My 600 Pound Life?
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Drives me nuts that the person(s) living with them...brings the very foods in that is making the person ill into the house.
I do use it as a motivator. I have been concerned that watching these cases...normalizes that (600 pd) size to my eyes.
I just watched an episode about a 22 year old girl named Christine (or Christina, can't really remember...oops) and her husband and mother were sneaking her food in the hospital when she was supposed to be on a strict diet. That made me really angry.0 -
Now the attitude that five or ten pounds above one's ideal weight is ugly, "fat" and unacceptable - that IS hurtful. But there has to be a happy medium in there somewhere. I do feel we need to adopt the attitude that bodies of different types and sizes can be beautiful, without swinging totally to "...which means being morbidly obese, unable to function well and having significant health issues is beautiful." Isn't there an in-between? Why does it have to be one or the other?
I think what really bugs me is that it's part of this culture where everyone co-owns every female's body. Nobody's telling guys this stuff, because men are not valued based on how much other people want to have sex with them. Women, however, are de-valued based on their size alone, NOT the fact that they might have health problems or struggle with daily life, it's solely because they have failed to live up to their social obligation to be attractive.
Telling someone they're beautiful means "I see past your sexual desirability", it doesn't mean "knock yourself and eat a billion Twinkies". So claiming that is what means, to me, is a complete tell that someone is just being an a-hole.
But that's just me lol...
This bugs me too. WhyTF does the entire world have the right to tell me whether my body is acceptable *to them* or not? I frankly couldn't give a fart in a high wind if my exact body type is appealing to some dude. Go get your own girl, one you DO like. But leave your judgments at home.
Really I was just questioning why there isn't some level of acceptance of every body (male or female) being different from every other one - without totally swinging to, "That means that a person who is extremely uncomfortable and unwell must be beautiful too." No, she "mustn't" be hands-down, any more than blue eyes MUST be either ugly or beautiful to every single person. I hope that made any sense at all, LOL. Dodging between posts and actual work.
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It's really insensitive (not to mention IMMENSELY OBLIVIOUS to your own privileges) to use the exploitation of mentally ill and/or unhappy people as motivation. People are not props to be used.
I don't think that was the meaning. I think, for a lot of us, we can empathize with what is happening. Someone on here summed it up well with "but by the Grace of God go I." For many of us, it could have been and could still become us.0 -
Now the attitude that five or ten pounds above one's ideal weight is ugly, "fat" and unacceptable - that IS hurtful. But there has to be a happy medium in there somewhere. I do feel we need to adopt the attitude that bodies of different types and sizes can be beautiful, without swinging totally to "...which means being morbidly obese, unable to function well and having significant health issues is beautiful." Isn't there an in-between? Why does it have to be one or the other?
I think what really bugs me is that it's part of this culture where everyone co-owns every female's body. Nobody's telling guys this stuff, because men are not valued based on how much other people want to have sex with them. Women, however, are de-valued based on their size alone, NOT the fact that they might have health problems or struggle with daily life, it's solely because they have failed to live up to their social obligation to be attractive.
Telling someone they're beautiful means "I see past your sexual desirability", it doesn't mean "knock yourself and eat a billion Twinkies". So claiming that is what means, to me, is a complete tell that someone is just being an a-hole.
But that's just me lol...
This bugs me too. WhyTF does the entire world have the right to tell me whether my body is acceptable *to them* or not? I frankly couldn't give a fart in a high wind if my exact body type is appealing to some dude. Go get your own girl, one you DO like. But leave your judgments at home.
Really I was just questioning why there isn't some level of acceptance of every body (male or female) being different from every other one - without totally swinging to, "That means that a person who is extremely uncomfortable and unwell must be beautiful too." No, she "mustn't" be hands-down, any more than blue eyes MUST be either ugly or beautiful to every single person. I hope that made any sense at all, LOL. Dodging between posts and actual work.
