650 pounds... Rambling introduction

Your story is very moving. I wish you continued success and strength as you continue down your path. It has been said that sometimes you have to forgive others, not for them but for yourself so that you can put the past behind you. Keep it up and stay positive.

I wanted to take a few more moments of your time to respond to the outpouring of support I've received since I introduced myself to the MFP community. It's humbling to read post after post, page after page of kind words and support from people who've never met me. We come to MFP often in pain and fear. Something has changed in us that forces us to recognize that the steps we need to take to live better, healthier lives must be faced honestly. This honesty can be brutal. But as we hold the mirror up to ourselves, as we look at our reflections and contemplate we're we have gone wrong, what we have done wrong, we can temper that brutality with compassion and support.

Yesterday, you as a community opened your arms and welcomed me. 10 friends, 50 friends, 100 friends, 200 friends.... It was breathtaking the response I received. The personal notes of support were touching and much appreciated. Notes of encouragement, suggestions for books, websites.... New friends offering to stand with me as I journey towards a new life. A better life. A life worth living. A life my sister would be proud of.

New friends that I'd just met today, opening their hearts and investing their time to look at my food diary. Offering to purchase pedometers or FitBit to help me become a fitter person as I shed the weight. Who does that? I think that if there is one positive part about being overweight, it is this shared understanding of what it being overweight means. The pain, bullying, fears, despair are we have all endured are shared, and because all of us have these shared experience maybe it makes it easier to reach out.

Surprisingly, I received emails from so many members that had shared some of the more horrific aspects of my story. Some of it was beautiful... A mother friended me, then contacted me asking if she could please have her son friend me and talk to me. A young man that had been molested and was dealing with the painful ramifications of his abuse. Another young man that has been too shy to post his story or his weight. It's humbling to think my post, that I almost didn't share, could touch people. It leaves me with a feeling of responsibility. It was my complete honor to be trusted with so many peoples lives. Their secrets and fears. I don't know why you thought I was worthy, you've only just met me, but believe me my new friends, whatever your story, embrace our commonalities and goals. We all want the same thing, right?

There was only one negative issue that I'd like to touch on before I close. As I read posts and emails, I would occasional come across this strange theme that a person's accomplishments or life experience was negligible compared to me. That somehow losing 100 pounds was more valid then losing 2, that my pain somehow trivialized their lives or accomplishments. And I don't understand that. Everything we do to reach our goals is work. My work may take longer, but it is in no way better or harder then anyone else. Your accomplishments matter. Your pain and sweat matter. It doesn't matter how long or how hard we work does it? It just matters that we work. And you should be proud of every inch you've lost, every pound you've lost, and never belittle or trivialize it again. Your work is too damn important to be dismissed. And I'm really going to be hurt if you can't be as proud and supportive of yourself as you have been of me...

Thank you for your welcome. I'm honored.

I'm a 650 pound man killing myself slowly every day by eating. Well I was anyway. Down 153 pounds and I think this time that trigger people who lose weight say they get when they lose the weight finally went off in my head.

In 2004 at my highest weight, 650 pounds at least, the scales only went that high, I was hospitalized for congestive heart failure. My body was so swollen with fluids that I could barely bend my knees. My feet felt like the skin was going to split open, they looked like Clown feet with out the Clown shoes. I was so buried in fat that they couldn't insert a catheter because they couldn't get that fat pushed out of they way. I could barely stay awake for 20 minutes at a time, and would often doze off in the middle of a sentence. The hospital treated me, got me on lasix, got some of that excess water off. I went home a few days later, down 40 pounds, and over the next year dropped another 60, all of it excess water. 550 and maintaining. On meds, oxygen, and bi-pap. My driver's license yanked, on disability and for the next 9 years, blinders still on, happy to sit in my recliner and watch TV or read a book. My weight see-saws between 580 to 520 for the next 10 years.

How do you get to be 650 pounds? How can anyone let themselves go that badly. I suppose looking back there are reasons. Maybe they are just excuses.

