Wake Up! The True Cost of FATSICK
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Thank you for posting
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I'm sure you're coming from a place of only good intent but I have some very different opinions.
Being fat at 337lb wasn't a terrible thing..it had negative consequences but on the upside I got to eat what I wanted, when I wanted and had 0 stress over the food I was very much enjoying..
In the end, I'm very glad I lost the weight but to act like being fat is this dark hole of sadness and illness, that simply isn't accurate, to me.
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AspenDan--
I neither said nor implied that being fat is a dark hole of sadness and illness. I'm afraid you missed the point of my post.
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CattOfTheGarage wrote: »Wow.
That's sobering.
Sobering. That's why I wrote this piece. I've mostly be out-of-the-world overjoyed since losing weight, but the last few weeks have been hard and I wanted to discuss the real consequences of obesity for those who are starting down the path that landed me here with a bum knee and busted belly.3 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Holy smokes, that's some brutal honestly there. Kudos to you for taking the time to share that and for turning your life around. I imagine both were pretty difficult. My hat is off to you!
Oddly, it hasn't seemed difficult. It's seemed natural somehow. This is not to say that I don't want to scream sometimes but once I got started and began to see results right away I had a fixed star to steer by and the sailing has mostly been smooth.4 -
alyssadanielle2493 wrote: »I'm sorry if I missed this in the post or am just missing something - but why can't you have raspberries?
Gastroparesis. Nothing with seeds or a lot of fiber. No raw fruit except bananas, or in smoothies.0 -
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I hope this doesn't come off as offensive, but reading your post made me very thankful. I'm 54, and been maintaining for almost 2 1/2 years. (118 pounds). Possibly due to genetics or whatever, I haven't really had any long term or lasting health issues. Your post is right on, almost all of us came to the realization, that there is no special magic to this, just honest calorie counting.6
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Thank you for sharing.
It wasn't until I dropped weight that I realized how much pain I had been in... how limited my life had become. If you had asked me then I would have said I was healthy. Now I realize how much I wasn't.
I do agree with sustainability and having realistic long term goals. You do have to eat less for life if you want to maintain your loss. You shouldn't throw out all the foods you love, restrict your calories so low you are starving all day every day and start spending all day in the gym.
I think this is very much the truth for most people. As I said in the post, there are some people who will bounce right back, but I don't think that's true for most of us, esp. those of us who are older. It's hard to see how bad you feel when it's been so long since you felt great. Luckily, I have a very low threshold for pain, so when I felt bad enough, I made the choice to lose the fat.3 -
Thank you for this. It was powerful to read.
I am lucky enough that I have not developed any conditions like diabetes, hypertension, joint problems, etc. I do know, however, that if I attain my goal of 140 lbs lost my body will never look the way I want it to without surgery, and as a single 20-something-year-old that is a hard pill to swallow. It's hard to be motivated when I'm afraid of what will remain down the road, but I just have to continue to move forward and trust that it will be worth it.
That is my advice as well: There are points of no return- it's not worth it to keep letting go.
As a 20-something, PLEASE start taking special care of yourself NOW. This is the point of my post. I don't want you to end up like me. This is not to say that I am unhappy (I think a lot of folks assume this because of the sober tone of my post). I am a very happy person. But I really wish my joints and tummy worked properly.6 -
I'm sure you're coming from a place of only good intent but I have some very different opinions.
Being fat at 337lb wasn't a terrible thing..it had negative consequences but on the upside I got to eat what I wanted, when I wanted and had 0 stress over the food I was very much enjoying..
In the end, I'm very glad I lost the weight but to act like being fat is this dark hole of sadness and illness, that simply isn't accurate, to me.
AspenDan--I neither said nor implied that being fat is a dark hole of sadness and illness. I'm afraid you missed the point of my post.
I think he did too...I had something written but will leave it at this.
The OP was an amazing post and I think anyone of us who has been in a similar situation gets what is being said...and I know that people will benefit from it.
PS you can have zero stress over food being slim too...and eat what you want.
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I hope this doesn't come off as offensive, but reading your post made me very thankful. I'm 54, and been maintaining for almost 2 1/2 years. (118 pounds). Possibly due to genetics or whatever, I haven't really had any long term or lasting health issues. Your post is right on, almost all of us came to the realization, that there is no special magic to this, just honest calorie counting.