So, we go from one end of the pendulum to the other...but the good news is, at least now there is a pendulum. Things are more black and white the less experience we have discussing the grays, so hopefully this is a situation that will improve.
I'm also slacking off on my Friday afternoon - must be the thing to do today
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rendash49221 wrote: »It's really insensitive (not to mention IMMENSELY OBLIVIOUS to your own privileges) to use the exploitation of mentally ill and/or unhappy people as motivation. People are not props to be used.
I don't think that was the meaning. I think, for a lot of us, we can empathize with what is happening. Someone on here summed it up well with "but by the Grace of God go I." For many of us, it could have been and could still become us.
This. And by the way, it's really insensitive, not to mention immensely oblivious, to assume that any given person likes to watch the show in order to gape at the mentally ill as motivation rather than, say, witness another person's joy and success as our motivation. Or even to assume that it's for "our own" motivation at all but rather, again, to simply celebrate someone else's joy.
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Super morbidly obese are completely dependent on...whoever. Family members, staff members in residential facilities, visiting healthcare workers, friends who bring them what they need.
They can't shop and cook generally and if they're not brought the food they want to eat, they'll call a restaurant for delivery.
There used to be a show on Discovery called Inside Brookhaven Obesity Clinic which beat the heck out of the reality shows about the super morbidly obese being broadcast today.
I think I remember that one, wasn't Dr. Now from that show first? I used to watch a show set in the hospital he works at, and I think this was it.....0 -
I remember the Brookhaven show, and people in treatment calling for take out pizza! These people are addicts. Surgery won't fix the addiction. These folks are hard wired that food takes away their emotional pain. They are as addicted as a heroin addict. And I believe that their withdrawal from the types of food they eat, usually high carb, high fat, high sugar is very challenging.0
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softblondechick wrote: »I remember the Brookhaven show, and people in treatment calling for take out pizza! These people are addicts. Surgery won't fix the addiction. These folks are hard wired that food takes away their emotional pain. They are as addicted as a heroin addict. And I believe that their withdrawal from the types of food they eat, usually high carb, high fat, high sugar is very challenging.
Was that when they first started Discovery Health as its own standalone channel? It sounds familiar, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering the same one. Did they follow 2 people as in-patient and then outpatient on each show?0 -
I'm bothered by both this show and Hoarders because I think the vast majority of the people who watch (not any individual here, but the millions of others who tune in) do so from the perspective of "Oh, THOSE PEOPLE are gross, I'm so much better than those AWFUL PEOPLE."
If you can't watch without compassion, or at the very least humility for your own failings, then you are just a *kitten*, IMHO.0 -
I'm bothered by both this show and Hoarders because I think the vast majority of the people who watch (not any individual here, but the millions of others who tune in) do so from the perspective of "Oh, THOSE PEOPLE are gross, I'm so much better than those AWFUL PEOPLE."
If you can't watch without compassion, or at the very least humility for your own failings, then you are just a *kitten*, IMHO.
I agree with this statement. When I've watched shows like these, I am always rooting for the person to be successful in the outcome, and I'm sad when they don't succeed in the end. I don't like the idea of people watching because they like the trainwreck situations. That being said, I'd be lying if I didn't say there was a small part of me that doesn't say "Thank God I'm not this far gone"0 -
softblondechick wrote: »I remember the Brookhaven show, and people in treatment calling for take out pizza! These people are addicts. Surgery won't fix the addiction. These folks are hard wired that food takes away their emotional pain. They are as addicted as a heroin addict. And I believe that their withdrawal from the types of food they eat, usually high carb, high fat, high sugar is very challenging.
I suspect (but of course can't know) that they're not addicted to the actual foods. They're addicted to the overstuffed feeling, the multiple taste sensations all at once and just kind of "blanking out" after a binge - you really can't think about anything else. It covers any possible deeper negative feeling. This is only my experience with binges, but I don't believe I was ever addicted to given food but rather, that "zoned-out" feeling afterward. Also the 100% focused stuffing and stuffing and stuffing - you can't do anything else - you're just stuffing, stuffing. Even the shame feelings afterward were better than some other feelings I was having. It really overtakes all else and covers a multitude of sins, to coin a phrase.
