Drink Mineral Water

I am broke today but as soon as that ends I am going to the store and buying at least several bottles of European mineral water. I have discovered by accident that drinking this stuff, makes me pee like gangbusters [good for swollen me], and I feel energized, does this point to the mineral depleted American diet? Here is my favorite brand, to add taste, I add a splash of 100% juice cranberry juice.

Today I found a great health food store!

Finding a source for decent cheap food, can make or break a diet. Too bad this place is more orchard oriented and will close by December, to reopen for a season, but finding snacks made out of dried green beans, 2 pound bags of buckwheat flour for a $1.50, I just realized where I'm going grocery shopping first. That is one thing if they want to end obesity, decent, healthy food needs to be made available. This place the prices seem more reasonable. I am praying they stay in business, and plan to advertise for them. The other health food store, one needs a bank loan and to be a millionaire to afford anything there.

Heightened Suicide Risk After Weight Loss Surgery

Here is a report out about the heightened suicide risk after weight loss surgery.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Severely obese people who undergo weight-loss surgery may have a higher-than-average risk of suicide in the years following the procedure, a new study finds.

The report, in The American Journal of Medicine, adds to evidence that patients who have bariatric surgery to lose weight have an increased risk of suicide compared with the general population.

But the reasons for the pattern, researchers say, remain unknown.

Some researchers! It isn't that hard to figure out. This is sad to read, but I've see the bad affects of weight loss surgery in people I've known ranging from death to a diabetic becoming even sicker. When you watch one friend thinking WLS will deliver from the hell-bound life of congestive heart failure, and everything you share, and watch her die only 18 months after the procedure it makes you think. The "rocket scientists" of the industrial diet cartel,are missing the basic facts as usual.

People do well in the first 6 months to two years, if they survive the table and immediate recovery but I have not met one person where the weight loss surgery is long lasting after the 5 year mark. Then add to that severe health problems some more overt and some subtle. Imagine the depression and despair of someone going through the gauntlet of risking their life, and dangerous, painful surgery, thinking it will end their life of fatness and what level of depression results, when the surgery does not live up to expecations. PTSD, scars that serve as an endless reminder of your "failure", time on a ventilator [in two friends cases, where your breathing itself is negotiable] and then realizing it's all for naught, when you lose maybe 80lbs at the front end, and regain it back as time goes by on less food?

Then add to it, that one's digestive system usually is under duress even in the best cases, [trust me on this one when one's bowels and stomach have checked out, life can become hell on earth]. Depression also has many facets related to nutrition, something that many do not know about, lacking vital minerals, and vitamins, the brain is going to be affected, that cannnot be escaped!

Remember writing the above, I am not discounting that some may win the spin of the WLS roulette wheel and buy themselves some time, and mobility, but I can't deny the scary stuff I have seen.

Fat Girl Fights Back #1: My Life as Fat Child

I've experienced all demarcations of fatness, ranging from near-normalcy [infancy to age 5, a brief period from ages 12-14] to the mid-sized Kathy Bates/Delta Burke arena [my teenage years to age 26] and circus lady fat status [detailed here after my 400lb weight gain]. During childhood I had more normal and fat years, but mid-elementary school definitely was fat.

All my life I've heard weight loss was the ticket out of the name-calling of childhood, and the object poverty of adulthood. Endless telegrams came from well-meaning relatives, "You need to lose weight!" and those messages began very early. Did they all think it was a secret, I just hadn't realized I was fat, or that I needed a daily reminder, even after my big swollen feet hit the floor?

My mother showed her first signs of frustration with me at age five, I stood at least 5-6 inches taller then all the other kindergartners and I was far fatter too. I realized this fact during ballet class with my younger sister. Vague memories of the dance steps linger, but my first feelings of discomfort being larger came on early, as I watch my fellow ballerinas come off as cute little graceful pixies, and in comparison to them, I moved as a lumbering ox!

Childhood is a lesson in life for what awaits a fat person--squeezing into small desks, getting ridiculed in gym class--only to be told they've heaped such ill treatment on themselves for being lazy and fat. Growing up this way consigned me to a queasy, self conscious vulnerability--with an eternal bulls eye drawn on my back. Eight is too early an age for the desire to sink into a deep abyss, knowing there was no protection offered from all the endless razzing at my small Catholic school.