Oh, no! I am GLAD for you! That you are lucky.2 -
godlikepoetyes wrote: »I want to share with you the hard lessons, the hard truth of obesity. There is a cost to fatness. There is a price that you may pay if you get fat and stay fat and then by an heroic effort lose all that fat. While it is possible that you will be one of the lucky ones who bounces right back from a 100 lb loss with six pack abs, it is more likely that you will be like me and have to deal with the very real consequences of abusing your body. Because that's what obesity really is for so many of us--body abuse.
I, like you, had heard all the reasons to lose weight--less stress on joints, especially knees. Less pain. Less illness. Better for the heart. Better for the sex life. Better for climbing stairs. Better for sitting in airplane and theater seats. I had heard that if I would just lose 20 lbs my knees would feel better. I was told and I read in EVERY book that my fibromyalgia pain would get better if I lost weight, if I just got up and MOVED. I knew, logically, that carrying around an extra 100+ pounds of flesh was just stupid. But it was a long time before I did anything to change and when I did, it was because I was just plain sick. FATSICK.
When I was languishing in my bed, my 270 pound body aching hurting occasionally lumbering to the bathroom or down the groaning stairs, the fibromyalgia that had been mild (and undiagnosed) for years bloomed into full-on agony. When I had lost about fifty pounds my gallbladder had to come out. And while I was losing weight I developed a digestive disorder—gastroparesis. Now that I’m down 80+ pounds, much of the pain is gone, but the fat wrecked things in ways that cannot be easily undone. Like the osteoarthritis. Like this knee that will not allow me to do the things I so very much want to do. Parts of me are simply broken.
When I was curled up in my bed, deeply depressed and fat-sick, I cuddled my bare belly. I lay there cultivating my butter fat. I could feel myself growing, putting 30 pounds on top of my already obese body. I knew I was gaining weight but I told myself I could lose it. And this was true. I have lost it. But I didn’t calculate the cost of being so fat for so long. The loose skin. The creaking joints. The feeling of dismay when I look back and realize I really have spent half my life as a fat woman. I regret that I cannot run again. That I cannot zip up and down the stairs in my house. No more jumping jacks. Or jumping rope either. And I can no longer eat the things I want to eat—fresh, raw vegetables and fruits. Beans. Nuts. Seeds. Salad. Collards. Mexican. Dried fruit. Oatmeal. Whole grains. Cabbage. Brussels sprouts. Broccoli.
This is a cautionary tale. If you are reading this and you have 20 pounds to lose. Or 30. Or 40. Or 50. Or 100. If you’re reading this and you haven’t already spent years and years of your life yo-yo dieting, if you are just starting out, please don’t begin MFP until you know you are ready to make real changes. Please do not start a “diet” thinking that it will be over when you get to your perfect weight at which point your life will become perfect in every way. Please don’t do yourself more HARM by beginning a years-long cycle of losing and gaining and losing and gaining and despairing. Do yourself the biggest favor you can—do whatever you need to do to come to terms with yourself and your body and your eating so that you will be ready to make LIFESTYLE changes that you will stick with FOREVER.
And if you, like me, have already spent half your life battling your mouth and your body, then you have choices to make and real work to do. If you start out again with the same plan you’ve tried and failed with before, if you decide that last time you just didn’t restrict calories enough and this time you're only eating 1,200!, if you start out desperate to fit into your new dress for your daughter’s wedding, if you are shooting for low-carb or low-fat or smoothies only or gluten-free or whatever sort of magic you think will surely work for you this time—STOP IT. You’ve been here before and I bet you know, on some level, when you’re playing games with yourself, when you’re setting yourself up to fail. So stop it. Wake up. There is no magic. You already KNOW this!
Everyone here who has lost weight and kept it off will tell you the same thing. There is no magic. Don’t try a fad diet. Don’t deprive yourself. Make out a food plan that you can sustain FOREVER. There is no MAGIC. You can’t trick your body into dropping pounds. You cannot exercise the weight away. You can’t melt your fat or punish your body or starve yourself enough to slip into those size zero jeans. Losing weight is a long, slow process and that process is forever. That process is your life. Weight loss is not linear. But really, the MFP boards are full of such advice and if you’re back after some time away, you know this already. And if you are just getting started, you will find this advice over and over and over again. Heed this advice—these simple truths that you will hear over and over from people who walk the walk. Listen to them and ignore folks who are touting their magic bullet to perfection.
