your arm is fat but i still like you

Bread. Cheese. Chocolate. And add some mint or coconut to that chocolate and we are in business. These are some of my greatest food loves. Who doesn’t have a few guilty food pleasures? Sometimes it is so wonderful to sink your teeth into a huge grilled sharp cheddar cheese sandwich or dive into a pint of extreme chocolate moose tracks ice cream. Who hasn’t had a rotten day and all you want is to find your comfort in food? I think that we have all been there. Our day goes to hell in a handbasket, so you go home and find the nearest bag of chips or block of cheese or ice cream container and go to town. You find yourself totally overwhelmed with the craving, thinking (however incorrectly) that when you finish that much too big treat, you will feel better.

Alas, we all know what happens next.

You feel good for a moment but then the stomachache, constipation or diarrhea, headache, and other sundry symptoms that result in a binge begin to surface. You regret that food attack, vowing that you will never do it again and recommit to your exercise program (or vow to make an exercise program because you don’t have one). It goes on, you’re doing well and then….well, the cycle starts over. Sometimes there is the moment where you think that you are going to break out of it, but sometimes that Snickers bar is just too tempting.

Why bring up food you ask? Considering I usually write about students’ hilarious mistakes or random things about teaching or living in China at the moment, this probably seems a bit out of the blue. It’s not, I promise. I do have a valid point to make.

I am in charge of taking the students that are being picked up by their parents to the auditorium. Being the lucky duck that I am, I have between 15-18 tiny first graders that are attempting to roll backpacks that are half of their size in a non-linear line through the halls, down the stairs, and into the auditorium without losing someone and avoiding broken femurs. The students scatter instantly (they are supposed to tell me goodbye so I know that they have been picked up…we’re still working on it) and I wait on the stage for the students whose parents have not arrived yet. I always have about one or two students that are waiting and without a doubt, one of them is Cherry.

Cherry is a sweet girl. She is a bit shy, but usually you’ll find her with a smile on her face. She is friendly and has a lot of friends in my homeroom class. I don’t have her in S+ English, but I teach her in social studies and science. We have a good thing going, I think. Well, rewind a few days. I am sitting on the stage with Cherry, she’s the last one waiting to be picked up. She turns to me and pokes me in my arm and says that following hilarious yet slightly offense words: “Ms. Mary, you’re fat because your arm is fat, but I still like you.” Now, I realize that she is 6 years old and Chinese, so I am prepared to hear those comments. But still, how do you respond to something like that? I smiled at her and said, “Well, “I’m working on it.”   

Thus, my topic of food. In my post about culture shock, I brought up the fact that one of my frustrations of first being here was that I couldn’t read the ingredient labels to find out if things have wheat in them. On many occasions, I have been asked “hey, how’s the food”? Well, let’s be honest. I don’t know. Why? Because I don’t eat the food here at all. I have been out once to dinner with some friends and stayed with eating a bit of rice and the bok choy.

Now, I can hear you asking the next question: “why don’t you eat the food?” Oh, yes. The $100 question. I have two autoimmune diseases: celiac disease and Hashimoto’s disease. Because of this, I cannot eat gluten. I thought (and incorrectly so) that eating Chinese food would be great because this country is rice-based! Well, that is the biggest lie. Half of the country is rice-based, yes. They do eat rice a lot here, it is no joke. But, I didn’t know that the northern half of the country is wheat production because it is too cold to support rice paddies. A lot of the Chinese diet is made up of wheat in things like sauces, breads (a lot more than I thought), and meats. It is actually extremely difficult to find gluten-free food here.

**Side note. I’m not writing this to demand any sort of recognition of gluten-free diets here and how things need to change. A majority of people in this world can eat gluten and I’m not in any way expecting China to change for me. I’m cool, I’ve gotten used to it.**

Since day one in China, I have been cooking my own food. My diet isn’t too exciting, but it works. I keep to fresh fruit and veggies, eggs, and chicken. I have some spices, ketchup (because I’m American), and a bottle of extremely overpriced Thousand Island. I have been offered a lot of food and sometimes…hum….it looks so good. (Other things, like fried octopus on a stick, not so much.) The expats understand celiac disease a bit better, but the native Chinese are not familiar with it at all. I usually have to go with saying that I am allergic to wheat.

But wheat is not the only thing that I need to be wary of. Hashimoto’s disease can get worse and worse as long as you eat the three main foods that cause inflammation: gluten (already out of my diet thanks to celiac disease), dairy, and sugar. Think back to the beginning of this post. I’m not kidding, I love cheese and bread and ice cream. In September, I ate many, many Magnum bars. Goodness, those things are delicious, but it only made things worse. I could feel myself being more sluggish, getting headaches easier, and other things. Then came the cherry on top of it all: sickness.

I have been sick too many times to count in the last few years, so I’ve gotten used to the drill. Rest, get better, move on. But there is a problem for me because I haven’t really gotten better from a sickness, just mostly recover and move on. I’ll be good for a while and then I start the drill again. This time I got hit with a massive sinus infection, complimented with a hefty chest cold (the pollution hasn’t been too helpful either). We had 7 days off for the National Holiday and what plans I had went out the window. I spent a majority of the time sleeping, coughing, and trying to unclog my sinuses. It was a blessing that I didn’t go anywhere for the holiday, but I admit that it is a bit lame to feel so gross that you don’t go anywhere at all.

It was during that week of feeling completely like poop and the slow, uphill recovery since then that I had a realization. I have two autoimmune diseases! (Yes, I realize that I stated that earlier, but this is more of the process of self-realization.) It took me about six months to come to terms with my celiac disease diagnosis over two years ago and for some unknown reason, it has taken me over two years to come to terms with my Hashimoto’s disease diagnosis. I have known about this for over two years and have the medication and everything, but I haven’t done everything that I can to make living with both of these diseases easier.

I believe in the “thrive and not merely survive” mentality. I believe that we cannot let ourselves be defined by labels, boxes, and diagnoses. And yet, despite my beliefs in these, I have not lived that way. Moving to act and do something to thrive is more than about sitting down and making the plan to change. You actually need to get up from that chair and do something, follow your plan, stick to your decision to change.

Living with two autoimmune diseases that significantly affect my life, especially in terms of diet, has not been difficult, it’s been hard. I strongly dislike turning down delicious brownies or ice cream cake, but in these last two weeks I have come to realize that I want to thrive. I’ve been getting by fine, but with the plans that I have for the future, I cannot let myself be held back by my health and my poor decisions in regards to it. I need to do what I can NOW to give me body that fighting chance to become stronger, to learn how to better function. More importantly, I need to change my attitude completely: I cannot look at not eating dairy or sugar as a restriction, but as a protection. Sure, will I have some dairy and sugar occasionally? Of course! I still enjoy it, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be a constant part of my life.

The next rotten day I have, that cycle is broken. I am training myself to get better, to be stronger. I have two diseases that will never go away, that can never be cured, but they do not define me. They are not my enemies, but my motivation to become, they are my motivation to pursue my goals, they are a motivation for me to change the world in any way that I can.

So yes, I am fat because my arm is fat. But like I told Cherry, I’m working on it.