#what supplements should i take to lose weight

[softlyspector]

love your work doll 💕

have a request if you haven't already done this but

Din x pregnant!reader ?? 👀

Protective streak + Din Djarin x pregnant!reader

a/n: im not sure if this is what you wanted anon but this is what my brain came up with.

The twin suns are blazing in the sky when the ramp of the ship descends and Peli Motto's hangar comes into view.

You have both hands pressed against the small of your back, trying to relieve some of the tension on your spine. You arch your back into the pressure and then sigh, raising one hand to Peli with a smile.

"Well, well, well, looks like you two have been busy!" She says.

You laugh and start down the ramp towards her, the pit droids chittering as they approach. Before you can get a word out, a blaster shot rings out, hitting the sand near the approaching droids.

"Hey!" Peli calls indignantly, stomping forward. "How many times do I gotta tell you not to shoot at my droids, Mando?"

The indignant cut of her voice reminds you of the first time you'd met her. "You can stop telling me as soon as they leave my ship and my wife alone," the irritated voice of your riduur returns.

Din had become rather protective, after he found out you were pregnant.

It's only a tad stifling, since he'd always trusted you before to be able to take care of yourself and hold your own. These days he hovers around you anxiously. He doesn't let you do anything for yourself, treats you like a precious rare glass that could shatter at any moment. You're starting to feel useless.

He fusses at you over everything, especially how much you should move.

If it were up to Din he'd probably have you on permanent bedrest.

You roll your eyes when he stops next to you, blaster still in hand, Grogu nestled in his opposite elbow.

"Your wife looks like she's about to tear you apart so I wouldn't worry about my droids," Peli says, cackling and waving the droids behind her as she marches back inside. "I'm charging you extra for that blaster shot!"

Din turns his head slowly to look at you, the angle of his head marking his confusion. "What did I do?"

You don't answer him. "Gimme," you hold out your hands for Grogu. "We have supplies to get."

He hesitates. "You shouldn't carry-,"

You huff and start down the ramp but he easily catches up to you. You walk through Peli's workshop and out into the street on the other side. "You haven't been around many pregnant people, have you?" You grouse as you march down the street. "You can stay here, I know my way around."

You've been on Tatooine more times than you can count. There were supplies you needed while you're docked there, mainly a couple of medical remedies for the pain you've been having in your back and supplements.

"Not - No, I haven't," he holsters the blaster and puts his free hand to the small of your back. His touch is light, but concerned. "Cyar'ika-,"

"I'm not fragile," you say as you cup your hands below your swollen belly to attempt some relief, moving as quickly as you can, only trying to put distance between you and Din a little. Your voice sounds irritated to your own ears but you don't bother correcting it. "I'm still me. I'm still capable."

Your voice cracks just a little. You don't like feeling helpless and despite your words, you do feel every bit that. You feel heavy and slow, parts of you that you didn't know could hurt, ache. You're only a little past the midway point and you aren't sure how to get through the rest of it. Especially not if Din is going to make you feel weak.

Though you can hold your own, you aren't a warrior and you aren't trained and that'll always worry him.

He says your name and gently pulls you to a stop. "I know."

You wait but he doesn't continue, the suns reflecting off his helm blinding you just a little. "Okay," you snap. "So what's the problem?"

It takes him a moment to answer. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "You aren't fragile," he repeats. "I know. But you feel easy to lose. I don't know how to help with this." His voice is low, only for you to hear. "You're right. I don't know what I should do."

You tilt your head, and wish you were alone so you could see his face. Everything he feels is always written over his features. He doesn't know how to hide it and you never want him to.

"Oh," you say.

He doesn't know what his place is supposed to be. In everything he does, he's confident, he knows his role. He's a warrior, a protector. He was trained for that. And since this is something he can't fight, he's defaulted to protecting you.

You step back beside him and loop your arm through his. His shoulders relax a fraction when you pat his bicep. "Okay. We'll talk about it later. Will you help me get a few things?"

His helmet dips in a nod.

When you work your way back to Peli's an hour later, you're sweating and uncomfortable. Din helps you settle in to a chair, hovering nervously around you. He'd done that at the market too, angled himself around you, warded away any attention that settled on you, kept a firm hand on you and the child. "I'm okay," you say now. "Just tired."

He reluctantly hands you Grogu when you hold yours arms out for him. Your child coos up at you, pressing a tiny hand against your cheek.

Din sits across from you, the sounds of crashing parts, beeping droids, and the chitter of Jawas echoing from the loading bay.

He doesn't say anything, but the visor is trained intently on you, like he's waiting for a lesson, instructions on what he's supposed to do.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you," you say. When Din just nods at you, you smile and press one hand over the child's ear. "You're doing a good job. Most of this just isn't something you can help with."

He still doesn't say anything, reclining in his seat instead, considering.

You wait, stroking Grogu's ears.

"I'm doing something wrong," he says eventually. "Or you wouldn't be upset."

You smile and stand, circling to plop yourself in his lap. It's not particularly comfortable, considering the beskar, but you don't mind. "True. Stop doing everything for me."

"Stop-?"

"It makes me feel weak, and I don't like that. Just...wait for me to ask for help. I will ask you, you know I will." You press your free hand to the cowl around his neck.

One arm winds around your waist to support your back, while his other hand rests on the crest of your belly. "You are not weak, riduur" he says, quietly. "You are anything but that."

"Then you have to trust me," you say. "To tell you what I need."

He huffs, "Sometimes you don't, mesh'la. You're stubborn."

"That makes two of us," you laugh, tugging on the material beneath your fingers. "All you have to do is ask me."

You turn and check that Peli is still occupied outside, before you lift the lip of the helmet and press your mouth to his. "Yes," he says, his voice hoarse and unmodulated.

You swipe your thumb over his lips before replacing the helmet. "And stop shooting at innocent droids."

"No," he answers. "I can't do that."

You laugh. "You know," you move your hand to rest on his that still lies against your belly. "My back hurts all the time."

"I know," he rubs your spine, his fingers soothing a pleasant pressure against your back. "I can help you with that?"

You hum and close your eyes to the feeling, his fingers circling a knot against your spine with more confidence. "You won't lose me, you know," you tell him carefully.

"Yes," he says, with a determination that's not rooted in your assurance but in his ability to keep you safe. You might have convinced him to let you do things on your own, but there was no breaking the protective streak.

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mandalorian x reader

[joannechocolat]

On Power, and on Powering Through, and Why They’re Really Not the Same

I don’t pay much attention to personal attacks in reviews. It comes as the flipside of success; an attempt by the critic to puncture what they see as too much success. But I still remember one review, just after the film of Chocolat, when two of my novels happened to be in the Top 5 at the same time, in which a (male) newspaper critic referred to me dismissively as a premenopausal woman writer. I was a little taken aback. Clearly, it was meant to disparage, but I was only 35, ten years away from the perimenopause. What exactly did he mean? It wasn’t a comment about the book (which I doubt he had even read). The obvious misogyny aside, it seemed to express resentment, not of my books, but of me, myself, my right to take up space in his world. That word – premenopausal – was at the same time a comment on my age, my looks, my value, and a strong suggestion that someone like me shouldn’t be this successful, shouldn’t be writing bestsellers, shouldn’t be so – visible.

I don’t recall the name of the man, or the paper for which he was writing. He was far from being the only journalist who felt I didn’t deserve success. I shrugged off the unpleasant comment, but he’d meant it to hurt, and it did. I still wonder why he – and his editor - thought that was appropriate. I also wonder why, 20 years on, women are still dealing with this kind of thing. It’s still not enough for a woman to be successful in her chosen field. Whatever her achievements, you can be pretty sure that at some point, some man in his 50s or 60s – maybe an Oxbridge graduate, author of an unpublished novel or two - will offer his opinion on her desirability, either in the national Press, or most likely nowadays, by means of social media. The subtext is clear: women who don’t conform to societal values of what a woman should be are asking for this kind of treatment; especially those who dare to achieve more than their detractors.

10 years after that nasty review, I finally began the journey into perimenopause. No-one told me it was happening. No-one in the media was talking about it at the time. Even my doctor never thought to mention that my symptoms – the insomnia, headaches, mood swings, anxiety, depression, sleep paralysis, hair loss, brown patches on my skin – might have a single origin. I began to feel I was losing my mind: as if I were starting to disappear. I started to doubt my own senses. I blamed it all on the stress from my job. My mother had powered through menopause – or so she led me to believe – and made no secret of her contempt for modern women who complained, or treated the symptoms as anything more than a minor inconvenience.

And so I did the same. I powered through; and when at last I began to experience the classic symptoms of menopause - irregular bleeding, hot flushes, exhaustion, night sweats so bad that I would awake in sheets that were wringing wet – it did not occur to me to seek help. After over a year of this, I finally went to my doctor, who took a few tests, cheerfully announced I was menopausal, and when I inquired after HRT, advised me to power through – that phrase again - and let Mother Nature take her course. The internet was slightly more helpful. I took up running, lost weight, cut down on alcohol, downed supplements and sleeping pills and vitamin D, and felt a little better. Then, breast cancer came to call, and by the time my treatment was done, the symptoms had more or less disappeared, or at least had been superseded by the symptoms of chemo. I congratulated myself at having powered through cancer as well as surviving menopause.

But two years later, I feel old. I look that way, too. I’ve aged ten years. Some of that’s the cancer, of course. I was quite open about my treatment when I was powering through it – partly in order to pre-empt any questions about my hair loss or any of the all-too visible effects of three courses of chemo. Not that it stopped the comments, though. Even at my lowest ebb, a sector of social media made it clear that my only concern should be to look young and feminine to anonymous men on Twitter.

Right now, I don’t feel either. My hair has gone grey and very thin. My skin, too, seems thinner; both physically and mentally. At a recent publishing event, several acquaintances failed to recognize me; others just looked through me as if I had become invisible. Invisibility would be a relief; I find myself dressing for camouflage. I tend to wear baggy black outfits. I got my OBE last week. Photographs in the Press show me talking to Prince William. I’m wearing a boxy black trouser suit, flat shoes and a red fedora. I think I look nice. Not glamorous, but comfortable; quirky; unpretentious.

