Broken Again.

On how well I treat my body.

Hi everyone!

As always, welcome to new subscribers. So glad you’re here!

Many thanks, too, to those who commented with some suggestions for proper, scary horror books after my last post on Stephen King’s adorable but unscary novel ‘Salem’s Lot.

I’ve got some books queued up in my library’s e-book app, and I’ll let you know the score when I finally read them.

Kettlebell, 1. Sara, 0.

While many thousands of Americans were marching yesterday, or preparing to march, I was in the orthopedic urgent care after a 15 lb kettlebell fell on my right pinky toe.

I should clarify that, luckily, it didn’t fall from a great height — I surely would have crushed bones if that had happened.

No, I had the bell upside down trying to replace a little rubber floor protector/nonslip piece that had fallen out, and the bell slipped from my hands. BAM, right on the pinky.

I immediately knew that the odds of the toe being broken were significantly higher than the odds it wasn’t.

So off I went and, about two-and-a-half hours later, confirmed that, yes, I have a hairline fracture at the top joint of my pinky toe.

FUCK.

I’d never broken a bone until my ankle last November, and now this is my second broken bone in seven months. And on the same foot!

“You’re not careful with your body,” Mom chastised.

Truth be told, I’m not really careful with anything. I don’t move in space delicately. I overpour drinks. I bang up and into the sides of doors. I push and pull things so hard they break. I slam car doors. I chip the sides of dishes taking them out of the dishwasher.

The one exception? The pair of sunglasses I’ve had and wear almost daily since I was thirteen. Maybe all my preservation energy has been poured into that one object?

I’ve always blamed some of this on my scoliosis, which makes me walk, sit, and do pretty much everything at an angle. (I recall waking up groggily at a teenager once and stumbling into a sideboard Mom had against the wall on my way to the bathroom, knocking all the knick knacks onto the floor.)

But it’s also of a piece with the fact that I don’t care if my room is messy, because I just don’t really notice it. I see it — but it doesn’t bother me. Maybe that encompasses my relationship with the physical world as a whole: I see you, but I don’t necessarily recognize that you might have an opposing and opposite force equal or greater to mine.

Or maybe I’m just clumsy, with a great sense of my body but a poor sense of my body in space.

Whatever it is, it’s tempting to disagree with Mom. I mean, it took 44 years for me to break my first bone. That’s not a lifetime of carelessness — and not even all of it represents a lifetime of fear and avoidance.

I don’t know. Perhaps the toe is an unlucky break as I attempted something kinda dumb. But if a third break happens anytime soon, something probably needs to change.

Luckily, there’s not much to be done with a broken pinky toe, especially a non-displaced hairline fracture (i.e., the bone stayed in place). Tape it to the fourth toe below and above the joint to prevent it from getting stubbed, and avoid exercises like lunges or full pushups that require the toes to be flexed. And even some of those I can probably manage since I don’t need to have my pinky on the mat to do them. Otherwise, don’t walk on inclines where the flexing part of the gait is more pronounced, and wear well-cushioned shoes.

Do that for about 4-6 weeks. Should heal on its own. Should being the operative word here. Let’s hope it does.

The Bigger Picture

Content warning: I discuss a history of disordered eating in this section. If that could be triggering, skip down to ways to help Western North Carolina and Los Angeles and the K-pop song of the week.

It’s my first time using kettlebells, and part of the problem was that I bought cheap ones from ALDI that work just fine but have those pesky little rubber whatevers that easily fall out. (I’m still ride-or-die ALDI, though.) I started a new exercise app called Ladder, which is great for the price and the variety of ever-changing workouts using different equipment and approaches.

I love it so far and have a free 30-day trial to give to anyone who’s interested. (That’s how I got hooked.) Just get in touch.

But it’s also part of a larger effort to get back to the shape I was in a couple of years ago.

I recently started gaining weight quite rapidly — five pounds in about a month. Five pounds on most bodies isn’t much. But I’m 5’ 2” (157 cm) if I’m being generous, and small-boned. Gaining or losing 5 lbs looks very, very noticeable on me.

I also have a lengthy history of disordered eating. It never quite reached a full-on anorexia diagnosis, and I never had bulimia.

My disordered eating didn’t even start on my own volition: it started with my diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease when I was ten.

In 1991, they understood a lot less about how different foods can impact inflammatory bowel disease. So they just handed my mom and I a giant list of NO foods. No fresh fruit (except apples and bananas that didn’t have pulp or seeds). No fresh vegetables (only carrots cooked to limpness). No sauces or spices. No dairy. No whey (which is in EVERYTHING, even bread).

I essentially lived off of animal crackers, bananas, cans of Coke, bland pieces of protein, and overcooked carrots for many years. Tea and peanut butter toast in the morning. It was also the age when dairy-alternatives tasted TERRIBLE. So, yeah.

I didn’t pay attention to weight then, because I was too fucking sick to care.

When my diet began broadening as I finally started feeling better in my 20s, I piled on the freshman 15. On top of that, I was still taking steroids, so I had moon face. At my peak, I was 125.

My Problem with Selfies.

When I got serious about losing weight in my senior year of college, before I went to Scotland for my masters, it was easy to take it too far. I do “NO diets” very well.

At one point, I was eating 800 calories a day, working out every day, and got down to 92 lbs after getting very sick. I subsequently binged back to 110.

