Friday, July 30, 2010

My Most Favorite Dress Ever



I had this friend give me this dress who lost weight. This dress is called the Juliet Dress. This was the most figure flattering dress ever, I wore it everywhere I could for a few years til it wore out in the early 2000s, plan to get another after I save for it. In my case, clothes snobbery rules, you won't see me walking around in sweats, yes I know a 500lb flat broke clothes snob is rare. I do think the size chart has come down, but could see them customizing one. [would only need a little more room in the hips on the highest size]. My dress style is very different, many people like my choices, but also I've told I dress like its the 1890s, which to me is a compliment!

Clothes that look good on thin people do not necessarily look good on fat people. One pet peeve, is fat women wearing very tight jeans and/or halter tops etc. Toss them in the trash and go find something, that fits right and even more importantly you feel good in. Refuse to wear clothes that are an affront to your dignity. If you are poor, you can get good cheap clothes off ebay!

Plus Sized Wars: More Fat People in Fashion and on TV

Plus-Size Wars: NYTimes.com

This is an interesting article showing some of the new developments in fashion and on TV where more plus sized people are being given a place. This is a good development. It would be nice one day for fat people to be able to buy more clothes and have more variety. I don't know what people my size did 30 years ago? Wear bed sheets or have all the clothes custom made? Thankfully with the Internet us super sized people can find clothes. For years, I would buy dresses off ebay, pressing the 5x plus keys. Some high fashion shows with fat women would be a great thing to see.

NGC Special On Obesity and Cushings



I really wonder how many others are going undiagnosed? See the interview lower down, with someone who faced Cushings. In my case, I was found to have high cortisol too, [Pseudo-Cushings] and years ago, seven times the normal amount of adrenal hormones.

One thing if you really do know you are sick, keep pushing, and find a specialist or doctors who will help you. If I hadn't done so even on two of my conditions I would no longer be here.

Are They Trying To Fatten Us Up On Purpose?




Is there a reason Hardees has to sell a 1400 calorie hamburger, the so called "MonsterThickBurger"? Or that KFC came up with a sandwich the so called "Double Down" that uses fried chicken patties for 'the bread" with cheese and bacon in the middle? Are they competing to make everything as cheese laden and fat filled as possible? People scoff at so called "conspiracy theories" but its hard to ignore the fact at the very least corporate interests seem to be conspiring to make us all as fat as possible. Maybe its a deal with Big Pharma to sell more diabetes pills but some of this really makes me wonder.

Some have said fat and grease sells, but I have felt my own desperation in trying to get something less then plastic while on the road, if food with taste and some nutrients was out there, it would be bought.

Even now I am facing the facts when one has to pay under 20 bucks a meal at restaurant, they are either stuck with Chinese food--sauce and fat on the side, no egg rolls please, or copious amounts of disgusting food that is a nightmare for the lactose intolerant and forget trying gluten free, with a few limp salads thrown in for looks with fried crispy things tossed on top.

When I watched Jaime Oliver's Food Revolution, I wanted to scream at the TV, we are all being fed a load of trash! Only people on farms or big gardens, and those with cash for organic food, [young people seriously consider that as a lifestyle for your own sake] are getting the decent stuff anymore Jaime! Our TVs are full of what basically amounts to food pornography. I enjoy a good cooking show, but is there are a reason in a super sized nation that Emeril used to sing the praises of pork fat, or the host on Man Vs Food, fries a giant pork chop thing with skin and fat attached and yells out: "That's Pork Sexy!" No that is just gross.

Weirder still are the shows dedicated to fit and sassy Rachael Ray eating wondrous meals on a daily basis, though with a cringe some remember the so called Chicago Hot Dog Salad. Other shows display copious amounts of food and complex recipes, that Mary Ordinary would never get to see in her own kitchen outside of a thousand dollar food budget but perhaps on a cruise ship. Then there is the Italian female chef who while cooking foods that consist of every diabetics nightmare who almost disappears when she turns sideways. The mountains of Cool Whip, faux graus, chopped up raw tuna also form a dizzying array of food on the so called cooking channels.

I run my scooter down the supermarket aisles, endless greasy, salted, sugary and expensive foodstuffs look back. Endless bags of fried carbohydrates and bottles of high fructose corn syrup poured into everything. Aluminium silicate, Benzoic acid, calcium chloride and a vast array of the chemical kingdom for everyone! Very few know {read Fast Food Nation} that much of the tastes in processed food, do not come from food itself, but from chemicals whipped up in a lab.


At the grocery store, I follow the nutritionist's advice to "follow the perimeter", grabbing vegetables, meats, and fruits, some tempting "Eat me, I'm tasty" and others forming feelings of disgust, but overall fewer and fewer good things to eat, with more and more empty calories, foods based on white starch, sugar and few nutrients, plastic stomach hurting food, greasy tinned meats, and hamburger red on the outside but always a mushy grey when you take it home to break it down to cook.

Is it just my imagination or has food become just more worse for us, discovering even almond milk had listed as its first ingredient cane juice [basically sugar water] given my lactose intolerance and problems with soy, just made me sigh with food despair.

I can't help but think they want to make us as fat as possible.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Meet the Woman Who Can't Gain Weight

Meet the Woman Who Can't Gain Weight




This is a 21 year old lady with a rare condition they believe is related to progeria, who can't gain weight and has never weighed more then 61 pounds. One can read about other super-thin folks from the circus side show of years ago, who had various wasting diseases and could eat anything. It's interesting she admits she eats 5,000-6,000 calories a day and still stays so thin. It seems maybe it's time to analyze metabolic variations of weight [from very thin to obese] instead of assuming everyone eats the same? She talks about the discrimination she has faced but thankfully has good support from her loved ones.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

A Revealing Conversation On Size Acceptance and Health

I and a fellow endocrine sufferer, who I appreciate very much, shares her common experiences with hormonal health challenges and size acceptance. We agree on much. [My questions in blue] Read on:

1. Describe your experience with size acceptance, what did you find positive about it, what did you find negative?

I originally joined the size acceptance movement in 1996. After purchasing my first personal computer and joining the citizens of the internet from home, I stumbled across the Dimensions Magazine website that broadcast the statement: Where Big is Beautiful. The print magazine articles were written by men and women who took pride in themselves as a whole person. This was a new discovery for me, having been a fat teenager and dealing with discrimination, bullies, and general bias because of my size.

I spent a few years mostly reading and studying materials from the NAAFA and Dimensions Magazine, and researching the phenomenon that is fat acceptance.

Over time, I began to learn that for me, the journey to "Size Acceptance" is really a journey of "Self Acceptance" rather than coming to terms with being just fat. As a person, I learned from the SA movement that I have a right to enjoy life just as I am. Since that time, I've even been able to help friends of all sizes come to terms with their own bodies. It's been an interesting journey. When I tell women with low self esteem that I love my body and who I am-- they begin to wonder how "I" could love myself, when they see me as socially unacceptable!

Things I learned from SA:
Doctors usually believe you're fat because you're lazy. Little research and questioning is done for fat people. Diet and exercise are the common prescriptions. Many fat people then turn to alternative medicine or "acceptance" of themselves and then fail to get help! Fat and sexuality are not mutually exclusive. Many people can and so see through the fog of the myth that fat people are somehow second-rate.