On a thread of largely supportive messages, one Twitter user pops up to say: Jesus, who’d accept an honour looking like that middle-aged disaster? @Joannechocolat thought she’d make an impact? She needs a stylist. If you look in the dictionary for the definition of “dowdy”, it features this photo.

It’s not the same man who belittled me over 20 years ago. But the sentiment hasn’t changed. Regardless of your achievements, as a woman, you’ll always be judged on your age and fuckability. I ought to be used to this by now. But somehow, that comment got to me. Going through menopause isn’t just a series of physical symptoms. It’s how other people make you feel; old, unattractive, and strangely ashamed.

I think of the Glass Delusion, a mental disorder common between the 14th and 17th centuries, characterized by the belief that the sufferer was made of glass. King Charles VI of France famously suffered from this delusion, and so did Princess Alexandra Amélie, daughter of Ludwig 1st of Bavaria. The condition affected mostly high-profile individuals; writers, royals, intellectuals. The physician to Philip II of Spain writes of an unnamed royal who believed he was a glass vase, which made him terribly fragile, and able to disappear at will. It seems to have been a reaction to feelings of social anxiety, fear of change and the unknown, a feeling both of vulnerability and invisibility.

I can relate. Since the menopause, I’ve felt increasingly broken. I don’t believe I’m a glass vase, and yet I know what it feels like to want to be wrapped in a protective duvet all day. I’ve started buying cushions. I feel both transparent, and under the lens, as if the light might consume me. On social media, I’ve learnt to block the people who make mean comments. To make myself invisible. To hide myself in plain sight. I power through, but sometimes I think: why do women power through? And who told them that powering through meant suffering in silence?

Fortunately, some things have changed since I went through the menopause. Over the past few years, we’ve seen more people talking about their experiences. Menopause is likely to affect half the population. We should be talking about it. If men experienced half these symptoms, you bet they’d be discussing it. Because power isn’t silence. You’d think that, as writer, I would have worked that out sooner. Words are power. Sharing is strength. Communication breaks down barriers. And sometimes, power means speaking up for those less able to speak for themselves.

I look at myself in the mirror. I see my mother’s mouth; my father’s eyes. I see the woman I used to be; the woman I will one day become. I see the woman my husband loves, a woman he still finds attractive. A woman with a grown-up child who makes her proud every single day. A menopausal woman. A cancer survivor. A woman who writes books that make other people sit up and think. A woman who doesn’t need the approval of some man she’s never met to be happy. She can be happy now. I can. And finally, I understand.  Powering through isn’t about learning to be invisible. It isn’t about acceptance, or shame, or letting Nature take its course, or lying about feeling broken. It’s looking beyond your reflection. It’s seeing yourself, not through the lens of other people’s expectations, but as yourself. The sum of everything you’ve been; of everyone who loves you. Of claiming your right to be more than glass, or your reflection in it. The right to be valued. The right to shine, regardless of age or reproductive status. Men seldom question their own right to these things. But women have to fight for them. That’s why it’s so exhausting.

This morning, instead of putting on my usual baggy black sweatshirt, I chose a bright yellow pullover. I looked at myself in the mirror. It’s not a great colour on me now, but it feels like dressing in sunshine. My husband came into the bathroom. You look –

My husband rarely gives compliments. I can’t remember the last time he commented on how I was dressed. I wondered what he was going to say. Dowdy, perhaps? Inappropriate? Like a menopausal woman in dire need of a stylist?

At last, he said: When you smile like that, you look like a friendly assassin.

A friendly assassin. I’ll take that.  

Shining like the sun. That’s me.

#menopause #cancer

[requiemfordreams]

Some tips that helped me lose weight while having an ed and preventing dizziness, fatigue hair loss, and brain fog.

For some reason eating after 2pm has reduced my cravings alot.

Chewing sugar free gum helps alot. Most of them contain sorbitol for the sweet taste and consuming sorbitol in a large amounts can lead to it acting as a laxative.

Coffee. To keep you full and again another laxative. But it can only be had hot for it to work.

Dry fruits. They contain little to no calories and prevent you from feeling dizzy.

Some junk foods are considered empty caloric foods because they do not provide any sort of good calories that your body can use, which can lead to your body storing them. So if you can find a low empty calorie food, you can sometimes eat them to keep yourself full. I should note this might not work for some people but it has worked for me.

What also has worked for me is make the same lunch to take to school, which is really low cal and because it is my comfort food and it helps me not think about food and since I spend 9 hours at school, not counting the 40 mins it takes me to and fro from school, I'm able to spend an ample amount of time not eating and that works wonders

and if my parents asks me to eat, I just say I shared my friends' lunch and I'm full.

I m like to distract myself from eating everytime I have a craving by chugging alot of water, which is first good for your health and keeps your belly full for longer.

I take multivitamins to keep up with all the necessary nutrient needs.

I also drink like 30gms of protein powder with water to help with my muscles, and also because protein helps in losing calories.

Fruits. Especially watermelons. They are so full of water, a cup of watermelons contains 46 kcal and can make you feel full really fast and they are packed with the good kinds of carbohydrates, vitamin A, C, and B6, full of potassium and absolutely no fats or sodium.

Cucumbers. Again, water based with almost little to no calories to them.

If you are having hair loss problems, biotin is a great supplement for hair and so is protein.

Try as much as you can to make sure you're not alone too long. Because when nobody is there around you, you're more prone to giving into your urges. So if you see that in you, try being around as much people as possible.

Coconut water is a great drink to help balance your electrolytes and keep your nutrients to the level.

Coconut oil and if you're Indian, ghee is great for your hair because it makes your hair more healthy and strong. It would be best if you kept your hair oiled overnight before washing and not just a few hours.

If it helps, because it has worked with me, even though I look fat, I tell everyone around me about how little I eat or how healthy I eat. And sometimes if I have to eat with other people, I will only have half of the food I ordered and ask if anyone can finish it because I'm not used to having so much food. Or I already had such a big breakfast that this seems too much. The little lies, that make you feel accountable into not eating so much even when you're alone.

I like to avoid sodas and energy drinks even if they're diet soda or not, because they honestly have way too many calories that your body can retain.

Masturbating. It's weird but five mins of it can lead to losing 400kcals and that's worth a bit of something.

Studying. It doesn't feel like it but you use alot more calories when you're concentrating on your work.

Sitting up straight. The will of keeping your shoulders straight and your spine straight, it takes up alot of calories because your body is not used to you doing that.

Doing chores around the house that require you to be on your feet.

Drink alot of water. But not too much.

Make a habit of waking up at a certain time in the morning and sleeping at a certain time. This makes way for a more disciplined mind, and more will power and honestly, not only do you not get so much fatigue or dizziness, it cultivates good sleeping habit. Which is not only good for the body, it also helps you stay focused in classes.

There is a certain set of yoga called the suryanamaskar which promotes good cardiovascular health and if you do 12 sets of it everyday, helps in losing calories. And they are so simple and easy for you to do if you don't feel like you have much energy.

I don't have more but if I do, I'll reblog and add them.

#ed bllog #ed not ed sheeran #ed binging #ed journal #tw disordered eating #@n0r3xia #@na trigger #ed disorder

[pillsandumbrellas]

Could you extend on the fat/water for fuel thing you said while fasting please?? Also, some tips? Like you've done this for such a long time it's so impressive

I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to. I'm assuming you're asking about what your body requires to function while still fasting. I'll go into a lot of detail regarding this since I feel like it's important. First of all I'd like to preface this by stating that everyone is different. Some people have deficiencies or immune issues or blood pressure.. the list goes on issues. Before even considering a fast, know your body and it's requirements. I would hate for someone to read anything I write and take my word for it and do something that harms them. I couldn't live that, so please do your research. Regarding what your body needs; if you're already a very thin person, don't fast. You have to understand that when you're eating, your body is burning calories for fuel. When you're not eating, it switches to burning fat. This is ketosis. A lot of the goal of a ketogenic diet is to switch the body over to burning fat for fuel. This is the biggest reason for why people have a really goddamn hard time the first few days of fasting or even starting keto. What people refer to as "keto-flu." It's your body protesting against your switching over to burning fat, when burning calories is so much easier and it's instant energy. Burning fat is a lot more work. So, if you're already thin, your body won't have much fat to burn through. What your body will do instead if burn through muscle and organ tissue. You REALLY do not want that. Bear in mind that even if you have fat deposits, muscle loss is likely to occur anyway, as your body may burn through muscle it thinks you don't necessarily have use for. If you go past a 36h fast, autophagy also begins to occur where your body starts to heal itself. I personally love this and have healed my acne scars through this. I had really bad acne scars and now I have maybe a couple I can see if I look reaaally closely. Putting that aside. You need hydration A LOT of water, and you need fasting minerals (electrolytes). These are mainly sodium, magnesium, and potassium. Now I personally just make snake juice at home, because I like control over what I put inside myself. Water=2L | Potassium chloride =1 tsp | Sodium chloride = 1/2 tsp | Sodium Bicarbonate = 1 tsp Magnesium Sulphate = 1/2 tsp Now it's up to a person to know how long they can fast and how long they should fast, however if you're planning an extended fast. I cannot stress enough to get a general check-up, get professional help during your fast if you can, and monitor your blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Some things I experienced through my many fasts has been throwing up by the way. Usually around day 7-14. I was able to fix this with a mixture of a table spoon of apple cider vinegar and pickle juice. I couldn't drink snake juice anymore, because it was too concentrated it made me feel ill. However the pickle juice had enough minerals to keep me satiated without being overwhelming and the apple cider vinegar balanced me out. No these do not break the fast. This is medically proven to aid with fasting, I didn't just come up with this btw. Also you may find yourself bloated with water as you lose weight and your body decides that it wants to fill the fat you lost with water. Potassium supplements can help with this. Just be careful with your dosage. Little goes a long way. You will pee A LOT. This is normal. You'll pee a lot in the beginning of your fast, as you drop water weight, especially when you got to bed. It slows down towards the middle when your body starts packing on the water. Potassium makes you start the hose again though. Anyway I hope this helps some people, gives some insight. Be careful. Take care of your bodies. Don't be stupid. I can do stupid things, but I try to be a self-aware and well informed idiot. That way I don't have anyone but myself to blame, because I know better.

