to lower the dose. I tried 40mg instead of 80mg, but that started affecting my mood. 60mg with dinner was definitely an improvement over 80, but I still started to get that feeling creeping up on me as the evening progressed, hence the late night dosing. It's not perfect, but this late-night snack thing is doing the trick so far.

With all the stress of experimenting with the meds, I've been losing my motivation to exercise. And with all the changes to my eating schedule, I've been having urges to binge, or at least eat outside my caloric limits. So I've had to back off in both departments, become less aggressive in trying to lose weight, and find some patience to go slower. I've allowed myself up to 2,000 calories on some days, though now it's leveled out to about 1,800 including my late-night cookies and milk. In terms of exercise, I've backed off on my intermittent running/walking and just gone back to walking at an incline of 2. On gym days, I'm only lifting weights, eliminating the 10-minute round of 6-incline walking altogether. This has made working out feel way less overwhelming and I feel less in danger of quitting outright. I'm convinced that I need to just keep doing something every day, and if I can just keep it going, motivation will strike again and I can start building my workouts up again. Going to the gym and just doing 3-4 machines feels pretty pointless, but I'm able to do it, and that's what really counts here. I do also have to credit myself for those 4 hours on the treadmill trying out boots (that was in addition to my regular exercise). I was walking really slowly (2.2 speed), but it does add up to something. And I've been leaving the house almost every day, so there's a bit more activity in just doing that. I tend to get ahead of myself, always wishing I could do more, accomplish more. But I need to appreciate how far I've come. I'm reading books instead of just watching YouTube. I'm going to the cafe to read or write. I'm shopping for clothes and making decisions. And I'm still on track with food, meds, and exercise. That'll have to be enough for now.

Dieting and Deprivation

March 23, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food, Mental Illness

I had my psychiatrist appointment yesterday and am pleased to report that I'm almost down to 200 lbs (it was 200 point something), and that there's a plan in place to address "the bad feeling," that awful mood that strikes between dinner and bedtime. My doctor suggested switching one of my dinner time drugs to the morning to see if that helps, and also to take Klonopin in the afternoon as a preventative measure. But back to the weight loss. Talking about long-term plans for my eating and exercise got me thinking about diets and deprivation. As much as I enjoy all of the foods I eat regularly on my diet, there are often times when I feel deprived. Whenever my husband suggests getting takeout or a croissant at a cafe, I have to say no because I don't know exactly how many calories are in the food. And when I think about the endgame of this whole dieting process, I wonder if that will ever be able to change. There are times when I estimate calories based on Google searches of various foods, but there is usually quite a range for prepared foods. My instincts and my history with food (and with binge-eating) tell me that any sense of deprivation is a bad thing and will only lead to dieting backlash. After all, something like 97% of all dieters gain back the weight plus more when the diet ends. So what is the plan for me? Yesterday it occurred to me that restricting my calories might just be necessary for me to cope with my mental illness. Like a diabetic, I might have to accept the "diet" as a necessary component of my continued health. Eating without a plan seems to inevitably lead to bingeing for me, which leads to weight gain, which triggers my depression and suicidal ideation. So perhaps my life does, in fact, depend on restricting my eating. That's difficult for me to swallow. There have been many times in my life when dieting seemed unhealthy psychologically. One instance was following my first significant weight gain, around the time I had a breakdown and had to go home to live with my parents at age 27. I soon found work in nearby Cape Cod and lived there for a time. I vividly remember the spare meals of rice noodles and cabbage with cottage cheese for breakfast. I remember running around the neighborhood, alternating between a relaxed jog and a forced sprint in an attempt to rev up my metabolism. I also remember sporadic donut binges, eating half a dozen Krispy Kremes in a sitting. After eating my entire day's calories in donuts, I would subsist on cabbage and broth to get through the night. Another era of dieting occurred when I was living in New York. I had recently left Overeaters Anonymous, which had left me quite thin, perhaps the thinnest in my adult life. But I had fallen off the wagon and started bingeing and dieting again. There was a point where I was eating about 1500 calories a day, then running to burn off about 600 of those calories, leaving me with a net total of 900 calories for the day. I can't say that any of this behavior was healthy or even desirable, but certainly indicative of my strained relationship with food. There have also been periods of time where I rejected dieting altogether. I read feminist theory on how to restore one's eating from the damages dieting had done. I "legalized" all foods, giving myself the freedom to eat any foods I wanted, worked to embrace my body at any size, and learned to cope with my emotions without using food to do so. When I was younger, say in college and in my early-mid 20s, this system led to great success. My weight stabilized and I could eat like a normal person. But more recent attempts at this process have failed miserably, resulting only in weight gain, panic, and a return to dieting. I don't feel my current state of mental health is sufficient to make this system work. So this whole issue of whether or not to diet, and how to end a diet without undoing all the hard work, is a tough nut to crack. Is dieting the answer or the enemy? Perhaps if I look at it through the lens of exercise, I can see it more clearly. I am gradually increasing my exercise in order to achieve a certain level of fitness: to be able to run for a half-hour three times a week, and lift weights three times a week. Once I reach that goal, I plan to continue this routine ad infinitum. Maybe this is the right way to think about the food - that while there is a goal to achieve, there must be a plan to continue the healthy regime. And for me, it helps to think of it as necessary for my mental health. Because if my eating is restricted indefinitely, I need a greater motivation than just maintaining my weight. Because no particular weight has ever brought me happiness, but restricting my calories has brought me relief from some extreme symptoms of my illness.

