Topic : 06/08 Deadly Eating

Paul...  

I think you are taking a step that most of us find very hard.  I am an overweight female ..weighing almost 400lbs..i am 34 years old.... I find it difficult to walk too much and stand too much because of the pressure on my back.  I love food...but I think its the type of food that make people fat....or obese.  That is my big problem..eating stuff that is fattening...and I'm sure Paul that is one of your problems too...  

It is a struggle each and everyday to try to lose weight...I always say....i will diet tomorrow...and of course tomorrow never comes.....its usually weeks or months before tomorrow comes....Just don't give up Paul...you can do it...with help!!!  

Stay strong and hope for the best...and don't forget to pray!!!!  

From  

Sheri R.

(someone that knows what its like to be big)  

I will keep you on my prayer list and put you on my church prayer list as well.  I know you can turn your health around Paul.  I have every confidence in you that you can.  Prayer helps!!  Ask God for his help and turn your issues over to Him and he will listen to you. 

Jeremiah 29: 11,12 

11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 

Blessings to you Paul!! 

Dear Paul,   

I am very worried about your health.  At this point you can not even perform the activities of daily living for yourself. (bathing, toileting, walking)  What did you say to yourself when you gave up these most basic functions and turned them over to someone else to preform for you?  You have to think about the people around you and what they are hoping to gain by continually enabling you. I know they love you but they are loving you to an early grave. I believe the first step is to call a meeting of all your caregivers and tell them that you want them to stop helping you kill yourself.  Get real with yourself and with them.  Since you are unable to shop and get food by yourself you need to ask them to help you limit yourself and your dietary intake. Set a realistic goal of daily dietary calories.  If they don't bring you the food you can't eat it.  This does not have to be a punishment.  You can eat pleanty of good foods and lots of them and still loose weight. Have your caregivers get you a good weight watchers cook book.You can plan the menu and make the grocery list for your contribution.  I would ask them to join you for meals and make the experience more about socializing than eating. Use your best dinnerware, cloth napkins, light a candle, and play some music to enhanse the expereince.  Set small goals. When you reach a goal reward yourself with something other than food. Something that makes you feel good.  I found that journaling is the best way to track progress either positive or negative. If you have a bad day you can look forward to tomorrow, if you have a good day you can build on that. Keep a journal it keeps you honest.  

You could eat six smaller meals rather than three larger ones if that helps you get through the day.   

I know you can do this!  You are worth the time and effort it will take you to take back your life. Don't give up on yourself.  Take one day or one hour or one minute at a time.  If you just take back a minute and do it 60 times in a row it becomes an hour.  Celebrate the successes! 