#tw ana diary #ed not ed sheeran #tw restriction #pro a4a #@n0r3xia #@na trigger #tw ana trigger #tw disordered eating #tw restrictive ed #water fast

[dionysianchub]

Fatty liver anon here. Did they say why you have it specifically? Its very rarely caused by just being fat, it's usually health issues that can also make you gain weight. If it's alcohol related that's an obvious fix (harder in practice of course), if not there are a few different routes to go down

I'm 5'6 and 240lbs (gained 70lbs so far intentionally after gaining 35lbs from pcos, learning you can't just lose pcos weight with diet and exercise, and realising just being a feeder wasnt what I needed) and while they did say it can sometimes help to lose weight it's more about the pcos which caused insulin resistance and high cholesterol (for other people it can also be from diabetes, underactive thyroid, high blood pressure etc).

As I said I take inositol for the IR but I did also make a lot of lifestyle changes. I've had improvements whilst also lowering how many simple carbs I have and eating more complex carbs and fats instead (dairy isn't great for insulin resistance so I eat so many avocados, nuts and other plant oils as well as oily fish), taking those little cholesterol drinks containing plant sterols, and upping my fibre a lot with both oat bran and psyllium husk. I swim, go on walks, lift weights, and do some of Dr la thoma's YouTube functional bodyweight workout videos+stretches (being specific cause I do rate them for fat people, shes tiny but most are about functionality and ability over athleticism— We aren't in her mind but it's adaptable and useful) for general health/wellbeing and to hopefully keep the visceral fat % and liver fat lower as I gain. I also take milk thistle tablets because some studies show it's good for repairing and protecting the liver. I can't say what specifically has helped the most but I'm keeping it all up because it's working, you'll probably end up doing some experimenting. It sounds overwhelming written out like this but it really wasn't

They said I should try weight loss as well of course but I explained "it would be bad for my mental health so tell me what you'd tell a skinny person" and they dropped it. They tell me I'm obese every time I see them of course because I'm fatter every visit but accept it's not the sole or best treatment option. If you have an ED history they can be more understanding about avoiding WL. I'm personally willing to do anything except lose weight unless I get big enough that I can then lose the 5% recommended (visceral fat goes first, or so they say, and that's around what people can reliably keep off) and still feel good about my body.

One nurse tried to say something about me being on testosterone and only stopped when she realised the gel doesn't metabolise the same way, I'm sure you know what they can be like just don't be surprised if someone decides to blame T. Trans broken arm syndrome strikes again.

Sorry this is long and very ()()()(), I hope it's helpful enough to compensate.

This is wildly helpful! My doctor hasn't even called me since testing, this is just what I've seen from the results of the ultrasound and MRI, but I do know that at the time my liver values were evaluated they did discover I had an underactive thyroid. I've been placed on a synthetic thyroid hormone for the last month or so. Hopefully that helps? I also know that prior to my diagnosis I was eating a ton of sugary foods and carbs, so I've been trying to cut those and eat a more mindful diet. I'll look into the supplements and videos you mentioned as well! Thank you so so much for all your advice!! 💜💜💜

[krinndnz]

An Ad-Hoc, Informally-Specified, Bug-Ridden, Single-Subject Study Of Weight Loss Via Potassium Supplementation And Exercise Without Dieting

Here's the short version: I lost 30 pounds in 6 months by chugging a bunch of potassium salt and exercising a lot. My subjective experience is that cranking my potassium intake way up made it possible to do a lot more exercise than I had been doing without also eating a lot more. Exercising more without also eating more led to weight loss (as one would hope!). I did not diet: I ate as I had been doing and as it pleased me to do. Do with the raw data as you please.

Losing weight this way is unusual and worth paying attention to because many things about increases and decreases in weight and obesity are very poorly understood. Many people would like their personal weight and obesity levels to be different, so anything that improves our collective understanding of how to make that happen is valuable. However, losing weight this way is an experiment: it's not necessarily safe to do what I did! Part of why I did it was to find out what would happen, and if you have any kind of existing kidney problems then you definitely should not do what I did. Note to other transfemmes: if you're taking spiro, that counts as a kidney problem.

I also don't want to overstate the significance of this experiment: what I've been up to in the last 6 months amounts to a single data point that happens to also be 1,100 spreadsheet cells. It's a data point that is highly suggestive, sure, but it would be extremely ambitious to say that it proves anything beyond "this worked for me" and perhaps "it's not impossible for this to work". I am writing about it because as far as I know, this particular experiment is something that nobody else has tried, and, again, anything that improves our collective understanding here is valuable.

The long version comes next: how I came to be doing this experiment, what I did in the experiment, what I plan to do next, and finally what I think about it all. The really long version is the ongoing conversation that this post is part of, starting with A Chemical Hunger, which is a book-length literature review about the 1980s–present global increase in obesity prevalence, also the posts about single-subject research where the same authors discuss the limits of what can be learned from experiences like mine, also the Experimental Fat Loss guy and his wide variety of diet-only experiments, also some critics who disagree.

How I came to be doing this

At the tail end of 2022, I noticed both that my BMI had hit 30 and that I had become very unhappy about my weight. There's a specific photo where I didn't realize until I saw the photo that my belly was hanging out over my waistband and it's vividly unpleasant in my memory. Around the same time, I happened to find the potassium-supplementation community trial that the Slime Mold Time Mold folks were running. The value proposition was "this will be easy, cheap, and safe, but also it might not actually work," and that sounded good to me, so I signed up for it and took a modest amount of potassium all through December and January. It kinda-sorta worked: I lost 6 pounds. Not nothing, but "it kinda-sorta worked" is the most one can really say about losing 6 pounds in 60 days.

The low-dose potassium delivered on all of what the SMTM folks promised, though. It was easy, cheap, and safe. So I kept doing it and, since I was already doing the potassium, decided that I should get an exercise habit going. I am a big believer in the idea that it's a tremendous amount easier to go from doing Something to doing More Something than to go from doing Nothing to doing Something. The low-dose potassium got me through the first step: once I was doing Something about my weight, it was relatively easy to do More Something. When the community trial ended in early February, I didn't have to worry about messing up its results by departing from the trial's instructions, so I started taking more potassium and building my own experiment. I also kept in touch with the SMTM authors, who were very encouraging. 🐯💕

By late March I had brought myself up to daily amounts of potassium and exertion that seemed good to me, and I stuck with those. This is the first time in my life I've focused on trying to lose weight, and I was not fully prepared for how demoralizing it is that the weight change from day N to day N+1 sometimes seems perversely unrelated to what you were doing on day N. Fortunately I have experience with spreadsheets, so I put together a tracker for myself that focused on the trailing-week average of my daily weight and exercise measurements as well as long-term graphs. Three months of data were enough to put together a chart whose trendline said very, very clearly, "what you are doing is working — keep it up!" With any kind of long-term project it's very important to create and sustain sources of feedback. All else being equal, the longer it takes before you can get a read on "is this going well or poorly?", the worse it will go.

I decided that my goal would be to get my BMI from 30 (the lower limit of "obese") to under 25 (the upper limit of "normal"). Happily, the math is very easy there: for my height, a BMI of 25 rounds off to 200lbs. I further decided that I was willing to spend all of 2023 working on this. That decision is why I'm writing this post now: halfway through a project is a natural time to pause and take stock.

What I did

By the end of March, my regimen was firmly settled and I kept at it through the end of June without further tinkering. The daily goals I settled on were 10,000mg of potassium and 1,200kcal of exertion. That amount of exercise worked out to be 90 to 100 minutes per day. For contrast, in 2022 my average amount of exercise per day was 15 minutes and my average exertion was 500kcal.

I used my smartwatch's exertion number ("how many calories are you using above the amount you need to burn to be alive at all?") and gradually walked up my daily goal, settling at 1,200kcal/day partially because it was working and partially because one hour of watch face equaling 100kcal was helpful for being able to read "how close to my goal am I?" without thinking hard about it. Most of the exercise was treadmill time, usually a brisk walk or light jog. Over the months I also did some running, some bicycling, and some hiking, but treadmill time was the reliable, unremarkable, do-this-every-day core of my exercise regimen. It took a while to ramp up to that amount of exertion and there were definitely days when I stumbled, for good reasons and bad. However, in general I hit the exertion goal and in particular had it absolutely dialed from early March to mid-April.

It was easier to be totally rigorous about the potassium-intake goal — it helped that that part only took a few minutes per day, instead of 90+ minutes! I used potassium chloride powder (whatever came up first on an Amazon search since all KCl should be alike) mixed with regular Gatorade (i.e. not the sugar-free kind) to make it taste okay (I recommend blue Gatorade, it's the closest to appealing when kaliated — the yellow lemon-lime was meh and the fruit punch red was awful). I added two heaping teaspoons of KCl powder to a 20oz. bottle of Gatorade and drank that. KCl is about 52% potassium and a heaping teaspoon of it is about 6500mg, so I rounded up a smidge and called that 6600-and-a-bit milligrams of potassium per bottle. On Thursdays and Sundays I drank 2 full bottles and on other days 1.5 bottles. I recorded this as 10,000mg of potassium on regular days and 13,500mg on Thursdays and Sundays.

Is 10,000mg of potassium a lot? It's a lot more than average! The SMTM potassium trial post contextualizes it helpfully:

For a long time, the recommended daily value for adults (technically, the “Adequate Intake”) was 4,700 mg of potassium per day. But most people don’t get anywhere near this amount. In every CDC NHANES dataset from 1999 to 2018, median potassium intake hovers around 2,400 mg/day, and mean intake around 2,600 mg/day. In this report from 2004, the National Academy of Medicine found that “most American women … consume no more than half of the recommended amount of potassium, and men’s intake is only moderately higher.” Per this paper, only 0.3% of American women were getting the recommended amount. Similarly low levels of intake are also observed in Europe, Mexico, China, etc. But in 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine changed the recommended / adequate intake to 2,600 mg/day for women and 3,400 mg/day for men. They say that the change is “due, in part, to the expansion of the DRI model in which consideration of chronic disease risk reduction was separate from consideration of adequacy,” but we can’t help but wonder if they changed it because it was embarrassing to have less than 5% of the population getting the recommended amount. In any case, recommended potassium intake is something like 2,500 to 5,000 mg per day for adults, and many people don’t get enough. Potatoes are exceptionally high in potassium. A single potato contains somewhere between 600 and 1000 mg of potassium, depending on which source you look at. They are the 6th highest in potassium on this list of high-potassium foods from the NIH, and 9th on this old list from the USDA. If you do the math, this means that someone on the potato diet, eating 2,000 kcal of potatoes a day, gets at least 11,000 mg of potassium per day, more than twice the old recommended intake.

