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Another day, another doctor

Well, in fairness, this one was a nurse.  And she was pretty cool.  But the numbers were still assholes.

A little background: I'm still in London, and not going home as often / uninsured in the States, so I decided it was well past time to try to get my birth control on the NHS.  So I went into the clinic affiliated with my Uni.  And of course they had to weigh/measure me.  And of course my BMI says I'm obese.

Fuck off, BMI.  Obese??  Ok, I could lose a few stone, but if you're seriously telling me I have to lose 50 pounds to be within the range of 'normal,' you're off your rocker.  I'm a size 12, for god's sake!  I know it's not slender, but it's certainly not obese either!

I'm so sick of being controlled by numbers.  Even the nurse, when I told her I'd had weight-loss surgery and had been leveling out within 10 pounds of my current weight for the past 9 years, said she thought the numbers were a bit silly as they don't take bone density / muscle mass into account.  But I'm well aware, as is she, that numbers matter to a bureaucracy.  And the NHS is nothing if not a bureaucracy.

So the bottom line is this: if my BMI goes up less than a point (so, at my height, if I gain 2kg), the NHS won't let me have a mixed-hormone birth control, which is what I currently use and like. 

But then, if I'm obese, I guess nobody wants to fuck me anyway, right?  So why would I need birth control?

Whatever.  At least if I get pregnant the British government will give me money.  But then I'd have to have a kid.  Ew.

So I guess it's back to calorie counting and trying to fit workouts into my already insane schedule.  Eating right and walking all over London never seems to be good enough for the numbers.

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