And when it's not an actual binge - when it's more like just continuous snacking, then very large meals - you're still "killing" all the stuff you don't want to deal with, by smacking your taste buds with something hyperpalatable (super-salty, super-sugary, super-greasy, super-whatever-y).
Of course, the downside is that it kills you.
A lot of people here have said that therapy might be the first course of action. I have to agree but again, I'm only agreeing based on my own personal experiences. Nothing is going to take the cause of the overeating away. You have to deal with it. Sometimes on the show, the person will talk about what's really ailing them and get it out there, and start to deal with it. Those people seem to be more successful (unless I'm seeing it in a slanted way). Others just keep up their behaviors and manage to get lots of food in anyway - possibly eating much more frequently even though the "meals" are small; and sometimes, which the show just loves to portray, eating smaller portions than they used to, but of fast food and so on. Because all their "stuff" just hasn't gone away.
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Oh, as for the POV that it's just gluttony and people just want to be able to eat whatever they want to eat and so on: That can surely get you overweight. But to get up to 600 pounds? I don't see how "just" eating lazily or even overeating to a careless extent - even if you're making a good deal of that food fast food and so on? I can tell you that nobody WANTS to feel horrid indigestion, bloated, possibly vomiting (depending) just from sheer bulk, dizzy, headachy-y and of course, self-hatred. (ETA: Dear God, the grammar in that last sentence...I'm not even going to correct it because it's just too funny.) That's not "laziness". Laziness would be AVOIDING those feelings. It would be NOT going to every length to smuggle, hide, lie about and manage to somehow procure more and more and more food when there's already plenty of food available. That's another reason that, in my opinion, there's more than simple gluttony or even just a lack of knowledge of nutrition going on here.
You get to 600, 700 pounds, shoving it in and feeling sick over and over again, becoming incapacitated, sick and having your kids come around to your bed in tears begging you not to die but you STILL can't stop, and there's probably something other than laziness or gluttony going on there.0 -
Oh, as for the POV that it's just gluttony and people just want to be able to eat whatever they want to eat and so on: That can surely get you overweight. But to get up to 600 pounds? I don't see how "just" eating lazily or even overeating to a careless extent - even if you're making a good deal of that food fast food and so on? I can tell you that nobody WANTS to feel horrid indigestion, bloated, possibly vomiting (depending) just from sheer bulk, dizzy, headachy-y and of course, self-hatred. (ETA: Dear God, the grammar in that last sentence...I'm not even going to correct it because it's just too funny.) That's not "laziness". Laziness would be AVOIDING those feelings. It would be NOT going to every length to smuggle, hide, lie about and manage to somehow procure more and more and more food when there's already plenty of food available. That's another reason that, in my opinion, there's more than simple gluttony or even just a lack of knowledge of nutrition going on here.
You get to 600, 700 pounds, shoving it in and feeling sick over and over again, becoming incapacitated, sick and having your kids come around to your bed in tears begging you not to die but you STILL can't stop, and there's probably something other than laziness or gluttony going on there.
That's what I was thinking watching the show. You must have to train for 600 pounds like people train for the Olympics. The sheer amount of time involved in obtaining food, preparing food, eating food, thinking and fantasizing about food, planning meals and how and when you can eat again that has to happen in order to even want to ingest eight or ten thousand calories a day, let alone actually achieve it... I can't even wrap my head around it. I'm too lazy to go through the drive-through at McDonald's when I've got perfectly good food at home.