This explanation is most of why I decided to stabilize at about 10,000mg per day: because that's about how much potassium people were getting during the SMTM potato diet community trial. Because that community trial involved around 200 people, it was unlikely that there would be any truly heinous health effects from knocking back that much potassium, especially together with the anecdotal evidence that inspired the trial. Aiming for that amount also meant that it would be easier to compare my results to something that worked decently well and to ask questions like "is there something special about whole potatoes, or is it mostly the potassium?" If it's mostly the potassium, you'd expect my results to be closer to the full-potato-diet results than to the low-dose-potassium results — which is what happened.

I measured those results in a very basic way: ordinary bathroom scale, first thing in the morning, every day. Considering how much noise there is in weight measurement, there's just no advantage to measuring it more often. I kept the circumstances of the weigh-in simple and stable, trusting that that was good enough. I also measured exertion in two other forms — step count and exercise minutes — but that was mostly for my personal curiosity because both are basically downstream of exertion as such. Similarly, I tracked my sleep but didn't expect that to matter a whole lot.

While I was affirmatively not dieting, I want to make sure to talk about my food habits because I could be missing something that's easy for others to see as unusual but seems totally ordinary to me. My meals are heavy on pasta, rice, bread, and granola. I work diligently to get enough dietary fiber. I eat some meat but not a lot (eating a pound of meat in a week would be above average for me), and I enjoy coffee but not a tremendous amount of it since usually I make Chemex-style coffee and having a bunch of that in a day would be too time-intensive. My go-to snacks are cashews, pistachios, cherries, and granola bars. Like most people, I should eat more dark leafy greens than I do. I use a generous hand when measuring out olive oil. I believe that if you need either milk taste or milk fat, you shouldn't half-ass it, so when I need milk taste or milk fat, I rely on whole milk and heavy cream. Fats, generally, taste good. I eat more whole food and food I personally cook than I eat packaged and processed food, and I only infrequently eat restaurant food (weekly pizza night, maybe twice a month other than that). I really like sour candies but basically stopped eating them last autumn after some very patient coaxing from my dentist. Once in a while, dark chocolate, usually with the nuts and fruit.

I ate as I had been doing: I ate the food I felt like eating and ate as much of it as I felt like eating. If I felt like eating more or less, I did that. Since I wanted to keep the exercise habit going regardless of whether or not I lost weight, it was very important to me to not make the exercise any more difficult than it had to be. Going hungry would definitely make it more difficult, so I avoided doing that. One way in which I'm very sure my experience generalizes is, it's much easier to persuade people to try "add this supplement to what you're already eating" than to get them to try "replace all of your current food with potatoes," especially when talking about long-term or indefinite-duration changes.

What I plan to do next

I'll be thrilled if I can recapture something like the 7-week March/April streak I had going. Most days in this period (44 out of 49) were PB days (i.e. a day where my trailing-week-average weight was the lowest it had been since the start of the year) and no two consecutive days in this period were non-PB days (i.e. if a day wasn't a PB day, both the day before and the day after were PB days). I was losing almost 2lbs per week and exercising a lot and I felt great. However, my intuition is that that was the honeymoon period of going from mostly-sedentary to exercising regularly, and that I should expect further progress to be more difficult, to be like the less impressive results I got in May and June.

Still, the thing as a whole has definitely been successful enough that I'm going to keep at it until the end of the year, re-evaluating again in December (and maybe when I hit my weight-loss goal, which should happen around halfway between now and then). Since I'm using January 1st as my anchor date for the start of the experiment, it lines up nicely with the calendar if I just keep going all year and see what happens. Besides, I only need 6 months more to generate a year of data, while someone going from a cold start would need a whole year.

Given that I have a setup that is working pretty well, I'm reluctant to tinker with it. I might add one more high-potassium day in addition to Thursdays and Sundays, and I might start tracking some extra data — even though I'm not trying to change them, recording my food habits seems like the most helpful additional thing I could record.

If I develop health problems I'm gonna pull the ripcord (and post about it). There are already too many shitty fake weight loss regimens in the world that fuck up the health of people who try them, we do not need more.

What I think about it

Since I'm the one doing this experiment, I get to be excited about how it's working out for me personally, which is to say, very well indeed. Right now it seems pretty certain that I'll be able to reach my goal of losing ~50lbs in a long-term-sustainable way and just as importantly, getting myself to a much better baseline state of physical fitness. I feel pretty great about that part!

The experiment is not just for me, though: the reason it's an experiment rather than just "I'm trying to lose weight" is that I am keeping track of things carefully such that other people could carry out the same steps I did and get results similar to or different from mine and ideally everyone eventually comes to pretty firm conclusions about whether this — losing weight via potassium and exercise without dieting — works or not. My chugging potassium and Gatorade for six months to a year is the very beginning of that process, and I expect that the difficult parts of the process will be carried out by people with more expertise and resources than me.

I also expect that I have not tumbled to the One Weird Trick for weight loss that everyone else just overlooked. As someone with plenty of programming experience, I have a hearty suspicion towards "well, it worked on MY setup" stories. One obvious alternate explanation for my successful weight loss is "well yeah, you doubled your exertion and kept your food intake the same, of course you lost weight" — but I don't find that explanation satisfying. To start with, if it were that easy, people would do it more often. There are a tremendous number of people who would like to lose weight and a tremendous marketplace of devices, services, and professionals to help them use exercise for that purpose, and yet in a 20-year NCHS study, average exercise rose without obesity falling. It's also very, very easy to find fat people who exercise plenty — you will find them more or less anywhere you find lots of people exercising, as well as in places like sumo stables. A member of my family has taken up powerlifting in the last year, making him both fitter and heavier by quite a bit.

Additionally, there's studies like Keating 2017 concluding that short-term exercise intervention doesn't do enough to matter, or like the Wu 2009 work concluding that exerise-and-dieting isn't meaningfully better than just dieting over periods of 6+ months, and then there's the STRRIDE study, Slentz 2004, concluding that jogging 20 miles a week can get people to lose about 7 pounds over 8 months. The STRRIDE study caught my eye because it's pretty similar to what I did: they took obese mostly-sedentary folks, had them exercise more, and forbade them from eating less. However, once you do the math the results are much less similar: the average STRRIDE participant did around half the exercise I've done for at most a fifth of the weight loss (i.e. around 1lb/month vs. around 5lbs/month and around 3mi/day vs. 7mi/day). If someone else told me "Krinn, your naïve just-hit-the-treadmill exercise regimen is 2.5x as effective as an exercise regimen supervised & measured by professionals," I would want them to provide some compelling evidence for that.

If you tell someone you want to lose weight and would like their advice, it is overwhelmingly likely that the advice will involve exercising more. Everyone has heard this advice. And yet, as Michael Hobbes observes in a searing piece for Highline, "many 'failed' obesity interventions are successful eat-healthier-and-exercise-more interventions" that simply didn't result in weight loss. Even if we as a society choose to believe "more exercise always leads to weight loss, most people just fuck up at it," that immediately confronts us with the important question, why do they fuck up at it? and its equally urgent sibling, what can we learn from those who succeed at it to give a hand up to those who have not yet succeeded?

I find the SMTM authors' metaphor for this helpful:

[exercising more and eating less] is not an explanation any more than "the bullet" is a good explanation for "who killed the mayor?" Something about the potato diet lowered people's lipostat set point, which reduced their appetite, which yes made them eat fewer calories, which was part of what led them to lose weight. Yes, "fewer kcal/day" is somewhere in the causal chain. No, it is not an explanation.

Since I've been doing this for six months, I feel pretty certain that the potassium is doing something positive for me and I'm entirely willing to put in another six months to find out what happens for me. Finding out whether that generalizes is beyond my power: all I can do is explain what worked for me, one middle-aged Seattle housewife, and hope that it's useful to people who are in a position to do serious work about it.

One kind of serious work that's available is the very cool analytic techniques that other people in this conversation have used while looking at their data. If you are the kind of person to get elbows-deep in R or Matlab, feel free to grab my day-by-day measurements for that (I release this data under Creative Commons' CC0 if that's relevant to you). I'm not going to do that, though, partially because it's been a long time since I last used R but mostly because of the thing I said earlier about my whole experiment basically being one data point. If you have a data series, then yeah, get in there with some numeric interrogation, but if you only have one data point, that data point is what it is and statistical analysis can't really add to it. All I can claim here is that this is a new data point: people going about their everyday lives do not spontaneously increase their potassium intake severalfold and the background work from the SMTM potato diet and potassium community trials tell me that no-one's run a study looking directly at what happens if you do increase your potassium intake that much.

Do you want to increase your potassium intake that much? If you do, I have to re-emphasize the potassium community trial's safety warning: if you have existing kidney problems, do not try this. Also I'm gonna deploy the boldface again to make sure I get this across to other trans women: on this topic, taking spiro counts as a kidney problem! I am not a doctor and I'm extremely not your doctor, you should talk to your actual doctor if you have any kind of potential kidney issues and even if you're in good health and want to try chugging a bunch of potassium, you should titrate up gradually the way the SMTM writeup suggests (which is also the way I did).

In addition to a general spirit of responsibility, those warnings are important because otherwise just telling you that this is easy would sound like a recommendation. Did I mention that the experiment was easy? Easy easy. Piss easy. Lemon squeezy, etc. Of course building an exercise habit wasn't easy, but the potassium part didn't make it easier or harder, and the potassium part itself was pretty trivial. Mix this powder into Gatorade a couple times per day, drink it, done.

That said, if you do want to try this, godspeed and please write down how it goes for you. I recommend building positive reinforcement into whatever you use to track it; my personal spreadsheet for this is adorned with color-coding and happy emoji. I also recommend at least thinking about the following questions, whether you're going to do this, evaluate the results of this, or both.

