It was at this point that I realized I have a serious problem with food.

Gleefully imagining the voluntary installation of a colostomy bag inside my body is NOT NORMAL. Yet, there is still a part of me that longs for birth control for food, something that will allow me to indulge in all the pleasure I want to with little risk of suffering negative consequences. What do we have now?

• Bulimia – Not an option. It wrecks havoc on your body and the acid from your stomach erodes the enamel on your back teeth. Also, vomit, ew.
• Olestra – A fake fat substitute that your body does not digest, but leaves you literally shitting your pants.
• Alli – the diet pill that prevents your body from absorbing all the fat you consume, but again, leaves you literally shitting your pants.
• Artificial sweeteners (i.e. fake food) – I’ve found these helpful, but some people dislike the aftertaste and have concerns about their safety. There is also research that suggests they don’t help you lose weight because they leave your body unsatisfied and yearning for the real thing. That said, I drank Diet Pepsi the whole time I was losing 190 pounds.

My idea of a secondary stomach would probably have issues (besides the fact that it’s Kra-zee with a capital K). Food could get stuck in the switch or it could get stuck in one position or the bag could leak into your body, all making you very dead. Regardless of all the flaws in the above propositions, none of them fix the underlying problem. They are just patches of duct tape keeping the fender from falling off your car. They stop you from trailing sparks down the highway, but they don’t fix the actual problem. Until I can find a way to weld my bumper back on, I make do the best I can with the tools available.

I do think that our ancestors descendents will look back and think it an oddity that people used to write weight-loss memoirs and weight-loss blogs, just like I watch Moulin Rouge and think it bizarre that people use to die of tuberculosis. In the meantime, if I ever hear of Mexican surgeons illegally implanting secondary stomachs, I’ll know where they got the idea.

Though he has not cured me, I like my allergist very much. I was hesitant at first, sitting in his waiting room which looked like it had not been renovated since the early 80′s. I further psyched myself out as I waited in the examination room reading a chart with about 90 things I did not know you could be allergic to. Then the doctor walked in, an older man who has seen it all and is on the case and poked at the problem from all angles (including poking me in the back). He demonstrated quick knowledge on a breadth of topics, which impressed me. “I haven’t given up on you,” he said, which was nice to hear even if I’ve basically given up on myself. So I’m trying some new pills and getting some new tests.

The allergist also suggested I try an organic diet, which essentially means if you can’t pull it out of the earth, don’t eat it. No artificial preservatives. No artificial sweeteners. No pesticides or growth hormones. “The 21st century may not be good for you,” he said. I’m rather fond of the 21st century, what with the civil rights and the Internet and the ability for women to vote and own property. But I get his point. “You can eat Amish chicken!” he said, which made me wonder where I would find any Amish people around here. I’ve seen hitching posts at the Meijer in South Bend, but that’s three hours away. I suppose I am supposed to shop only at Trader Joe’s now, even though it’s a bit of a drive.

So, I’ve been trying to do this organic diet thing since the weekend, but it is really, really, really, really hard. All the food at the grocery store has fake sweeteners or preservatives in it like my flavored yogurts, my beloved easy TV dinners, and my diet sodas. I’ve been drinking water. Water! And I bought….sugar. Real, organic, authentic sugar. Not Splenda. Not Aspartame. Sugar. It felt so wrong. It felt so dirty. All those calories packed into tiny white crystals in a bag. I may as well have been buying crack.

Then I discovered that Splenda actually is sweeter than sugar. It’s not just their marketing tag line. To get my coffee to taste as sweet as it does with two packets of Equal, I have to use three packets of sugar. So not only am I using more product, it’s costing me 45 calories. Ironically, I only started drinking coffee because it has essentially no calories. Now I’m hooked and it’s costing me the equivalent of one fat-free cheese stick for every cup.

I can’t chew sugar-free gum.

The only positive part of this experience is that the organic apples are sweet and delicious, much better than the wax-coated non-organic ones. But I have to pay extra for the deliciousness. And I don’t even know if any of this will work. Most likely my headache will persist and I will simply be slightly poorer and have eaten more calories. There was a study awhile ago that said artificial sweeteners make you gain weight because they’re not as filling. My only hope is that it turns out to be true and eating real sugar keeps me satiated. I’ve only been doing this a couple days, but I’m willing to accept it might be true. I haven’t been hungry right when I come home as I normally am. This might be because I’m getting real sugar in my coffee, so I’m more full from more calories. I dunno. We’ll see if it continues. It’s weird not eating right when I come home. I want to do it just out of habit.

I still have a headache though, and even if it didn’t, figuring out this organic diet would have given me one.

* Please do not comment on suggest remedies for my headache. I’ve heard it all, y’all and being the 40th person to tell me to see a chiropractor is not going to win you a warm spot in my heart. In fact, it will put you on my shit list.

