June 18, 2004

The Fat Kid, Teenager, and Adult

I didn't decide to have weight loss surgery because I didn't want to be fat anymore. I decided to have weight loss surgery because I didn't want to die. I call it my "mid life crisis". The day when you wake up and realize that you aren't happy, that you're miserable, lonely, afraid, ignored, useless. Of course it was a sudden onset thing. I had been a fat kid, a fat teenager, and now a fat adult. I survived being called names in grammar school when I was only 10-20 lbs heavier than everyone else. In middle school, I was the least popular in class, and constantly made fun of, when I was 30-40 lbs heavier than everyone else. In high school, at a board military school, packed full of insensitve boys, I survived being voted Homecoming Maid in the 10th grade as a joke, and 4 years of ridicule. My car was known as the "fat wagon". By then I was a 100 lbs heavier than everyone else. In college, I went to an all girl's school, so weight wasn't an issue. I became comfortable and gained another 40 lbs. It was an important time for me, because I came to love myself, for myself. Losing weight to make other's like me more was no longer an issue. Losing weight to fit in, or to not feel ashamed of myself was no longer an issue. I think all overweight people come to a point where they become comfortable with who they are. It's the "love me the way I am" thing. I began to want to lose weight to be healthy.

When I graduated from college I weighed 270 lbs. I married the first guy that asked me because I didn't know if/when I would ever be asked again. Walking down the ailse, the only thought in my head was "what the F*** am I doing". I settled. I was miserable. My ex-husband is a fine, kind, loving man. There was just no chemistry between us. And I probably would have stayed with him the rest of my life, had he not needed a fat woman to feel better about himself, to feel attractive, and to be attracted to.

But this isn't about him, it's about my midlife crisis. I've only admitted to one person that for about a year that I had considered ending my life I was so miserable. But I did. I can recall the effort it took to just be alive. Fat people aren't lazy, contrary to popular belief. To this day, I'm still sensitive about being called lazy. Walking up a flight of stairs, getting into bed, getting into and out of chairs, walking, all takes an extreme amount of effort. Positioning myself as to not have back/knee/leg pain was difficult. Even sitting down oftentimes hurt. Not to mention the time spent hating yourself because you believe you are as worthless as society wants you to believe. And it's easy to get into such a depressing mental state, because physically, you always feel drained. I have to think hard about exactly what it was like, and I'm grateful. You know that we don't have the capability to recall pain. We can remember that something hurt, but to recall the exact pain, is impossible. And that's fortunate. My last few years as a fat person were nothing but pain. I knew that if I didn't do something to change my life, that I would die. Living to 50 would be a miracle. Suppose I made it to 50? What quality of life would I have? Life at 23 was difficult enough. I was quickly approaching diabetes and heart disease. I was still gaining weight. In the three years since college, after being married, I had gained 30 lbs. I averaged about 10-15 lbs a year. At 30, I was looking at 400+ lbs.

Diet and exercise doesn't work. People argue that it can, and does, but statistically speaking, it doesn't work. Obese people who manage to loose weight using diet and exercise gain it back. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's staggering. In my case, and I suspect the case of many others, futility kept me fat. I'd diet like crazy for a few months, lose enough weight to be able to do a little bit of exercise, and then spend a week in bed because the exercise was just too much. I'd look at the 100 lbs I still needed to lose, and the little results that I had gotten for so much hard work, and give up.

The first step in my Weight Loss journey was accepting responsibility for my fat. My entire life, I had blamed my parents. I had blamed them for not teaching me to eat right. For begging me to diet, grounding me into dieting, but never really providing the example, or the information to be successful. Just do it was about as far as I got. At a very young age, I believed that my parents would love me more if I was thin. There was just enough to make me hate myself, and allow me to blame them. But at 23 years old, I could continue to blame them and get fatter, or accept responsibility and find a way to get healthy. I decided to get healthy, and to love myself enough to want to get healthy.

Posted by Manda on June 18, 2004 8:06 AM