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Larissa_NY wrote: »Oh, as for the POV that it's just gluttony and people just want to be able to eat whatever they want to eat and so on: That can surely get you overweight. But to get up to 600 pounds? I don't see how "just" eating lazily or even overeating to a careless extent - even if you're making a good deal of that food fast food and so on? I can tell you that nobody WANTS to feel horrid indigestion, bloated, possibly vomiting (depending) just from sheer bulk, dizzy, headachy-y and of course, self-hatred. (ETA: Dear God, the grammar in that last sentence...I'm not even going to correct it because it's just too funny.) That's not "laziness". Laziness would be AVOIDING those feelings. It would be NOT going to every length to smuggle, hide, lie about and manage to somehow procure more and more and more food when there's already plenty of food available. That's another reason that, in my opinion, there's more than simple gluttony or even just a lack of knowledge of nutrition going on here.
You get to 600, 700 pounds, shoving it in and feeling sick over and over again, becoming incapacitated, sick and having your kids come around to your bed in tears begging you not to die but you STILL can't stop, and there's probably something other than laziness or gluttony going on there.
That's what I was thinking watching the show. You must have to train for 600 pounds like people train for the Olympics. The sheer amount of time involved in obtaining food, preparing food, eating food, thinking and fantasizing about food, planning meals and how and when you can eat again that has to happen in order to even want to ingest eight or ten thousand calories a day, let alone actually achieve it... I can't even wrap my head around it. I'm too lazy to go through the drive-through at McDonald's when I've got perfectly good food at home.
They have a not as fat/immobile person doing it for them
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There have been some unfortunate changes in the way WLS is done. It's more of a for-profit business now than ever before. Before lapro was an option, the screening was a lot stricter, including the psych screen, and very few surgeons were even available to do it. Now they pop out of the woodwork like Dr. Nick on The Simpsons, and I've seen so many horror stories in the support group I used to moderate. I get the impression there isn't nearly as much attention paid to the home environment as I had, either - if someone is living with a feeder, or a person who has a bad co-dependent relationship vested in keeping the person obese, surgery is just a lot of pain and misery that won't win in the end. That relationship has to end first.
It's a shame isnt it. I think it would be more beneficial if they had at least 6 months prior therapy requirement before surgery. There has to be core issues (aside from those who have serious health issues that prevents them from losing) why someone allows themselves to eat and eat to the point they cant walk and/or are house bound.
You mentioned Angel - I was worried about the outcome of her surgery when she lost 165 *before* getting the procedure and they noted that she was basically not eating at all.
I did think it was really backwards that she didn't see a therapist until way later in the year. Because you can see her getting thinner...but you don't see her smile until after therapy. That girl was really depressed.
I figured this thread would be lit up with how she was starving herself. I think towards the end I saw her cooking up some onions but all they ever seemed to show her eat during her weight loss phase was a cup of jello. Thought it was odd that the show mentions that she starved herself to 170 lbs down, but Dr. Now's spin is simply that it's not unusual for people that big to drop 200 lbs in two months. I mean I guess the show is just following them and wouldn't snitch on them but I just found the whole thing... odd. There were no real details offered to this. I mean was she practicing a form of IF where she may have skipped a few meals but really was getting enough food for a normal person, but it just seemed like very little food for a person her size?
Was pretty interesting to see Dr. Now have a fit because she went to some other hospital for treatment and didn't inform/involve him. Too many people under a professional's care go outside seeking advice. It was nice to see the effects of that demonstrated. Anyway, I'm rambling...
And yeah she really was just so sad. She kept saying how she's going to all these events for her son but you could see her just stare like a zombie. I liked how towards the end she was at least getting into the game. "*Shoot* the ball, kid!!"
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I watched "Angel" last night. She seemed to have a problem walking, even after she lost weight. She seemed clinically depressed to me. That case alone looks like therapy, and psychopharmacology could have made a difference.
I don't see how anyone could think a 400 pound woman needed to be tube fed for nutrition.
I do think she got sick from overeating, the food addiction, was not cured by WLS.
