Why this Lupus Girl Signed Up for Weight Watchers

I didn’t know that “thigh gap” was any sort of controversial thing until I lost mine. Several weeks into the first heavy-duty round of Prednisone, I had this conversation:

Me: Something is wrong.
Mark: What?
Me: My thighs are touching when I stand up and when I walk. It is really uncomfortable.
Mark: Oh God. Are you going to be one of those crazy women now?
Me: (Furrowed brow. I don’t like the word “crazy” as broadly applied to women.) What women?
Mark: Those women that think they aren’t thin enough if they don’t have a gap between their thighs.
Me: This is a thing?
Mark: Apparently you aren’t aware of this. Remain in the dark, Kassie. Remain in the dark.

I didn’t remain in the dark. I searched “thigh gap” and was appalled at what I discovered. I didn’t need to maintain a thigh gap for self-esteem reasons. I just simply had always had one and was confused when it went away. Even when I gained weight the first time I was studying for the bar (interrupted by a nasty case of the swine flu) and the second time I was studying for the bar (when I almost literally started living at Starbucks), I hadn’t gained enough weight that I had lost the natural gap between my thighs when I stood up. Post-Prednisone, that gap is a far-away memory.

When I went to the rheumatologist this week, she noted my weight. I said, “I’m heavier than I’ve ever been and can’t seem to lose any of this weight.” She said to me very, very sternly, “You gained all that weight due to your medications. You don’t even think about feeling badly about that.” I wondered if it was easy for her to say that, given that she could pass as an Iranian supermodel. I don’t feel badly about gaining the weight at this point, I just feel frustrated that I can’t seem to lose it.

When Portia de Rossi was promoting her memoir (love her… and as someone who battled eating disorders in my teens, I admire her efforts at overcoming her own eating disorder) she noted in more than one magazine that she loves being a whole-foods vegan partially because you just simply cannot get fat on that kind of diet. Oh, Portia… I beg to differ.

Since the medication fest that is Lupus began roughly 18 months ago now (Geez!), I have learned how to get fat on a whole-foods vegan diet. Even when I am sticking brilliantly to my autoimmune/anti-inflammatory diet, I either gain or keep on all the weight. Why? I think it is because the nausea/low blood pressure/headaches, etc. keep me eating not just fruits, veggies and grains, but nuts. I swear, I can eat almonds, pistachios and peanuts by the pound when trying to ward off my churning stomach and achy head. I have not developed a good strategy to deal with this issue until lately… simply because without filling snack nuts, I feel so much worse than I already do.

It is with a mind towards charting my intake and hopefully shedding some of these Lupus pounds that I’ve decided to join Weight Watchers. Are their serious problems with this organization’s point system? Sure! For example, a brilliant cereal I LOVE manufactured by Pure Elizabeth contains only quinoa, flax, chia, hemp, amaranth and gluten-free oats… 2/3 cup of this cereal is considered to be the same number of “points” as a decent serving of frozen pizza. Hmmmm. However, I know how to tell the difference between healthy whole foods and crap. So, I have a leg up on taking full advantage of this points system in ways that will hopefully help me keep my calories down while ensuring that I only eat healthy whole foods… including unlimited fruits and veggies, as these items as “free” on the points system (as they should be).

I am not sure that I am brave enough to post a “before” picture… but I’m hoping to be brave enough to post an “after” picture when I start shedding these bad boy Lupus pounds of mine. Until then, I will simply thank my stars that I want my thigh gap back not because it is some sort of arbitrary (and dangerous, for many people) standard of beauty but because every time my body has felt its best I have simply had one.

Glimpsing the Finish Line: Where I’ve Been and When is this Blog Going to End?

I was driving past Lake Calhoun this morning on my way to the gym when I thought, “Wow, it is finally starting to look like summer.” Starting to look like summer? It is the 20th of August! “Oh yeah,” I thought. “This must be what happens when you stop going outside.”

Over the past few months, my good old pal Lupus has inspired me to become an unlikeable human and a drowsy hermit. I haven’t been writing lately for a few reasons. (But before I get into them, I promise you that this entry and the blog moving forward – towards a hard end date, I might add – will not be a whine-fest. I just need to do a little explaining before I stop being one of the most obnoxious versions of myself I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing).

First, I haven’t been writing because I have become utterly obnoxious. I don’t even like this version of me, so why would I project that version past the confines of this inflamed, pain-ridden and crabby body?

Second, my Samantha has been home. She calls dibs on my energy and any goodness within me when she is home, at any time that said goodness seems to be in short supply.

Third, I have been embarrassed and ashamed by my limitations. “Who wants to read another blog about me stumbling and failing to reach another goal?” I asked my best friends Sarah and Amanda earlier this summer. (While internally wanting to ask, “And why on Earth do you even want to be around me when all I do is whine and crab?”) “We do,” they insisted. “And individuals who have gone through anything like this will read your truth and realize that they aren’t alone.” I remained dubious.

And then Robin Williams died. Died of his demons. Died of depression and addiction (which are often conjoined twins) and perhaps because he was struggling mightily with his Parkinson’s diagnosis. I wept. Openly. Repeatedly. I am not depressed or an addict. But I have gotten to the end of my rope with my Lupus. And just as Heath Ledger’s death put into perspective everything about my custody battle for my daughter, the death of Robin Williams has snapped me back into life in the wake of what I will now refer to as my “Lupus tailspin.”

Since Robin’s death, I have spent a great deal of time meditating, moving my aching body and getting up the courage to begin writing again. Even as I have been avoiding my pen and my typewriter in favor of vomit buckets and bad moods, I have been compiling ideas for this blog. I have been dreaming about what I would say, if only I felt that I was worth listening to. I’m back, and I hope you’ll rejoin my journey as I embrace running and recovery (if that is the right term for “battling” and simultaneously “making peace” with Lupus) again with a joyful heart and determined mind.

As you may have guessed, I will not be running the marathon in October. But I am announcing right now that I will be running a race in the spring (marathon is still the goal, but even if it needs to be a 5K, I’m going to make it to a finish line) and at the end of that race is when I’ll be retiring this particular blog. I suspect that I’ll always write about running and about my medical conditions. But I am going to now write with a hard end-date in mind in order to allow me to write something new and different within the foreseeable future. I never again want to feel like this blog is a burden or a disappointment. So, I’ll be writing joyfully until I finish a spring race and then I’ll move on to the next exciting project I have in sight.

Thank you for reading. I truly appreciate it.