Going Vegan and Coming Right Back

February 24, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food

I watch a lot of Youtube. There’s something so soothing about watching TV where nothing happens; you just get to witness mundane details of someone’s life. One of those details that comes up again and again is the fact that the Youtuber in question is vegan. It’s become so common on Youtube (at least on the lifestyle channels I tend to watch) that veganism became mainstream, or even wholesome in my mind. I’m always looking for the simplest solution to things, and eating a vegan diet began to seem like one of those simple solutions. I tend to eat the same thing every day, so I began thinking about vegan substitutions for the animal products I eat on a daily basis. For breakfast, I have a cherry smoothie with Greek yogurt in it (it gives me 20 grams of protein, something I need to get going in the morning). So I thought that plant-based protein powder would be the perfect substitute for the yogurt. For lunch, I usually eat some tuna salad on an English muffin, so I got some chickpeas and vegan mayo to make a little faux-tuna salad. For snacks or dessert, I’ve been eating a couple cookies or a bit of chocolate, both of which have corresponding vegan options, so no problem there. And then my usual dinner is already vegan: a tofu-vegetable soup with “Nasoya Pasta Zero” in it (these are amazingly low-calorie noodles made from tofu or mushrooms- definitely check them out).

These changes seemed totally doable and I thought it would be a great, positive change for the environment and potentially for my health. My main motivation was the environmental angle (apparently 1 pound of beef takes 200,000 gallons of water to produce), so I assumed avoiding all animal products could only have positive effects on the planet. I mean, there are vast quantities of Youtube channels and blogs devoted solely to vegan recipes and lifestyles, shunning leather goods and even wool for ethical reasons. I really felt like this was more than a trendy bandwagon, and so I was ready to jump on.

Then I tried the protein powder. I choked down that first smoothie, chalky, chemical taste and all. I even justified the astronomical price for the plant-based protein powder, thinking it wasn’t that much more expensive than yogurt. But I felt positively sick after that smoothie, which led to me pondering what effect I was really having on the environment. I thought about how processed the protein powder was, how questionable the ingredients were, and how much fossil fuel and transportation were involved in its eventual arrival at my local Whole Foods. Was this really better for anyone than fresh, unsweetened yogurt? I wasn’t convinced.

Now chickpeas are a whole food, inexpensive, and unprocessed. But that vegan mayo- that was as outrageously priced as the protein powder, and raised the same questions for me regarding any positive effect on the environment. But here the main problem was in the significant difference in the quantity of protein my lunch now contained. I’m just one of those people who need a nap after a starchy meal, hence the tuna sandwiches. The change to the starchy beans was tolerable, but not great for my afternoon productivity.

Snacks were fine- definitely way more expensive, but just as tasty and sugary as their non-vegan counterparts. And that’s all I was really looking for in snacks and desserts.

Dinner, of course, just stayed dinner. I truly enjoy my vegetarian meals as much as my meals that include animal products. I actually love tofu and eat it all the time. Overall, though, I couldn’t quite swallow (pun intended) the taste, expense, or lack of protein in the various vegan foods I tried. It seems to me that vegan processed food is just as bad as non-vegan processed food in terms of environmental impact. And if you go for whole plant foods instead, you really sacrifice the amount of protein in your life.