My opinions matter, no matter how fat I am! The anonymity of the SA movement online has helped many fat people find their confidence and ability to speak in regards to various issues. I think this has helped the most in fat people learning to advocate for themselves. They know they're not alone, and can voice their opinions.

Society still has yet to accept fat people as the norm in America. Theater seats are uncomfortable, airplane seats and being asked to purchase two seats is the norm. Bathroom stalls are too small. Stairs are too steep. Booths at restaurants are made with fixed tables. Hospital gowns for fat patients are hard to find (and you're made to feel like a freak if you ask for a larger gown at times). Chairs at airports and doctor's office have arms that can cause physical harm to a fat person.

There's a bias in America that fat people are nonsexual. That's so far from the truth! We are human beings just like everyone else, and we have carnal desires, wants and needs to be loved, feel affection and physical attraction. The lies that are perpetuated by the media don't help any.

Size Acceptance has its own militant activists just like every other agenda.

I am still a member of the SA movement, but left my formal advocacy agenda in late 2008.


2. How did you come to be diagnosed with Cushings?

When visiting a new doctor one day in 2007, I was bemoaning to my doctor that for years I'd been battling a host of issues that I thought were just normal things for a fat person. After years of being told that I was fat, lazy, an over-eater and I would have to deal with my health issues -- this new doctor started to ask questions. Every answer I gave created a new question. At the end of an hour-long exam, the doctor asked me if I'd heard of Cushing's Disease. I hadn't yet, but then she explained the textbook symptoms.

The trouble from that point was that local doctors aren't trained in what to do with Cushing's patients, and you have to find an Endocrinologist that understands the disease. There are few specialists who truly understand the full body of research in regards to this endocrine disorder. I saw two local Endocrinologists who laughed me out of their offices despite my doctor's referral. Finally, after much research on the internet and talking to my doctor, I found Dr. Ted Friedman in Los Angeles. Dr. Friedman took the time to meet with me, look at my history of pictures from spanning from current days to my childhood, looked at all of my physical signs and symptoms and prescribed a very focused and intricate testing regimen. After only 46 days of tests, MRIs and discussion, it was decided that I had been living with this disease some call the "Ugly disease" since birth.

Since that time, I have had two pituitary surgeries to help establish a period of remission of all of the difficult symptoms. After each surgery I've enjoyed 6 months of improvement.

3. Do you feel support was lacking in the size acceptance community regarding your diagnosis with Cushings?

Once I shared my disorder, the problems it caused for me, and that I was pursuing a cure for my issues, things began to change for me. When I announced I was having pituitary surgery to work towards a cure, I was treated like someone who didn't know what was right for myself. Constantly people were telling me reconsider such a "drastic surgery" that they felt could leave me crippled for life. Despite all my assurances that I looked at every angle, I received countless phone calls, emails and visits from people who insisted I was making a wrong choice. When I needed support the most from my friends, a dichotomy arose -- that of having to deal with friends who felt I was fat for life, and that of trying to cure a deadly disease.


4. Do you agree that in size acceptance there is a lack of truth about obesity being for some people a symptom of a disease process?

Many of my fat friends categorize their fat as a physical trait, and refuse to believe that obesity is a serious medical condition.

While I personally believe a rubenesque woman can be fit and fluffy, there are many fat people who have serious medical conditions that may go undiagnosed because of their attitude towards size acceptance, their fear of the doctors being emotionally cruel to them, and that there aren't any real serious medical diseases for fat people.

In many circles in the SA community, the talk of "dieting" is forbidden. The reason being that fat people need a place of solace from the people telling them that diets will solve all their problems and they refuse to diet. I can see the point in this argument, but the people that can't diet to lose weight have serious medical issues that should be addressed! I'm sure some people who say they diet really don't and they are fooling themselves, but people like me who eat only 1100 calories a day and gain weight have metabolic disorders that need serious help!

Diseases I've seen friends suffer with from obesity related issues:

Lypo/Lymphadema
High Blood Pressure
Heart Attacks
Deep Vein Thrombosis
Diabetes
Osteoarthritis
Osteopenia
PCOS
Cushing's Disease
Hypothyroidism
Growth Hormone Deficiency

The website bigfatfacts states: Weight is not a barometer of wellness. More Americans die every year from weighing too little than from weighing too much. An estimated 25,000 people die from obesity. Moderately overweight people live longer than those at normal weight. (Flegal, et. al.) (See reference notes at bottom of report)

Weight is not a barometer of wellness! So a fat person can have normal blood pressure, activity level, blood sugar, and labwork. But notice here it says moderately overweight people live longer. Most of my friends in size acceptance are overweight into the hundreds of pounds. Dear friends of mine are over 400 pounds, and one is over 500. Somewhere fat does become a barometer for wellness!



5. Where do you think the size acceptance movement is headed today? Do you think it has a future?

Size Acceptance is splintering into various new groups and is no longer a united front. Some advocacy groups want fat to be declared a disability, yet some don't. If it's a disability, then is it not healthy then? Other groups are insisting that super-sized people shouldn't be part of mainstream size acceptance as they are the "freaks" of the movement.

These kinds of separate attitudes don't do any fat person any good, and it's a shame to see that happening. I wish to think that in the future, we'll find a better united front and be able to be inclusive again.

I Love This Picture


I even did a painting based on this photo, she reminds me of myself when I was in my 20s. Nowadays out in the world, you gotta be tough, if you're a fat woman; but she does it looking good too. :)

Are Fat People Hungrier?




While I do believe that fat has its genetic and endocrine causes, with the food intake thing, while there are thin people filling up their carts with endless sugary and bad food, and I watch someone who weighs 200lbs less then me gobble up a pint of vanilla ice cream every night, I mull over my weight loss failures, and the growling stomach that never leaves me alone. Is it all laziness, low will power or something more? One friend is on that diet, I describe here. The other night she sent me what she is allowed to eat on the 500 calorie diet, it includes raw veggies and strips of meat no bigger then an index finger. With guilt, I ponder the realities, I'd be crawling the walls, and my vision probably would be going in and out by the end of the day.

Lack of willpower, shame, physical hunger, boredom, migraine headaches, stomach pain, almost every fat person in the world knows what the diet is like. My own experiences include severe spells of hypoglycemia, once ironically ending up on floor of a grocery store, after eating carbohydrate free on the Atkin's diet, the bowl of Brussels sprouts for lunch didn't quite do it, and learning that if I went 6 hours without food or certain types of food, my vision would start doing funny things, hands would go numb, panic attacks and total physical melt-downs would be the result. Unlike most fat people I never have succeeded in losing any weight on a diet. Yes I say that as someone that has lost more then what some people weigh. It seems with me, happiness, medical treatment, less stress, better food, activity, and maybe now treating my celiac problems has been the best way of it coming off, rather then playing Russian Roulette with my blood sugar. That said, I'm still far too huge, but am not interested in another starve myself diet, where I get too hungry, fall off, and get filled with self-loathing, guilt and more stress.

But I've come to this theory that fat people have more hunger, whatever physical processes are happening in the body, while I know the average thin person can skip breakfast, eat an apple at lunch and then call it a day getting a decent dinner with minor discomfort, by 11:30 am, I'm bowled over with growling stomach pain, feelings of unwellness, and thoughts of food. Is this addiction or just a body crying out? During the days, before I was diagnosed with diabetes and severe insulin resistance [related to endocrine disorders already discussed], I would try to discuss these problems with doctors, "Doctor I feel unwell when you want me to eat 900 calories a day" but would only get the rolling eyes, with the attitude, that I, the fat person spoke out of irresponsibility, laziness and a desire to stay fat. Have any considered that fat people are hungrier and this is one of the core components of weight loss failure?