The teasing I faced ranged from standard-issue insults ["Fatty, Fatty", Two by Four"] to more creative nicknames like "Earthquake Woman," with related sound affects. My equally inspired un-Christian response [Leave me alone, you *$$(@*#!] was always good for a lengthy afternoon in Sister Mary Helen's office, who'd lecture me about my poor peer relations. While I got good grades [at least from teachers who based the grades on actual test scores] telling on my classmates only made things worse. So many teachers found me whiny, claiming I was overreacting to all the jibes, not realizing my brother who was a year older was serving as my body guard on the playground things were that bad. They would repeat the world's biggest lie over and over: "If you don't pay attention to it, then they will just stop!" Another grown up reaction was, "Well lose weight then they won't make fun of you!"

However the best pain-blocking, nail sitting yogi, couldn't have ignored the pig noises or comments about my ordinary lunch which always consisted of a bologna and lettuce sandwich, a handful of chips and always three cookies in plastic zip-lock bags.

In third grade, I found myself giving back what I had gotten for far too long. It happened right before lunch. When three girls taunted me, "Fatty, Fatty can't get through the bathroom door!" With Holly Hobbie braids flying, I smacked my first tormentor in the jaw and followed with another swing at her brother. All my teachers admonishments weren't cutting it anymore; I was seeing through a red haze of endless insults, taunts and snickers.

I clawed, pinched and screamed at eight of my classmates and then I dashed to the cloakroom at the back of the classroom where every body's book bags and coats hung, I started taking lunches out of book bags, and stomping on them: if I could not eat, neither would they!

While everyone hung back, surprised and horrified, I rampaged over their Ho-Hos, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches--followed by avalanches of Twinkies and apples that went rolling out of the cloakroom. I'd nearly vanquished about half of the lunches when our nun principal, came running into the room. I would spend the afternoon in her office, until my mother came to get me.

Instead of addressing my daily doses of torment, my memories are vague as to whether any suspensions or expulsions were discussed, the teachers had written me off as the trouble-maker, instead of facing facts about the daily abuse I put up with or or punishing my bullies. At least when I went home, my parents understood what triggered the retaliation against the never ending teasing and being made fun of.

To be continued.....

Radiance Magazine

I always liked this magazine and realized while they went out some years ago they still have an online precense. So check it out HERE:

I am considering ordering some back copies....[they stopped publishing in 2001] Right now there is no fat magazine for women I know of, Radiance is gone, BBW went poof!..This is one I wish would consider coming back..

Obesity Puts A Strain on the Wallet

New article "Obesity Puts a Strain on the Wallet"

As reported by the Associated Press (AP), George Washington University researchers found that being obese costs men and women thousands of additional dollars per year, with an average of $4,879 for women and $2,646 for men when things such as lost productivity are factored in.

I would like to ask what is their point with this article? Clothes, shoes, that are bigger cost more, weight discrimination dictates a lower paying job. What do they expect? Sometimes I fear, that this will be just another article, that will tell us what a drain all the fat people are to the nation, instead of any real or accurate solutions. I still remember the one that talked about all the fat people taking more fuel for planes to fly. One thing concerning me about the new fight against the obesity epidemic, is I am seeing no real answers just the same rehashed stuff.

Supersized Ostracization

Before I get started, I have friends, and am behind now on calling couple of them. One of my friends of 26 years duration hopefully will be visiting me for a weekend soon, and did so in May. It's not the number of friends you have but the quality. I value my friends, even all the ones who live far away from me, and love them dearly. With me, you won't see one of those small talk artists with a giant social circle, where they barely know each other, I and my friends personally share and truly know each other. That said, socially my life has not been an easy road to walk down.

This is topic many in size acceptance wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Some talk about the active size discrimination, they don't get a job, they get made fun of in the street, but who wants to admit in the Facebook Age where friends are collected like baseball cards, that they have any social difficulties whatsoever? Who wants to admit at the extreme extroverted world of fat parties with their belly dancing divas, that they'd rather be having intellectual conversations with people rather then boozing it up and flirting? Where in these places can one talk about some of these deep issues?

