I'm not quite sure thin people really think about certain things that obese people struggle with. Like tying shoes, putting on socks, getting behind the wheel of a car, traveling by plane, being ushered to a booth you know you'll never fit into.
So many things I took for granted as I continued to add more weight to my body...
Suddenly they weren't making "arm chairs as wide as the once did"...I found myself looking for chairs without arms, close to something I could use as leverage when trying to stand up. To make matters a bit worse, my knees had also given out to the massive body it was forced to hold up each day...So now I not only had to deal with obesity, I had to deal with knees that could no longer lift my body from a seated position. The body becomes off balance when the knees can not be counted on so enter the cane for stabilization.
I stopped taking planes after 911 so I never had to ask for a seat belt extension, but I know people who do. I also know people who have to pay for two seats so they can lift the arms in order to be more comfortable. I never stopped fitting behind the wheel of my car, but I did notice the seat belt was getting tighter and harder to close...figured it was just shrinkage or something...After all it couldn't be me.
I also felt they were making booth space tighter so I started sitting at tables instead. I bought slip on shoes because they were easier and I stopped wearing sock because they weren't worth the effort. Jewelry didn't fit, I didn't seem to recall chains choking me (I didn't know gold shrunk, did you?) I managed to remove rings that were cutting off circulation and that darned dryer shrunk everything I owned...It was when the dryer started shrinking all the new stuff that I started to panic.
To anyone who is teetering on the brink of obesity and morbid obesity I say "WAKE UP!!!" To anyone who is simply "over weight" I say, don't stay there, it's a dangerous place to be. Lose it now while it's only 50 pounds.
An obese person plays mind games. We have these trick mirrors that always show us the same person. even if that person is 50 pounds fatter then she was a month ago.
D'Nile is not just a river in Egypt, we live in denial every day...it's our comfort zone, food is our drug of choice and because it's "legal" it must be good.
At "over weight" diets worked for me, even at early obesity I could still diet and exercise and lose...but suddenly at morbid obesity, I wasn't mobile because of my knee's, diabetic medication was work against me and causing me to put on weight...I was certainly on a down hill flight to death...Fibromyalgia set in, hip and back pain started because of the way I was walking...My body was crying out for help and I didn't hear it...Maybe I didn't want to hear it. It wasn't until I saw that magic number 300 that fear set in. I have often asked why people continue to gain weight...don't they see the scale? 300, then 400, then 500 when do you wake up?
300 was my wake up call, I tried dieting, a was being treated for depression and steadily gaining. It wasn't until my Orthopedist told me the truth about my legs and why he couldn't give me new knees...That reality set in. I needed more help then just diet and exercise. I now had a disease of Obesity that was going to kill me.
It was a painful realization, one I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
I am lucky, I have a husband, family and friends who stood behind me throughout my journey, which is far from over....It's just begun. I look back now at all I took for granted...smiling as once again I can cut my own toenails, put on socks and tie my shoes...I actually sat in a booth the other day and didn't even think of not being able to get up and out of it...Every day I become more and more grateful for the wake up call...If you are getting even close to where I was...if you are even 10 pounds heavier then you were last year...heed the warning and do something before it's too late.......Don't take ANYTHING in life for granted.