This is one of the ignored, suppressed, questions out there. A few scientists dabble in studies regarding satiety and the use of leptin, with the theory that overweight people are resistant to it. But more answers are needed. Even the scientific studies shimmer with the same fat hating, assumptions of chosen gluttony. The endless failures of weight loss are related to this piece of the puzzle definitely.

My Favorite Clothes Company





This is one of the best places to get clothes if you are supersized or even more midsized.
I've been a customer for over 6 years. Need to save my money because I want to get another batch of dresses. They make the dresses to order, as long as you want, and they have clothes fitted for the pear-shaped of various fabrics and other styles. Even if you are very large like me they can serve your needs. Compliments will come your way. One can look good no matter their size, and if you dress with style, even more so!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Ramen Noodled Out: Fat and Poverty



Fat people are poorer and poorer people are fatter in American society. There has been many studies on this. One article with a very unfortunate and troublesome title asks in it's subtitle "Does Poverty Make People Obese Or Is It the Other Way Around?"
My own life experiences, have shown me poverty and obesity have served a symbiotic relationship, endocrine problems aside. More money means better food, and better nutrition means a better working body. Thinking on days of poverty knowing one can approach kind friends and family only so often, being relegated to pre-diabetic one meal a day eating years ago, and discount grocery stores, I know why personally poverty and fat go together.



Food insecurity means finding out you only have a carton of eggs and a package of bread to eat, the highest carbohydrate-packing foods from your local food pantry where you are far more likely to be given a box of pop tarts then a container of hummus, it means too many cheap packages of ramen noodles, cans of tuna, higher fat hamburger and facing the reality that the more greasy, unhealthy and fatty a meat or other product is, the cheaper it is. Food insecurity means making odd meals such as egg salad spaghetti, and hot dog omelettes [don't ask].
There are a few cheap win-win foods such as dry beans, broccoli, and carrots but overall your poor American isn't making salads with 6 different sliced vegetables on them and a good vinaigrette, they are down at McDonald's buying the dollar meal for themselves and their kids because to buy the makings for the salad, would set them back at least 20 bucks for one meal.
Whole Foods and stores like it, can almost be like a dream world to the poor gazing upon the aisles of healthy food, drooling, knowing eating it would make them feel better, rather then bloated and hungry for more, from the low quality stuff, but then who has 300-400 bucks a week for groceries? Looking at their "meal of the week" page; and the requirements to make those foods, there's a few on there that would set you back 30 bucks per meal.
Rich people have more leisure time to take walks, go on vacations where physical exercise is fun and not a boring chore and to put thousands of dollars into busy activities, sports equipment, team and gym memberships. Joe Six-Pack or a "Plugger" [see the cartoon above], after a day of sitting at the drill press [or now in our economy sloughing depressed through the want ads at employment agencies] comes home to eat, rest and watch television before another day of drudgery, and is too tired to feel the enthusiasm to exercise. Sometimes the only pleasure he can afford outside of cable TV is what he will have for dinner that night.
But that said, fat discrimination is a new weapon in both sides of the divide class warfare. Many a fat person can attest to the endless job discrimination even an extra 40lbs can bring. Studies have found just being fat can knock off thousands of dollars off your salary. Social class is already visible according to body weight. The rich are becoming lean aristocrats with the financial and other resources to control obesity. An upper middle class or richer person can grill some salmon, vegetables and make watercress salad. The poor is relegated far too often to cheap processed foods, that barely resemble the real thing. Healthwise in America, the rich and poor live in different worlds.
Add to this that food processers abuse the human system of hunger to make money. They add sugar, which has an addictive quality and makes people inclined to eat more. Grease and hydrogenated fats add more taste but also leads to more obesity. Salt is literally poured into food as well to cover the fact it has little taste. In addiction add in the higher stress of trying to make ends meet, and the feeling of feast or famine as a person lives paycheck to paycheck, and the outcome is not good.
Now we have this new "war on obesity" and these factors are ignored. They repeat the same answers over and over, but no one addresses the food and money connection. No one addresses the fact that too many Americans live a life where they are like gerbils on a hamster wheel spinning around, where high stress and bad food, comingle into a one bad formula. America is getting fatter. The usual overused answers are failing. Greed is ruining intellectual honesty. Greed is making us fat with adulterated food.

It's THE FAT CAMP for You, COMRADE!



This article is ironic, "Obesity Rating For Every American Must Be Included in Stimulus-Mandated Electronic Records, Says HHS."

I don't like the idea of the government tracking everyone via electronic health records, something that could be open to a myriad of abuses. Yes in many of our cases, for the disabled, the govt already knows we are fat but now your doctor sends your files by choice when you apply. When they start centralizing records for everyone watch out!

This is about benefiting health and life insurance companies who will raise their costs according to what you weigh and only increase discrimination, making the overweight even more "punished" by society. Is imagining forced calisthenics for adult factory workers and school children [outside of gym class] that hard to see down the road? The grocery stores if you have a discount card, already track what you buy and eat. Are they going to start analyzing your diet and when the electronic economy is in full swing, I can imagine someone trying to buy a high calorie meal and the credit card machine saying : "Declined: you have reached your calorie allotment for the day." Of course with all this war on obesity garbage, they never question some of what is really happening with the sugar and fat laden food that is diminished in nutrients.

Just division, and ostracization, and a discriminatory program, that will hurt the obese. And since the lower classes are far more overweight via lower quality food and other sociological realities, consider it an inverse form of class warfare, that enables the Whole Foods crowd even more. Nonetheless the fact that BMI has been proven over and over to be a dubious measurement tool that fails when it comes to those of more sturdy and muscular frames.

Years ago, I did a cartoon where the government rounded up my fat cartoon character for failing her BMI test, and sent her to a Fat camp with forced exercise programs, and starvation, where they fed her and the other inmates vitamin pills and water behind bars when they weren't let out to jog, or lift weights. I never thought my foray into fantasy would become reality.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Simpsons Goes Super-Sized



Animated cartoons don't offer fat people much relief from painful contradictions, such as in the show "King-Sized Homer" aired on The Simpsons some years ago when America's favorite simpleton, Homer Simpson gained weight [60 plus pounds] just to get on disability. After a week of outrageous gluttony rewards him with a home computer, affirmed is one of America's most cherished myths: that the super obese willfully gobble their way into entitlements.
Equally telling is his son Bart's fantasy of being a grotesquely fat man unable to leave his bed, but who makes time for marshmallows on a stick. Not to be outdone, Homer eats everything in sight, from greasy fried fish to hamburger after hamburger. Every stereotype is advanced, the message here might as well be, "Two all beef patties, hold the truth!".




What is scary about this, is I realized that Homer who pigs out on donut after donuts, is really around 240lbs [at around 6 feet tall?] when he is "normal" which may tell you something about how the writers of this show really perceive the heavier working classes in America. His new disability weight is around 315 pounds but he is rendered fatter then his notorious 1,000-pound counter part Walter Hudson or 400-500lb Chef Prudhomme [who has since lost weight] on whom the 'fat guy hat" in the above video is based.

