**Share?**
I've mentioned this -- I've been on short commons before. It occured to me, that at the same time I was also exercising regularly. I didn't have a car, so I had to walk a mile to the bus stop every night. Another time, I was walking about two and a half miles a day and surviving on two small meals.
By the calories in/calories out model, I should've been dropping weight hand over fist. Maybe I was; I wasn't keeping track. I didn't feel any lighter or fitter and my clothes weren't hanging any differently.
Say I was losing weight. What was the cost?
**What do you mean by cost?**
I mean, what toll did it take on me to live that way? I was tired, a total emotional basket case, couldn't sleep, and I spent most of my time intensely depressed. I almost killed myself once, and thought about suicide a lot. I even had a plan; when I finally got fired from the Bank of Evil, I was going to take the razorblade out of my old box opener, go into the ladies' room, and open my wrists.
So, the side effects of dieting -- and keep in mind, I was exercising with the intensity recommended by doctors (walking at a moderate pace for more than half an hour five times a week) -- include lethargy, insomnia, emotional instability, and depression. Is all that a fair trade for lower weight? Especially when you factor in that long-term weight management has a roughly four in five chance of failing?
**Is it fair to judge the concept of dieting by those bad times love? You weren't in a very good place emotionally then.**
I think it is. The echoes come back to me whenever I get hungry enough to hurt inside.
**That's true.**
To borrow from Victor/Victoria, I've come to the conclusion that it's simply not worth it. Dieting makes me unhappy in the extreme, and it doesn't have to be that way because there are alternatives.
**To be fat and happy?**
No, to direct my energy at things I can actually fix. Physical frailty, hypertension, disordered eating . . . I can do things about those. Fixating on my weight's done nothing but make me the bad kind of crazy. I don't wanna be the bad kind of crazy anymore. That's it. I give up.
-BJ
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