What Does A 500lb Woman Eat?

Tuesday, For breakfast I ate three Greek olives, and a turkey sandwich--on a tortilla. I ate some Chinese food for lunch, a quarter cup of hot and sour soup, eggs picked out, about a cup of pork with vegetables, and cup of fried rice. Dinner was half a turkey leg, portion of a turkey wing, some white meat, a very small smidgen of gluten-free stuffing--it was gross, green beans [I don't add butter to vegetables, just serve them right out of the can heated up nothing added] and a couple tablespoons of that cranberry sauce junk. There was applesauce thrown in somewhere that day too.

Wednesday I was sick. Sick as a dog. Lets just say nothing stayed down, and the entire digestive system decided to take a day off in terms of working.. My digestion is saying Adios!, day by day. I managed to get half a bowel of chicken and rice soup down at 10:00 pm and drank maybe 1 glass of watered cranberry juice--for blood sugar reasons, that actually stayed down. Applesauce was a losing proposition.

Thursday, I went down bland food highway. I ate left over chicken and rice soup for breakfast, and a can of chicken vienna sausages. Lunch was a chopped chicken salad [no mayonnaise, this is a cafe that makes it in high quality way, over greens and acouple slices of cucumber and other veggies. This place has incredibly fresh food, and if I could afford to eat there everyday I could. They even fulfilled the gluten free tenets. Dinner was more chicken and rice soup and a turkey sandwich on a corn tortilla with apple. There was a banana somewhere in that day.

Friday I ate a banana and some cranberry juice. Lunch was some mixed rice noodles with green pepper and some red onions, and left over turkey, it was gross, and the rest is rotting in the fridge now. For dinner, I ate some breakfast turkey sausage, small links--sure I ate too many of those- and butter bean salad that was a can of butter beans, green pepper, red onion, parsley,and olive oil, vinegar and seasonings.

Saturday, I ate Chex cereal with a bananna and almond milk--allergic to the real stuff, lunch was sandwich was turkey on tortilla, some sliced red onion, and more chicken rice soup and a large raw carrot I munched down. OK so I am not that creative in meal planning, that soup was shared with husband.

I quite writing around there....Saturday I forgot what I had for dinner, it was probably gross. Sunday, more cereal for breakfast, I had more sandwiches, and ate more butter bean salad, and had two pork chops--baked in gluten free breading with rice-pasta salad, made with a ton of vegetables and vinaigrette dressing. There were some bananas and apples thrown in along the way. I ate too many Greek olives for a snack, having the usual salt fixation.

Today I have eaten 4 Greek olives and some quesedillas made with sliced turkey lunch meat and fake soy cheese. OK maybe my diet sucks, but is it as bad as you thought it'd be? Try eating a diet where all wheat is removed, all barley, all rye, all dairy, eggs, wine, seafood, is gone. It isn't easy. I usually eat more vegetables then there this week, the week before I was on V-8 drinkathon, drinking a glass or two day. I only allow myself one Chex cereal and Almond Milk purchase a month, because of sugar. Tonight I'm planning to make squash and turkey ham.

The best meal of the week was the chicken salad, the worse was that gross rice noodles with turkey and gluten free stuffing. My husband ate a bunch of my cereal, but that isn't a bad thing for me. I need to eat more vegetables this week. I am open to any dietary suggestions. I doubt I will give up salt, even though I am supposed to.

The Betrayal of Christina Corrigan: Thirteen Years Later

I've had a lot of time to think about this case. The year I went on disability [1997] and other health problems from a massive weight gain, is the year this case broke. Fat girl is is found dead on the floor next to some food containers, covered in waste and her mother is arrested and charged with neglect. In size acceptance news, it is the top story for months. It hits me in the gut, because I weigh about the same that VERY year and knew I was dying, and did not know why. For those who are new to this blog, see this entry.

Christina Corrigan was a young girl of thirteen who weighed 680lbs at the time of her death. Her mother later was arrested and charged with child abuse pending accounts that Christina had been found covered in bed sores and in feces. Marlene her mother was later convicted of misdemeanor child abuse.

Marlene took her daughter to doctor after doctor over 90 times, to deal with her mounting weight. Christina weighed over 200lbs by age 7, she was to gain more then 500lbs the next 6 years. In regards to the trial, one fat activist talked about it on CNN:

HULLINGER: Judy, as you sat and watched this trial, why have you come to the conclusion that obesity is the central issue of this?