The ultra-supersized face this even in size acceptance, where to discuss the special challenges of life at super-sized weights is anathema among the "fat-positive" types. Even the censorship on some websites, is part of this silencing those of us, who want to talk about harsh realities, rather then wearing our plastered on forced smiley faces. To be frank, the fat admirers don't want to hear about it, and the many of the mid-sized do not relate to it and if they do, fear of being in your shoes, leads them to a place where they do not want to look.

One thing I want to talk though when it comes to being ultra-super sized is social ostracization. It does happen. Even if you dress well, have the confidence of a Hollywood millionaire celebrity, it's going to happen. Five hundred pound people do not fit the average American's view of "normal". The 600-700lb life brings the actual gaping stares and pointing fingers for the few who can still walk and make it outside free of or in a wheelchair. Over that, you're no longer leaving the house or nursing home. When one crosses into the huge weight arena, size discrimination just doesn't become a once in a while thing where you encounter an idiot or narcissist who has no manners, it becomes a way of life to where inside you wonder if you are a member of the human race.

Affluent more urban areas, more conformity of dress is expected and a thinner body among the corporate minions. A working class small rural town where there are more other fat people, more old fashioned ethos, and more laid back, there is easier acceptance and your weight ceases to matter among those who know you. You know you are in a place that feels like "home" when several church members get up on your behalf, and walk out to protest a visiting pastor who insults you for being fat without you being present. Those are things not to be taken for granted.

This doesn't mean anywhere is perfect, but today after the horribly regretted move, it's not fun to go to the library and see the staring eyes, the raised eyebrows, it's not fun to go to a group, in a town where even the locals admit it is a bit snobby, and when people choose groups within a group finding yourself sitting alone at a table. Before I escaped to the rural friendly town, life in the huge urban city was a nightmare, being poked and prodded on the bus, being attacked verbally just for being present, seeing all three ways of life, the rural small town, the big metro city, and the affluent mid-sized city, my goal is to make it back to another rural town, or the one I had to leave. There are other things I value, a more rural area fulfills.

Many people would say you are a nice person: what's the problem? The early 40s, is a bit old to be complaining about being a "misfit", it's not even all the fault of those around me, my body has forced me inside more and more especially as I have aged. Maybe not just "inside" on the housebound front, but maybe emotionally and mentally as well, since so few relate to the kind of life I've had to live.

The worse thing about fatness is the buffer it puts up. The judgement is immediate, and when you are in these huge ultra sizes, you do fit "freak show status" like it or not. You will get stares, sometimes raised eyebrows looks of shock at your over-corpulence. Places like Wal-mart, there may be couple others in your boat, but other places like art openings, and the rest, you are the "heavy" among the slim hipsters, who snack on chips and never gain an ounce. You notice some relatives, put up endless pictures of your family members all over the wall, but your mug is always left off or relegated to an out of the way spot. You think inside: "Oh don't be paranoid, don't misjudge", but you have faced too much and know that you are not viewed the same as other people [except by those who are close to you]

There is an invisibility that can go along with fatness. You can be talking to people and realize they don't even see "YOU", the person, they see your body instead, and its swelling limbs, huge body. Even entering an art show, you start asking "should I send a thin friend to enter my art work? Will it make my chances better?" You imagine the stories and almost hear the thoughts people have in their heads as they see you waddling by, "I wonder what she eats", "How did she let herself get that way!", "I'm glad that's not me!".

To be the greatest curse of being fat, has been having a body, that serves as an iron wall, over self expression as an artist, as a writer, and as a person. The Internet is almost the perfect world for me, in many places as I can roam body-less, where no one has to know except places like here where I admit how much I weigh.

Every super sized fat woman [or even ultra-fat person in general], I have known has talked about this deep hurt, in being ostracized by society. I know some ladies who have been totally abandoned by families, left to scrape for the lowest crumbs of society; it goes beyond just fat discrimination and losing a job, it affects being able to express yourself as a person.

I stand up for myself when I can, that is my only answer to this, my second answer but the most important one is letting God determining your worth as a human being. But some of this stuff is not easy, and I don't mind being honest about it.

Medical Furniture Woes

Every fat person has talked about going to the doctor's office, and in a sea of narrow chairs in the waiting room always with arms, realize they either have to remain standing or have to endure the embarrassment of going up to the counter, and asking the office ladies to come up with a spare desk or roller chair.

