Weight Gain

"I would give anything to look like you."
"I only wish I could have your metabolism."

These are comments I get on a fairly regular basis, typically from average-sized to larger people trying to lose weight, whether they're on a diet, trying to exercise like crazy or what have you.  When I try to tell these people that being petite isn't all it's cracked up to be, the response is to dismiss me outright.  It's almost like I don't know what I'm talking about.

Growing up people always thought I was younger than I actually was.  For example, as a sophomore in college I often flew back and forth from my college in Ohio to my home in North Carolina.  On one of these trips I had an assigned seat in the exit row on the plane.  After getting situated the flight attendant came through to check on everyone.  When she got to my seat she looked me up and down and said "Are you old enough to be sitting here, miss?"  To which I, not knowing the policy of that particular airline responded "I'm not sure, what are the requirements?"  She quickly responded looking at me pointedly "Well you have to be over 14 years old."  At 20 I assured her I was able to sit there and she quizzically decided to continue her walk down the aisle.  What she neglected to mention was the other requirements, apparently one also has to be able to lift the door open if necessary.  The door is 50 pounds.  At the time had she mentioned this I probably would have changed seats to not sit in the emergency exit row.

Looking young by itself is never an issue for long.  As a child it was problematic at times.  I never attempted to go into a bar before my 21st birthday or try to trick anyone else into thinking I was older.  I knew it would never work.  My sister who is 22 months younger than I, looked like my twin growing up.  But now as I edge closer to 30 years old I am beginning to see that looking young can indeed be a blessing.  Among many changes, my younger sister now looks like my older sister.

My young look comes from a variety of factors, mainly my size.  I am 5'2" and 110 pounds.  Just as many of us have not grown since high school, I too have not lost weight since high school.  In fact for years it almost became a joke to me.  I could tell the nurse my weight before I even stepped onto the scale, 108 pounds.  If the scale measured any higher or lower I would at times say "Your scale is off."  And the nurse would look at me and say "You're right."  By some sort of miracle I have managed to gain a measly 2 pounds in the last year or so.  For all I know they have started making all the scales so that all weights are 2 pounds off. 

My size began to be a problem in middle school health class.  At the time I had never met anyone my age who was smaller than I was, shorter yes but not overall smaller.  So when we were required to watch a movie on eating disorders in health class it scared me.  I have never had problems eating, in fact I have a tendency to eat way more than the average person.  However, because of the video I was scared that I was anorexic or bulimic.  There was a mirror outside my shower and I began to be scared to look into it, especially while naked.  I was projecting the tiny anorexic woman from the film onto myself because I had never met anyone smaller.

In high school I began to have episodes where I would totally lose all my energy, feel very faint, lose sensation or get tingling in my extremities, be unable to focus, light headed, and at times be unable to stand up or raise my head.  In the beginning these episodes were accompanied by panic attacks because I did not understand what was happening to my body and it frightened me.  I ended up in the hospital several times which oddly lined up with my skipping a meal.  However, when I reached the hospital the first thing they do in the ER is to inject you with saline.  After many tests and many hours of waiting the doctors would find nothing wrong with me.  I had so many of these episodes I began to beg my friends not to call 911 because I knew they would just report that there was nothing wrong with me.  Finally my friends called an ambulance to come one night.  One of the attendants checked my blood sugar levels before moving me into the ambulance.  She found my sugar levels to be low so she said "Go get something to eat, I'll stay here and watch but you're hypoglycemic."  From that day on any time I had such an episode I knew my safest bet was to eat quickly.  I learned that it was often better to have a whole meal than a snack because snacks would just tease my body into thinking it was getting the right amount of food when it wasn't and make my sugar levels drop farther.

From that point on I made sure all of my friends knew of my hypoglycemia so that when I had an attack they knew I needed food quickly.  It worked!  I continued to have the episodes but with the food I was able to bring myself out of the symptoms quickly.

In college I had my first experience of being around people smaller than I am.  There were several Sri Lankans that went to college with me who were much smaller.  I also did a lot of traveling in Asia including Sri Lanka, India, Vietnam, Laos, China, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet.  Some of these places I was constantly surrounded by small people (Sri Lanka again being one with a large amount of small people).  It was only upon returning to the US that I finally started feeling the effects of our American culture on my body.  I had not gained any weight but now I, just like many other women in the US, began to wake up and have days where I thought I was fat.

I never thought twice about being hypoglycemic until this past year when I began to have episodes on an extremely regular basis, almost every other day.  I continued with my remedy but began to get upset.  I had never had so many episodes in such a short time period and they seemed never ending.  No matter how much I ate I would still have an episode.  I almost felt as if I was getting depressed.  So I began going to see different specialists - nutritionists, endocrinologists, doctors.  All of them performed a series of checks on me and came back to report that there is nothing wrong with me.  They even checked me for hypoglycemia only to report that I wasn't even hypoglycemic!

Yet I still have these episodes and they can still be remedied by eating.  So I recently decided to try and gain weight.  Maybe if I had more muscle I would finally stop having these episodes.  I had already started a new martial art that I love called jiu-jitsu but I decided to get a personal trainer too.  These trainers are equipped with nutritional knowledge as well as weight training and other information.  So over the past week I have been instructed how to eat more and what kinds of exercise to perform to try to gain weight.  This includes drinking protein shakes, cutting back on my cardio workouts so I do nothing more than jiu-jitsu and boxing, and lifting weights.  I carry food with me wherever I go and have been eating over 2500 calories a day.  Yet I still have these episodes...  I'm going back to the doctor to get them to check my thyroid.  But if they still find nothing the hope is that if I continue to eat the way I am my body will adjust, I may gain some weight, and stop having these episodes.

Being petite does actually have it's drawbacks and I think it would benefit the majority to understand this.  The middle ground is truly the best.  I wish I were "normal sized" so I wouldn't have the constant stress of possible assault, so I could be respected by people who are my age as an equal and not someone they think is younger, so I can have the shoulders I've always wanted, so I can have a sport that I'm good at, so I can feel more comfortable with my body without having to eat close to 3000 calories a day, and so I can possibly stop having these episodes.