I was a beautiful baby, I don't say this to brag, but to set the scene. And beauty sometimes comes with a price, for me it came in the form of molestation. 4 years old and molested by two different baby sitters. One male, one female. I wasn't quiet about the events. I told my mother, my single mother, who didn't react well. She called me a liar and punished me. Beat me. Made me take it back. Unconditional love? A parents love? At 4 I learned exactly what that meant. At least in my family, truths were not to be spoken. But even though I was punished and called a liar, she must have believed me, because those two people were never left alone with me again. Didn't matter, the damage was done, and I learned my lesson well.

One of the molestations took place in the bathroom, and I hated that room from that point on. It was all they could do to get me to take baths, and that followed me through life. Not only was I super obese, I smeld bad. I simply did not like going into that room.

And when someone is 'bad' touching you, telling you how good looking you are the entire time, somehow looking good with unwanted attention are linked. So, I did everything I could to not look good. I would diet, start to loose weight, someone would compliment me on how good I was looking, and I would fall off the diet and regain the weight, plus some. This yo-yo continued for 40 years.

My mother married when I was ten, I think, maybe twelve, and we moved into his home. He was a con man, one of those guys who could sweet talk you out of your last dollar. He was a contractor that swindled you out of money and never finished the job, and he was abusive. Not to all of us, my half brother and sisters, his children, were fine. But the verbal and physical abuse I suffered was pretty bad for awhile, again ignored by my mother. Oh yes she knew about it, just didn't do anything. Food became comfort. Sandwiches and Chips eaten while cowering in my room a safe escape. Afraid some nights, he was going to come in and kill me. So afraid of death, I'd cry in panic. Death scares me, you'd think I'd do everything I could to have a healthy body to make sure I live a long life as scared of death as I am, but it was easier to take comfort in food. My weight insulates me from the world. It protects me, keeps me safe. Doesn't it?

Our family was poor, I had 4 brothers and sisters growing up, and we didn't seem poor. We had a home, a pool, a car. The trappings were illusions. We had a pool, but had to use the food bank to survive. Mother refused to go to welfare, to get food stamps, so we had cycles of feast and famine. A retired Aunt lived with us. So when she got her check at the beginning of the month tons of food would be stocked up, and instead of rationing it, we attacked it like swarms of locust to make sure we got our share before it ran out. So by the end of the month it was lean picking. Lots of pasta. Healthy food choices were certainly not made at my house. Vegetables weren't eaten, and except for banana's once in awhile, neither was fruit. Food was a luxury and was used as both reward and punishment. Did something well, Burger King. Diner food, a chance to visit with extended family and friends. Do something bad, bed with no dinner.

Exercise? Mother didn't get up before noon, and once she did, she curled with a book and ignored everything around her. Again exercise was used as punishment. Forced to go outside and swim or play so she could ignore us and read her books.

My bad habits are my fault. I fully recognize that. But they were learned.

So of course, when it was time to start working, I'd guess 350 when I graduated in 1980, what work do I find myself doing. Restaurant work. Line chef at one of those chain diners. Perfect for me. A place where I could eat and get paid for it. College? I went, I was accepted into one of the best schools in the country. It lasted a semester. I went back later to a state school, and managed to last until my last semester. 6 credits from graduating and I couldn't be bothered to attend, couldn't be bothered to drop the classes. I just stopped going, took the Failure for both classes, and got a job at better class of restaurant. I would have stayed in this field, but when that restaurant went out of business, my aunt, who I was living with at the time, offered me her job. She was delivering newspapers, 300 daily. It paid more than I was making, so I found myself a paper boy at 30. Weight 420. I eventually became the distribution manager for the paper, and was happy there until the paper was sold and the new company closed our department.

I mention the work to demonstrate that I was active, 500 pounds by the time the newspaper was sold, but I moved, I walked, I drove forklifts, and loaded bales of papers and inserts. I was on my knees and back fixing machines, climbing on platforms to clear paper jams. I was huge, but didn't realize it. I still don't. In my mind, I'm not fat. I'm always surprised how I look when I catch a glance in the mirror. I never felt that fat.

All of this may be the reasons behind why I eat, but the bottom line is, I did this to myself. No one forced me to eat, no one forced me to not stay on a diet, no one forced me not to get exercize. I was a 650 pound sick man, who really only had himself to blame. And even sick, I still had my blinders on.