Hi Angel.  I do understand your situation to a point.  However, I am hoping maybe you can give me some advice.  My husband is in your position.  The unbelievable weight, the pain, the loss of breath, etc, but he blames me.  He says he can't do this alone.  But I don't know how to help him.  What can a person do to make you motivated or whatever to do something for yourself.  Right now he thinks I hate him and some days I do.  We've been married 22 years and I have never once said one word about his weight.  I try to help him however I can but when it got to the point that I have to put his socks and shoes on (as you say, special order-and they don't even fit anymore)  I got frustrated with him.  That started about 3 years ago and now he is completely disabled, mainly because of the fat.  He doesn't have high blood pressure or anything else that you would expect for someone his size-approximately 600 lbs. now.  His family half-way blames me and tells me to take all the food out of the house.  That seems cruel, not to mention we have a 6-year-old daughter that needs to eat.  So that is unfeasable.  I've changed to healthy cooking and keep fruit and such for snacks all the time.  He asks for certain things (healthy) but them won't eat them when I have it here.  I'm tired of wasting money on things that go in the trash because he won't eat what he asks for.  It's a terrible game we're playing and he has 6 more years to live at this rate, according to the doctor.  I've had to quit my job and started cleaning houses to make money and still be home to take care of him as much as possible.  At what point is he going to take responsibily?  I am sick to death of fat.  He is very depressed, of course, and embarrased to try to get help outside of home.  I've tried to get him on here to talk to some of you in the same situation but he won't because he types slow.  I've given him phone numbers and web sites for all kinds of help and support groups.  He won't even try.  Last night he sat crying saying he can't do this alone.  Well,  I can't do it for him.  Can you tell me some things that would motivate you?  What could your family and friends do that would make you want to lose the weight and get better?  Is there anything or is it just up to him to decide he's ready to do it?  I've looked for weight loss buddies in our town and haven't found him one yet.  Has your doctor suggested any excersizes for you?  He says a program might help.  Something easy that will get him moving at least a little bit.  He can't hardly walk to the bathroom now without feeling like he is going to fall from the weakness.  He doesn't eat anywhere near what you do but still gains.  I try not to be hateful but I don't want our daughter to think it's OK to be like him.  Yet, I want her to know and love him as a dad, not as someone she has to worry about or take care of.  If I'm working he thinks it's her job to take care of him and I don't like that.  How do I make him see what he's doing to the whole family, not just himself?  I would love to find the answers to what I can do for him but ......I don't know where to start.  Last night at midnight I woke up to the smell of him cooking bacon and eggs-talk about mad!  He doesn't eat much during the day but at night he does.  I don't understand  -- I hear him up and around at night but come morning he acts like he didn't do anything.  The dishes are still in the front room and pans on the stove.  Does he really think I don't see that?  Do you think he really doesn't care if he dies?  Maybe that's it.  Now 9 hours later, he is in there again cooking bacon and eggs.  There are all kinds of healthy choices he could have had.  I buy some things because at 6 my daughter doesn't understand why she can't have things just because daddy shouldn't.  And I think she's right.  Me, too.  I am under 90 lbs. and need to eat more.  However looking at him makes me want to never eat again.  Now I know that's the wrong attitude but it's the way I feel.  I have done everything I know to do and nothing works.     

So can you give me some advice?  You aren't near as big as him but still seem to be in the same boat.  What would make you want to help yourself?  Is it anything someone else can do or say?  Or is it just up to you?   You say you wonder if you even want to be alive.  Daily he says he just wants to kill himself.  I am at the point of buying a gun and giving it to him.  If we don't mean more than food why should we stay with him?  Maybe that's it...priorities...food is more important than us or himself?  Anyway, if you would like to chat more I check these boards several times a day looking for some help.  If there's anything I can do for you, say it.   You came here for help and I doubt I did that.  Sorry but maybe we can work together and get you and him healthy.  You have got to do it for yourself.  Can't you see that you're worth it?  Can't he see?  Why not?  Please reply.  I need advice from your side of things.  Thanks.  Hope to hear from you soon.  

Since this is a public forum, please do not post personal info such as full name, city and state, home address or telephone number in your message. For your safety, such info will be removed. Thanks!  

Hi Paul,   

I have had  a few things to overcome myself, I know it is not easy. I will be with you in spirit , I know you can do it!  

I hate my body.  I have been heavy, the nice way of saying "FAT" since high school... I have been married and divorced only guessing that my husband decided to be gay because I was too fat..... I don't really know how true that is but what I do know is true is that I hate my body.  I have thougth about having weight loss surgery but in my 350 pound body I meet only one standard to having the surgery so I don't qualify which I think is fine because I kinda think that is a cop-out anyway.  Although my self hate is better, or I should say, not as bad, but in the past it drove me to starve myself.  I did so for 6 mnths eating only 1/4 cup rice one night a week for 6 months.  Don't do this, it was not a good idea! I lost so much weight that people were freaking out... saying eat you are losing weight... which I thought was odd because they were the same people telling me to stop eating????? Anyway, after 6 mnths of not eating I began to eat only 300 calories a day and if I went 1 calorie over I would make myself throwup.  I have never been one to eat and eat and eat and then throw up.... at least I think that would be more fun.... but I lost 100 pds doing this,,,, became very ill and had to get on meds for depression as a result of not eating and gained 80 pounds back, then I moved to Nigeria and lost 60 pounds and moved home and have gained 30 pounds.... I hate this.  

There is a verse in the Bible that confirms that I really did hate myslef and I think this is changing but sometimes I wonder if I am just pretending that it is changing because I know I am not supposed to hate myself.  The verse is found in the New Testament in the book of

Ephesians 5:29 for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church;  

I still don't eat and I hate putting food in my body and I look at other people eating and I wonder why they are doing that?????   