Homer receives little empathy from Springfield's fellow n'er-do-wells, who tell him, that his butt has it's own Congressman!. Homer responds, "I am sick of your stereotypes! I'll show the world that fat people aren't undisciplined and lazy!". Homer's need to explain himself undermines his defense, although his girth later helps save Springfield's nuclear power plant from a meltdown. Homer's boss, Montgomery Burns, responds by ordering an extensive liposuction for his wayward employee. This tidily imaginative surgical solution, relieves America's favorite goof from addressing the pros and cons of weight loss, while the hip animators need not explain the attitudes they are promoting.

Sadly, these guardians of cool have performed a classic bait and switch job: Springfield's fat characters from Comic Book Guy to Chief Wiggum and Ralph, are clueless, gluttonous, cretinous wastrels who can only see paradise through a donut hole along with the star of the show Homer. While humor can serve a purpose, everyone should be able to laugh at themselves, watching Simpsons, one really can see how fat people are perceived in our society and their resulting low status. The point almost seems to be why take them seriously when they're just taking up space?

Fat and Freud {Who Matched These Guys?}



For me the most persistent "keep 'em in their place" myths about fat people come from the world of psychology, where mental studies can shade the truth about obesity's physiological attributes, but heap more blame and ill treatment on the fat.

What fat person hasn't face the thin yuppie psychiatrist who peers over their trendy bifocals with an index finger crooked and ready, saying "Really, its your bad behavior or attitude, that you must change to be thin!".
How else will the patient rationalize another failed week of not losing a pound as the weight loss therapist, writes off your food journals as pure fiction? Then there are the ones who give out the myth, that people get fat to "protect themselves" [trust me a suit of armour would be far better then body-padding, that makes running far harder!]
The celery thin woman in this world is morally superior in this world while the fat woman is incapable of real friendships, doomed to float on ice floes of hostility and anger unless they accede to the demands of the thinner and "worthier". Regarding the food journals I had to be lying, by their logic.

While there are those who deal with food addiction, odd how this is much more a moral issue then when it comes to other struggles say with substance abuse. The idea that neuroses drives one to eat, and that perfect mental health will make one forever "thin" seems to be a losing proposition because I haven't seen it work yet. All fat people are lumped into the same box, all angry, all lacking the self control that supposedly all thin people are incredibly blessed with, all inner resentment written off as a refusal to submit to thin rule.

Sigmund Freud spent a good deal of his life floating high on dope, but his assertion of oral fixation against the fat is intact. Anyone deemed to be stuck at the lowest stage of psycho-sexual development {oral}-where the adult supposedly focuses on food like an infant, not sex--is relegated to an absurd level of immaturity. While Freud's theories have been more and more disproved, they live on in the tendency in some to view obese people as "misbehaving" children whose willful rebellion has brought forth their too large bodies.

If that's how the mainstream psychology world sees someone like me, there's no lack of pseudo-scientific wannabees willing to fill whatever gaps may exist between Freud's stages. Their numbers are legion.


One book called Losing Your Pounds of Pain assures us "Every extra pound that you carry on your body equals a pound of pain, you are carrying on your heart. The happy person carries body weight that is proportionate to their height". Still another book The Only Diet There Is takes a rather different tack: negative thoughts lead to overeating. Readers are urged to "uncreate the heavy thoughts that make you heavy", with creative visuals to match: "Love is fluid, moving and light. Hate is heavy, thick and dark." What better way to label fat people as hateful beings on top of everything else!

Self-help books like Fat and Furious boil fat people's physical stature down to attitudes: "if You weren't so emotionally hungry so much of the time, you wouldn't be eating so much. Your weight would be normal."

Who are these author's self-styled apocalyptic horsemen, you ask? Why, "Fear", "Anger", "Tension", and "Shame". Get it? "Our FATS feelings make us fat." Therefore, in 600lb "Estrella's" case is one of misplaced emotions: "She knew better then anyone the rage the fat had suppressed". I'll bet Estrella got more upset at the mud being slung in her direction then the screams of some far-fetched "inner child", such is the double talk and pseudo-scientific NONSENSE that dogs fat people.

Veggies and Fruits Losing Nutrition Power




The article focuses on fertilizer and how fast things are grown which is definitely part of the picture but what else is going to happen with GMO products and those who put profit, and appearance above nutrition in the growing of these vegetables? They have genetically modified them to last the longest for transport and have the most smooth and uniform appearance. [vitamins and minerals are thrown by the way side]

Years ago, I was talking to a friendly local farmer, who told me, you know, vegetables are not as nutritious as they used to be and our soil is depleted beyond the pale, I believed him. Eating heirloom vegetables that were bought from an organic farmer, the flavor of them burst in my mouth, and an energized feeling came over my body, honestly this was not imagined. Food that actually has enough vitamins and minerals makes you feel better. Years ago the alternative and nutritional press would bring these things up, so its interesting its now hitting the national mainstream news.
My advice is to get as much of the "real stuff" as you can afford: veggie markets, growing your own garden, because better nutrition overall will equal better health. As I said before, one wonders how the lack of nutritional oomph in our food is affecting obesity?

Monday, July 12, 2010

Memo To Augustus Gloop: This Time, It's Personal


I had run-ins with the media cool merchants long before my body imploded. If I had them on trial, I'd offer Roald Dahl's book Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory as my first exhibit and the hapless Augustus Gloop-the most pathetic character in the halls of fatdom-as their first victim.
The book is essentially a Seven Deadly sins story in which five of the six children who tour Wonka's factory succumb to their moral deficiencies: yet only Augustus Gloop suffers for a physical trait, versus Mike TeeVee's nonstop viewing diet, and Veruca Salt's brattiness.

As the factory's first victim, Augustus is a convenient clay pigeon who's chastised for his love of chocolate, then dismissed as a "fat pig of a boy who would eat anything he could get his hands and teeth on". The scenario sounds like a drug dealer demanding abstinence: why else would anyone take a food-addicted child to a place where lollipops sprout like weeds, and rivers of sugar flow?

Augustus runs to sip from the Chocolate River, only to fall inside and get sucked into a drainage pipe. Mr. Wonka's tribe of stout orange dwarves, the Oopma-Loompas, become the Greek chorus celebrating Augustus's downfall {"But this revolting boy, of course, was so utterly vile, so greedy, foul and infantile." [1]}
Fictional or not, hatred of this fat boy range true for me as a child. I remember sinking into my third grade classroom's carpet as this movie played itself out: the entire class giggled and pointed at me. I was the one who'd fallen into the river. I had visions of trying to pull Augustus out.

I thought that Mr. Wonka was a creepy jerk, and that Charlie should have tossed the Golden Ticket admitting him to his psychedelic factory--boat acid trip included--before he spat out the Everlasting Gobstopper. Like Augustus, I felt surrounded by hot dog and double pizza days and skinny kids with an insatiable fix for candy--but no physical results.

Time hasn't mitigated the '70s film treatment of Dahl's book. The fat comedian and the evil clown still coexist uneasily in some media black hole where exploitation of physical cliche's means the difference between success and failure.


[1] Dahl, Roald. Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, New York, Alfred A. Knopf 1964, p.85 ["Augustus Gloop Goes Up The Pipe"]

Why Don't You Get Weight Loss Surgery?







No Thanks
given this latest article, which only backs up what I've seen for myself.

