Some people will carry fat all over, for some it will be centered around their stomach, for others on their hips and ass, others will be top heavy, others bottom heavy, etc.

It’s not ‘polyester’ it’s plastic

It’s not ‘vegan leather’ it’s plastic

Its not ‘faux fur’ it’s plastic

Plastic is a pollutant and causes far more damage to the environment both now and in the future than leather or wool.

FIX YOUR SLEEPING SCHEDULE (1-2 months)

Try to wake up earlier every day. Like 5 - 10 min earlier than the day before. Until you wake up any time before 8am or so…

If you struggle with waking up & snooze button is you bff:

Put your alarm clock as far away from the bed as possible.

Drink a glass of water right after you wake up.

Pour another glass of water on yourself right after you wake up.

Prepare some coffee the night before, leave it by your bedside, drink it after you wake up.

Have your blinds/curtains open, so that it’s bright after you wake up.

Try to go to bed 5-10 min earlier than the night before.

Track how many hours of sleep you’re getting. Aim to get at least 7h per day or 49h per week. 

Increase your sleeping hours incrementally. Aim to get at least 1h of sleep more than the previous week. For example, if this week you slept for 41hrs, aim to get an extra hour of sleep next week, so it’s 42h.Once you get enough hours of sleep and wake up early-ish.

Try to keep your sleeping schedule consistent. It is really important to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.  Even if it’s weekend. Or even if that means, you getting less than 7hrs of sleep that day. I’d say waking up at the same time everyday is the most important step, which will help you the most with fixing your sleeping schedule.

START EATING HEALTHY (1-2 months)

This step really depends from person to person, but firstly I suggest you take some blood tests to see if you have any deficiencies, etc. Especially, if you struggle with cravings.  

Try intermittent fasting, if you struggle with binge eating or overeating. As it will help you to learn to listen to your body better: when it’s hungry, when it’s full, etc. It’s really simple, there are many methods of Intermittent fasting, but I’d suggest 16/8 for the beginners. (Google it for more info)

DRINK ALL THE WATER. Again, if you’re not drinking enough water, try to level up your water game incrementally. Download some water tracking app on your phone to help you. Drinking water will make you more energetic, increase your metabolism, and decrease you appetite (among many more benefits).

Track what you eating. I would really suggest tracking your meals for around a month. Because, most of the time people have no idea that what they’re eating is unhealthy. Again, download an app to your phone for that.

Make your own meals once in a while. Not only this will save you money, but it’ll help you to see what’s really going into your body.

Eat less meat and more veggies/fruits. Go to your local market and buy some veggies/fruits, you have never tried before. I’m sure you’ll find your new favs. Eat/buy less meat. Not only it’s good for the environment, but it is good for you, too. Get a veggie burger instead of the beef one, etc.

Cut dairy. Find your new favourite milk substitute. Advice: Oat milk is really good with the tea and oatmeal/porridge; hazelnut milk is amazing on it’s own; cashew milk goes well with cereals.

Learn more about nutrition in general. It will help you to make better food choices and it will make eating healthy much easier in general, because once you understand all the chemistry behind the food and what it does to your body, you kinda don’t want to make yourself feel worse. Here are some free resources: - Human nutrition course from Alison.com - Crash course Metabolism&Nutrition: Part 1 and Part 2 - The Health Nerd’s YouTube Playlist about nutrition - What I’ve Learnt YouTube Playlist - Human nutrition course from Alison.com - Crash course Metabolism&Nutrition: Part 1 and Part 2 - The Health Nerd’s YouTube Playlist about nutrition - What I’ve Learnt YouTube Playlist

GET PHYSICALLY FIT (2-6 months)

Define your goals. Do you want to lose weight, do you want to get stronger, gain weight, be able to climb stairs without losing breath, run 5k?

Remember - you’re half-way through. Being physically fit has a lot to do with what you put into your body. So, if you fulfilled the previous step of eating healthy - you are half way through!

Make a plan. A Reasonable plan. Be honest with yourself.

Start small. Like, 5 min exercise in the morning. Or doing 10 sit ups per day. Don’t do anything overwhelming, like running 5k everyday if you haven’t run for the past 5 years.

Make sure that you kinda like what you’re doing. If you absolutely hate running - don’t do it. Hate doing sit ups in the morning? Try some yoga instead.

