How can someone get to 538lbs?

(Just wanted to share something i wrote last night)

How do you get to 538lbs?

Whenever I share how much weight I have lost one of the first things that people ask is…How did you get that big? People can’t seem to fathom how someone could get that large.
Obviously it does not happen overnight, it takes years of emotional and physical turmoil that leads people like myself to gain so much weight.

For the longest time I didn’t really comprehend why I got so big, but as I got older the reasons why became more and more evident. I began gaining weight at an early age, I was quite a chubby kid and as can imagine I was made fun of quite a bit. I am not sure if I would call it bullying because I was a foot taller then anyone else in my class so no one dared try and physically harass me, but the mental abuse was daily and constant.

One of the main factors that lead me to food was comfort. I grew up in a family that was very emotional distant from one another. Don’t get me wrong, my parents are good people. They never abused me and I wanted for nothing, but they were both very cold and emotionless people. I have never hugged my father, and I could count on one hand how many times I have hugged my mother. We never expressed any kind of emotion towards each other and that was something that made me feel very alone growing up. I love you is something that I maybe heard 2 or 3 times growing up. I think that in some ways my eating was me trying to get the feeling of being loved. I never felt it growing up and if I am honest still don’t feel it to this day. We were never really a family, just a bunch of people who lived together, and whenever I needed some kind of comfort because of the teasing or if I just had a bad day I would turn to food.. a lot.

By the time high school came around I was 6 foot 3 and 300lbs and quickly gaining weight. I hoped to lose weight in high school but I ended up graduating at over 400lbs. I never went to a dance or a prom. I didn’t date as no one was interested. I was the butt of every fat joke imaginable. I felt like a monster and I kept to myself most of the time. I felt as if I deserved to be alone because of my size and that made me feel even worse so food was my only way to fee better.

I was a week away from going to college when I went to get an ID made. I looked down at the ID and was so ashamed at what I saw that I decided not to attend. I couldn’t think about another 4 years of mental abuse from my peers. I spent the next year sitting on my *kitten* feeling sorry for myself. After the year was up i had gotten to over 470lbs. I finally mustered some motivation and went on a low carb diet and lost 80lbs. I felt so much better that I got a job and moved away. The job was great and it was an active job that kept me moving, so for many years I was able to maintain my weight around 390-410lbs. I did not lose any because I was snacking on horrible stuff at work constantly. 7 years later and I quit that job due to a management change that made the job dangerous. I loved my job and didn’t want to quit. I ended up coming home for what I thought would be a year or two at most. I wanted to get a degree and then move back to where I was and get a new job.

I ended up spending more then 4 years at home. I did manage to get a degree and even start my own business to keep me busy and make some money. But living at home made me depressed and I shot up to 450lbs rather quickly. One advantage of being home was that I got to see my niece and nephew all the time. I even began at one point to lose weight again, but then I had one really really bad day.

What happened in the winter of 2012 is what made my weight spike the highest it has ever been. My niece, who was 6 at the time, died due to complications of a minor surgery. She was the only family member I have ever had that I had any kind of connection with, she made you feel loved and happy, something I never had growing up. I spent almost everyday looking after her and when she was gone I had nothing left to look forward to each day. So I closed off and began eating….and eating.

Her death hit me hard and I went on a full tilt binge of anything and everything I could find. I was probably consuming 10K calories a day at least. My weight was quickly getting out of control. I got up and sat in a chair all day either working or watching TV. I was a zombie. I would have hoped that someone would have tried to get me out of my funk sooner, but that is not my family. They left me alone, and I don’t feel mad at them for that, it was my choice to wallow in my own misery. I just always wished I had the kind of family that would step in when someone was in pain, but I realized we were all in a lot of pain at that time. I know that is just not them and I can’t fault them for it because we all have our issues and it’s not their fault.

So there I sat, a 34 year old man…alone, tired, and slowly eating himself to death. Trust me when I say it was not pretty. I am not sure what motivated me to finally do something but one day I just had enough. I wanted to know how much that I weighed so I found a scale that went to 500lbs. I stepped on and saw an error message. I won’t lie, I broke down at that moment and almost said **** it all. Over the course of my life I have never been terribly suicidal, but that moment I was extremely leaning that way. Just the shear amount of challenge that laid before me was so daunting and full of pain that I just wanted to die.

Somehow I fought through all the horrible thoughts of self harm and I found a higher capacity scale. I finally got a true weight of 538lbs. Now for some that amount of weight would be devastating, I am lucky enough that I am very tall and have a lot of muscle so i held the weight better then most, not that I looked good or anything, but I could still move and walk and do everything on my own. I am very glad I came out of my funk before I got any bigger or decided to harm myself. I have so far lost half my goal with another 150lbs to lose and for the first time I actually feel like I can do it.

I am still mad at myself because I wasted my twenties and most of my thirties and I sometime feel like I don’t have much time left to start a real life, but I want to thank all of you here because you have helped me realize that I can get my life back if I work hard at it and stay motivated. I look forward to reaching my final goal.

So they next time you wonder how anyone can get as big as I was, just remember that weight gain can be a complicated thing for some people and there is always a story behind people that get that large. We don’t want sympathy for our situation, we did it to ourselves and admitting that is the only way to move forward. All we ever want is for people to understand why it happens. That is all we can ever ask.


Thanks