Yes I know there are some people who spin this roulette wheel and win, but having known 5 people personally who have gotten very sick and/or died of weight loss surgery, I'm not going to line up too soon. This has ranged from people who died right on the table, some with the need for respirators to keep them breathing, and death coming after a year with several complications for a few. When it comes to weight loss surgery, why can't they come up with something better that actually works where dieting [which already failed before isn't required to keep it going?] As the website for Lapband states " You are prepared to make major changes in your eating habits and lifestyle", this begs the question, well if that didn't work before why now?

Big fat blog talks about weight loss surgery as "the new lobotomy", they are correct it's like medical treatment with a chain saw. The same affects could be had, saving $40,000 by locking a fat person in a room [no I'm not supporting this] and only sending in some jello and broth in the early stages, and little quarter cups of food in the later stages and seeing what happens, at least the person would be spared the horror, pain, and dare I say torture? [of having their innards rearranged.]

Sadists couldn't have come up with a worse solution for fat people. Take it from me the digestive system when it doesn't work right, is not pretty, and even sicker that is among all the false expectations, their trying to turn fat people into thin ones via induced illness just makes me sick. From what I can tell, those who survive the surgery itself, and live, manage one or two years, lose about a third of the weight, and then regain it all back or nearly all of it, 5 years down the road. Of course when these people go back to the doctors to say "my surgery failed", they will be blamed and told they "out-ate" their surgery.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

There ARE Fat Celiacs.






This may surprise some people.

I'll let you read this article: all I know is going gluten free after being diagnosed with a celiac related skin disorder, has massively improved labs in a very short time and explained years worth of severe skin problems, food allergies, digestive problems, and vitamin deficiencies my recent doctors have discovered despite food intake. I do not know if this will take any more weight off-it has taken some off, it seems to have absolutely killed cravings for carbohydrates and waking up everyday, not worrying about itching to death is a nice change. It is not an easy or cheap diet to follow but the difference in how I feel is night and day. Read on about the celiac link to autoimmune disease and much more.


Another disorder commonly associated with celiac disease is malabsorption, which can also lead to malnutrition. When someone with celiac disease eats foods that contain gluten it results in damage to the surface of the small intestine and destruction of their nutrient-absorbing villi. This can lead to leaky gut and an inability for them to absorb vital nutrients from their food. By continuing to eat foods containing gluten, eventually vital organs including the brain, thyroid, liver, kidneys—essentially any organ that depends heavily on nutrients—will be starved, which will leave them susceptible to other diseases and conditions. I personally experienced brain malfunctions, gall bladder problems, and was diagnosed numerous times with an under-active thyroid. Naturally treatments for this proposed thyroid condition didnt work because their true cause had not yet been found. At one point a doctor asked me to consider the idea that my obesity was the result of my bodys attempt to cope with malnourishment4. This phenomenon is similar to yo-yo dieting, where dieters who have deprived themselves or proper nutrition for too long gain weight at faster rates than non-dieters after they resume eating normally. I always thought that I had fallen victim to yo-yo dieting, and that I had dieted myself into a permanent state of obesity. I now understand that it was because I had undiagnosed celiac disease, and my body was actually malnourished.

Your Future As a Circus Fat Lady



It's not easy to read Stephen King's reference to 400-pounders as "monstrous" in his nonfiction book, Danse Macabre. The assumption that all fat people would "be thin" if they only "ate right" and did everything as they were supposed to refuses to heed the human body's complexities. Societal stupidity and lack of common sense rules when it comes to obesity.

Generations ago, society tied extreme fatness to other so-called "freaks" --like dwarves ["Little People" today], three legged men with parasitic twins and two-headed [conjoined twins] babies. In the early 1900s, extremely fat people could make a living, based on their own exploitation. Part of the "freak show" required fat people to sit on big chairs or hauled around in trailers for public view. Many myths built around these people, who often exaggerated their weight in order to earn more money. [the cut off for circus material being around 450lbs].
The "side show" never really died, during the 1990s, we had different sideshows that gave brief glimpses into the super-fat person's world. Talk show hosts like Geraldo Rivera, Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones and Ricki Lake lined up large people on the television catwalk to be gawked at and stared at. Danny an 800lb man, became notorious for having Springer knock out a wall from his house--so he could get chest pains examined and get to a diet center. Jenny Jones had the super-obese kid parade.
But Danny's not the only corpulent person to have some brush with infamy. You can draw a red line from circus fat ladies like Dolly Dimples to Walter Hudson, the 1,000 pound New York City resident who required help from city firefighters after he fell into a narrow doorway and got trapped to today's shows like Inside Brookhaven Obesity Clinic on Discovery Networks and other shows like this one:




Here you see the giant amounts of food, plates of cookies, prodigious pizza eating with the incredible food intake as part of the show.

33,000 calories a day could be possible for some very food addicted person, [even that denotes severe physiological or psychological problems] but then the world over estimates the overeating required to watch one's weight rise and denies other realities. Bruce Snowdon in the book Shocked and Amazed, a 712 lb man that used to tour with a modern circus show, surmises..."I have a routine of how I eat 50,000 calories worth of food at a time. I probably only eat about twice as much again as you do. Instead of one TV dinner, I'll eat two TV dinners, but I don't eat 25 chickens and a barrel of beer, thirty pancakes, two dozen eggs, sixteen pounds of bacon, that could kill a sperm whale never mind a human being."

I know too well personally rocketing over a certain weight instantly puts you in the "freak show" category, though so many people are getting fatter in America, the "specialness" factor is diminishing. Normal fat people can go to the mall, buy clothes off the rack, dance at a club, and attempt to sit on folding chairs when that 400lb mark is crossed, life becomes very different. I wouldn't wish the eye-popping stares that I got when I crossed into the circus fat threshold on anyone. Going from large to circus lady fat in a matter of a few years, was an incredible mind-bender.

After this many years, I'm used to things but then after running from the big city ghetto where little differences or vulnerability gathered too much attention, I got spoiled living in a very friendly small town for almost 10 years where I was far from the fattest person once I lost that first chunk of weight. There would be at least 3 people on scooters near my size at the local Wal-mart. People got used to me, made friends, became part of the community. I ended up having to move due to economic reasons, but at least realized how life could be.

Over the years, observing the circus fat ladies, and our modern variation thereof, and thinking of how they are seen as their bodies first, one wonders what does that do to a soul? How many are actually allowed to tell the truth about what life is like? How many remain voiceless being in one of the most low status categories [most even poor and on disability] that exists in America? How many have been able to come to a place of dignity, amidst all the gawking, staring and jokes? I know that truth about obesity has been in short supply. America better stop the staring, gawking and wake up, because the numbers of super-obese are rapidly increasing to mind-boggling levels.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Gluttony Enterprises



What is the purpose of all this gluttony on display? To help American's become even fatter or blow out their arteries by a younger age? To be honest, why hasn't this guy reached 500lbs? Am tempted to write and ask him. Perhaps he can share his secret. Does he throw up everything he eats after he raises his hands in victory? In case you are wondering this is Adam Richland from the food show Man Vs. Food. Watching this show even a few times, this guy has eaten things, it seems would blow out the average person's stomach, such as pizza's the size of coffee tables or shakes that are three feet tall. This isn't the only show that seems to push gluttony to it's extreme, one popular thing now is televised eating contests {something that should have never been made into a contest} like Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest, someone eating 53 hotdogs is not something to glory in, but to be disgusted by.

What surprised me is this contest this year, was on ESPN...



This is pathetic, and show some of the schizophrenia America is fully embroiled in, when it comes to food issues, and the "war on obesity".