Explore until you find what you like. You don’t have to go to gym to get fit, especially if you hate it. Find a type of exercise, which you actually like. Maybe it’s dancing or hiking, taking your dog for a walk. Sign up for several trial lessons of various sport clubs. Ditch ‘em if you have them until you find something that you love. Stick with that.

Do the small changes in your everyday life. Stairs>Escalator, Walk>Drive, Do some squats while brushing your teeth, switch from regular desk to standing desk, etc…  Find ways to incorporate being active into your everyday life

Track your effort instead of your progress. You cannot really control your progress that much (especially if your goal was to lose weight). However, you can always control your effort. So track it instead. This will leave you more motivated. As you will be able to see that you can do more and more everyday. Whereas, if you tracked your progress, you may not always get the result you hoped for, which might demotivate you and make you upset, wanting to quit.

BEAT DEPRESSION

Do the previous 3 steps and you’re half way through.

See a therapist/doctor. Depression is an illness, requiring medical treatment. So, get it. Remember: there is absolutely no fucking shame in having a mental illness.

Get some extra support. Talk to your friends or family. Or maybe someone on the internet.

Write it out. If you don’t want to talk - write down your thoughts. It can be just as helpful. It’ll help you to understand yourself better, see problems in your thinking, etc.

Distract yourself from yourself. Get someone/something to take care of, so that you can, for a moment, stop thinking about yourself and focus on something else. E.g, get a plant, or a dog, or a fish.

Self-care day. Dedicate at least one day per week for self-care. Take yourself out, either to a museum or some fancy cafe, do some stuff you like, whatever your hobbies are, do some physical self care: bath, face mask, manicure, etc., listen to some nice music, watch a film…..

STOP PROCRASTINATION

Celebrate your victories instead of mourning over your loses.So the only thing you’ve done today was write one sentence for your 20 page essay? Amazing! Buy yourself a candy for that!! I mean, you could’ve done nothing, but you didn’t - you wrote that one sentence and that’s worth celebrating.

Do it for only 2 minutes. If there’s an important thing you’ve been putting off for a while, tell yourself that you will only spend 2 minutes on doing it. If after 2 minutes you don’t want to do it anymore, great, stop it. However, after 2min. you actually might want to do more. No pressure either way.

Track your productivity. Track how much time you’ve been productive that day. Try to increase that time by a little bit every day.

Always forgive yourself. So, it’s been a week and you’ve done nothing? Don’t sweat it. Let it go. Blaming yourself will bring you absolutely nothing. Nothing good will come out of your negativity on yourself. So stop it. Forgive yourself and start again. And again, if you need to. Never stop trying. Always pick yourself after you fall. Beating procrastination and increasing your discipline is a skill. And all skills can be build on. There is nothing in you stopping you from changing. Remember that.

LEARN HOW TO DO TAXES (1h - 1 day)

Go to google.com.

Type in: “How to do taxes *the name of the country you’re living in*”

Read the results.

GET MENTALLY STRONG ENOUGH TO MAKE PHONE CALLS

Remember that just as with beating procrastination, making phone calls is a skill. And, again, skills can be learnt.

Get a new SIM card.

Top it up.

Dial some random numbers and pretend to be a salesman, selling whatever you like.. E.g., trying to sell broadband, cable tv, trying to get people to donate for some charity… Or whatever really… Me and some friends used to pretend we’re selling kittens or wood logs. Alternatively, you can pretend that you dialed a wrong person and talk about whatever, e.g. “Hey, Jess!! You wont believe what I saw today!! *start telling a made-up story*…”

If you get uncomfortable - just drop the call. No consequences whatsoever.

Repeat until you build up your game and your phone-call anxiety starts to diminish.

The reason docs will take you more seriously is because they know you are taking their care advice seriously. Our docs tell us that if we really want less pain, we should lose some of the weight…so if we refuse to do that to improve our lives in a moderate way, then why would the doc think we’re serious about pain reduction in any non-medication way?

Speaking of medication, prescriptions are based on weight. More medication to treat the pain will put more stress on your liver. As for diagnostic tests, some people really are too obese to fit in certain diagnostic machines. It’s like how massage therapy is almost ineffective if your fat is obstructing your muscles to a large degree.

There are many excuses given to not lose weight, but they are excuses…not reasons.

