Taste bud-less

I’ve lost thirty pounds (confirmed by physician) since April. My BMI has dropped four full points, and I was cautioned by my doctor that if I lose another point and a half, I’ll be considered medically underweight. I nearly laughed out loud. Those words – THAT word – underweight – and I have never shared the same sentence space…EVER.

For those of you out there desperately trying to lose weight (and I have BEEN THERE for approximately 13,505 out of the 17,702 days I’ve been alive), please PLEASE don’t get mad at me for these next words: I haven’t been trying.

If we must give it a name, let’s call it the Anxiety-Filled-Who-Am-I-Where-Am-I-Going-Is-This-A-Midlife-Crisis-So-What-If-It-Is-I’m-Terrified-Of-The-Next-Step-How-Do-I-Live-An-Authentic-Life-And-Quiet-The-Demons Diet.

Catchy title, huh? “Paleo,” or “Whole Thirty,” or “Atkins,” or even “The Grapefruit Diet” roll off the tongue much easier. I guess that’s why the folks who wrote those books are gajillionaires, and I’m…not. (Well, and the fact that they actually wrote books, and I…haven’t. I digress.)

Here’s how my diet works: I just haven’t been eating. This burning ball of anxiety, doubt, and fear of taking the Next Big Step has been churning in my gut for months, and apparently that’s left no room for hunger. And when I have forced myself to eat, food “tastes” like sand. It’s like living a life with no taste buds. It sucks.

A few years ago, I was at a luncheon with a group of people I didn’t know, plus my mother. (To clarify, I know my mother. The others I didn’t.) One of the women had a tiny plate of food and was barely picking at it. My mother – who never misses an opportunity to comment on food/eating/weight – especially someone else’s – made some genius quip about “are you on a starvation diet?”

This woman’s kind husband stepped in and explained that said she had no taste buds. As in, literally, zero capability of taste. (In retrospect, this could have been due to chemotherapy, which makes it all the more awful.) “It’s hard to eat when you can’t taste or smell or enjoy the food,” he offered, as she shook her head sadly in agreement.

And the words that my mother next said sprang into my head like a cartoon thought bubble before she uttered them – I KNEW what was coming out of her mouth like a swami with a crystal ball – I could have mouthed them with her simultaneously:

“I wish I had that condition! Just think how thin I’d be!” Said my mother. Who is the size of a hummingbird. (With a diet to match.)

The couple looked at her with expressions on their faces of such complexity it took me a few moments to tease them out: shock at her hubris, pity at her misunderstanding, disgust at her insensitivity, fear at what might next emerge from her mouth.

I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed for her. Clearly, mom had no idea of her blunder. To her, and to quote her God, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, “You can never be too rich or too thin.”

But I think you can be both, or at least each for the wrong reasons.

I’m too thin for the wrong reasons right now. I’m not going to lie – and my therapist keeps checking in on this with me – but ED has awakened from his deep, deep slumber with all this weight loss. I think of ED (Eating Disorder, for the uninitiated) as a hibernating bear, whom I have inadvertently poked with a big, fat, sharp – albeit long – stick. Dr. Julie – my therapist of nearly 28 years, whom I first met in the throes of ED in college – thinks of him as an asshole on a throne with a crown and a scepter. And a huge smirk.

ED has awoken. EDs been hibernating – or dethroned – for decades. And he’s back now. Now that all of this weight has accidentally dropped off, I’m liking it. Even though I’m dangerously close to being “underweight” – whatever THAT is – (I scoff in amazement every time I think of it) – now I’m scared of gaining weight. I’m running to the scales every morning to see if I hold steady. Now if I get hungry, I don’t get glad that I finally have a spark of humanness in me, I think, can’t eat now, gotta maintain this current BMI, and that weight can come roaring back just as fast and easy and accidentally as it came sliding off.

Yeah, maybe Dr. Julie is right – he’s back on the throne. So in addition to all the other crap I’m dealing with, I gotta pull this stick out of that bear’s butt so I can use it to beat ED off his throne.

Wish me luck. I’m going to force myself to eat some yogurt with blueberries for breakfast.

This taking care of yourself shit is hard.