So fast forward 2014. I've been living with my sister, who I love dearly. She's been my caretaker for the last 10 years. January of this year she's diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. I get on the internet and do research, and learn at this stage it's basically a death sentence. One year survival rate is like 1 percent. But my blinders are firmly in place. Remember those? My sister and her husband tell me the doctor says she will never be cured, but she can live with the cancer. With aggressive treatment, she could live a decade. She's 49, I'm 51.

She seems to respond well to treatment. She looses her hair, and that seemed to be harder on her then the cancer itself. In March they do the full body scan, and the doctor told her the other tumors in her body were gone, and her pancreatic tumor had shrunk significantly. That she had responded so well, she would be going on a maintenance chemo system to shrink her tumor but it was looking great for her.

They have a friend of the family come stay with me, and take a trip to Florida to visit one of our other sisters. I haven't been feeling well, I told her that, but she didn't seem to want to hear it. So I kept quiet until they left, and the next morning I had the family friend call an ambulance. That was an event in itself, and the ambulance drivers wouldn't take me because of my size. I had to find my own way to the hospital or sit there and die it seemed. My sister has a van that had barely enough room to fit in, so I walked to the van, got in, and we were off.

Admitted for three days with a new diagnosis of AFIB. So know I have CHF, I developed diabetes 2 years ago, Sleep Apnea, AFIB, and the water swelling was back. They got me on medicine, got my heart rate stabilized and sent me home. 550 pounds.

I have to change cardiologists because the one the hospital assigned me didn't have the facilities to treat someone of my size. My new doctor saw me at the cardiology wing of the hospital, and over the next few months I dropped down to 540 pounds.

My sister seems to be doing worse. She is sleeping all the time. Can't keep herself awake. Her stomach is in constant pain, and she's on the hard pain meds. July 16, my sister is admitted for a scheduled surgery to remove some fluids that have been building up in her abdomen. They think this fluid build up is why her stomach hurts. The surgery seems to go well and she comes home. But for some reason she is dizzy, needs the restroom because of diarrhea every 20 minutes, and finally collapses in the bathroom. My niece is afraid she has had a heart attack. I can 911 and they respond, and they seem to think my sister has over dosed on her pain meds. Three different people had medicated her that day. So she is taken to the hospital.

I'm texting my niece hourly wanting updates on her progress. The doctors are working on her, she'll be admitted, she's doing better. All bull****. Behind the scenes, they are calling all of the family in. Relatives in Florida fly up, Brother in Law's drunk brother is contacted at the bar, friends of my niece all at the hospital where my sister is dieing, and telling people goodbye. Everyone but me. I'm the 540 pound blob that can't be transported. And my dieing sister doesn't want me to know she's dieing. She doesn't want me left by myself aware this is happening. She worries that I'm sick and this won't be good for me. So she makes them lie to me. The texts say she's getting better. No one tells me Family has flown in. And she dies. And I didn't get to say goodbye. I didn't get to say I love her. And it's because I'm a 540 selfish man that was more interested in food, then family.

I've had other family members die. My mother died a few years ago. But I've never had anyone die that I loved. I've never had anyone die that I knew loved me. And god she did. Even on her death bed, she's making her husband and daughter swear they will take care of me. She's so afraid of dieing. We sometimes found her crying in pain and fear, not wanting to die. But she faced it bravely and selflessly and it hurts, more worried about those she was leaving behind, then her fear of death. My sisters tell me it was beautiful. That she told her husband he had given her a good life. That she had been happy. That she loved everyone. And I missed it.

You hear people talk about this trigger. This event or moment that happens that wakes them up, or motivates them. Shakes them out of their complacency. This moment was it for me. Here I sit, killing myself with every french fry I eat. Slowly committing suicide. Wasting my life and health. And she who wanted to live so badly is dead.

Well no more. If she was so worried about me. If she was so desperate that I be OK and taken care of. If she could love me so much. Maybe I could frigging love myself enough to give her death some meaning to me. Maybe this is finally enough of a wake up call to actually get off my *kitten* and lose the weight. I'm resolved. The weight is coming off.

