Coming out of the darkness a little

[JoitheArtist]

Well, the massive depressive episode I was in from December '11 through August '12 seems to be well and truly over. That was 9 months that I honestly thought I wasn't going to survive. But I did, largely due to help from people here and elsewhere on the internet.

Not 100% back to normal: still feel pretty disconnected, have a hard time remembering what I've done even a day later, but I can live with that.

Best thing: I started dieting and exercising again. I lost 20 pounds a while back, but gained it all back when I moved to the house I'm in now and got out of the habit of walking and eating right. Then the depression hit, and...well, you know that story.

It feels *really* good to be moving around again. I'm walking to and from the grocery store every day (short route is 1.2 miles, best walk time so far is 17 minutes) and doing a little Tai Chi. Hopefully I can keep this up long enough to drop enough sizes to like myself in the mirror, even a little bit. (And no, I'm not doing crazy diet stuff: just cutting calories in every meal and getting regular exercise.)

So... here's to a brighter future!


P.S. I really can't thank everyone here enough for support during the dark times. THANK YOU.

[ArcticChicken]

That's really good to hear. I'm glad you're doing better.

[Mytical]

*hugs* Good news .

[Seshat]

Not 100% back to normal: still feel pretty disconnected, have a hard time remembering what I've done even a day later, but I can live with that.

You've been sick. It takes time to recover from being sick for such a long time. At least you're now in the 'recovery' phase!

Hopefully I can keep this up long enough to drop enough sizes to like myself in the mirror, even a little bit. (And no, I'm not doing crazy diet stuff: just cutting calories in every meal and getting regular exercise.)

Depending on your self-image, that might take two things.

Firstly, working with your body until you have a healthy body fat percentage, a healthy muscle percentage, and it's fit for whatever you want it to be able to do.
(I made a goal of being able to do light housework and gardening. A physically healthier person than me might want to make a goal of making her body fit to do heavy housework/gardening, or fit to go on an all-day hike, or fit to go mountaineering, or whatever floats your boat.)

Secondly, accepting the body shape that your bone structure, your 'favoured' muscle type, and your preferred exercise and activity type gives you.

There are two muscle types (actually, more, but for the voluntary muscles, two). Sustain muscles are the type of muscle that gives a strong-but-wiry body look. 'Jerk' muscles are the type that give bulk. If you look at family photos, you can often see a family of wiry, skinny people; or a family of solidly built people - even in families which tend to do the same sorts of work.
Or you can look at a photo of a group of miners, builders or some other physical-labour workers; and even though their day-in, day-out work is the same, some will be wiry, some bulky, and some in-between. And it's muscle and bone structure, not fat.
So you're stuck with a tendancy to favour a certain mix of sustain/jerk muscle, and a particular bone structure. That's genetic, and you need to make your mind accept it.
You can push yourself towards more sustain, or more jerk, muscle, by changing the type of activity you do. If you do things that require sustained effort, you build sustain fibres. If you do things that require repeated short bursts of effort, you build jerk fibres. At the gym, that would be sets of lots of reps at lower weights and moving carefully and slowly (sustain), or sets of few reps at higher weights (jerk).

Which brings us to how the type of activity you do will shape your body. We've recently had the Olympics: anyone who watches it can see that the sprinters look different from the marathon runners; that the swimmers have a higher body fat percentage than most of the other athletes (floatation + not-cramping-up in cold water); that the female gymnasts tend to be small and light, but the male gymnasts are often carrying more bulk muscle than their female counterparts, and so on and so forth.

At the Olympic level, part of that is that you won't make it to that peak of skill in any given sport if your body isn't the right body type. But part of it is that doing that activity over and over and over has refined and honed the body to that type.

For a more realistic view of what your body will look like after an extended period of a particular activity you're interested in; go to a large meeting of local amateurs. Look for the people with your basic bone structure and muscle ratio: the ones whose bodies look like your aunts and cousins.

That - or the low-fat, healthy-body version of that - is what your body will become like.


I know, I know. I'm being long-winded again.

I've had to struggle, and struggle hard, to learn to accept my own body type and body shape. And only working my way through all of the above has done it.

I am in a broad-shouldered, broad-hipped family, with square shoulders. I have ginormous tits, which makes my whole torso look fatter than it is (my underbust size is three to four sizes smaller than the shirts I have to buy!)
My natural sustain/jerk ratio is on the jerk side, so I put on bulk muscle at a moment's notice, but have to struggle to get sustain (wiry, or 'tone') muscle.