Meme Rules:

1) Post these rules before you give your facts

2) List 8 random facts about yourself

3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them

4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

I’ve spilled my guts on this blog so much I sometimes feel like I need my own biohazard waste bin to clean it all up. But here are eight health and weight-loss related things about me that you probably did not already know.

1) I don’t care if artificial sweeteners kill me, I’m eating them anyway

I know some people don’t like to use aspartame, sucralose, saccharin or any of those sweet, sweet, chemicals that end in –ol (sorbitol, xylitol, malitol, etc.) because they are concerned about having three-headed babies or growing a sixth finger. I don’t care. I will be the guinea pig who drinks diet soda every day for 30 years so we can determine if all those modified molecules actually cause cancer. You’ve got to die of something. If it’s going to be death by artificial sweetener, so be it.

2) I watched TV constantly as a child, but now, not so much

I was a complete TV addict as a kid and through high school. In 4th grade we had to track our watching habits and I think I watched at least 30 hours a week, more than almost anyone else. I honestly didn’t think I could live without cable, but once money got tight in college and the credit card debt started piling up, I canceled my Comcast subscription and surprisingly I did not miss it that much. I still love TV. The best stuff on TV is better than it has ever been before. I carefully select the shows I watch, just like I am picky about what I eat. Of course, we also didn’t have the Internet back then, so maybe I’m just spending time reading blogs now that I would have previously spent watching The CW.

3) I was thrilled the day I learned I could order pizza online

I used to have severe phone anxiety. For several years in middle school I didn’t answer the phone at all. I hated a required journalism class in college because I had to call up strangers and ask them questions. I would get nervous and fret and stare at the phone for at least 20 minutes before getting up the nerve to make the call. Even now, I still prefer to e-mail strangers, but I can answer the phone and can call people without throwing up first. I always hated ordering pizza though because I was scared to call the pizza place and go through the ordering process. (Yes, I know this is bizarre and weird, but as I said yesterday we all have our own personal weirdness going on.) In college I was searching the Papa John’s website for the phone number of the closest store and discovered I could bypass the stressful “talking to strangers” process completely by ordering online, thus making it easier to eat an entire box of cheese sticks than ever before. It was awesome.

4) I licked the frosting off the cake

I wrote an entry last year about an episode of Desperate Housewives where a fat girl at a birthday party was accused of licking the frosting off of a birthday cake, even though a thin person had done it. I bemoaned how horrible it was that stereotypes like these persisted, that the fat people of the world were not necessarily out to lick the frosting off of your birthday cakes. Except, I totally did that. I don’t remember whose cake it was, either my own birthday cake or a cake at some family function, but I remember I once stuck my finger into the gooey puffs where the frosting met the cardboard bottom of the box and licked that buttercreamy goodness up. It was awesome.

5) I am not a weight-loss role model 100% of the time

The same week I so effortlessly avoided eating the apple pie at work I also went home and ate two bowls of oatmeal and a batch of sweet potato muffins. As I was pouring the water into that second bowl of cinnamon and sugar and dried oats, I thought to myself, “This is not behavior becoming of a weight-loss success story.” And I stuck it in the microwave anyway and it was really good. I knew what I was doing and I did it anyway. I don’t always mention this stuff because this isn’t a food diary and I don’t feel a need for “forgiveness” or “confession” that much anymore when I overeat. I ate too much. I shouldn’t have done that. Oh, well. I’ll try not to do that tomorrow. But I’m not perfect, people, and it feels a bit odd when people congratulate me for having such control over my eating these days when it’s only true maybe 95% of the time.

6) I don’t think Spanx are all that uncomfortable

Spanx are a body-contouring undergarment that help smooth out your body and make you look thinner. I always hear about how uncomfortable they are, like a modern-day corset, but when I wore a pair I felt fine. Maybe I needed a smaller size to completely cut off my circulation and turn my thighs blue?

7) I still have some photos of fatter versions of myself around the house and it doesn’t bother me

I do have some no-good, horrible, fat photos that never fail to make me cringe. These are not on display. However, I also have some fat photos where I am neatly groomed, well attired, smiling and with my family. These are on display. Ironically, I have far less shame for my morbidly obese self now that I am no longer morbidly obese. However, if we were ever to take a more recent family photo I would probably replace them since they would be more up-to-date and I do enjoy looking thin in my photos.

8) I am one of the Nursing Online Education Database’s Top 100 Health and Wellness Blogs

Okay, this is not so much a fact as a way to thank the NOED for linking to me and to point out a list of 100 health and wellness blogs. It’s an annotated list too, which means it must have taken forever to put together. I was recently putting together some footnotes and it was a horrible, draining, tedious process that made me glad I am no longer in school. However, the list is a good place to start if you are looking for more health resources online.

I’m not going to tag anyone because I am a daring rule-breaker, but if you want to run with these, go for it. And if you just want to run, period, go for that too! Just remember to stretch first.