How safe is it, in general rather than for me particularly, to chug this much potassium? This is the big one: "just mix potassium salt into Gatorade and drink it a few times a day" is so incredibly easy that even if the effect size is small, it could benefit a huge number of people, but of course it doesn't benefit them if it's not actually safe to do that.

Does this replicate? If it's not safe it matters a lot less whether it replicates, so the safety question comes first, but if it is safe, then one would immediately want to find out whether it works for 1% of people, 10% of people, or 50% of people.

How much do other mineral nutrients, particularly sodium and magnesium, matter for this? Maybe they need to be combined in some specific way, as this Twitter thread suggests.

Do sex hormone levels matter? I'm a trans woman and I've been having problems with access to HRT in this timeframe. Given how many things in one's body testosterone and estrogen affect, and given that previous obesity research has shown differences based on hormone profiles, that's definitely something to keep an eye on. Also because spironolactone in particular messes with renal function and potassium metabolism, I expect that it affects this. Digression: spironolactone is total bullshit as an anti-androgen of first resort. It sucks and I hate it and I should have switched to other anti-androgens even sooner than I did. If you're using spironolactone as an anti-androgen because it was the first thing your doctor tried for that, you really should try something else and see if that works.

I steadfastly avoided dieting. I like my existing diet just fine, and that's why I preferred the "what if I just chug a bunch of potassium" plan. All else being equal, I'd rather try things that let me eat what I like than things that require throwing my relationship with food into upheaval. But of course you wonder, what would happen if you did combine dieting and exercise and potassium? The ExFatLoss guy has been busy trying a lot of diet-only interventions and he's got a lot of interesting results. I am not the person to try it, but it's one of the obvious things to try, so I hope someone does try it.

How does this interact with the munchies? If you decide to try what I tried and you, like me, enjoy living somewhere where marijuana is legal, I think you should look at whether the potassium changes how you experience marijuana-induced hunger/overeating. One of the things I found very striking about the matter is that it was possible for me to chug enough potassium that the marijuana-induced hunger was drastically reduced. I expected the opposite since the potassium was causing me to eat less (relative to exertion) at other times. However, I have very strong habits about marijuana (exactly twice a week, edibles only, same amount every time) and I'm not willing to change them for this, so who knows how this aspect will work out for others. Definitely something to keep an eye on, though. Even if I wasn't losing weight, the potassium reduces marijuana-induced overeating enough that I'd probably keep going with it just for that effect.

Conclusion

I spent 6 months trying to lose weight with lots of potassium and exercise but without dieting. So far I have succeeded. Unless something disastrous comes up, I'm going to keep trying it for at least another 6 months and going to keep recording what I'm doing. I'm particularly curious to see where I'll plateau, since I assume at some point I'll start getting really hungry and/or tired instead of accidentally starving. I hope that my experience and the data I've recorded from it, are useful to people who are looking into questions about obesity and weight. Please feel free to use my data and my writeup (this post) for that. If you want to try doing as I've done, good luck and stay safe: this has worked for me but it is still experimental, it might be unsafe and/or fail to work for you.

#potassium #obesity #n=1 #slimemoldtimemold #citizen science #achemicalhunger #more or less accidentally doing science and that's kind of a weird feeling ngl but I hope it helps someone <3 #krinnposting

[all-the-things-2020]

No Better Place - Chapter 19

Summary: Cassidy breaks up with Javi and he throws himself into his work.

Word count: 3700

Cassidy woke late the next morning, Linus pawing at her face to tell her that his breakfast was late. She’d forgotten to switch on her alarm and it was nearly seven. She jumped up, shoved her feet into her boots and dumped a can of cat food into Linus’ dish before running out to the barn.

“Sorry, kids,” she said, as the horses all snorted at her. Even Cricket was impatient, kicking a hoof against the door of her stall. Cassidy tore open a bale of hay and started stuffing hay nets. Once she’d hung the fresh hay up in the stalls, she carefully measured out each horse’s grain and supplements. Cricket just got a few pellets to supplement her hay, since she was an easy keeper, but Buster and the mares needed to put on some weight, and they got pellets, grain and some supplements. Nugget was still on stall rest, so she fed him lightly, but he did get some grain mixed with his medications.

Once she’d hung the feed buckets in the stalls, she pulled, dumped, washed and refilled the water buckets. Only then did she head back to the house to pee and brush her teeth. As she entered the bathroom, she saw the pregnancy test sitting on the counter and the emotions of the night before came crashing down on her. She picked it up and threw it angrily into the trash can. She used the toilet, brushed her teeth and then decided to take a shower. She looked horrible. Her eyes were puffy from crying and her hair was a tangled mess.

The shower revived her a bit, and she managed a cup of coffee and a slice of toast before her throat threatened to close up again. “What am I going to do?” she asked Linus, who was sitting in the chair beside her, very helpfully cleaning his back legs.

It was clear that it was over between her and Javi but how to end it? Should she confront him about the woman in his apartment? Or just break things off? One thing was certain, she did not want to see him again. It would be too painful, and there was always the chance she’d lose her nerve once she was face to face with him. She’d had many opportunities to leave Travis that she left untaken just because he’d given her that grin. She wouldn’t give Javi the chance.

She could wait until he called, probably that night or the next, but what if he didn’t call and just drove down on Friday night or Saturday morning, showing up unannounced? “I’ll call him,” she told Linus. “After I know he’s left for work. I’ll leave a message on his answering machine and that’ll be that.” Linus looked up from his grooming, the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth, bright pink and ridiculous. Cassidy sighed. “Then I’ll just have to deal with Chucho, but he should be easy enough to avoid.”

**************************************************************************

The next day was better, but Javi was still subdued as he went about his work. He would have worked through lunch again, except Monica forced him to walk to the deli down the street with her and a few other people. He ate half his roast beef sandwich and promised her he’d have the rest for dinner.

When he got home, he tossed the sandwich into the fridge and took off his jacket and tie. He flipped through the mail (all junk or bills, nothing interesting) and noticed the blinking red light on his answering machine. It was probably a telemarketer, trying to sell him insurance or a timeshare or some such nonsense. He pressed the play button, fully expecting to erase the message within the first few seconds.

“Hey, Javi, it’s Cassidy,” the tinny voice said. The speaker on this machine is crap, Javi thought. I need to get a better one. “Um, I don’t really know how to say this other than to just say it. I … I can’t do this anymore. It’s over, Javi. It’s not working and I feel like you need to focus on your life there in San Antonio. And I need to focus on my life here. I’ve been letting too much slide and I’m sure you have too and … well, I just think it’s best we end it now before things get out of hand. Goodbye, Javi. And good luck.”

He was stunned. He’d thought things were going well. True, he’d missed the last two weekends, but he’d been swamped at work and Cassidy had seemed to understand. He picked up the phone and dialed her number. After five rings, her machine picked up.

“It’s Javi,” he said. “Cassidy, pick up if you’re there.” He paused for several seconds, then went on. “Okay, I guess you’re out in the barn. Call me when you get back in. Please, Cassidy. Let’s talk about this.”

He hung up and fetched a beer from the fridge. He drank it and opened another one. Halfway through the second beer, he pulled the sandwich out of the fridge and ate a few bites. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore and he called her again.

“Hey, Cassidy,” he said when the machine picked up. “Come on, baby, talk to me. I don’t know what happened. Did I do something? Did I not do something? Tell me how I can make things right. I don’t want to lose you, Cassidy. I love you. So, call me back. Please.”

He turned on the television and watched some ridiculous sitcoms until ten, when a police procedural came on. He switched channels to a medical drama. Still no call from Cassidy. Before he went to bed, he called one last time.

“Cassidy, sweetheart, please, please, call me back. I don’t want it to be over. We can make this work. I’ll make sure I get home every goddamned weekend, baby, I’ll call you every night. Whatever you need to know that I’m one hundred percent committed to this relationship.” He sighed. “Okay, it’s late, I’m going to bed. I’ll call you again when I get home tomorrow, if you don’t call me first. I love you, hermosa.”

He got undressed and crawled into bed, but sleep eluded him for hours as he wracked his brain trying to figure out what could have triggered Cassidy’s decision to end their relationship. It just didn’t make sense.

********************************************************************

“You look like hell,” Monica said the next morning as soon as she saw him. “I know this thing with Andre is …”

He cut her off. “Cassidy broke up with me,” he said curtly as he dug in his desk drawer for a new pen. The one he’d been using kept skipping.

“What?” Monica plopped down in the chair he kept in the corner. “No way.”

He nodded wearily. “Yes,” he said. “There was a message on my answering machine when I got home yesterday. I called her back several times, but she’s screening her calls or something. I left messages …” He closed his eyes. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I have a shitload of work to do and I’m sure you do, too. If I need to talk, you’re the first person I’ll come to, I promise.”

Monica bit her lower lip, clearly wanting to say more, but respecting his wishes. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “But I’m making sure you take your lunch again today. Nobody starves on my watch, no matter how bad life gets.” She stood up and tilted her head. “I know this week has been a clusterfuck, Javi, but you’ll get through it.” She smiled at him and left, pulling his office door halfway closed, giving him at least a modicum of privacy.

Javi opened the file on his desk and stared at the page. It was going to be a very long day.

**********************************************************************

There was another message on his answering machine when he got home. It was short and to the point. “Javier, please, stop calling. There’s nothing you can do. I’ve made my decision. It’s over between us. I’m sorry.”

The click at the end of her message had a finality about it that made Javi’s stomach clench. He took a few deep breaths and then dialed his father.

“She what?” Chucho shouted as soon as Javi had told him about Cassidy’s messages.

“She broke up with me,” Javi repeated. “Can you talk to her for me, Dad? She won’t pick up when I call and she asked me to stop calling. I don’t know what happened, but maybe she’ll tell you, or you can figure it out. I don’t know what to do, Dad.” He choked back a sob. He’d be damned if he’d cry in front of his father, even if it was over the phone.

“Of course,” Chucho said. “I’ll go over there tomorrow and ask her what the hell’s going on.” He snorted. “I’ll knock some sense into that girl’s head.”

“Don’t yell at her,” Javi pleaded. “Just … just talk to her, see if she’ll talk to me.” He sighed. “I knew she had misgivings about trying to make a long distance relationship work but I thought she was over it. I guess not.” He shook his head. “I’ll let you go, but thanks in advance for anything you can do.”

