The Bad Kind Of Crazy

I was keeping tabs on a flame-spat over on Fierce, Freethinking Fatties, and reading some of the vitriol I came to a couple of small revelations.

**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