That explains the disorder of most dieting advice sooo well. The assumption is fat people don’t eat enough fruit and especially veg, so fruit and veg get pushed ad infinitum “instead of pizza or chocolate”, when really they’re instead of ALL protein, ALL decent calcium sources, ALL healthy fats.
Is it any wonder people’s bodies freak out and start reacting weirdly? I don’t know a single day person who didn’t have at least a couple of weird food reactions and/or environmental reactions.
I was probably eating best when I took a salad to work daily.
A salad that got side-eyed because it was loaded with bacon bits, ricotta, cheddar, fried onions or tortillas strips, a creamy dressing… all the “bad” things for you (but it was easily portable, no one tried to steal it, and food shopping is easier and less exhausting when you work in the grocery store).
I’m still working to overcome the automatic cringes when I look in the mirror. I eat less than most people think I do looking at me – less than the RDA for calories, most days. Some days I hardly eat at all.
But people all around me talk about how they’re dieting for this, that or the other, bragging about how much weight they’ve lost when they were twig-skinny before, and on the days I do eat, I feel guilty. I don’t have a full-on eating disorder (thankfully), but I understand how people develop them.
The diet industry is evil. Not nutrition – a good nutritionist will never nag you to lose weight or eat dangerously, but the diet, and weight-loss (and even to some extent the “fitness”) industry is straight up evil. Especially the way they’ve managed to infiltrate medicine: getting acceptance of comorbidity and correlation as being causation. Being fat causes anything, and anything wrong with you is because you are fat and don’t look after yourself. Oh, she complains of leg pains? Fat. Autopsy eventually shows she had bone cancer? How were we supposed to diagnose that, over her fat-induced pains? (Spoiler alert: the pain wasn’t from being fat). Some doctors refuse to treat fat patients, outright. We’re told obesity is an epidemic. Not the correlative issues, the obesity itself. A fat person with no other health problems is (according to the “epidemic”) as sick as a fat person with them. We have an instinctual-level fear of disease so it’s no surprise that so many people have disdain for fatness, now that we’ve patholgized it.
The whole “thin=healthy” thing needs to die in a large fire. Thin people can be sick. Fat people can be healthy. Fat people can also have eating disorders, but less likely to receive concern and help, and far more likely to be encouraged.
Fat phobia literally kills.
Food insecurity, health outcomes, and the stupid, stupid myths that make things far worse:
This thread made me think back on when my weight really went off the rails – I had some weight gain when I stopped growing ~age 13 (after growing 30cm in 2 years), but was thin by the end of high school.
I realised things got out of control when I was around food, I had food available, but I was not allowed to eat it when I was hungry. “After we finish X”, where X is a task that takes hours, by which time I’m ready to gnaw my own arm off.
It’s the same way I have to manage my sleep patterns today, because of too much staying up until the wee hours because of “deadlines” which often weren’t deadlines at all.
Controlling relationships, whether from patronizing, punitive government policy or from personal relationships, do lots of real, unacknowledged harm.
I ran a full ten miles today. I haven’t ever done that before, but I felt good, so I kept going.
But also drank 4 beers, so???
Hi,
The local grocery store has a limited selection of vitamins. And Amazon has a strike. The GNC online store looks accessible so far, is it a good and ethical source?
I doubt it’s ethical, but it may be the only source you’ve got.
Have you tried local drug stores like CVS or Walgreen’s?
Also, Target, Walmart, Costco, etc.
There’s a local CVS, but it’s in a shopping mall, so no.
CVS (and most of the others) have delivery.
Yup, that’s what I was thinking too.
Can’t properly search GNC. “NOT mononitrate” and “-mononitrate” and hcl all yield a counple results with thiamin mononitrate.
So I have very tight muscles all the time. I don’t know if these are contributing to my other healt issues, but they often ache. Does anyone know of any good techniques to loosen these?
A nice warm bath with Epsom salts!
Good to know! As someone who can’t drink the stuff. 
I got kind of dehyrdated on my run Thu. I got home and picked up my chonk of a son, and felt my back just seize up. It’s been a couple days, and I threw it again trying to get a picture of a lizard that lives in my kitchen.
What do I do? It hurts! Being old is awful!
I agree! Heat is probably the best thing – a bath, or heating pad. When my back really hurts I lay on my back on the bed, with the heating pad under my back, being careful to keep it on low, alternating with off (because laying on a heating pad is officially a no-no due to possibility of burns, but this works for me). I keep my knees bent and my calves up on two pillows. Twenty minutes works well. I put an alarm on in case I fall asleep. But I’m careful to (try to) do that only if I’ve turned the pad off.
NSAIDS may help. If it continues to seize I’ve read muscle relaxers may help, but they need a prescription.
I think the reason a joint seizes is to protect it from damage, irrespective of pain to the owner. I used to have severe hip pain due to active Crohn’s (which can affect joints as well), and I remember it seizing once. That was the worst pain I’ve ever felt.
Good luck! I hope the pain eases.
I kicked my husband off his DnD call in our bedroom so I could go to bed at 9:30. I slept 10 hours and feel much, much better. Being a working parent in a pandemic rally makes recovery slow …
Try not to, especially with blood pressure meds! That’s one drug it’s better not to miss. (There are others. If I’m late with my anti-seizure med I notice a weirdness.)
It could be the one-way vein valves in the legs are also to blame. They help keep blood from pooling in the legs, but can lead to edema if they aren’t working very well. I get edema too probably for this reason, despite my BP being pretty much under control. It doesn’t help when I sit for long periods at the computer.
By the way, I ain’t no MD, as they say. But I’ve studied arteries and blood pressure and whatnot, so have some background. 
That’s good to hear. Amazing what rest will do. Good luck with being SO busy!
I don’t know if you can get this where you are, but:
https://www.backrelief.ca/back-relief-products/robax-heatwraps/lower-back-hip-heatwraps
Really help for me. It’s like those handwarmers you can stick in gloves, only it’s on a stretchy belt. (Robax also makes muscle relaxants that you don’t need a scrip for in Canada.)
I found naproxen didn’t even touch the pain, so YMMV for any of our advice.
I also convinced my dr. to prescribe me some Tylenol 3s for emergencies, because one taken at night on the first night usually lets me sleep enough to eliminate the need for more. I use opiates very, very sparely, but sometimes they really are necessary. (Him: “I can’t prescribe very many.” Me: “I don’t need that many, but the last time you prescribed them was 2013. It is literally for emergency use.” Him: “Fair enough.” I haven’t touched them. But knowing they are there is a relief.)
Hot baths with Epsom salts is also helpful. Anything that can relax the muscles and encourage bloodflow to the area. And, as you’ve discovered, sleep. Sleep works miracles. The trick is being able to get some.