“You hang in there, mijo,” Chucho said. “I’ll try to fix this.”

******************************************************

“No,” Cassidy said firmly. Chucho was in the barn aisle and she was inside the tack room, the half closed door making a sort of barrier between then. “I don’t have anything to say to him. I thought about things and I realized that it’s not going to work. End of story.” She hoped Chucho couldn’t tell that her voice was about to crack. She turned away to fiddle with the bridles that were already hanging neatly on their rack.

“Cassidy,” Chucho sighed. “I don’t know why you have such a crazy idea stuck in your head, but please, promise me you’ll at least consider talking to Javi. He’s broken hearted.”

I’ll bet, she thought, unable to get the image of that woman leading him back inside his apartment out of her head. “If I change my mind, I certainly will call him,” she said, “but I don’t see that happening. I’m sorry, Chucho, but I can’t handle this long distance thing. And before you even think about it, I can’t move to San Antonio. I’m not a city girl and you know it.” She looked up at him. “Javi belongs in the city and I belong out here. Those are the facts. It sucks but it’s true.”

Chucho shook his head. “I still think you’re making a huge mistake, mija, but it’s your decision. I’ll tell Javi what you said and he won’t bother you again. And neither will I.” He turned and walked out of the barn, his shoulders slumped.

It broke Cassidy’s heart to see how this had affected Chucho, but she wasn’t about to tell him the truth, that she’d caught his son cheating on her. Let him think Javi was a decent man as long as possible. She was sure that once Javi had accepted that things were over between them, he’d tell his dad about this other woman. Unless she was just another one night stand, in which case, Chucho need never know.

********************************************************************

Javi hung up the phone. He’d hoped his dad could get through to Cassidy, but she’d proven just as stubborn with him as she’d been with Javi. He glanced at his watch. It was only eight thirty; plenty of time for a run to the liquor store for more whiskey and cigarettes. There was no reason to stop smoking now. If he was honest with himself, the only thing keeping him from getting stinking drunk was the need to be in the office the next day, the need to do everything he could to make sure none of the other kids in the program ended up like Andre.

Monica wisely avoided him the next morning, even though he was sure she wanted to lecture him on his rumpled clothes and the pack of cigarettes displayed prominently on his desk. She merely shook her head a little as he headed outside for a smoke break before their weekly meeting with the chief of police. He knew she was disappointed in him, but Javi didn’t give a damn. He was going to wallow in his misery as long as he could, knowing that if he went off the deep end, Monica would haul his butt back to shore.

He threw himself into his work, getting to the office at seven and often staying until eight o’clock or even later. He took work home on the weekends and started carrying a pager, letting everyone know he was only a phone call away. He even gave his number to some of the higher risk kids, telling them they could call any time of the day or night if they needed to talk. He spent more than one long night on the phone with Carlos or Leticia or Martin, doing his best to listen and not judge. If they made it to the next morning without using or running with their crew, he counted it a win. He worked with their schools to arrange for extra tutoring hours to keep them off the streets. He even forked over money for baby formula when Mom’s child support payment was late or gas money so a dad could make it to a job interview. He loaned out several of his ties for job interviews and taught a dozen boys how to tie a Windsor knot.

Every night, when he finally made it home, he poured a few fingers of whiskey, smoked far too many cigarettes, and ate junk that would make Monica cringe. The apartment was just a place to catch a few hours of sleep, take a shower, and maybe watch a movie on the VCR to escape reality for a while. Work was his life and it was all that kept him going.

Thanksgiving came and Javi told Chucho he had to work the day before and the day after, so there was no point in driving all the way to Laredo. While the police department never shut down, his department had been given Friday as a paid holiday as well as Thanksgiving Day, but Javi declined to tell Chucho this. He reluctantly joined Monica and her family at Rob’s mother’s place for Thanksgiving Dinner, but left as soon as he politely could.

“Stay for a while,” Rob pleaded. “Watch the game with us.”

“Thanks, man, but this is your family,” Javi replied. “You don’t need me bringing you all down. I’ll be okay.”

Monica pressed a paper plate of leftovers wrapped in foil into his hands. “Do not work tomorrow,” she said firmly. Javi couldn’t lie to her, so he didn’t answer. They both knew full well he’d taken home a stack of paperwork to keep himself occupied over the long weekend.

It was harder to avoid going home for Christmas, but Javi was saved at the last minute by a torrential storm that brought rain and hail and even brief flurries of sleet, leading to the closure of many highways and a flash flood outside Laredo that washed out the road that led to Chucho’s ranch.

“You might as well stay put, son,” he said on the phone. “By the time they get the roads cleared, you’ll be due back at work. You can come down and pick up your present later.” Javi promised to do just that, even though he and Chucho both knew he was lying. He hadn’t been home in months.

They did talk on the phone, though. Their conversations were stilted as they carefully avoided talking about Cassidy. Chucho mentioned seeing her around town now and then, but he was casual about it, mixing news of her in with the usual gossip about other people that Javi knew. She was working part time at the feed store, having taken over for Jenny the cashier, who was on maternity leave. Chucho also mentioned that someone had seen Cassidy working as a bagger at the grocery store, but he couldn’t confirm since it wasn’t the store he frequented. Dr. Hamblin mentioned in passing that Nugget was still not sound enough to ride, but Cassidy refused to sell him, for fear he’d end up at the slaughterhouse.

Hamblin had been on the ranch to treat Buster for a small abscess in his hind foot, the result of a stone bruise sustained while chasing a particularly obstinate cow through a gully. Cassidy had trailered him over to Chucho’s a couple of days after the breakup and sent Javi a formal letter stating that he should start paying his boarding fees to his father instead of her. Luis was riding him every few days and sang his praises every time he slid out of the saddle. Chucho joked that he was going to give him to Luis if Javi didn’t get his butt down there, but even though he missed the horse, Javi knew he couldn’t look at him without thinking of Cassidy, so he stayed away.

A few days after New Year’s, Monica dragged herself into Javi’s office. “You look horrible,” he said without thinking. It was true. Despite having a three year old and a five year old at home, she was always put together. On this day, she had no makeup on and looked pale.

“Hold that thought,” she said, dashing out of the room. When she came back a few minutes later, it was clear she’d thrown up.

“Hungover?” Javi asked. He’d never seen her drink more than one beer or glass of wine, so he was surprised.

“Morning sickness,” she mumbled, folding herself into the chair in the corner. “I told Rob to get a vasectomy, since the insurance company wouldn’t let me get my tubes tied, but he wouldn’t listen. So, we’re having number three.” She smiled weakly. “And I’m not letting him touch me again until he does get the snip-snip. Three kids is more than enough.”

“Congratulations, I guess,” Javi said, suppressing a laugh. “Is Rob freaking out?”

“Oh, at first he was all Mister Macho,” she said. “Then I reminded him he gets to take care of the little rug rat on top of the other two and that sobered him up quickly enough.” She leaned forward. “I didn’t come here to throw up on you, I promise. I wanted to show you something.”

She handed him a brochure. The cover featured a photo of a small boy with Down Syndrome on the back of a horse, smiling broadly. The words Blue Ridge Equine Therapy and Horse Rescue were at the top of the page.

“Nice,” Javi said. “But I don’t understand.”

Monica nodded at the brochure. “They mostly do kids with disabilities, developmental and physical issues, but the woman who runs it said she’d be open to doing some psychological therapy, too. I know you said working with your horse helped you with your depression after you quit the DEA. I was wondering if you think something like this could fit into our program.”

Javi flipped the brochure open. Photos of smiling children riding horses and brushing horses were scattered among paragraphs describing how the charity rescued horses from abusive homes and auctions where they were vulnerable to being sold to slaughterhouses. They retrained the horses and either adopted them out or used them in their therapy program in conjunction with a local hospital’s pediatric department.

Monica got out of her chair and came to stand beside him. She laid her hand on his shoulder. “I know it probably reminds you of Cassidy,” she said quietly, “which is why I didn’t bring it up sooner, but I think it might help our kids. Mary Sue -- yeah, that’s her real name -- said they could help with the new intake horses, get them used to being groomed and handled without being afraid, and then they could assist with the therapy sessions. They have volunteers who lead the horses around, others who help the kids get on and off the horses, stuff like that. There are physical therapists who are in charge of the actual therapy but they concentrate on the kids. Our kids could focus on the horses.”

Javi nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I think it’s worth looking into,” he said. “Set up a meeting with her and I’ll find out what kind of funding we might be able to get.” He leaned back in his chair. “If we can get some of these kids out of the city, even one day a week, show them there’s more to the world than their neighborhood and the mall, it’ll help us help them.”

Monica squeezed his shoulder. “Good,” she said. “I was afraid you’d be resistant … that it might remind you too much of …”

He laid his hand on top of hers, cutting her off. “I’m fine,” he lied. “And you’re right, I know first hand how helpful working with horses can be for mental health. I’d like to get a list of the kids in the program who have the most severe psychological issues, offer this to them first.”

“You got it, boss,” she said. “I’ll set up a meeting with Mary Sue and get that list to you as soon as I can. If I can get back to my office without barfing again.” She laid her hand against her stomach. “Don’t take this personally, Javi, but men suck.”

After she left, Javi took a few minutes to stare at the brochure again. He carefully traced the horse’s head in the cover photo. It was a dark bay, very much like Buster. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then shoved the brochure into his desk drawer and went back to the report he was typing up on the computer.

#javier peña x ofc #javier pena fanfiction #javier pena fic #javier pena narcos #javier peña #horses #pedro pascal character fanfiction

[sloppy-sybarite]

Start Gymming.

Cardio, Pilates, Light Lifting, Rowing, Incline Walking, and Sauna. All you need to get toned. I do all of this and spend around an hour and ten minutes at the gym every day, I walk for fun, and I feel and look amazing. My arms and legs are toned, my stomach looks great, and I’m so much more limber and look forward to working out. I set a goal to go to the gym every day for 30 days and I was looking forward to it and seeing real results by the 21st day, I made friends and found a workout partner, and picked up a new hobby. I go to the gym for aesthetic reasons and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that but I also make sure to have a good time as well.

Eyebrow and Eyelash Serum Religiously.