That show was sad. Even after losing weight she did not seem happy.0 -
Larissa_NY wrote: »Oh, as for the POV that it's just gluttony and people just want to be able to eat whatever they want to eat and so on: That can surely get you overweight. But to get up to 600 pounds? I don't see how "just" eating lazily or even overeating to a careless extent - even if you're making a good deal of that food fast food and so on? I can tell you that nobody WANTS to feel horrid indigestion, bloated, possibly vomiting (depending) just from sheer bulk, dizzy, headachy-y and of course, self-hatred. (ETA: Dear God, the grammar in that last sentence...I'm not even going to correct it because it's just too funny.) That's not "laziness". Laziness would be AVOIDING those feelings. It would be NOT going to every length to smuggle, hide, lie about and manage to somehow procure more and more and more food when there's already plenty of food available. That's another reason that, in my opinion, there's more than simple gluttony or even just a lack of knowledge of nutrition going on here.
You get to 600, 700 pounds, shoving it in and feeling sick over and over again, becoming incapacitated, sick and having your kids come around to your bed in tears begging you not to die but you STILL can't stop, and there's probably something other than laziness or gluttony going on there.
That's what I was thinking watching the show. You must have to train for 600 pounds like people train for the Olympics. The sheer amount of time involved in obtaining food, preparing food, eating food, thinking and fantasizing about food, planning meals and how and when you can eat again that has to happen in order to even want to ingest eight or ten thousand calories a day, let alone actually achieve it... I can't even wrap my head around it. I'm too lazy to go through the drive-through at McDonald's when I've got perfectly good food at home.
They have a not as fat/immobile person doing it for them
Well, sure, once they hit those goalposts, though a lot of the people on the show do seem to do their own shopping. But in order to get to 600 pounds they had to blow through 200, 300, 400, 500, and every pound in between, and they probably weren't bedridden for at least the first couple of hundred. Twenty pounds can creep up on you, but I think of the work I'd have to put in to pack on 200 and I just want to throw up my hands and never eat again.
Like the poster above was saying, you can't really call that laziness. Laziness might keep you moderately overweight, but it's not going to take you through 450 pounds of gain over a healthy weight range.0 -
There have been some unfortunate changes in the way WLS is done. It's more of a for-profit business now than ever before. Before lapro was an option, the screening was a lot stricter, including the psych screen, and very few surgeons were even available to do it. Now they pop out of the woodwork like Dr. Nick on The Simpsons, and I've seen so many horror stories in the support group I used to moderate. I get the impression there isn't nearly as much attention paid to the home environment as I had, either - if someone is living with a feeder, or a person who has a bad co-dependent relationship vested in keeping the person obese, surgery is just a lot of pain and misery that won't win in the end. That relationship has to end first.
It's a shame isnt it. I think it would be more beneficial if they had at least 6 months prior therapy requirement before surgery. There has to be core issues (aside from those who have serious health issues that prevents them from losing) why someone allows themselves to eat and eat to the point they cant walk and/or are house bound.
You mentioned Angel - I was worried about the outcome of her surgery when she lost 165 *before* getting the procedure and they noted that she was basically not eating at all.
I did think it was really backwards that she didn't see a therapist until way later in the year. Because you can see her getting thinner...but you don't see her smile until after therapy. That girl was really depressed.
I figured this thread would be lit up with how she was starving herself. I think towards the end I saw her cooking up some onions but all they ever seemed to show her eat during her weight loss phase was a cup of jello. Thought it was odd that the show mentions that she starved herself to 170 lbs down, but Dr. Now's spin is simply that it's not unusual for people that big to drop 200 lbs in two months. I mean I guess the show is just following them and wouldn't snitch on them but I just found the whole thing... odd. There were no real details offered to this. I mean was she practicing a form of IF where she may have skipped a few meals but really was getting enough food for a normal person, but it just seemed like very little food for a person her size?
Was pretty interesting to see Dr. Now have a fit because she went to some other hospital for treatment and didn't inform/involve him. Too many people under a professional's care go outside seeking advice. It was nice to see the effects of that demonstrated. Anyway, I'm rambling...
