The Thing They Don't Understand

I want to talk about hunger.

Whenever the healthy people talk about those of us who are overweight, they act like the way for us to lose weight is simple. Eat less. Move more. It's easy and we're all just...well, name your label....for why we're not thin like them.

What they don't understand is the hunger.

I still get hungry. I think I get Normal Person hungry now. It's faint and reasonable. It's a rational thing that happens sometimes. My body has a need and I should take care of that.

Before the medication, I was hungry all the time. All the time, even after I'd just eaten. My mind would suggest things that would make what I just ate even better. My mind would think about the next meal. I would get excited about it. Happy. I would start making plans for that to happen.

That insistent aspect of my mental self is quiet now. I plan meals, yes. I get excited about the prospect of a good meal. But it's a quiet thing compared to what it was before. It isn't consuming my thoughts. Pardon the pun.

Imagine that you're cold. Completely cold. Like you're constantly in weather lower than your core temperature cold. Now imagine that three times a day, someone hands you a blanket for a while. During that time, you're warmer. Never completely warm, but warmer. 

Sometimes you beg for blankets and sometimes you grab a blanket when no one is looking. But people notice. They don't understand why you're cold because they're perfectly warm. They think you're weak for insisting on being cold. 

Then one day, you take a shot and you're not cold anymore. 

You're aware that the weather does get colder sometimes and during that time you put a blanket on you, but when you warm up, your body tells you that you're warm enough and you honestly don't need the blanket.  You can put it aside without this panic at the idea of the returning cold....because you know you're warm enough and you'll be fine.

That's my life now. And it's glorious.