I hovered there for a long time, but fell drastically again in 2011 when I got a virus so bad I was in the hospital for a week. I eventually dropped as far down as 97 lbs and was wearing kids’ size 12 clothes. I binged that back, too, over a series of months. Back to 110 lbs, always hoping for something closer to 105.

I got to 105 and below in February 2020, right as the pandemic started. Once again, I was sick for three weeks. I bottomed out at 97 lbs again when my Crohn’s relapsed and I had diarrhea, but I returned to my happy place: 100, 101.

And there I was determined to stay.

But some good and bad habits made the scale creep up over the last couple of years. I started lifting heavier weights when at my Dad’s in 2023 (his senior gated community has a fitness center), and shot up to 105. I got it back down, but this year it creeped up again. It was probably a combination between a lack of exercise due to my increased workload after Hurricane Helene and breaking my ankle. And it topped out at 107.

I panicked.

So, after a serious chat with Mom, I decided to track my calories again for the first time in many years. I’m doing that now, and I’m losing the weight. I’m not yet at 100, my happy place. But I went from 107 to 102 in about three weeks.

The problem is that I’m undereating: 1100 calories a day. I know it’s not healthy, but I also suspect it’s the only way to stay where I am, much less get to where I want to be.

I don’t want to get below 100. 101 even is fine.

Is my brain a little starved? I don’t know. I’m eating healthier, given my budget. And I’m pretty small. I don’t need a lot of calories. I’m admittedly hungry a lot.

It’s strange. I feel somewhat proud of myself that I’m able to stick to a goal again. I often feel that I can’t.

But it’s not that I can’t. It’s that I don’t want to have to.

To survive senior year, my sickest year with Crohn’s, I literally ate only one meal a day at night, because food usually went through me in about 15 minutes. (And even without food in my stomach I would regularly have to go at school. I had diarrhea about 10-15 times a day and would eat an entire box of extra strength Immodium on a 15-minute car trip after having dinner at my dad’s. I still once had to pull over into a Chili’s because I couldn’t make it home in time.)

During school days, I would come home during my 90-minute break (lunchtime plus an off-period) and sip chicken broth with the occasional limp baby carrot. I not only did all my work, I spent afternoons and evenings rehearsing for the high school musical. I dealt with the stress of having no friends. I applied to all my colleges.

I’m not proud of myself there, just sad. It’s amazing I did it, but I shouldn’t have had to. And I never wanted to again.

Yet, here I am, doing something similar by choice. All for a number on the scale. (And some definable abs.)

I honestly don’t think a healthy relationship with food is possible for me. It’s never been benign for me; even as a kid, I screamed at dinnertime, not wanting to eat a bite. My parents thought I was being bratty; they later realized it was my unhappy gut.

It’s one reason I’m amazed at how much people love food. Don’t get me wrong; I can enjoy the taste of something. But I can never fully appreciate it, because the cost is always in the back of my brain.

If I ate something on the NO list, I would listen to every stomach gurgle in vigilant panic, waiting to see if I had to get up and run to the toilet. I once bought a pizza to celebrate getting into my schools and ate multiple pieces, knowing I’d pay for it later. I did.

I always did.

(Hilariously, I can now hear my cat Mochi throw up. He gobbles, too. Like Mother, like Son.)

Anyway, I’ll keep at the diet and the exercise until that scale gets back down to 100. After that? Well, I might be stuck eating like this for a while; if I up the calorie intake, the pounds may come back.

I know I can do it. And for now, at least, I want to.

Hurricane Helene & Wildfires: Ways to Support Recovery

Help Catye Gowan Feed People with Dietary Needs! This chef has been out there on her own since the storm began cooking food designed for people with severe dietary issues like Celiac and dietary preferences like veganism. She’s a force for good, and every dollar helps!

Help the House of Black Cat Magic Save Black Cats! Our second cat, Mini Keeper-Moo, came from Binx’s Home for Black Cats, one of only a handful of black cat-specific rescues in the country. They opened up a gorgeous black cat lounge and magic shop last May, but since Hurricane Helene they’re struggling like every other business. They’ve only received $15,000 micro-grants since the storm to save their business — not a cent more. Please help them help black cats!

BeLoved Asheville. These folks are the best in the world — the ultimate model of mutual aid and greeting the world with love. Check out what they’ve been doing, and donate, here.

The Deep End of Hope in the Wake of Hurricane Helene: 40 Days and Nights of Survival and Transformation. A Ground Zero view of the storm’s devastation — and a community’s resilience — from a trauma chaplain who lived it.

L.A. Wildfires: Opportunities to Help

World Central Kitchen. They were unbelievable for us here after Helene. I don’t know the grassroots organizations running in LA right now — LA readers, feel free to share so I can include them! — but I can vouch for the amazing-ness of World Central Kitchen. A hot meal means everything in such difficult moments. I’ll add more links as I hear about places doing great work.

This Week’s Dose of K-Pop: Red Velvet (레드벨벳), “Ice Cream Cake”

Speaking of food, I figured I'd go with a classic summer jam of K-pop’s third generation: Red Velvet’s “Ice Cream Cake.”

This song was technically their second debut song, when they returned as a five-member group after adding Yeri to the lineup. And it was a massive hit for them, a definite summer bop. It was offered to some big western pop star who turned it down, to Red Velvet’s benefit.

Enjoy!

Love y’all,

Sara