I mean it, the eyes are the windows to your soul and your brows and lashes frame your eyes. I use The Ordinary’s Brow and Lash serum and I swear by it; it works miracles to help my brows and lashes look lush, feel healthy, and grow super quickly. I used three other serums before I settled on The Ordinary’s serum and found that I didn’t love the results and that the price I was paying was ridiculous. You don’t need to buy any super expensive products and you shouldn’t chase after dream results or expect to see them without remaining consistent but I do think that a good lash and brow serum can work wonders.

Better Eating.

Intuitive eating, calorie deficit eating, cooking at home more often, eating more, mending your terrible relationship with food, whatever you want to call it. We could all eat a little bit better and start creating healthy habits and they don’t need to revolve around losing weight, you create your own goals and you can tailor them to what works best for you and what you need to do. I’m not going to go on a long rant and tell you when and what you should be eating or make meal plans for anyone but I do encourage finding a happy medium and figuring out ways to make the thought of food less stressful. I think tnat most women these days have issues with eating too much or not eating enough and it’s good to find ways to not feel guilt when eating and ways to find eating pleasurable again.

Getting Outside.

Spring has finally sprung, the weather has gotten better, and it’s time to get outside again. It’s so important to get fresh air and sunlight and you should be doing your best to spend some time outside every day. I walk on my lunch breaks and in the mornings, I walk my cat, and I try to eat outside and do an outdoor activity on the weekends and I think it’s good for me.

Haircare and Skincare.

Every woman needs a haircare and skincare routine, that’s all. Everyone has skin but no matter your skin type, you do need to use a moisturiser, everyone should exfoliate twice weekly, I wash my makeup brushes and sponges every week and as needed too, I think that you should be double cleansing, and everyone of every colour needs sunscreen. Moving on to hair, everyone should have a washing and conditioning routine and schedule, you should do a hair masque once a week or a hot oiling treatment, and I think hair glossing should be done twice a month for the best look. You should be investing in your skincare and haircare so that you feel confident when you’re barefaced.

Water and Supplements.

I have a whole list of supplements and medications that I take every day and I think they help me greatly, I drink nearly a gallon of water and have cut down on the Diet Coke, and I feel good. I had a blood test and started taking an iron supplement a while back and also decided to take folic acid and I’ve felt much better, I take B-12 which helps calm the jitters I get from my Vyvanse, and I take chlorophyll as an addition to my water and I’m in love with it.

Laundry.

I do laundry thrice weekly and then whenever is needed outside of that. I wash my clothes on Saturdays and my sheets on Sundays and Wednesdays, I use bleach and a heavy sanitiser, I have a routine for washing my white clothes, and it’s a pain in the ass but I look and feel good, I don’t smell like my cat, and it feels good to be so on top of things. I also vacuum and clean twice weekly, I make sure that there are no dishes in the sink, and I keep my closet and living space as tidy as possible. It feels good to have a clean home and clean clothes and you won’t ever regret creating positive habits.

Friendships.

I believe in having friends but also being comfortable having boundaries; the woman who insists upon being the friend of everyone is the friend of no one - including herself. It’s important to surround yourself with people but it’s not worth doing that unless they’re good people who you’re able to call out, have boundaries with, and maintain positive relationships with. If your friends don’t have positive energy, don’t treat you well, and you don’t feel good around them plus aren’t able to grow alongside them, then you should consider moving on from the friendship.

Casual Dating.

Your late teens and early twenties should be reserved for casual dating and self growth. You should feel as if every relationship you get into has to end in marriage, you shouldn’t be overly stressed about the idea of marriage, and you should feel desperate. You won’t do well if you have never had a boyfriend/dated/had sex and you feel forced to do so by society. There’s nothing wrong with casual dates, meeting people, and having a good time and not every man should be taken seriously. Don’t waste your tears on men, don’t sleep with anyone you don’t want to, and make sure to have fun. Dating is only as serious as you want it to be.

Responsibility.

I have this talk with Oma all the time and I believe her when she tells me that the first and only person I’m responsible for is myself. I’m not responsible for living up to her ideals, I’m not responsible for impressing my parents or my parents’ friends, I’m not supposed to live for anyone but myself and all that matters is living in a way that makes me proud. Your life is yours to live and you’re the one who’ll have to live with yourself once everyone you know is gone, don’t fall into the trap of letting others live vicariously through you, don’t chase after ideals and fates that were never your own, and try your best to take responsibility for your own actions.

#sloppy-sybarite

[timeoverload]

Today was nice. Everything went well and everyone was in a good mood. I spent my morning doing sterrad and I haven't done that in a while. I got to leave 30 minutes early so that was cool.

Earlier one of my co-workers asked for my number just so he could have it in case something happened. I gave it to him because I didn't think he was going to make it weird. I don't mind talking to him but obviously I don't like him like that. I have no interest in dating anyone from work. He is definitely not my type and I'm also 5 years older than him. I'm not interested in being with someone younger than me. He has a hard time being serious. I like to joke around but it is constant with him and it's starting to get annoying. He likes to bring up the fact that he has never had a girlfriend and his parents won't let him move out of the house until he is married. I thought he was just venting because we're all pretty open with each other. I guess I didn't realize what he is trying to do until now. I feel stupid. He texted me a little while after I got home so I would have his number. He also sent me a bunch of weird selfies so I don't know what to think about that. I am a little uncomfortable and I hope he doesn't try to text me all the time. I need to distance myself as much as possible because I'm not trying to give him the wrong idea. He also changed his hours so he could come in earlier so I have to be around him longer so that is stressing me out. I'm glad I don't have to see him for a few days.

Anyway, I don't want to think about work anymore. I am happy to be home. I just wish I could get comfortable.

I called the imaging place to see if I could make an appointment to get my x-ray tomorrow so I don't have to wait and luckily they have an opening at 12:30. I am looking forward to having that done and it would be nice if I could get results by the end of the weekend but I might have to wait until Monday. I got my neck brace and it's not as comfortable as I was hoping. I probably shouldn't wear it even though I want to because it could make my muscle weakness worse. I guess I will have to wait and see what the doctor says. I already know they are going to make me do PT and I hate going to PT. I have always had bad posture so I don't know how I am supposed to correct that now. It is painful to stand up straight and I know that's not right. My neck hurts so bad. I think it is worse than my lower back pain now. I hope it's nothing serious but I am starting to think I have bone spurs because my bones feel like they are pointy and sharp. I don't know how else to describe it. I already know I have arthritis and that can cause them. I am too young to be dealing with all this and I'm scared about the future. I don't want to lose my mobility. I have to be more careful about the activities I do now. Unfortunately it is more likely that I could be paralyzed in an accident since my spine is already damaged. I remember taking care of people who were paralyzed and I have had a fear of that since then.

I wish I had the energy to exercise consistently. I think that would help me a lot. I remember I used to go for a run every day after work for a while and I can't do that anymore. I need to try lifting some weights or something. I haven't gotten my yoga mat out in a long time because I don't have room to do that. I would like to go hiking but I am afraid I wouldn't be able to get around like I used to. I just need to get in better shape and build more muscle.

I think my iron is probably low too. I have struggled with an iron deficiency and anemia most of my life. When I was a baby, I had to have an iron supplement with my formula. A few years ago I was taking an iron supplement every other day but I think I stopped because it was hurting my stomach. I was also drinking a lot at the time so I knew it wasn't good to take those with alcohol. I haven't had a drink in a while so that's good. I probably should start taking iron supplements again sometime soon because they might help.

I feel like I am rambling and I need to go relax now. I think I am going to put an ice pack on my neck to see if that helps. I am glad I don't have to get up super early tomorrow. I'm probably not going to be able to stay awake too much longer because I'm tired. I hope tomorrow is a good day.

I hope everyone else has a good day tomorrow too!!! Thanks for listening to me vent about stuff. :) 💖💖💖

#personal

[mettatons-fat-doughy-asscheeks]

You should start taking experimental diet supplements to help you lose weight, whats the worst that could happen?

*Now I would be less apprehensive if the word "experimental" wasn't tacked on. We all know there's only one person I'll recklessly engage in scientific experiments with despite all warning signs.

#fatten me #ask a lardass #mettatum

[boxcxtterbxy]

just a reminder that it is ALWAYS better to eat at home! YOU have control over YOUR portions, you can put together whatever you want AND you can count the calories of everything without some stupid estimate on a menu! fast food will always be worse for you, restaurant food will always be DOUBLE of what should be an appropriate portion- its just safer to eat at home! i make food that i enjoy eating and still lose weight. i cook pasta and chili and stews and make sandwiches and the secret is just that i know exactly what im eating so i know what not to eat later!!

im also trying to incorporate the 7-7 rule into my life, which would allow for daily 12hr fasting- not eating past 7 pm. thats difficult for a midnight snacker though (^▽^;)

stay hydrated, take your meds, take supplements if youre feeling weak! youve GOT THIS!!!! <3

#ana bllog #anarecja #anarekcia #anarex14 #anatumblr #aneroxic #anor3c1a #anorexcya #bulim14 #anarecik #anami4 #anarexix #tw ana diary #ana tricks #dieta ana #anerexx #anerixia #anerexa #bulimima #ed blogg

[autistic-disabled-poet]

The Doctor Shopper

Doctor after doctor, Day after day, I still beg for help, yet each time they say:

Here are some probiotics! I really think you should try them. You have migraines, so here's some magnesium oxide! I couldn't be caught "refusing treatment" so my hands are tied.

Take a multivitamin, The cure to all that ails you. More fiber, maybe Benefiber, But you may have fructose intolerance so not fruit smoothie fiber.

Your ankles aren't weak. Your ankles don't roll. You're autistic, You're dyspraxic. I wonder if that's really all.

I would like a new doctor, but randos on the internet claim, Stop switching around! You should stop "doctor shopping."

"I don't think that they're hallucinations!" Nope, just auras to migraines. Also, I'm autistic. Everything is interpreted as scary when you're autistic.

He's a nutjob, I'd like a new doc! I want to switch but I don't out of fear of claims of doctor shopping.

The yellow dots are chasing me! No, visual auras which autism made scary. Clawing and cutting out the spiders in my blood my skin my brain. No, tingling auras made scary by the autism.

Should a doctor really be this stupid? The psychologist in the room, she didn't say anything! Would getting a new doctor really be doctor shopping?