This is a cautionary tale. Because I am living proof of what fat can do to your body, your life, your knees. I am living proof of what fat-sick can rob you of. Was my digestive disorder caused by the years and years I abused my body? Maybe, maybe not. But my gut tells me that the answer is YES. Just like my arthritis. Might I have this arthritis even if I hadn’t spent all these years overweight? Sure. But my gut tells me it wouldn’t be so severe. My gut tells me that being fat, yo-yo dieting, being fatsick, wrecked my bones and my belly and that is a real shame. There’s nothing I can do to take it all back. I can only go forward.
I feel better than I have in years. More energy. More bounce. More zip and zing. More everything. But I will never feel the way I felt before I chose to blanket my body in fat. I will never have the body I would have had if I had spent years taking care of it instead of abusing it.
I caution you. To listen. To breathe. To wake up. I caution you to stop abusing yourself cause it can get worse. Your body can get even larger. Your knees can hurt even worse. Your body can get so out of whack that you cannot bounce back. You can, like me, wait to wake up until you’re 50 years old (or 70 or 80 or 90). Or you can wake up right now, before you go down a path that will make you fatter, that will make you sick, that could very well wreck your body for always.
This is your life. This is the journey. You can decide to delude yourself. You can decide to go for the quick fix that you KNOW will never work. Or you can decide to face your life full-on. You can accept the fact that this has not been and will never be a quick snap of your fingers. You can accept, like I have, that there will always be Pop Tarts. Or Rocky Road. Or Curly Fries. Or mother-in-laws. Cheating boyfriends. Bitter disappointments. Regrets. There will always be difficulties. There will always be potholes in the road. But you can decide not to fall into them. You can teach yourself to walk around them. And you can take a deep breath and learn the hardest lesson of all--that there will be times (oh so many times!!) that you do fall into those holes, even when you try your dead-level best not to. But you can climb back out, dust yourself off, and keep on walking forward.
I have lost weight. I am healthier. I feel great! There is a spring in my step. But I will probably never be able to eat fresh raspberries again. Or oatmeal. Or sprouted wheat bread. And I'm looking at a left knee replacement in the next couple of years and my right knee ain't what she used to be. I have bursitis in my hips and the fibromyalgia still flares up sometimes. I regret the choices I made to land myself in this particular spot. Does this mean I was terribly unhappy as a fat woman? No. Just the opposite. Until I was—very unhappy to be so very FATSICK.
Would I do things differently? Hell yes! If I could do things differently I would be drinking a tall glass of cold water after my five mile run instead of jogging in the deep end of the pool with a bright yellow noodle holding up my weight to protect my bum knee. If things were different I would be coming into the house from a long, long walk with my dog or showering after a pickup game at the gym. If I could go back......well, you know.
-rebecca
I'm sure you're coming from a place of only good intent but I have some very different opinions.
Being fat at 337lb wasn't a terrible thing..it had negative consequences but on the upside I got to eat what I wanted, when I wanted and had 0 stress over the food I was very much enjoying..
In the end, I'm very glad I lost the weight but to act like being fat is this dark hole of sadness and illness, that simply isn't accurate, to me.
Eh? Did you actually read the OP as your comment seems to bear no relevance to its content.
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One needn't even be a short woman at 270 to be fatsick. My Mrs has never been as high as 200 yet her osteoarthritis, along with all her other infirmities, which have been legion, are due to a lifetime of getting most of her maintenance calories from Coca Cola.4
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JeromeBarry1 wrote: »One needn't even be a short woman at 270 to be fatsick. My Mrs has never been as high as 200 yet her osteoarthritis, along with all her other infirmities, which have been legion, are due to a lifetime of getting most of her maintenance calories from Coca Cola.
Exactly!0 -
When I opened up the post, I thought that I would just read enough to get the idea of what you were saying. Nope, I had to read every word. A part of me wanted to stop reading because it did hurt. But it was so well written, I couldn't stop. Well done! So beautifully written! Thank you for taking the time!!! I hope that 20 and 30 year olds will read and benefit from these words!
I'm 52, and while I don't have as much trouble with joints, illness, etc, I can totally relate to the regret of looking back and realizing how many years I spent being obese. I don't think about it often because there just isn't anything I can do about it now, but IF I COULD GO BACK...
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Thank you - i think i just neeed to read that sobering but very true
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WOW just Wow..... Thank you for sharing this1
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I am so glad that you wrote this. My highest was 245 (I'm 5'8" so well into obesity), and, as a former athlete, I had trouble doing anything. Heck, I had to use my hands to help me push up from the toilet seat because I couldn't get out of a seated position without terrible knee pain.