Am I the only 350 pound anorexic in the world?  

I know how you feel.   I was abused as a child and found that food and tv was my way of escaping.  I am 43 years old and was 119 pounds over weight.  Until October of 2005.  I had gastric bypass.  It took a lot to get me there, to have the surgery done.  I do not regret ever having it done.  When I was 38 I found out that I had a non cureable disease called Dermatomyositis.  I was told that this disease would kill me, but that the medication would probably kill me first.  I went into a deep depression after this.  Then on May 24, 2005  the cloud was lifted and a light shone through.  I had an accident that should have killed me.  I was on my swimming pool deck and the disease had made me weak.   My then 12 year old son helped me to sit down before I passed out.  He set me on the railing of my pool deck.  The railing was reinforced and should not have broken, but because of my weight it did.  The railing broke and I fell off of the deck backwards.  Falling to the ground which was a 6 foot drop head first.  I broke my left humerus and my back in 2 places.  Between the shoulders and just right above the hips.  I had to be air lifted to the hospital.  Anyway that was a wakeup call for me.  I then began to fight back.  I had finally found my backbone so to say.  I had given in too many times.  That is why I was depressed, I had given up.  Everyone told me that I should have died when I fell.  I just laughed and told them that I bounced, due to all of the fat.  But inside I was crying cause the fat was what caused my disease and the accident.  No one knew how I felt until now.  But the accident made up my mind I was going to die anyway from what the doctors told me, so why not take a chance that I would not have taken if it had not been for the accident.  I thought if I am going to die then let it be on my terms not the doctors.  That is when I decided to have the surgery.  I won't lie to you IT IS A MAJOR STEP!  But now I can say this I WOULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN IF I HAD TOO! 

As with anything worth while you have to sacrafice to get your goal.  As of now I have lost 73 pounds and I am finally free of all of my medications.  Before I was taking almost 14 pills a day.  Since the surgery I have not taken one of them.  I do take vitamins like I am suppose to.  But that is all.  I was a severy diabetic due to the medications and I am now cured of my diabetes. 

I hope that this helps you and encourages you, because I am living proof. 

 Paul, 

 Hi! I think it is very courageous of you and your family to come onto the show, and let people 

in on your difficult life!  

 I am a newly married woman, with a very loving husband, who is also obese. He has struggled 

with his weight for most of his life. We will soon be looking into gastric bypass surgery for him, and 

this was not an easy decision for him to make. I think he also sees food as an addiction for him, and now he has decided enough is enough.  

 I hope that throughout your journey, that you also find encouragement through these postings here, as well as support from your family and friends. They obviously love and care for you deeply!!  

 My thoughts and prayers are with you, and may you find yourself healthy and well in the near future!  

From, 

Casandra:)  

My heart goes out to you.  I've been on more diets than I can count, diet pills, shots, weight watchers, liquid diets, more thans once, gastric by-pass.  Every time I tried these I was so gun ho, there wasn't anything that was going to stop me.  Well 6 years ago I had the gastric by-pass.  I'm only down the 50 pounds, when in actuality I would have been down about 85 pounds.  Now I am at a nutritionist for the 2 time.  You know what actually has helped more than any diet I've tried?  This is my 5th year seeing a psychologist to help me deal with my depression and abuse and through this I'm sure my food addiction.  I had absolutely no self-worth.  It's still very hard for me to see self-worth, due to an abuse I suffered with many years ago and carry it with me like a shadow.  I know that when I have conquered my abuse issue, my food addiction will also be cured.  Please, consider seeing someone to help you heal emotionally.  The food issue will work with it.  I didn't have much hope until this wonderful man listenend to me.  If ever you need an ear to listen, just shout.  Take care of yourself.  

As for your mother feeding you, you're right.  It isn't her fault.  We have to accept out part.  Yes, I was a victim of abuse but my way of handling things just for survival are a part of how I did what I did to myself.    

I wish you peace and quiet that gets you through this time.  You will succeed because you need to.