This happened in two doctor offices I went to for years. Some of the more enlightened ones sprinkle a couch or two in the waiting room to help you out, but too many others, seem to almost adhere to a plot to buy the most narrow chairs with arms possible. While fat people today can find good chairs in restaurants, and other places [the marketplace had to accommodate more Americans as they grew bigger], this has not gotten into many doctor offices. Russell Williams in the size acceptance world would campaign for more access for fat people concentrating on chairs, while I didn't agree with him on many things, I definitely did with that.


But this isn't the only thing Ive noticed about the medical world.


Who but the most spry 12 year old can even CLIMB on top of these things?

Don't forget most people going to the doctor, are the elderly, sick and many overweight people. Even when I weighed in the 200s, I could barely hike myself up onto the typical medical examining table. There was one time, I did so, and put feet on a foot rest getting down and almost tipped the entire thing over. I know most people in their 70s and 80s are not either.

I know they want the doctor to be able to preserve his back, and make things easier for them, but when they keep making furniture most patients find formidable to even get on, then that is a problem.

Then there is your typical hospital bed. They are nightmares for the fat too. In one hospital just sitting on the edge of their hospital bed, I almost flipped the whole thing over. My old small town hospital, used to put me on the "bone bed" the one with the metal rack to hook broken limbs too, because it was the only bed that had the weight to it to remain stable with me in it. I don't think I barely slept, I begged the doctor, let me go home. He relented after 10 days to release me. That is one thing too, in the ER you'll see more of those impossible to get onto examining tables and nightmare beds, so even though you are shivering to death, you are hunched over in the one chair you could find without arms.

Hospital beds are UNCOMFORTABLE. Comfort affects illness and health problems. They are far too narrow--even people of more average size attest to that, and even if they prop you up, more then often you end up sliding into the hole. Don't think that hospitals have a vast array of bariactric beds either, maybe they will special ship one in if you are Walter Hudson but don't count on it. One nursing home bound friend, has relayed to me about how her own bed is a nightmare, and she knows she is not getting needed rest because of it.

I actually have considering writing medical furniture makers, to tell them they need to step it up and think a bit of the patient's comfort and limitations.

Something is being lost in the translation here.

Far More Then A Fat Woman

One thing that bothers me about being super-fat is at times in some circles, it seems to serve as a buffer, where people do not see the human being inside: you are judged by your appearances, and your intelligence, and other interests in life, are all ignored for what you look like. One thing that used to happen to me is years ago, I would have people usually in the work-place tell me: "Oh you are so smart!" as if they were in shock a corpulent person could have an IQ over 80.

I know that when you get to know people looks only matter so much, the body we are in really only is something we carry the our "real selves" around in. One's heart and soul are not determined by what they weigh.

The one thing that is the worse to me about this culture, is the growing emphasis on the superficial, where looks matter the most, you see young girls and women in general more concerned about the size of their bodies, and their looks rather then anything more deeper. They have young girls clamoring over their waist sizes and looks and this is breeding people who care all about whatever one else thinks to define themselves, rather then people who have developed their characters and souls. If anyone wants to know things are worsening in society or why there are more unhappy people, that is one of the causes.


Everything is about looks: the perfect weight. By the way, is anyone else when they examine the celebrity world getting sick of people that all look alike? I barely can tell the difference between any of them anymore. They all wear the same clothes, the same hairstyles, and have the same opinions. Celebrity names mean nothing to me, I don't know the difference between a J-Lo from a Lindsey Lohan. Who is Trista? I have no idea, but she looks like 300 other Hollywood figures out there, this time with a baby as an accessory to her "glorious body".

I'm more on the conservative side of the spectrum, but remember the days when the feminists gave some notice and message of telling women, they had more worth then their looks, whatever happened to that? Oh, they all went "sex positive" or something and now some circles seem to be specializing in naked protest and crazier stuff. I guess when the BODY becomes EVERYTHING, then it becomes a twisted focus.

In a world where they want your BODY to define everything about you, I think things have gotten tougher on fat people. Before one's character and who you were counted as far more. In my personal life, I manage to avoid those who only deal with life on this skimming brainwashed level, pursue my art, and other concerns but it is a growing trend in society that seems it is getting worse. What is becoming acceptance is growing more narrow too to the point that what is thrust in our face, as the BEST BODIES, have become cookie-cutters of each other. I don't think they look that good anymore, in fact I'm bored by the whole lot of them. To be fair, though they probably do have more inside to offer, but have adopted the whole premise that women today are to be valued for their looks alone. But really what does that mean when the ideas of beauty become so limited, they actually become boring.