4 Reasons Diets Fail.


Here is one of those latest insipid diet articles written by the usual never has seen an ounce of fat in her life author--[if the picture is any indicator]. In this there doesn't seem to be any real advice we haven't heard before, except that you are lazy and must focus even more on saying "Don't Eat!", "Don't Eat"! This is like telling someone "Don't focus on the blue dot!" and then one's brains are filled with nothing but pictures of blue dots. One thing that troubled me about Weight Watchers was sitting about counting points all day long, it actually made me far more focused on food, and "what do I get to eat?"


Then there is the condemnation factor: forever thin woman, tells the fat people, they just need to work harder, and are "not fully committed"; you think by now, someone in the upper echelons of Diet Industries Inc would be saying, "hey you know this isn't working" maybe we should take a different approach but that is not where the money lies.

Here are my four reasons diets fail: [some of these I will be expanding on later]


1. They do not take into account the reality of human hunger. People get hungry. Fat people are hungrier {I will be doing a post on that later}. Eating a salad with no dressing for lunch and a small apple, I will guarantee you, your stomach will be growling to beat the band 2 hours later, and your brain even if you are surrounded by fun diversions, will be thinking of nothing but food.

I used to tell doctors, look doing Atkins, I passed out in the street after I ignored hours of my stomach growling to my own demise, if I eat one quarter of an English muffin--something I saw actually recommended by Richard Simmons, I may as well not waste my time.

2. They cost a lot of money that many fat people do not have. I own tons of diet books, every fat person does. I've often have had dreams about winning the Lotto, and being able to follow one of these diets to the tee, filling my cupboards with such niceties as Balsamic Vinegar, flax, and you name it.


3. Dieting drop kicks the metabolism. Lower the calories too much, and your body defending its set point, burns far less. Many continue the dieting merry-go-round. I believe the dieting mentality actually has led to more fat people. Unhappiness, activity as punishment, and starvation diets actually in an odd inverse way have led to more fat people. One thing, if you are low on money for groceries, and eat one [big] meal day, out of the unyielding hunger, it doesn't do pretty things to the metabolism for some folks.


4. Starvation Dieting is almost the inverse of binge eating, like two sides of the same coin, and seem to work to help each other along. Read up on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, where starvation led some subjects to increased obesession with food and lowered metabolism.


Perhaps some will say to me, well you have failed dieting, yes I admit it even though I have lost great amounts in the past, and managed to scramble away from immediate death obesity--to merely morbid going to kill you more slowly obesity. I have lost at least 50lbs [I can be sure of] over the last 3 years, but when you're as big as me, even though there is a few dresses I can't wear out anymore due to too much looseness in the chest, 50lbs is barely noticeable at this size.


My endeavor here, is to get them to start finding stuff that works, instead of telling more of us, "its you", "youre just not committed enough".








Sunday, July 4, 2010

Our Food is Poisoning Us


Get ready to be grossed out: "Chicken McNuggets Contain Silly Putty Chemical" I am not surprised such things are being reported in Europe, but this one seems consigned to the alternative media in America only.


I did an article on my old website, called the Real Causes of the Obesity Epidemic. Please read for context regarding this entry. This essay talks about how higher levels of stress-cortisol, endocrine disrupters, and more and how they are affecting American obesity. To this, add GMO food, food that is lower in nutrients, higher levels of growth hormones, negative practices of corporate farming, increased use high fructose corn syrup-which by the way used to be used to fatten pigs and is now being infused in savory non-sweet foods, growth hormone, aspartame and the purposeful filling up of food with as huge amounts of fat and sugar as possible to help the brain become more addicted, so the companies make more profit.

Last year, I was on Weight Watchers, and I noted the month, where I lost the most weight, was the most financially blessed month, where I was able to get more lean meat, fresh fruits and vegetables and had the widest variety of food. {Yeah I do try to lose weight from time to time--more on that later}. This didnt surprise me. I believe that the more nutrients one has, the easier the weight loss, and more the body will come in line. Americans are growing fatter, because to be honest, much of the food just is so low quality, it is made for profit, filled with chemicals, and empty-calorie sugars and fats, neurotoxics, and is nutritionally deficient, which will actually keep the cravings humming and the body desperate for more. There is a reason a tomato from the veggie stand or home grown garden tastes so much better, or why food has "lost taste", they are "engineering" the heart and life out of it.


With all the talk about fighting obesity, how come no one is pointing out the obvious, a lot of our food stinks!


Goodbye NAAFA and the rest: Why I left Size Acceptance


Here is my old 2001 article: I left size acceptance many years ago, circa 2000-2001.


Here is updated version for this blog. Over the years, I did get response to my articles with many people in agreement, many repeated my concerns, and told me they were ignored as well. I have noted the size acceptance movement in examining its websites, publications, organizations and spokespeople has declined from late 1990s, honestly I am not surprised.


While some of size acceptance's ideals are sound, which include ending discrimination against fat people and advocating for their rights, the foundations are crumbling. I have noticed while things hit more of a peak in the late 90s, where one saw NAAFA and other size acceptance organizations in the news everywhere, nowadays things seem to have shrunk. Americans have gotten even fatter and corpulence is becoming even more reviled. The Size Acceptance movement as it now and then stands has failed.


Today's primere size acceptance organizations are NAAFA [National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance] and the far lesser known ISAA International Size Acceptance Association. NAAFA as of the late 90s had thousands of members {4,000}, I do not know its present numbers. ISAA being a much less known group, one can only estimate the membership. These groups match in their basic philosophies. There are size acceptance groups with activism as the main endeavor, but many have cropped up focusing on the social end of things, dances, parties, for the overweight people and their "admirer's with Heavenly Bodies in Boston, and even nightclubs such as Club Bounce in California. Here is a list of these groups. Many of these groups sprouted up from the NAAFA fountainhead, though their first priority is social functions rather the activism. When I speak of Size Accceptance in this article, it does encompass some of these groups but focuses mostly on the activism part, and what is being sold by top 'spokesmen" and "women" for size acceptance.

The first reason Size Acceptance has not grown is it promotes fat rather then just dealing with it as a physical characteristic. Sometime around 1980, NAAFA changed its name from National Association to Aid Fat Americans, to National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. This was also a philosophical stand not just a linguistical one.

Fat is great according to the size acceptance minions and while the ideals of fat people deserving right and proper treatment are commendable, this belief flies in the face of scientific logic. The demand for pasted on smiles and glorying in my hugely rotund body, basically failed as I gasped for air merely climbing some stairs.

The big names in size acceptance try to sell some nice sounding ideas such as "Health at Any Size" [does that apply to 600lbs too?] and brush all the health problems that come about from obesity whether the obesity itself is a sympton or not, right under the proverbial carpet. I still remember the day many years ago, where I challenged a certain notable in size acceptance circles, whose more extroverted personality gained her the attention in the national media for a short time, to go visit a bariatric nursing home, and to go see where "fat" could take people.

I get that people who have never exited the mid-sized world where normal living has never ceased may just "not get it" but ignoring the experiences of thousands you proport to represent is willfully neglectful.