And so I’m back to my old ways: I couldn’t stomach another smoothie, chickpea lunch, or $9 chocolate bar. Does this make me a bad person? I really don’t think so. I think my efforts for the environment would be much more effective by voting in elections, supporting the Green New Deal, writing to my State Congresspeople, and participating in political activism. A quote from a recent article in the NY Times really stuck with me: “…we live in a consumer culture that tells us we can make our political mark on the world through where we shop, what we wear, how we eat… But conscious consumption is a cop-out, a neo-liberal diversion from collective action, which is what is necessary… the effects of individual lifestyle choices are ultimately trivial compared with what politics can achieve.”

I wish all these Youtubers with vegan, zero-waste angles could be persuaded by these words. Participating in politics is a lot less trendy than using bamboo grocery bags, but unfortunately, it is the better answer to the world’s problems. Instead of going on and on about being vegan, perhaps we could make Youtube videos about registering to vote instead?

Four Perfectly Good Reasons To Gain Weight

February 18, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Food

Despite my great desire to be thin, I have struggled with my weight my entire life. It’s easy to blame the obvious reasons for weight gain: eating too much, exercising too little, etc. But I think it’s about time we got to the heart of the matter: the fact that there are legitimate reasons, especially for women, to gain weight. Some of these reasons are merely perceived while others are very real. I want to uncover these beliefs that tell us there are actual advantages to gaining weight.

1. People take you more seriously. Whether in the office or the dating scene, it is an unfortunate reality that being thin can cause you to be taken less seriously. People often objectify thin women, seeing them as merely nice to look at, as opposed to thinking, feeling human beings. Gaining weight can make those same people pay more attention to what comes out of your mouth than what you look like in a skirt. Potential suitors might tend to be less superficial and more concerned with the person you are. While on the surface it may seem that life is easier for thin people, being taken seriously may, in fact, be a struggle for them. This can lead to the subconscious belief in us that being heavier would remedy the problem. Such a belief is enough to sabotage your health and fitness goals and lead to weight gain.

2. You think you’re less likely to be raped. Whether or not this belief is actually true (I can’t find any relevant statistics online), this is actually a very common belief in women, whether conscious or subconscious. There is a great deal of research and academic writing on the association between obesity and childhood sexual abuse. Apparently becoming overweight is a disturbingly frequent response to sexual trauma. And while I doubt that gaining weight offers any real protection from rape or sexual assault, it is the underlying belief that it does that matters here. This belief alone can lead to weight gain.

3. Eating is your only source of comfort. There are times in most of our lives where overeating is the only thing we can do to cope with difficulty. The term “emotional eating” is practically mainstream (thanks, Oprah), and the behavior makes perfect sense. Whether you’re lonely, grieving, angry, or simply stressed out, food can be a great comfort. Not only does it provide distraction from our problems, but it provides a warm pressure in your belly that can further relieve the physical inner turmoil of negative emotions. Making a habit of turning to food for comfort can lead to overeating and weight gain, whether you consciously want it or not.

4. Weight drama is a great distraction. Going up and down the scale, taking on new extreme diets, cycling through different sizes of clothes, arranging your life around your diet and gym schedule- any one of these things would be a great distraction from real life. And when life is difficult or complicated, weight drama can be a welcome distraction from problems that can’t be solved. We are often baffled by how we can be sailing along on our latest diet when all of a sudden it goes out the window for no good reason. But the drama of our weight shooting back up the scale keeps us focused on our diet and distracted from everything else. It maintains the fantasy that losing weight is our only problem, and if it were solved, everything would be great. And when times are hard, keeping up this back and forth can actually be a welcome relief.

It may seem obvious to most of us that we want to be thin, that there is nothing good about weight gain, and that losing weight is the answer to all our problems. But it is important to keep in mind the potential benefits that weight gain can afford us. Recognizing and facing our underlying beliefs about weight can stop them from having power over us and help us resolve our issues with food. While I myself am attempting to lose weight for what seems like the millionth time, I am also trying to address my beliefs about body size and find alternative ways of taking care of myself. I am trying to assert myself, protect myself, comfort myself, and face my problems without using food to do it. I hope I can learn to speak for myself rather than have my weight do it for me.

Finding Out How Much I Weigh, and Handbags.