As a fat woman, I never thought I was ugly even if the weight caused me pain and misery, but what should it matter anyway? Priorities in this culture are skewed and when people only care about their bodies [there is a certain level of care and concern for health that is needed] and ignore character, and goodness and other facets of life, that is a problem. I dare say, on the assembly line of Hollywood indoctrination, the best thing for a fat woman or any other for that matter to do is to kick it all to the curb and look for what is most important in life.

The Locked Down World of Size Acceptance

SOne thing that is bugging me lately, trying to get this blog out there, the fat acceptance blogs and websites are locked down tighter then a drum. I have never seen so many censored websites in my life, where every blog demands automatic moderation before any posts appear or where membership must be approved on every message board. Freedom of speech doesn't seem to be a very loved concept in size acceptance.

When one has a blog, you do want readers and you have to get your link out there to get them. So far its been very tough, I've never seen anything like this. Some just general obesity websites have been okay, the politically correct police haven't barred the door from my entrance but all the size acceptance/fat positive etc, websites, its been near impossible.

There is one big fat blog where I applied for membership and at least to enter into discussion with the folks there, and got no response. Well I left the size acceptance movement to begin with, because they did everything they could to silence my voice, and my experience. Because I talk about realities of being super-obese, they do not want the "fat positive" bubble popped by anyone. I doubt that once pink haired size activist ever took my advice, when I told her to go visit a bariatric nursing home to see what obesity could do to people. There is no intregrity in trying to control people or silence the voices of the ultra-super sized.

Sometimes I feel like the Size Acceptance world works like a closed down gulag, of ideologues, who can't stand to ever examine anything. I'm against fat people being treated like garbage, and have managed to grab on to many of the good things life has to offer even being so severely obese but that doesn't matter. Unless you think exactly like them, they do not even want to listen. The Super-sized are already rendered invisible in a lot of places in society, it stinks, when the people who are portending to represent fat people's needs, lock you out as well.

The World's Fattest Bride?

Years ago, I wondered if I had broken the world's record for being the fattest bride in the world but reading books on history of the circus there were many large circus fat ladies who had gotten married including Dolly Dimples. The world's fattest man who had lost weight down to the 700s got married as well.



How many people can say they got married, at such incredible weights? We surely must be a rare breed, but everyone in the world has the same emotions and desires, that everyone else has. Ultra-fat people fall in love too. I was at the peak of my weight gain on my wedding day and had to be near 700lbs with hips at around 103 inches in measurement. The me of today, is even far smaller then I was on my wedding day. So if a woman has been reading too many Cathy comics, and thinks her pudge is going to keep her from walking down the wedding aisle, if I managed it, so can she.

In my case I met my husband, just after the first 50lbs, I was just hitting the low 300s, and even then knew I was sick but was still working and semi-functioning. He knew I was sick, during the early years of our relationship I was battling with doctors already. When we married, it was different then most couples, we did not know how much longer I would be around, it was looking pretty short term, and to put a cap on all that, my wedding night was spent in the hospital with a cellulitis infection caused by all the exertion of planning and bringing together a small wedding [we had 24 guests]. By some miracle I could still hobble around at that weight and was not bed bound.

Looking back years later, I told my husband, maybe it wasn't fair to marry you being so ill but my husband wasn't to be dissuaded. We have been together now around 16 years total, 12 married. Many ultra-super sized people never date, nor marry. I guess I bucked that trend.

Connection to Common Cold and Obesity?

Connection Between Common Cold and Obesity?

Well this is an interesting study, years ago I remember reading about another study that said obesity could be a result of a virus. Professor Nikhil Dhurandhar has studied the effects of human adenovirus AD-36 on obesity. They did use to blame stomach ulcers on "stress" but then found out that was a virus. It will be interesting to see where this research goes.

A Discussion of Fat and Health.

A Discussion of Fat and Health

Some of the article, I agree with, health shouldn't be some kind of a litmus test for worthiness but obesity in many cases beyond a certain point IS a symptom of illness.