Anyway, there have been hard choices made, realities to face. A month after her death and a visit to the doctor and 43 pounds lost. The biggest weight lose I've had ever, when I was actually trying to lose weight, and the first time I've been under the 500 mark in over a decade. 497 woot! And I found MFP, actually I re-found it. I tried it once before, but couldn't be bothered facing that calendar and finding out how much I was actually eating a day. But more than the diary, the messages board are an eye opener. I read the wonderful uplifting posts about people who did it. Wonderful men and women, some even as big as me that lost all the weight. That run miles a day now. That are off meds and living real lives. And I think. Maybe. Maybe that can be me. No meds? Maybe no more Oxygen tanks? Maybe actually get out of the house and do something? Maybe visit those places I always wanted. Baby steps right? One day at a time right? Well thankfully MFP is going to be a part of that one day at a time.

Post those uplifting messages. Brag about weight lose and accomplishments. Post before, during, and after pics. Balms to the soul. Proof there is light at the end of the tunnel. It can be done. And god please, let me be one of those that do it!

There have been changes since my sisters death. some not so great. My sisters husband moved in with another women the day of her funeral. He married her last week. September 16 is her birthday, the day they planned to scatter her ashes, and he couldn't wait that long to get married. And how did this women just happen to be there for him to move in with so quickly?

He's been paying the bills at the house, but my niece has had to pull all the weight of running this house by herself. Cleaning, cooking, mowing the lawn, garbage, taking care of 3 dogs, taking care of me, working 40 hours a week, trying to visit a boyfriend who is frustrated at how low he is in her priorities. She hates it here. The house reminds her of her mother. But she's trapped. Taking care of me. Taking care of animals. Taking care of the house. She wants out.

Well thankfully I can learn. Thankfully I am not so selfish I don't recognize it isn't healthy for her here. Or for me. I get so angry about what is happening, I take it out on her. Yelling and venting in pain and anger. And it has to stop. She is my sister's only daughter. When she was born, and would wake for her nightly feedings, my 16 year old sister would come and lay her on my chest for me to snuggle and care for, so she could get some rest. I've helped raise her, loved her, been proud of her. And I refuse to turn into the monster that makes her cry anymore. She deserves her own life. And I'm going to do what I can to help her get it.

What does that mean? I'm moving to Florida to live with another sister. Her situation is much more stable, she has the time and ability to help me out, and she has a pool that might work for part of my exercize regiment.

Don't get me wrong. There have been tears, lots of tears. But there have been good things too. Wonderful milestones already. Only 7 weeks in, in my drive to be a thinner better me.

The skin on my legs are so dried and broken that it looked like I had fish scales. There was nothing I could do about it because I couldn't bend over far enough to reach. BAM I can reach my feet! Lotion is helping and the dead skin is falling off in sheets.

It's a bit of a process, but I put my own socks, on my own feet for the first time in 15 years.

Gentleman might appreciate this more, those itches we get in the unmentionable areas... The ones that just need a good scratch? I can finally reach past the fat to scratch. My legs were twitching like a puppies getting a belly rub when that first happened.

I got into a shower and was able to wash under my stomach. This was one of my sisters duties. Sponge baths in bed...

I cooked oatmeal. I haven't been able to cook since 2004.

Little things. Baby milestones maybe. But maybe that's all you need? The little things can pile up... Sometimes letting the little things pile up can be bad... But maybe sometimes it can be good too.

Things too look forward too. Maybe a meaning for my life?

I hope so.

And as I read about your frustrations and successes, I take comfort. Possibilities, right? Going to do my best!

Friend me if you'd like. I don't know how vocal I'll be, but maybe it's time to make a friend. It's been a while....

I read your post yesterday and I keep coming back to the thread to read more. You write so incredibly well that you have me riveted to your story. That is a gift that I hope you cultivate. You might want to think about starting a journal outlining your journey.

Good luck and please keep us posted!

You write extremely well and the secondary concern you raise here has also been on my mind in many of the extreme loss stories that appear on the site - where people are more impressed with the large struggle. In addressing this you are right - it is unnecessary to trivialize each individual struggle. Whether it is 3, 30 or 300 lbs that need to be lost each person owns their own waistline, builds their own journey.

Yet, we also recognize as a community that the struggles and need for consistency of someone with much more to lose are just larger and more complex. My efforts to ride up Mt Ventoux, as hard as they might be, requiring all that I've got to achieve just are not the planning, support and grit needed for Everest. I think that is what people also recognize, your Everest project. There is no need for us to self-denigrate the efforts of our minor climbs, yours will just be a little more epic.

Climb strong, climb long.