when i donated blood...
...i thought for a moment that i made a bad choice. lol
i felt super dizzy for a few minutes, i closed my eyes and the next thing i knew, i was lying down (i had been sitting upright with my legs in front of me before.) oh, it was freaky :o
the lady said she knew it would happen (thanks for the warning, hon) because I'm "tiny" (this is how she described me) and i have a pretty low blood pressure. well, i lived, LOL :D and I'm glad i did it! but i was a little disturbed by the nurses, almost all of whom were overweight. hm, that seems worrysome. ???
i also could not help noticing that the slightly 'heavier' people had no problem dropping a pint of blood while i had to sit/lie around and eat nasty (non-vegan) cookies and apple juice. not sure what to think about that... ???
anyway, I'm feeling fine, now.
well i was trying to get to a point (before i started rambling ;)) My blood iron was higher than my Mom's! (she's an omni) so there! HAHA ;D
lol, this is a big deal for me because my parents are always going on about iron and protein and blah blah blah....
anyway, the real point is that giving blood is a great thing to do. i did not really think about it much, but it can really save a life! OMG, that's amazing! :D
i wanted to give blood because i have a rare bloodtype, but the gravity of it did not really hit me until later. It's just a pint of blood and some dizzy spells for me, but it could be a huge difference for someone else.
anyway, i just wanted to say all that. it was an...interesting experience. i can't say getting stuck with a needle and having blood sucked out of you is fun, but it sure is worth it. think about it!
go out and donate today! (or sometime soon!) ;D
There seems to been a re-occuring theme of weight-haters here. I'm overweight and I'm going to explain how that happened to give some insight so that maybe we won't all be generalized.
I have the world's slowest metabolism that is nearly exclusively activity-based. When they discovered my thyroid was low the doctor told me he had never seen a thyroid as inactive as mine. I take thyroid replacement, but my body doesn't use my thyroid medicine properly and so I take high doses, but my thyroid levels are still way off (which results in a slow metabolism and major exhaustion).
The only way I can keep my energy levels up is to be very active because exercise helps a lot. A few years ago, I was playing soccer on a wildly uneven field and fractured bones in my feet and detached some tendon (it was explained to me but I forget the details) in my arches, so that when I wear the wrong shoes, walk too fast, or carry too heavy of a backpack, the tendons slip and my feet seize up into rock-hard, painful balls of enflamed muscle. Therefore, over the past few years I haven't been as active and have gained weight.
I'm vegan, I eat mostly whole foods and don't like processed vegan dairy (cheese or deserts), so I stay away from a lot of the calorie-dense vegan foods. I live in the mountains where I can walk out my front door and go on a hike. I hike seven to ten miles a day three days a week. I like hiking because if I'm going up a slope I can get cardio workout without having to walk especially fast so my feet don't seize up. Twenty-five to thirty miles of hiking a week is not enough to keep my metabolism going at a "normal" level, but it helps with cardio, so I can backpack again now that I've discovered superlight backpacking.
If you saw me donating blood, you'd just say, "There's another fat person." with all of the generalizations that go with it. Kinda makes me not want to give blood, although I do - because what can I say to someone who needs blood, " I'm sorry I couldn't donate, people were being judgmental?"
Humboldt, great post! You have my great admiration for all you've overcome. I'm a fat person myself and find myself getting annoyed at all the folks who admit to having anorexia and who talk about fat like it's the worst thing possible! ;) I'd rather be fat than a stick person!
humboldt and tintexas, i feel like i need to apologize and explain myself fully. i did not mean to make any kind of hurtful generalization.
i love America very much, but if there is one thing that i really hate about it, it is the way so many people regard food. i don't just mean overeating, though. there are many ways to be psycopathic about food. and i know that in many cases it is not the individual's fault that they are overweight for whatever reason. my dad, for example, has his own medical issues that make it very hard for him to lose weight. I've seen first hand how someone can have issues with weight, and how frustrating it can be. but the point is not to be thinking that everyone is looking at you like you're "just another fat person" the point is to have the confidence to be happy with yourself, anyway. everyone has their own needs.
and by the bye, tintexas, you're right about the anorexics out there. they all see overweight people and that's all (of course, compared to the anorexics, everyone is overweight) i know because i was anorexic. it's a hard thing to go through. i can honestly say though, that i just don't see people as "fat" or "thinner than me" anymore. what i see is a country that needs to reevaluate the way it sees food.
on the flip side, do you know what it feels like to go somewhere and hear people whisper "too skinny" and "anorexic" all around you? i know what it feels like to be judged by my weight.
but the point is not to be thinking that everyone is looking at you like you're "just another fat person" the point is to have the confidence to be happy with yourself, anyway.
Luckily, my injury happened when I was 30, a working professional with a good life, so I was out of my 20s and worrying about what everybody thought of me.
My point is that not everybody reading these threads is in a place where they no longer worry about these things. For some people, your opinions count more. Look at how many people in the "To the Ovo-Lactos" thread apologized for liking cheese when this is a vegetarian/vegan board. PC hate is still hate.
??? Um, I wasn't implying that your's was hate speech. I just think that we all need to be supportive of each other.
The bitch in me is comming out....but I re-read all the comments and NONE of them seemed offensive.....maybe everyone should just lighten up a little, and stop looking for "hate" when it isn't there.
For instance, I could misread Tin's comment about anorexia and fly off the handle, spit a bunch of remarks about my struggle and completely miss the point of her post.
Or I could just read her post, and not sit there and analyze it and feel the need to defend habits.
"PC hate is still hate" is an expression. I made a second post to clarify that so it wouldn't be misunderstood - which it seems to have been.
I'm not going to post a snide reply. The point of these topics is to offer support to one another. So, instead, as a regular blood donor, I thank you for the work you do for blood donations.
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