January 17, 2019 by Kristin Purcell in Clothes, Food, Minimalism, Capsule Wardrobe

I typically have a policy of never knowing how much I weigh. I don’t own a scale, and when I’m weighed at the doctor’s office, I ask not to be told my weight. I just don’t look at the number. With the prevalence of eating disorders in this country, most doctors and nurses comply without a second thought. If they do question it, I simply tell them that it’s detrimental to my mental health to know my weight. That usually ends the discussion. But over the past few months, I have weaned off of medication that caused weight gain. I’ve also drastically reduced the amount of food I’m eating in a day in an attempt to lose some excess weight. Progress has appeared to be exceedingly slow, at least according to how my clothes fit and how I look in the mirror. Out of a desperate curiosity, I asked my husband to tell me the number written down in my most recent psychiatrist’s appointment. How much has my weight gone down in the past 4-5 months of coming off the meds and eating less? I hoped to be pleasantly surprised, but I was not. The shocking truth: 12 pounds. I started around 224, and now am about 212. Deep breath. Now I see nothing wrong with anyone else being this weight- I see beautiful plus-size women who weigh more than me all the time. But I can’t help feeling a deep discomfort with my body at this size. I like to think it’s not for the superficial reasons: society’s unreasonable standards for women’s bodies, etc. I like to think it’s a more subtle “preference” to be closer to the weight I was for so many years- 140 or 150 pounds. A desire to feel comfortable in my own skin, to feel more athletic, less self-conscious. Am I just kidding myself? Am I every bit as shallow as I fear I am? And 12 pounds is nothing to sneeze at- that’s three-quarters of a pound a week, and I’ve been getting very little exercise and rarely leaving the house. I know that slow weight loss is ideal for long-term results, and I am 40 years old. My metabolism is not exactly that of a spring chicken. But it still seems painfully slow for the amount of effort I’ve put out. In addition to limiting my calories, I’m doing “intermittent fasting,” a new thing my doctor told me about where you limit the number of hours per day in which you eat. It’s supposed to be heart-healthy and good for weight loss. So this discovery of my current weight is enough of a disappointment to send me into a binge, cancelling out what little progress I’ve made. Clearly I’m not as body-positive as I had hoped. I told myself when I bought my current plus-size clothes that I would “see where my weight ends up.” At what point did I adopt this thin-or-die attitude? Was it finding out my weight that was the problem, or was this attitude what provoked me to ask? I squelched the urge to overeat and decided to keep my head down, keep calm, and carry on.

One purchase I made for my current plus-size wardrobe was a new crossbody bag. As I’m sure other plus size women know, a crossbody strap has to be a certain length to be comfortable. I myself was surprised to find one day that my purse was too small- I was in danger of strangulation-by-purse. Out of respect for my new body, I purchased a new bag with a longer strap at TJ Maxx. It’s a black leather Margot bag with one large zippered pouch and one outside flap pocket. While the strap length is quite accommodating, I’m finding the lack of structure to the bag incredibly frustrating. Despite several inner pockets, everything I own ends up in a pile at the bottom of the bag. It’s difficult to find anything, and it makes it seem like I’m carrying around the proverbial kitchen sink and everything else. After a few weeks of dealing with this frustration, I’ve gone back to my old bag, just hanging it on my shoulder instead. It’s structured much like a camera bag with 2 top zippers and a zippered pouch under the flap. There are compartments galore and it feels like walking around with a tiny, very efficient filing cabinet at my fingertips. The bag is soft navy leather, and it was a thrift-store find for $7. The brand is Aurielle, not a very sought-after name, but I’ve searched and searched and found nothing as compact and convenient in my price range (which is about $7). So now I carry a shoulder bag; big deal. I can find things immediately because they stay where I left them.

I’m clearly not a big handbag person, and only own three other bags. One is an enormous faux-leather black tote with a top zipper from Adrienne Vittadini (another common TJ’s brand). And then there’s the small, blush, faux leather clutch from ASOS. Purchased for my wedding, it has an oversized silver button with a magnetized snap closure. I also own a little army pouch from the Army Navy store that I’ve had since high school. It is so convenient for long walks when all you need is a phone and some cash. And- oh, wait! I have a backpack, too. The Victorinox Cadet in black is extremely durable - my husband’s Victorinox backpack has lasted over a decade - and is the perfect size to fit under an airplane seat with a laptop and sweater inside. It even has side pouches for a water bottle and a packet of tissues.

I find it reassuring, somehow, to continue carrying all my usual bags despite my significant weight gain. Like with shoes, I feel some essential part of my identity remains intact, even as the rest of my wardrobe changes. Aside from the crossbody-now-shoulder bag, I also love and use all the rest: clutch for dressing up, tote for hitting the cafe (laptop in tow), backpack for travel, and army pouch for walking our nearby bikepath. It’s a decidedly minimalist collection; the Margot handbag is already listed on Ebay.