So many people do not grasp the difference between the risk factors associated with short term and long term obesity. Being obese when you're young and for a short period and never being obese again is very different than being obese for many years of your life, especially later in life. The risk factors for the latter case are very negative. The former, less so, much less so.
Thank you for your honesty. I, too, wish I could go back and maintain my athletic strong and fit body I once had, but, in the end, it is the future that we have some semblance of control over, not our past, and we must always spend more time looking forward than behind us.
ETA: My father just suffered a massive stroke at the end of last year. He had to have the large arteries in his neck operated on just to get even half normal blood flow to his brain and had to have a triple bypass to prevent what his cardiologist called an imminent heart attack. He's 49.
My mother is obese and has been for most of her adult life. She has to have both of her knees replaced, is pre-diabetic, and can't walk more than a few steps without severe pain in her joints. She's also on a mountain of pills to prevent a heart attack (high BP meds, cholesterol meds, etc.) She's 50.
I consider them both very young for these things to be happening, and their doctors agree that their lifestyle choices were major contributing factors to their rapidly declining health.
This is not where I want to be at 50. I can't imagine anyone would want to be like that at 50. The damage they've done to their bodies is irreversible at this point, and I refuse to end up like this, if I can help it at all.6 -
When I opened up the post, I thought that I would just read enough to get the idea of what you were saying. Nope, I had to read every word. A part of me wanted to stop reading because it did hurt. But it was so well written, I couldn't stop. Well done! So beautifully written! Thank you for taking the time!!! I hope that 20 and 30 year olds will read and benefit from these words!
I'm 52, and while I don't have as much trouble with joints, illness, etc, I can totally relate to the regret of looking back and realizing how many years I spent being obese. I don't think about it often because there just isn't anything I can do about it now, but IF I COULD GO BACK...
I don't think about it all the time either, but right now my knee just isn't working--it's making me pissy and dark sometimes, esp. knowing that just "powering through" is not the answer and can actually make things worse. It's not in my nature to baby myself. Still, I have to focus on the things I can do and there are a lot of them.3 -
I was so happy to see this post from you. Why? Because I know every time I read a post of yours I am going to not only be inspired to keep going (despite the tortoise speed I am traveling at) but I know I am going to get a healthy dose of truth and reality versus fluff. This truth is what I WANT to hear. I don't want to hear all about how people bounced back with "six pack abs" because, honestly, I know that will not be me. It is just the reality of it. I am a real person. I don't have fantastic genes. I can tell by the way my parents, sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles look that once I get to my goal weight I am going to have to fight every single day to keep it off AND I am not going to have 6 pack abs or extreme muscle definition. It just is what it is. I will be healthy though. And, hopefully, I will reach the "healthy" level fast enough that I stop damaging my body further. So, thank you. Thank you for always being honest, brutal and open. It is a true breath of fresh air.7
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First: thank you for posting this. I am like someone else just said, I usually just skim long posts, but I read every word of yours, and I do thank you for taking the time to post it.
Second: I think your post is a very good example of the cost of long-term obesity. It's never any of my business but I really get just a little upset when people (mostly younger people in their 20s-early 30s) who are obese and then say "Well all my labs are good and I am healthy!"
Yeah, except that your body cannot sustain that weight forever and you're not going to be 22 for the rest of your life.
Getting some people to think long term is hard to do. Unfortunately sometimes they need to learn it the hard way, and by then it's (maybe) too late.7 -
What a great post. A note to all of your pups out there in your 20's, 30's, 40's...do it sooner than later. At 54, I've been dealing with my bad choices. High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, and finally Type 2 Diabetes. Fortunately, I have not had the body damage that can occur from these issues, but if I kept going the way I had been it would have been just a matter of time. Make the changes sooner than later. As your body gets older, it can't compensate for the abuse like it does when you're younger.6
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Wow...what an inspiring post, thank you for sharing this and congratulations on your success so far.
I count myself lucky that I haven't suffered ill health due to my weight so far, but I think that is because I don't have a car and walk everywhere, so I have a somewhat decent fitness level for my weight (but by no means a healthy level!). I know that I could easily have suffered a lot more, and I will do if I don't do something about it.