Anyone who surpasses the 400lb mark soon learns that bikini parties with the "Padded Lilies" [an actual Size acceptance group that is compromised of mid-sized women who do synchronized swimming, conventions, and fat positive rhetoric soon rings hollow next to their scooter, sleep apnea machine, shortness of breathe and bottles of expensive prescriptions. It is good to be healthy, fit and happy, but where does denial of reality come into the size acceptance presentation on size? Marilyn Wann in her book "Fatso?!" points out at 250lbs how she climbs mountains, and dances for hours without exhaustion. As late as 1995, I would walk 2-3 miles for "fun" myself. But sadly this negates experiences of heavier people who find walking across a parking lot, an exhausting challenge. Fat people can indeed be healthier and in better shape via exercise and better food, but some reality checks are in order.


The SA publications all showed fat women frolicking in swimming pools and doing aerobics. While I liked much of what these publications had to offer, it is sad so many have gone defunct. While these activities are good for the more midsized person with better health, physical realities come crashing through for those who suffer with obesity in it's most severe forms. Those who find their stamina crumbling usually are ironically told to exercise more but not lose any weight. When the first health crises crop up, many did leave size acceptance for the university diet clinics or for weight surgery. I found myself thinking that size acceptance as presented in this country was just the flipside of the coin of the failed diet industry, all desiring to profit off everyone where very little truth was spoken. Years ago before I departed, I talked about this stuff, but the brick walls of refusing to face reality never budged. I doubt, that size activist I mentioned above ever went to go visit that nursing home.

Denying the fact that obesity is a disease or even a disabling condition, size acceptance has put its head in the sand and closed the door long ago on those who were not fat, "fit and healthy". Tracy a past person with PCOS as well, I knew on a size acceptance board had this to say


"I have in the past, held the concept of "size acceptance" dear to my
heart, but at this stage and with my health in the crisis that it is, I cannot
with a clear conscience, advocate or agree with any movement that does not
address the reality of the negative health consequences of severe
obesity."

No size acceptance organizations supports a cure for obesity. None that I know of have called for there to be real medical studies {the ones on supersized people my size are nearly non-existent} or for any real help to be developed. The focus even in the 90s, as I viewed it was almost all social stuff, with only a few working indepth on the "heavier" matters. After all its all about "acceptance" rather then "aiding". The people speaking for the fat are as bad as those who wish to bilk them of their wallets for liquid diets. Imagine a kidney disease foundation telling those with kidney disease they must accept their condition. Fat people are told this is "your lot in life you must accept it". This leaves the fat person out in the cold in general between fad diet charlatans and size acceptance advocates who tell them their only other option is to make the best of it!


Logic was a sold out proposition, as the elephant in the room was ignored, that elephant being, that being "fat" for most fat people is not their perferred way of being. The secret that 99% of people hate being fat, and it wasn't about the discrimination always, but the plain fact for many it hurts, and makes everything harder to do even limiting activities for the mid-sized crowd. As one NAAFA spokesperson said
"It is my position and that of many in the movement that we need to focus on
what we can do to make fat people healthy--not make fat people thin. Right now I
believe that working toward making fat people healthy is a winnable battle--I do
not believe making fat people thin is."
What better position to remain a non-threat to the diet industry complex? But I digress.

This shows that acceptance and promotion of fat was and has been one of the most prevailing goals of size acceptance. Obesity is seen like something like tallness, a normal part of person's makeup. I wonder how a 600lb person who can barely walk is supposed to take this information?

Out of fear and justified loathing of the diet industry, size acceptance took a wholly reactionary position, shoving it's head in the sand. Repeating mantras of "Fat People are healthy" even amid oxygen and wheelchair dependent people, very few are buying into the lie.

The problem is the cost of demanding equal rights for fat people should not have as its price out and out lies and denial. Most Americans know at least one friend or relative who has suffered the out and out social ramifications as well as the physical results of being obese. The public is privy now to the sufferings of the super-obese on the Discovery network. Many fat people outside of the SA network, see it as a group of extremists who have "give up"!

Science is discovering more facts on fat people's behalf that many diseases and conditions have obesity as a sympton including PCOS, Syndrome X, Cushings, side effects of prescription drugs etc. There are also those who do have eating disorders or other conditions, then there are the facets of modern life itself [which I'll be talking about more later]. With all the writing about the futility of diet, which has some truth to it, where is the writing or academics willing to face honestly the complexities of obesity? What I noticed is that the size acceptance community walled itself off from anyone will to do this. NAAFA and groups like it have nothing to offer those who face the results of severe obesity, disabled or not, because they never want to threaten their position of ever admitting fat can be the result of a disease process.

Size acceptance in the 90s, and I doubt this has changed much, had a dark side that was unknown to the public. Being more conservative in my own lifestyle choices, that alone, was reason to depart the world of NAAFA conventions and BBW social gatherings. Some leaders are involved in the selling of plus size erotica and photos. Some "size acceptance" websites, you will find obese women selling videos and nude photographs of themselves to the proverbial "FA" [or fat admirer]. Odd that objectification of fat women, has been one of the results of the "acceptance message."

Many of the so called fat advocacy organizations and social groups then center themselves on "pleasing" the FA. The integrity has been lost by that alone. The FAs [known as "chubby chasers" too] do not want anyone to lose weight as they are sexually attracted to those who are obese. It is a fetish for many who look at weight as the primary factor in choosing a partner. One other debauched world is the one of "feeders" who seek to make their significant partner fatter and "feedees" who want to be fatter. I encountered one woman years ago who had to have serious psychological problems whose life goal was to be 600lbs. Years ago, I told her she was basically inviting the Grim Reaper over for a party, those warnings were not listened to as far as I know.

Size acceptance is a failure, but then the premise of accepting what for most is basically a health issue, that causes uncomfortableness on the low end, and serious health issues on the high end, basically has been a cop out all along. Truth about obesity has been shoved under the carpet and overweight people have remained being handed the same cup of indignity, the diet profit makers have served. Perhaps it is an impossible dream, to think of a group that truly looked out for overweight people and stood up for true help instead of serving as a conduit for all those who want to exploit the fat in different ways.














This New [well really old] Diet Worries Me


I have two friends who personally have gone on this diet. The HCG protoccol, which was discovered by a Dr. Simeons, but now being sold in "new" homeopathic form. I nodded and smiled and when they discussed the 500 calories a day plan, knew I wouldn't be joining them. At least my doctor understands why if I eat too little my vision goes wonky and hands all tingly. They have seen me in a anxious meltdown due to it being 3pm with no lunch.

What scares me is this diet seems to be messing with some really weird stuff. HcG is human chorionic gonadotropin, which is basically made from pregnant horse pee. Supposely the theory is one can reset one's metabolism by eating lots of food, then going on what is basically a starvation diet of under 500 calories for 26 days while taking drops of this hormones, or for the ones with a lot of money: actual shots and then returning to more normal eating. What concerns me is the people I know are on the homeopathic HcG. Many people do not understand what homeopathy entails, it is based on dilution of substances and not scientific but based on alternative medicine beliefs. In other words, this is far from REAL HcG. The use of the real HcG too is worrisome. I wonder if the legal protoccols are easier to pass by using the homeopathic version rather then the real thing, which is controversial as well. Is it safe for people to play endocrine roulette if they are using the real thing, or being fooled by thinking homeopathic HcG is equal to the real thing?

All I know is at least one friend is paying 300 bucks a month, for someone to put drops of the "homeopathic" stuff under his tongue, and to starve himself.

I just hate seeing people ripped off and lied to. Trust me I understand the desperation, that leads people to these decisions. This one bugs me. Yes if you want to disagree with me about this diet, go ahead.