FREESPIRIT: Because the mother was not neglectful of this child. The child was definitely fat. She definitely had the bed sores that they claim she had. The problem was that the mother was never able to get any help from the medical establishment.

She took the child to the doctor 90 times between the age of birth and eight. All that she ever got was low calorie diets and told to exercise her. She never got any kind of medical help. After you've gone 90 times to the doctor and gotten no help, why go again?

The problem is that we assume that there was something there for her. There may have been, but she wasn't getting it where she was going, and she was a member of an HMO.

The people that failed Christina was not only her mother but the medical establishment, she had been taken to doctors with no help, and only blame. It is interesting to note that her mother received blame to the criminal end, unlike the sympathy a woman would received for a child disabled by another condition. One thing, the claims about the urine and feces are a joke, everyone who dies, loosens their bowels.

The pure neglect of health problems of the severely obese and the myths that surround them grow worse and worse. No normal 13 year old girl would have been able to eat her way up to this weight. It is interesting to note that this girl up to age 3 was on a medication known for weight gain for the treatment of grand mal seizures that can bring in pituitary involvement. My conjecture today is either this medicine affected Christina's metabolism or Christina had undiagnosed Prader Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects hunger and metabolism and can lead to severe weight gains in children. It is obvious too, that Christina Corrigan lacking mobility and worse, her mother was struggling to care for her.

Cardoza, the lawyer in the case admitted that medical problems not mere overeating probably contributed to Christina's weight. Her former doctor as Cardoza attested on a talk show I watched {Leeza}, said "Lady, there's nothing wrong with your kid, quit feeding her."
Sadly Christina's doctor blamed a genetic predisposition to gain weight, overeating and lack of exercise. He did some basic tests but ended it after that. His prejudices leading to bad science and what happened to this girl: Lowest common denominator medicine with a giant dash of laziness included! Even a sane person would ask..."What could a thirteen year old eat to weight 700lbs, and would a normal thirteen year old even have that type of appetite? The answer to these questions are in the negative, but when it comes to fat people, hatred overrides common sense.

Marlene attested to going to doctor after to doctor until giving up. If she is guilty of anything perhaps that is it, but the doctors are just as guilty then.

What gets me, is if the doctors didn't play the game of moral judgements of refusing to find a cause of obesity based on prejudice and the claims of immoral behavior and gluttony, what is ironic is at least some supersized people if treated with the correct medical insight could avoid the special challenges of being super sized to begin with.

Christina Corrigan for her weight alone was denied access to a normal education. From the facts of the case, one could deduce, that money was tight in the household. Her school which was placed at the top of a hill required students to walk up several flights of stairs, that Christina was incapable of surmounting. [Wonder how many disabled or older folks, can't go up them either?] NO special education or other arrangements were made. She dropped out and had to be home-tutored.

The possibility of Prader-Willi syndrome was immense. I found it odd, how no samples had been saved at her so called autopsy to do a DNA test. In Prader-Willi syndrome there is high tolerance to pain and often times skin-picking which could have accounted for all the bedsores all over Christina. The defense also pursued the avenue of brain damage from her treatment with Phenobarbital.

Only a cursory examination was done at the autopsy of Christina. The coronor looked no further then for outward visual clues denying the opportunity to find out the actual malady that affected Christina. No samples of her tissue were taken.

Christina was treated in life as she had been in death. After failing to find the reason for her extreme weight, her main pediatrician referred her to a nutritionist. Cardoza, the attorney said Dr. Ray should have realized something more needed to be done after she saw Christina's weight ballooning for six years. "My God!", he said outside the courtroom, "If that wasn't a pattern, what is a pattern?"
While her mother perhaps failed her in some ways , many other people were just as culpable, the school in failing to provide an accessible school or classroom, social services for not providing home health care, the nutritionist in not realizing this was a problem that no diet counseling in the world could solve,the doctors in not adequately diagnosing the disorder or providing other case management or help.

Today I ask, has anything changed? Are there going to be new Christina Corrigan's? Will a new young woman watch the weight go up up up, only to be blamed and vilified and not believed? The sad thing I think is probably so.

Update to this article: 2018. I was diagnosed with Lipedema stage IV in 2014, so I was correct that something more was wrong, when I started this blog in searching for what my true medical issues were. I survived the fat bigotry, just barely, Christine did not.

The Troubles of Fat Comedians: John Belushi and Chris Farley

I've often wondered about this question? Everyone knows that class clowns were often fat, maybe to deflect being made fun of? To make joy to cover up the pain? The fat comedian is a stereotype same as the sad clown. It is known that many male comedians are fat, and they can be the funniest folks out there. However there is a dark side to this phenomenon, just about every fat comedian out there has showed massive pain, insecurity and worse, that goes beyond the usual Hollywood fare.