I have felt quite down about my appearance before (usually during and after clothes shopping), but not enough to have done the hard work required to fix it, and for a while there I couldn't stop feeling sad about having waited until my late 30's to finally care about my health. I have lost about 4.5kg so far, and I am a lot more active already and I feel better for it. I do regret that I've been overweight most of my adult life, but I have decided not to dwell on things I can't change and I am looking forward to getting healthier and fitter each week.
I am sorry that you are left with health problems, and I hope your honest post inspires others to make changes in their life and stick to them. I know it has inspired me to sort myself out before I'm 40 so thank you again.
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This is wonderful. It really makes me think about things that I know I have not come to terms with. While most of my health has remained good (ie blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol), my body has taken a beating. My knees hurt, my skin sags. In all honesty though I am most worried about the skin. I have so many deep stretch marks that I am worried my skin will look worse later than it does now. I have been 300+ lbs for almost 12 years. I have come to the realization that I will probably have to go under the knife to look half ok once I lose the weight. I totally know what you are talking about. Thanks for going deep and sharing this message! HUGS2
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I hope "fat-sick" does not become a thing. You are not sick or ill, you have caused undue strain on your body with lifestyle and dietary choices,1
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trigden1991 wrote: »I hope "fat-sick" does not become a thing. You are not sick or ill, you have caused undue strain on your body with lifestyle and dietary choices,
I'm not sure what you mean. Obesity is a disease. Being fat damaged my body. Yes, these were choices I made, but that does not change the fact that I have measurable damage to my body.4 -
KristiMillner08 wrote: »This is wonderful. It really makes me think about things that I know I have not come to terms with. While most of my health has remained good (ie blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol), my body has taken a beating. My knees hurt, my skin sags. In all honesty though I am most worried about the skin. I have so many deep stretch marks that I am worried my skin will look worse later than it does now. I have been 300+ lbs for almost 12 years. I have come to the realization that I will probably have to go under the knife to look half ok once I lose the weight. I totally know what you are talking about. Thanks for going deep and sharing this message! HUGS
I am glad this hit home for you. The sagging skin is hard. I'm doing pretty well with it, to my great surprise, though I am making the choice to NOT lose down to my "ideal" weight range. I am 51. If I do lose down to 150, I will have too much loose skin, esp. on my neck and face and knees. So I am holding steady around 183-185.0 -
ScotsLass78 wrote: »Wow...what an inspiring post, thank you for sharing this and congratulations on your success so far.
"I count myself lucky that I haven't suffered ill health due to my weight so far, but I think that is because I don't have a car and walk everywhere, so I have a somewhat decent fitness level for my weight (but by no means a healthy level!). I know that I could easily have suffered a lot more, and I will do if I don't do something about it."
This is the very point of my post. There are people who will be just fine when obese--good numbers, joints, everything. But there are more people who will suffer long-term consequences. I used to tell myself that I wouldn't be one of those people, that my pain had nothing to do with my obesity. I KNEW this wasn't true, but I told myself this to justify my behavior.0 -
What a great post. A note to all of your pups out there in your 20's, 30's, 40's...do it sooner than later. At 54, I've been dealing with my bad choices. High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, and finally Type 2 Diabetes. Fortunately, I have not had the body damage that can occur from these issues, but if I kept going the way I had been it would have been just a matter of time. Make the changes sooner than later. As your body gets older, it can't compensate for the abuse like it does when you're younger.
This is why I wrote this. I just don't want people to suffer the way we have. Diabetes. This one is LOOMING for many, many people. And we know it.0 -
First: thank you for posting this. I am like someone else just said, I usually just skim long posts, but I read every word of yours, and I do thank you for taking the time to post it.
Second: I think your post is a very good example of the cost of long-term obesity. It's never any of my business but I really get just a little upset when people (mostly younger people in their 20s-early 30s) who are obese and then say "Well all my labs are good and I am healthy!"
Yeah, except that your body cannot sustain that weight forever and you're not going to be 22 for the rest of your life.
Getting some people to think long term is hard to do. Unfortunately sometimes they need to learn it the hard way, and by then it's (maybe) too late.
Yeah. It's just another way of justifying stupid behavior. I am the champion of justifying stupid choices. I would say Americans are champions, too. But I will place a large chunk of blame on the health care providers--when a patient goes in for a yearly exam and has gained three pounds, that weight gain should be addressed right then and there, seriously. Because that's how so many folks get into trouble--the weight creeps on.3
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