And yeah she really was just so sad. She kept saying how she's going to all these events for her son but you could see her just stare like a zombie. I liked how towards the end she was at least getting into the game. "*Shoot* the ball, kid!!"
It may just be an issue of when they shot their footage. I lost 50 between my surgery and 2 week follow up. At the same time, I wasn't really eating solid foods yet. The first 5 days I got nothing but sponges to keep my tongue from drying out, then I got liquids, and the 2nd week was soft foods only. After that I had a timeline for reintroducing solids. If they used filler shots from that timeframe, it would look like she wasn't eating much real food, especially if it played into the story they wanted to give her (I haven't seen that one).0 -
Larissa_NY wrote: »Larissa_NY wrote: »Oh, as for the POV that it's just gluttony and people just want to be able to eat whatever they want to eat and so on: That can surely get you overweight. But to get up to 600 pounds? I don't see how "just" eating lazily or even overeating to a careless extent - even if you're making a good deal of that food fast food and so on? I can tell you that nobody WANTS to feel horrid indigestion, bloated, possibly vomiting (depending) just from sheer bulk, dizzy, headachy-y and of course, self-hatred. (ETA: Dear God, the grammar in that last sentence...I'm not even going to correct it because it's just too funny.) That's not "laziness". Laziness would be AVOIDING those feelings. It would be NOT going to every length to smuggle, hide, lie about and manage to somehow procure more and more and more food when there's already plenty of food available. That's another reason that, in my opinion, there's more than simple gluttony or even just a lack of knowledge of nutrition going on here.
You get to 600, 700 pounds, shoving it in and feeling sick over and over again, becoming incapacitated, sick and having your kids come around to your bed in tears begging you not to die but you STILL can't stop, and there's probably something other than laziness or gluttony going on there.
That's what I was thinking watching the show. You must have to train for 600 pounds like people train for the Olympics. The sheer amount of time involved in obtaining food, preparing food, eating food, thinking and fantasizing about food, planning meals and how and when you can eat again that has to happen in order to even want to ingest eight or ten thousand calories a day, let alone actually achieve it... I can't even wrap my head around it. I'm too lazy to go through the drive-through at McDonald's when I've got perfectly good food at home.
They have a not as fat/immobile person doing it for them
Well, sure, once they hit those goalposts, though a lot of the people on the show do seem to do their own shopping. But in order to get to 600 pounds they had to blow through 200, 300, 400, 500, and every pound in between, and they probably weren't bedridden for at least the first couple of hundred. Twenty pounds can creep up on you, but I think of the work I'd have to put in to pack on 200 and I just want to throw up my hands and never eat again.
Like the poster above was saying, you can't really call that laziness. Laziness might keep you moderately overweight, but it's not going to take you through 450 pounds of gain over a healthy weight range.
Even I would think this is semantics but I wouldn't say laziness (that is, a moral deficit) so much as just being sedentary. I can think of a couple bigger people I know who tend to ask people to do things for them, more so than their lower weight acquaintances. I even had to catch myself doing that. A lot of the aspects of day to day living that would be considered just being efficient - your buddy is already going somewhere, so just have him pick something up or get some information for you while there - could little by little contribute to a more sedentary life
A significant amount of calories is indeed required to maintain that weight. Hmm to put on 200+ lbs. I just think of ALL the times I've said no to high calorie foods and say yes instead.
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softblondechick wrote: »I watched "Angel" last night. She seemed to have a problem walking, even after she lost weight. She seemed clinically depressed to me. That case alone looks like therapy, and psychopharmacology could have made a difference.
I don't see how anyone could think a 400 pound woman needed to be tube fed for nutrition.
I do think she got sick from overeating, the food addiction, was not cured by WLS.
That show was sad. Even after losing weight she did not seem happy.
I wondered if she had a disability or if it was the effect of carrying the additional weight for so long
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