I still wish I had a lean, wiry, narrow-boned body. But I've come to accept that I have a fairly good body for my body type: if you discount the assorted disabilities.

This is one of the cases of 'deal with the situation you have now, however it occurred'. Genetics is a large chunk of how your body occurred. Illness is another part of how your body is right now.
So from this point on, your goal is to get your body gradually to the healthiest it can become, safely, given NOW, TODAY, THIS MOMENT as the starting point. And being patient with yourself. You're convalescing from a serious bout of depression, you will have bad days. Forgive yourself those, and move on, starting - once again - from this moment.
Tomorrow, and for every tomorrow after that, I expect to see your body being in the best shape it can be, given today as the starting point, and accepting inevitable bad days and letting them go.

[CoffeeMonkey]

I found this comic recently, and found it to be a great story of learning to love ones body. In fact I read it all in one day while I had a LOT of other things I should have been doing.

http://www.sauceome.com/

[JoitheArtist]

Seshat: Thanks for the advice! I'm actually pretty at-peace with the general shape of my body. I look just like all the rest of my mom's family: broad shoulder, curvy, large chest, medium height. I'm happy that even when I'm overweight, I don't go round, I still have curves. I would just like to be able to buy clothes in a section of the store with some selection, instead of sorting through tent-like garish print shirts. I'd like to be able to do cosplay at conventions without feeling horribly out-of-place.

Also, my dad's side of the family is prone to diabetes, and my mom's to heart disease (in the men only, so far, but who wants to risk it?) If I change my diet and habits right now, I still have a chance of avoiding those. I have a killer sweet tooth, so that part's really difficult.

I'm not trying to become skinny; given my genetics, that's impossible. Right now, my weight is somewhere in the 250-270 range (don't know exactly because I can't find my scale.) My goal is to get it down to 150-175 in a year. I'm hoping to get down to size 12, but size 14 would be fine. No crazy diets, just better food, less of it, and more exercise.

[Kara]

Welcome back to life. I've been so deep in the darkness I stopped looking for a way out.

Lots of *hugs*

[Dips]

I'm glad to hear it! Here's hoping you keep getting better.

[Seshat]

Seshat: Thanks for the advice! I'm actually pretty at-peace with the general shape of my body. I look just like all the rest of my mom's family: broad shoulder, curvy, large chest, medium height. I'm happy that even when I'm overweight, I don't go round, I still have curves. I would just like to be able to buy clothes in a section of the store with some selection, instead of sorting through tent-like garish print shirts. I'd like to be able to do cosplay at conventions without feeling horribly out-of-place.

The problem with buying clothes is the store's fault, not your body's. The fashion industry likes to make clothes that look good on a coathanger - but we hourglass/monroe/mae west types aren't coathangers!

Clothing that looks good on our body type usually looks awful on a coathanger, thus it doesn't move as easily in a shop. If you have the time and patience, I recommend finding a 'fitting buddy' and both of you learning to sew, and to fit patterns to each other.

An ideal 'fitting buddy' would be another cosplayer who lives near you (male or female!); or a goth, steampunker, furry, etc. All these types of people fully understand the desire for clothing that fits right, but is not generally available in stores!

Cosplay outfits that properly fit the body they're worn on will look great, even if you're not the same body type as the actress/character you're portraying. But pick a character of the same body type - even if the scale is different (eg, they're all-over smaller but shaped the same) - and you'll look perfect.

Also, my dad's side of the family is prone to diabetes, and my mom's to heart disease (in the men only, so far, but who wants to risk it?) If I change my diet and habits right now, I still have a chance of avoiding those. I have a killer sweet tooth, so that part's really difficult.

My mom's side is the diabetic, my dad's the heart disease, but I really hear you here.

[Kristev]

I'm with Kara on this.

[Taboo]

I'm glad you're doing better. I'm back on the boards again after a similar few months and it's a rough thing to go through. Sending you lots of good wishes for things to stay better!

On clothes fitting: yes, being a few sizes smaller may give you more variety, but tailoring is ultimately the best way to make things work for you. I used to buy things in stores and be really frustrated that they'd be unflattering, too bulgy around the waist if they fit across the shoulders, and so on. Now I buy to fit across my shoulders and chest properly, then alter things, and it's made a *huge* difference in how I feel about my appearance to have properly fitting clothes. If you're curvier, you can also add belts and ties to a lot of clothes to cinch them in. It makes a huge difference no matter your weight - it's the reason celebrities look so good even in jeans and tshirts, they just get their entire wardrobes altered since they can afford it.