The Fat Girl's Guide to Living

Charlie’s pre-op glamor shot

As an adult, I’ve never been overly concerned about what I put into my body. For one thing, I was a fall-down drunk for 15 years—which meant that my four food groups were beer, whiskey, potato chips, and Alka-Seltzer. I did not eat breakfast from 1981 to 1996, unless you count the daily ritual of Coca-Cola, aspirin, Tums, and a multivitamin. In those days, my weight fluctuations depended more on the type of job I had (or didn’t have) than on my eating habits.

Even when I got sober, I didn’t really watch what I ate, figuring that giving up alcohol was my lifetime deposit in the Karma Bank. (I also believed life owed me a pass on the felony of my choice.) So if you held up a food item and asked me how many grams of fat it contained, I’d shrug and ask, “Why should I care?”

Then, last March, I had a stomach pain unlike any I’d experienced before. And considering I’d been a blood-puking drunk 14 years earlier, that’s saying something. There was no nausea, just pain. Lots of pain. I tried conventional therapies: antacids, acid-reducers, and anti-gas pills. Nothing worked. I lay down, stood up, curled into a ball. Still nothing. I even drove myself to the nearest emergency room, but it was a busy night for automotive stupidity, so I decided not to wait and drove home. Then, about 3 hours after the pain had started, it subsided.

Believing it to be an isolated incident, I made no dietary changes and went on as before: take-out, fast food, etc. Then, 3 weeks later, the pain returned. This time, I decided to ignore it, and went out for tacos. That attack lasted 5 hours. Fast forward 3 weeks to yet another attack. Then, on the night following my wife’s birthday cook-out, I awoke with a knifing pain so bad I had to consider for a moment whether I was having a heart attack. After an hour the pain stopped, and I wasn’t dead. So I ruled out a coronary.

I decided to consult that bastion of medical information—the Internet. After wading through miscellaneous anecdotal reports and discounting the extra-horrible diagnoses, I arrived at “biliary colic,” a condition resulting from a gallstone, blocked duct, or otherwise faulty gallbladder. “Hmmm,” I thought. “I should see a doctor.”

My doc examined me and ordered an ultrasound, which showed a stubborn gallstone lodged in the neck of the gallbladder, which (appropriately for me) is shaped like a wine skin. So, it was off to a surgical consult. As you may have guessed, the surgeon recommended surgery, sort of the way mechanics recommend brake jobs. Being a coward, I asked about alternatives. Being a surgeon at heart, he said there were none. The only problem was, the next available slot for elective cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal) was 6 months away, in October. I asked what I should do in the meantime to prevent further attacks. “Eat low fat,” he said.

Fear of excruciating pain is a great motivator. And in this case it served as a wake-up call that I was no longer 22 years old, and that I had to pay at least some attention to what my body was telling me. So I was faced with the choice of counting fat grams or risking another 5-hour attack of stabbing gut pain. Since I had no idea what my daily fat intake was, given a totally unrestricted diet, I figured I should find out. Short answer: 110 grams. I had (and still have) no idea if that’s high or low. But, to be safe, I figured I’d cut that number in half.

I eliminated all fast food and take-out (except for Vietnamese and Indian food) and then took a whack at my home eating habits. No more peanut butter. Peanut butter, when it comes to fat calories, is Satan in a candy-apple red Caddy. And Satan’s girlfriend is mayonnaise. So out they went. Then I just substituted low-fat versions of everything else I ate: low-fat sausage, low-fat waffles, light bread, 2% cheese, pretzels instead of potato chips, Fig Newtons instead of Chips Ahoy, etc. Then I took a recount: 45 grams. I’d actually cut my intake by 60%.

Best of all: it worked. The 45 g/day low(er) fat diet kept me attack-free for 6 months, right until my surgery date in October. As a bonus, I lost 23 pounds, going from about 208 to about 185 lbs, and I dropped a pants size.

The surgery itself was done laparoscopically at an outpatient surgical center. I was in by 1pm and out by 7pm, and my recovery was swift and uneventful. I was off painkillers 4 days post-surgery and was able to eat normally within 2 weeks. Having lost the luxury of willful ignorance, I remain at least partially aware of my fat intake, even if I allow myself the occasional éclair, and I’ve managed to keep 20 of the 23 pounds off. And while it certainly worked for me, I don’t recommend a stubborn gallstone as a weight-loss program.

Charlie O’Hay is a poet whose work has appeared in over 100 literary magazines, including Gargoyle, The New York Quarterly, and West Branch. He currently works as a freelance advertising copywriter and manuscript editor, and blogs at It Ain’t All Pizzas and Cream.

“I recently heard that coffee stores fat. Please say it isn’t so! I’m not ready to surrender my morning latte!”

We consulted registered dietitian Joanne Larsen of Ask the Dietitian for the straight scoop on the link between java and fat. “Plain coffee does nothing to store fat,” she says. “What causes people to store fat is eating more calories during a meal or snack than they need in the next 4 – 6 hours.” If you’re worried about fat over-staying its welcome, Larsen emphasizes the tried-and-true “eat less, move more” standard and suggests taking a walk after meals.

We also asked Ms. Larsen to address claims that stress causes us to store fat around the midsection – and coffee’s  potential to increase stress. “Stress doesn’t cause us to store fat around our midsection. Eating more calories than we need plus a lack of exercise to burn those extra calories causes us to store fat from our neck to feet,” she says.

However, Larsen adds, some people overeat in response to stress because eating – especially carbs – brings us comfort. “When we eat, blood pools around our intestines and moves away from our brain, often making us sleepy or more relaxed,” says Larsen. “Exercise is a good stress reliever. Go for a walk instead of eating when stressed.” (Editors’ note: We’d like to add sex to that list, too!) Larsen points out that stress does increase cortisol levels in our bodies, which is related to inflammation in ways scientists are still trying to discern. And while some research has linked caffeine intake and inflammation, the jury’s still out on this issue.

So, can we keep our coffee? All signs point to yes–in moderation. (Editors’ note: Woo hoo!) “Coffee doesn’t exacerbate stress. Caffeine causes our heart to pump harder and our kidneys to filter out more fluid,” she says. “However, people who drink decaffeinated beverages have no less abdominal fat than people who drink caffeinated beverages; otherwise, decaf would be the new miracle diet food.”

We’ve gotten several fun responses to our request for a monthly male columnist. Keep ‘em coming our way! We’ll make the (difficult) decision on who gets the spot on December 1, and get started shaping that column right away for its January 2010 debut. If you’ve already sent your email in (thank you!), we’ll be responding to everyone with any questions, clarifications or request for more information a little later this month.

Here’s the original post:

We’re starting a monthly column in January covering a guy’s point of view, so consider this post a call for male guest columnists. Are you a fat guy facing the same challenges as our female readers? Would you like to write about sharing your life with a plump partner? Are you a single male who prefers curvy women, and would like to talk frankly about dating and sex (no fetishists, please!) Did you once judge fat people until you fell in love with or became one yourself?

Wherever you fall along those lines, all we ask is that you’re a great storyteller, can balance candid and sometimes humorous discussion with professional, respectful content, and that you have a solid sense for your platform. If that’s you, drop us a line and tell us a little more about you and what you’d like to write about each month. We’ll select the best man for the gig on December 1 and announce it here.

Ladies, if you know a guy who’d be great as a monthly FGG columnist, send them our way!

Questions? Ask away.