Myth: Chronic Conditions Cause Weight Gain

Nothing can cause a person to gain weight for calories not consumed. Some chronic conditions affect metabolism and some affect weight distribution, but nothing will manufacture excess fatty tissue for eating in non-excess. That violates the laws of thermodynamics. Solution: eat less.

Myth: Pain Makes It Hard or Impossible to Exercise, Therefore I Can’t Lose Weight

Fat loss is about creating a calorie deficit in your specific metabolic situation. In no way does that require exercise. The saying, “You can’t outrun a bad diet” addresses this specifically, stating a diet with excess will undo any caloric deficit encountered with exercise. This is how people can be obese despite regular exercise: they continue to chronically overeat.

Myth: Healthy Food is Expensive

This myth became very clear to me when I was on goverment assistance. I had to go out of my way to spend my goverment-allocated food money at the end of each month because I was spending too little. Buying specialty items and already-prepped healthy food is more expensive. Buying dried lentils, frozen veggies, dried brown rice…these are all terribly inexpensive. Buy items on sale and be flexible. Notice I didn’t mention animal products…that’s because they are not only unhealthy, but more expensive (unless you buy the cheap, extra-unhealthy crap like processed meats which are classified in the same carcinogenic level as cigarettes and asbestos by the WHO). Tofu, beans, lentils, nuts…these are all great sources of protein and fiber. If you want to argue “incomplete” protein, that’s been long debunked by the same author who suggested it.

Myth: Healthy Food Takes Too Long to Prepare

Throw lentils, rice, and frozen/fresh veggies into a rice cooker (cheap ones at second-hand shops) with some seasonings (cheap ones at discount shops), add water (enough to touch your first knuckle line if you put the tip of your index finger at the top level of tye mixture), turn on and it’s done without you having to “cook”.

Tofu cubes + frozen/fresh veg + seasonings, put into a convection oven (cheap ones on Amazon, in some stores, or second-hand), and wait 15-20 min. Done. Or take this same mixture and place into a small pot with water. Add enough bullion to taste (cheaper than buying broth), let simmer until you get the texture/heat you like.

Myth: I’m Out Too Often, It’s Cheaper to Just Buy Fast Food

On the go? Buy fresh, unprepped fruit and veg, maybe a small tub of hummus or dressing, and a pack if peanuts at a grocery store, convenience store, or gas station. Cheaper than many combo meals at fast food places. Even if you choose to get fast food, there’s no reason you need a cola + fried potatoes + some kind of burger. Choose just the burger, for example. Cheaper and fewer overall calories.

————

I do all this because I care about pain management, whereas some people utterly refuse to make these changes out of habit and perceived convenience. Of course my doctor will recognize I’m putting forth more effort to manage my health and pain, so of course my doctor will take me more seriously because I’ve made it clear that I’m taking this more seriously.

This is no hate, this is to explain why docs treated me differently when I was obese and why I am benefitted financially, convenience-wise, health-wise, and pain-wise with a healthy diet and healthy fat range.

And of course I get it: chronic pain has changed my life so much already, can’t I just have this? My same old habits? To be a little normal? Sure, only if your habits are more important to you than your health and pain management. Maybe they are to you; to me, they aren’t. But if you are choosing habit and food myths over health and pain management, don’t get upset that your doc recognizes you aren’t as serious about your health and pain management as people who do focus on those things…because you aren’t.

I’m afraid to go to any doctor because I’m fat.

I’m terrified.

This is why I put everything off. I’m terrified of the judgment, the assumptions, the scolding. This is why I haven’t got tested for lupus, fibromyalgia, whatever it is that’s causing my pain.

This is why I haven’t seen a therapist or a p-doc for about a year, why I haven’t been medicated, why my mental illnesses are going on unchecked and I can’t live my life.

This is why I’ve had a cough for god knows how long that I’ve ignored completely.

This is why I haven’t seen my orthopedist in almost 2 years, why I have no pain management, why I haven’t gotten ANY treatment for my fucked up spine, my constant pain.

This is why I am fucking falling apart. This is why my health has been rapidly deteriorating. This is why my disabilities are completely and utterly swallowing up my life.

How DARE anyone say that fatphobia doesn’t hurt people. How DARE people say that their fatphobia is out of concern for my health.