Gylphling
I’m not sure when I started to get fat, but I think it was around 3 years old when my mom married my stepdad and had my sister. I know that by the time I started school, I was usually one of the biggest – if not the biggest – kids in the class. Most of my immediate family is overweight and each generation seems to get fatter. Some were chubby kids like me who just got fatter and fatter as they got older and others were somewhat slim or athletic until they were teens or young adult before they began to really gain weight.
I remember going on diets with my mom from a pretty young age (probably elementary school). Some were just at home, like the cabbage soup diet, but we also joined Weight Watchers a few different times. We moved around a lot and didn’t seem to have much money, so I never really got to participate in any activities that might have helped increase my activity level. But I was also kind of a shy, moody kid, so maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to join anyway,
I moved in with my grandparents when I was about 11 or 12 for a year or so because I wasn’t getting along well with my family and I think I was also getting teased in school. I remember in middle school wearing a big windbreaker jacket a lot even when it was warm to try to hide in. My grandparents put me on a strict diet and helped me lose some of the weight.
By the time I was about 13, I decided to try again to move back with my family and ended up gaining back the weight, plus more.
By fifteen, I had gotten up to over 250 lbs. My mom and stepdad divorced and my mom and I weren’t getting along well, so I went to live with my grandparents again.
This time they enrolled me in a program called Pat Walker’s, which included dieting and “working out” on their exercising machines. I ended up losing about 100 lbs. and even got to do a local newspaper ad for the company.
I managed to keep off most of the weight during my senior year in high school since I was able to keep pretty active by walking and working out. But it was still a struggle to keep off the weight, and I think sometimes I didn’t eat enough. I may have either gotten anemic or was having problems with my blood sugar getting too low from not eating, since I would sometimes get dizzy and occasionally blackout. Sometimes even the hot water from a shower would cause me to get dizzy and begin to blackout. I never told my grandparents, so I never got a diagnosis or treatment, but once I started eating again the blackouts went away and I’ve never had that problem since.
The reason I started eating again was because I started dating a boy and mostly dates meant going out to eat. His favorites were pizza and hamburgers, so that’s mostly where we went. Not too long after I graduated from high school and started college, I moved out from my grandparent’s house and moved in with my boyfriend. By the time we got married, when I was about 20, I had gained back all my weight and was probably close to 300 lbs. I really didn’t participate in any diet plans during that time because most of my focus was on working, going to school, and being a wife. I was (am) a really good cook, but my husband didn’t much like the healthier things I’d try to cook. He preferred spaghetti, lasagna, ham quiche, pizza, enchiladas, and carne guisada with Spanish rice. Rather than fix two different meals, it was easier to make and eat what he wanted. There were also usually lots of snacks and sweets around and fast food.
This period of weight gain, I believe, also led to my infertility. I never sought any clinical diagnosis, but also never got pregnant even though we hardly ever used birth control. After a few years, I moved out due to his drinking and abusive behavior and got my own place.
During the years of my 20’s and 30’s is when I made most of my attempts at weight loss. Most of the diets I tried were on my own, but a few were structured programs. For several years I tried to maintain a vegetarian diet, but there are still lots of things to eat that are not good for you that don’t involve meat. I did at one point go to the other extreme and try Atkins when it became very popular. I was able to stay with that diet for several months and I think I lost about 50 lbs, but it ended up like all the other diets do for me. I do well for a while, but then begin to stall out and it gets harder and harder to lose. Eventually I get discouraged and the old bad habits begin to creep back in. Soon I’m right back to where I started or even heavier.
Many of the things I tried to lose weight were on my own and ranged from just basic trying to cut back and control my portions, fats, carbs, calories, etc. to specific diet programs and exercise tapes. I joined Weight Watchers several times over the years, but didn’t feel very successful and had trouble making it to the meetings every week. I tried different cleanse programs hoping that if I could get rid of toxins and get my digestive system working better maybe that would help me. Days or weeks of drinking gritty powdered herbs and clay or warm water with sea salt or lemon juice with cayenne powder didn’t help me any more than the diets did.
At one point (about 2001, I think) I saw an ad for weight loss through hypnosis. The gentleman who was advertising his success with the program told how he used to be almost addicted to junk food and ate chips every day and had a big bowl of ice cream every evening. After the hypnosis program, he said, he no longer craved junk food and almost never ate ice cream. He was just as happy with a small salad or serving of broccoli. I made payments to join the program adding up to nearly $500, I believe. There were individual sessions with the hypnotherapist as well as group sessions and a few visits to the nutritionist. One of the suggestions that I remember was that we would be told that when we looked at food, the good healthy things would seem vibrant and appealing while unhealthy foods would be colorless, lifeless, and unappealing. I stuck with it for about six months, but just wasn’t seeing any progress.
A few years ago, I attended a single session weight loss hypnosis seminar by a different company, but it turned out to be more of a way to get the participants to buy their numerous vitamin supplements and shellfish capsules that were supposed to block the fat in your food from being digested.
Another time I purchased a product that was advertised to be like “gastric bypass in a jar”. You would take several of the capsules before a meal with a big glass of water so that the substance inside would swell up in your stomach and make you full with only a small amount of food. I tried it once and became so ill it was like having horrible food poisoning. The abdominal cramps were extremely painful and I threw the rest of the product away.
During this time my weight fluctuated between 300 to 350 lbs. and my health began to deteriorate as well. One of the most difficult problems to live with was the back pain. At one point the pain and severe muscle spasms made it so difficult to walk and even to breathe that I feared I would be bedridden or need surgery. A co-worker suggested visiting a chiropractor and that helped immensely. I still have some pain in my back, but by getting adjustments when the problem flares up, I’ve kept it at tolerable levels. I also have pain in my hips, knees, and feet.
In general, I feel that I’m in pretty good health for someone of my size, but since I’m a few months away from hitting 40, that will probably not be the case for much longer if I don’t get this weight off.
For many of the years of my 20’s and 30’s I did not seek medical attention for most of the problems that did arise. I basically felt that nearly all of my problems were due to the excess weight and that the doctor would simply tell me what I already knew. If I wanted to resolve the health issues, I needed to get my weight under control. I did begin visiting the doctor more regularly in early 2007 when I began having issues with depression and anxiety. The anxiety and depression were mostly tied to my job at the time, but since I was making more effort to take care of my mental health I decided I should do better at taking care of my physical health as well.
I got myself set up with a PCP that was part of a medical group and even though I haven’t always seen the same doctor, at least I was working on some of the issues. Initially I was given Cymbalta for the depression and I was also seeing a therapist.