I couldn't possibly have EDS. Nope, my doctor has a connective tissue disorder. I'm not more hypermobile than thee, so an Ehlers Danlos diagnosis must not be for me.

"You have AMPS!" "You have IBS!" "You are fat!" "Drink water and get more exercise!"

I won't be a doctor shopper. I can't help but wonder, is wanting to be believed really shopping for a doctor?

A fat female teen, symptoms of nausea, pain, dizziness, and more. The most obvious option is mental illness. The best prescription is weight loss.

My attempts at exercise are extinguished by my pain. I can't keep on, but there's no help until I'm the one to fix it all.

I fantasize every day of growing up, losing some weight. Building a ton of muscle, drinking gallons of water a day. Taking my vitamins and supplements like some kind of health freak.

Walking into their office, "I'm not cured!" I'm falling, I'm swelling, I'm hurting, I'm crying. Help me, please.

Are these thoughts normal? They don't feel normal. I should be fixed. I could be fixed. Drugs, therapy again, more drugs (What mood stabilizer is it now?)

Maybe one day my pain will be taken seriously. Maybe one day my quality of life will be taken seriously. Maybe one day I will be taken seriously. That day's not today, I wish I was okay, but I can't handle it.

If I question it... Question their years of medical knowledge... Question their schooling... Question their authority... I'm the bad guy who's looking to shop for a doctor.

#medical gaslighting #not believed #chronic pain #chronic illnes #i want to be happy #i want to be pain free #autistic #autistic disabled #physically disabled #hypermobility spectrum disorder #hypermobility syndrome #hypermobile #migraine #joint pain #cane user #amps #amplified pain #amplified musculoskeletal pain syndrome #spoonie #a poem #poetry #poet #a poem by me #i wrote this poem #this is my poetry

[autisticacademics]

The Doctor Shopper

Doctor after doctor, Day after day, I still beg for help, yet each time they say:

Here are some probiotics! I really think you should try them. You have migraines, so here's some magnesium oxide! I couldn't be caught "refusing treatment" so my hands are tied.

Take a multivitamin, The cure to all that ails you. More fiber, maybe Benefiber, But you may have fructose intolerance so not fruit smoothie fiber.

Your ankles aren't weak. Your ankles don't roll. You're autistic, You're dyspraxic. I wonder if that's really all.

I would like a new doctor, but randos on the internet claim, Stop switching around! You should stop "doctor shopping."

"I don't think that they're hallucinations!" Nope, just auras to migraines. Also, I'm autistic. Everything is interpreted as scary when you're autistic.

He's a nutjob, I'd like a new doc! I want to switch but I don't out of fear of claims of doctor shopping.

The yellow dots are chasing me! No, visual auras which autism made scary. Clawing and cutting out the spiders in my blood my skin my brain. No, tingling auras made scary by the autism.

Should a doctor really be this stupid? The psychologist in the room, she didn't say anything! Would getting a new doctor really be doctor shopping?

I couldn't possibly have EDS. Nope, my doctor has a connective tissue disorder. I'm not more hypermobile than thee, so an Ehlers Danlos diagnosis must not be for me.

"You have AMPS!" "You have IBS!" "You are fat!" "Drink water and get more exercise!"

I won't be a doctor shopper. I can't help but wonder, Is wanting to be believed Really shopping for a doctor?

A fat female teen, Symptoms of nausea, pain, dizziness, and more. The most obvious option is mental illness. The best prescription is weight loss.

My attempts at exercise Are extinguished by my pain. I can't keep on, but there's no help until I'm the one to fix it all.

I fantasize every day Of growing up, losing some weight. Building a ton of muscle, drinking gallons of water a day. Taking my vitamins and supplements like some kind of health freak.

Walking into their office, "I'm not cured!" I'm falling, I'm swelling, I'm hurting, I'm crying Help me, please.

Are these thoughts normal? They don't feel normal. I should be fixed. I could be fixed Drugged, therapy again, a new drug (What mood stabilizer is it now?)

Maybe one day my pain will be taken seriously. Maybe one day my quality of life will be taken seriously. Maybe one day I will be taken seriously. That day's not today, I wish I was okay, but I can't handle it.

If I question it... Question their years of medical knowledge... Question their schooling... Question their authority... I'm the bad guy who\'s looking to shop for a doctor.

#autistic disabled #disabled #physically disabled #hypermobile spectrum disorder #hypermobility syndrome #amps #amplified musculoskeletal pain syndrome #amplified pain #joint pain #chronic pain #fatigue #spoonie #a poem i wrote

[ladyvaderpixetc]

Corporations Have Been Salivating Over This SCOTUS Decision | Robert Reich

“Professor and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and I collaborated on a video, together with the folks at Inequality Media, for which I co-wrote the script. Our hope in these videos is to distill complicated legal and political matters and make them more accessible to ordinary citizens.

The subject matter of this video is a pair of cases that came before the Supreme Court yesterday challenging the so-called “Chevron Doctrine.” 

It’s admittedly a fairly wonky concept, but it has been the baseline for federal administrative law for 40 years. I learned about Chevron back in law school in the early 1990s. It is still taught today as established precedent, and there are over 17,000 cases that have relied upon it, including 70 Supreme Court cases.

The weight of precedent is, of course, not a bar to this extremist, activist Court. Based on yesterday’s oral argument, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court appears ready to overturn Chevron. Such a move would likely be one of the most consequential of this Court’s term, and that is saying something...

...Back in 1984, Justice John Paul Stevens, in a unanimous decision (albeit with three justices recusing), wrote, “Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of the government.” Stevens later said of the opinion that it was “simply a restatement of existing law”—though the decision was by far his most consequential.

Conservatives back then (remember, this was during the Reagan years) believed that giving agencies instead of courts the power to interpret and implement ambiguous laws would be a good thing. Judges were too activist, they believed, and Reagan’s EPA had major regulatory dismantling to do. Those pesky liberal judges were thwarting many of their efforts. Forcing the courts to defer to the discretion of agencies handed more power to the White House, so they were fine with that.

But now that Republican presidents consistently have been losing popular elections, the shoe is on the other foot. Republicans might hold sway at the Supreme Court, but liberals control the “deep state” with all their fancy experts and experienced civil servants. So in the minds of conservative activists, it’s time for the courts to take back the power they once ceded.

As of yesterday’s arguments, it seemed pretty clear that there are least four conservative justices—Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh—who are prepared to end 40 years of established administrative law and seize the power to interpret laws back from federal agencies. Two other conservatives, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, asked questions of both sides, but it would only take one of them to go along with overruling Chevron to undo 40 years of caselaw... 

...Justice Kagan cut to the heart of the problem in her remarks. “Agencies know things that courts do not,” she said, “and that’s the basis of Chevron.”

She wondered who should decide whether something is a drug or a dietary supplement, the courts who have no expertise in this or an expert agency?  

“It’s best to defer to people who do know, who have had long experience on the ground, who have seen a thousand of these kinds of situations,” Kagan said. “And, you know, judges should know what they don’t know.”

Justice Jackson built upon this in her remarks. “And my concern,” Jackson said, “is that if we take away something like Chevron, the court will then suddenly become a policymaker.” “

Jay Kuo (The Status Kuo - https://statuskuo.substack.com)

#youtube #scotus #robert reich #jay kuo #chevron doctrine #don't overturn chevron

[rosethornewrites]

I saw my new PCP on Monday and got the fun job of explaining my conditions. I’ve previously had doctors who ignored my needs or told me to lose weight, so it’s scary to have to try to convince them that, yes, I am very sick, too sick to work, but I don’t want to be that sick. I miss working. I miss keeping my mind engaged.

So I decided to preface everything with, “You know, a year ago I was a professor at a state university, living in my own apartment. Before I got sick I used to go to a ton of events and travel places. And I spent so much energy pushing through to try to keep going that I burned myself out. Now I am in so much pain and have so much brain fog that even getting out of bed is a challenge. It feels like my life has crumbled around me, and I want to get it back.”

And then I discussed my medical history, what I’ve done to get treatment so far (getting on Medicaid, getting a behavioral health specialist, a dermatologist, a rheumatologist, etc., all involving dozens of phone calls each just to find someone who specializes), the setbacks I’ve faced and how it’s changed how I face seeking healthcare (that all my providers are women is not an accident), and the medications I’m currently taking and what they’re for. How I discovered I can’t have sulfa antibiotics.

It’s a lot—just the medications, I take a biologic injection every two weeks, 2 anxiety medications, an antidepressant that also helps with fibromyalgia, a controlled substance for my pain (NOT an opioid), a medication to control my insulin resistance, an anti-inflammatory, a low dose of antibiotics, and blood pressure medication. Oh right, and birth control, which is supposed to help with the HS. That’s just the prescriptions—I take OTCs and supplements that are meant to help keep my conditions under control because I researched copiously while trying to push through.

How long it took me to be diagnosed with HS (despite telling my PCP at the time I thought I had it, I was diagnosed on sight by a gynecologist two years later, who then referred me to a dermatologist), and the story of how I realized something was terribly fucked up with my body. The struggles with pain. How I take cannabis but hate that it doesn’t allow me to have a clear mind. The years of insomnia, which is a symptom of multiple conditions I have.

I have so many horror stories about my health that my horror stories have horror stories, and those are fun to relate, in graphic detail so they know exactly how bad it is.

It’s this fucked up cycle of having to convince a doctor you’re sick (apparently they don’t want to believe you if you say you are) and actually get treatment, except you get stuck on step 1 because everything must be weight-related and therefore I should just lose weight.

I been fat my whole life. This other shit is new. Catch up.

But then they get mad if you’re “difficult” aka advocating for your health.

Knowing that nearly everyone with chronic illnesses goes this, and even worse than me typically, is distressing.

I knew my chronic pain was fibromyalgia because my mom struggles with it and eventually got diagnosed after being told half her life it was in her head. I was lucky. I have to consider inheriting a debilitating illness from my mom lucky because at least I knew what it was from her experiences.

Every new doctor I see, I feel like I have to vet for egotism because that’s generally the mark of a hot dog who won’t listen or care.

All I really want is treatment so I can maybe get my life back.

#disability #health care #fibromyalgia #hidradenitis suppurativa