My 350-400 Pound Weight Gain


Rocketing over a certain weight instantly puts you in the "freak show" category, and gives others a license to stare. I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone, nor the roving eyes that rest on your body, with looks of shock and horror. Normal fat people can go to the mall, buy clothes off the rack, dance at a club, and attempt to sit on folding chairs. The minute you march over the 350-400-pound threshold, life as most people take for granted ceases to exsist. It did for me.


In 2001, I put up this website, which I later lost the password for and could not update: But I am going to amend and change the essays, reprinted here as the passage of time always changes one's outlook and one comes into more understanding. While my early blog entries will be re-dos of these essays, new things will be coming.


A Story of Body Betrayal


Looking back my survival has been an amazing and empowering experience, at the same time my body began failing me during the mid to late 1990s. I went from working and living at something I loved--being an art teacher- to fighting for my life, my home and day to day existence. For many people rebounding from failing health is a difficult proposition, because it is one thing that no one else can do for us, save for God's intervention.

My story begins in a large city where I moved in November 1994 to avoid living on the street, after a job lay-off. I had gained 50lbs within a very short period of months, and started on the path to life-threatening weight gain. I was never small, but was within my family's range of weight the low to mid 200s, and at 6 feet tall for over 12 adult years, this was bad enough: I considered my weight always too high but didn't know what awaited me.
Shockingly over 350lbs [I would realize the number was closer to 400lbs after being weighed on decent calibrated scales]would become added to my body within 28 months totaling nearly 700lbs. Stress, asthma, bad food, asthma medications-prednisone-inhaled steroids, hypothyroidism, a severe form of Stein Levanthl Syndrome otherwise known as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and other problems would all conspire to make me huge. Into the mid-late 2000s, the typical horrible obesity co-morbs, Pseudo-Cushings, hearing loss, a form of cardiomyopathy related to undiagnosed and untreated hypothyroidism, and other thyroid  problems would join the diagnostic parade.

Thirty pounds a month deposited themselves on me. I slept 12-14 hours a night while my long. thick, curly, pride-giving hair fell out in clumps and stopped growing. The oncoming weight felt like cement being poured slowly but steadily into my body. A severe body wide skin disorder that wasnt diagnosed til this year, exhaustion, poor hearing which worsened later, and the inability to sweat made performing many duties impossible.

I consulted many doctors to get a grip on what was happening which was no easy task given the attitudes peculiar to the profession. One 98lb doctor said, You are just lazy, you need to exercise and eat nothing but salads"! Two demanded weight loss surgery without mentioning such pressing matters as thyroid tests. "I'm not eating for this weight"! I cried, though I was hitting around the 2,000 mark everyday.

Written were letters begging doctors to pay attention, a visit to a "center for advanced medicine" which missed the PCOS diagnosis which was obtained 3-4 years later. One doctor even exclaimed upon the showing of pictures "My God you've doubled your body weight in less then a year!" In 1997, I was nearly dead, I knew I had to do something or that was it! My appearance was the stuff of horror movies including swollen giant face, hands and feet.


My long running ordeal would end after I researched what was wrong on the internet and referred myself to an endocrinologist who diagnosed me with hypothyroidism, a disease of the gland that controls the metabolism. {Years later my sister would lose immense amounts of weight due to a diagnosis of hyperthyroidism}. Knowing this test had been delayed and finding out about the cardiomyopathy as a result circa 2009, which was mentioned as a possiblity in the late 90s was hard to take. The thyroid meds definitely helped me and stopped the increase in weight.

Still dogged by inexpicable health problems including severe anxiety, hypoglycemia, brown blotches, hair loss and the craziness of it all, I found a helpful friend on the internet and told her about my ordeal. She said she suffered from a disease called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome which had increased her weight to very high amount.

After reading my story on the internet, she knew I was facing something more complicated. With her help, I was diagnosed with severe PCOS. PCOS is a badly named disease, in severe cases, the entire endocrine system is affected. My form of the disorder is so bad, a doctor sent me to get an adrenal scan, because my adrenals were pumping out seven times the normal amount of hormones.

PCOS's major symptons include multiple homronal imbalances, high blood pressure, infertility, insulin resistance, diabetes, missed periods, and weight gains that can sometimes be unchecked.

One doctor I had for 8 years told me I had it in one of the most severe forms and could be one of the worse cases in the country. I had the earliest signs of this disease not only by time I was 21 when brown splotches showed up all over me including the back of my neck but as a teen too, with painful periods, weight that remained on the high end despite constant activity, fatigue, and over-all illness.

The result of this weight gain, was hard to take with the change to my social standing and how people had such derision for those who gained weight. Good friends and my husband stood by my side but years of normalcy were over. Weight is used as the hammer upon the head of others, since many refuse to understand why people become fat. They shame, blame, tease the children, discriminate in housing and jobs and put forth the idiotic theory that being fat is a choice, when no one would wish the above on their worse enemy. It's fat people not their skinny brethern keeping the 300 billion dollar diet industry in business, which profits off of you failing and setting up fat people for failure.


To be superfat is a more complicated world, I would lose from the near 700 mark down to the around 500s, which I have bounced around in for years, my lowest mark around 450. At the peak, I could barely walk at all, and stairs were a long ago gone proposition. Being a super-fat person means a life burdened by lazy glutton stereotypes dished out to the viewing public. A good example happened on the cartoon Comedy Central's South Park {which I no longer watch} where Eric Cartman, a boisterous character, gains weight on purpose to get on a talk show on TV. This leads "Chef" to remark on seeing a bedridden Cartman: "He needs to get off his lazy [butt] and run a few blocks." If only it was as simple as that.

How do I deal with the fact that others see me as an object of pity and someone seemingly choosing a lesser life? The best way to deal is to know God knows the truth and to deal with those who see you as an individual first. While some fat people including famous ones, like Walter Hudson from years ago, are shown eating a dozen eggs and a whole loaf of bread, that isn't everyone. Unsaid, is no physiologically normal person even feels the need or desire for that much food. I know I'd be laughed out of the room if I told people, I have to watch, the intake "not to gain" being this size. {more on that later}

I often use doggie bags at a restaurant, and never done anything like order 5 Whoppers though I am sure there are some eating disordered people who have. I fight against fat everyday. Weight Loss is not easy though most of the world is under the false notion as long as you "eat right", you'll never be fat.

No fat person escapes the lifelong struggle. Society's endeavor to turn fat people into thin ones by old touted theories of balanced energy expenditure's have failed. If something does not work, why isnt it being stuck to so extremely? Because it makes money. {more on that later too}. If obesity is not a disease of will, as is popularly believed but a complex metabolic breakdown, at least in some of us, why is there such hatred towards the severely obese?

My body betrayed me but I have not betrayed myself. I survived much longer then predicted, and it is a miracle I am still around today. Out of my own pain, I am hoping to do some good, and challenge for there to be made some changes. Weight needs to be seen as a health issue not a morality issue, let alone an excuse to deny someone a job, taunt them in the street, label them eternal damaged goods, refuse medical care or scrap the basics of human decency. I am not ashamed to say I am a super-sized fat woman. I know how I came to be this. Body betrayal or not, I am proud of myself for making it this far.


Update: I would be diagnosed with Stage 4 Lipedema/Lipolymphedema in 2014. I believe there is still something wrong for my body to maintain so much weight.