One of the favorite comedians out there was John Belushi, I have read many of his biographies, and it was sad to read how behind the scenes he did start trying to break out against his big guy funny status, seeking serious roles.

Hollywood did not treat well Belushi's attempt to break the mold he had formed. Fresh, from NBC-TV's "Saturday Night Life", Belushi became a break out star in his 3rd season in Animal House as the ever greedy couch prowling slob Bluto. He rose fast to the top circa 1978. It was a role that served as Belushi's entrance into Hollywood but also became a trap, four years passed before a serious dramatic role came his way in Continental Divide [1981] loosely based on the late crusty Chicago Tribune Columnist Mike Royko. That movie only became a mere cult success.


Hollywood had a different agenda in mind for its favorite college rabble-rouster especially when it witnessed the mountains of profit, Bluto's character had spun off. This expressed itself in massive theatre revenues, but took on less subtler forms too. Within a year, three networks rushed to develop sitcoms complete with it's own resident rebel couch potatoes. It's only speculative to see what Belushi may have been capable of and what would have a sober Belushi been able to have done, free of serious drug addictions? Belushi admitted to many negative feelings regarding his weight and what kind of roles he was being given. He felt he had been forever type-cast. Before his death in 1982, he was under major pressure to do a movie called "The Joy of Sex" whose scenes included a typical male from birth to death and called for the wearing of an enormous diaper. Why wouldn't a man be troubled over such indignities?

Twenty years later, the cycle repeated itself in the late 90s with Chris Farley, Farley grew up on the same taunts used to haunt his father. "My Father is a big man", the comic told US magazine during that time, "600 pounds maybe more, I worry about him, I love him dearly with all my heart and I see him when he goes to the mall, and the fingers pointing and the laughing and it's ****** tragic! It's terrible to see the fear in his ****** eyes. God ***** it, man he doesn't want to be like that. For Christ's sake, he doesn't want to be that big. People don't understand, and they laugh and they think it's funny but it's very sad for the person afflicted."

Chris Farley too fulfills the stereotype of the fat comedian who used self-depreciating humor and wild buffoonish behavior to gain audiences attention. In one of his TV appearance in 1997, Farley cavorted through a diner pursued by cops on Fox's Mad TV. The laughter flowed as Farley plowed through tray after tray of take out food. Farley was to die as a result of a drug overdose and drinking too. His biography too reveals the dysfunction, the severe struggles with addiction and embarrassment about his weight as well. Too often this story has played itself out, fat comic using humor as a vehicle to hide the years of pain about being fat in today's society, achieving fame but inside feeling the disrespect. It was revealed Chris Farley even said: "I don't want to be the fat guy who falls down anymore."

Fat and Not Jolly? Oh My!

“To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.”
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

There is a new trend in America where being positive is almost a mandate. You better smile or else! Deep Thinkers need not apply, Analyticals shut up! What is the modern melancholic to do? The pallor faced thin goth can be artistic and write morose poetry and get away with it but the fat person who isn't jolly better watch out!

Employers do follow "Fish" motivation enterprises where you better have fun at work or "else" as they reward you with a plastic fish instead of a raise or a day off. The worse thing to be told is "how negative you are!", even if you are dying of cancer, and your house is to be foreclosed on, keep that stiff upperlip and do not burden people with your troubles! Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book called "Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Underminding America", I loved this book and highly suggest it, while I don't agree with her politics, at least one person out there stood up against the POD PEOPLE!

With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best—poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.

I do believe one should be thankful to God, do not take a roof, heat, or food for granted, and try to enjoy life with people who can still feel, rather then the dead-inside brigades. Can someone change their personality to be someone else? And why would they want to?

Fake happiness and forced perkiness is the stuff of repression, nails in fists, and bit tongues, shallow discussions about the weather, and house decoration, and false clouds of fake non-bliss. It is the place of loneliness and dying inside knowing you are voiceless among pod people who are more interested in showing themselves as "perfect" by every societal standard, then in being honest and real. When you are overweight these expectations become even higher. So I am not fat and jolly, I tend to be serious and like to read. Tough! I'm tired of trying to be someone I never will be, nor have no interest in being.

The stoics show no love, no care, as they insist everyone else keeps the fake smiles plastered on their face. Thank God, I have friends I can be real around. I worry that there are people out there, so busy wearing the masks, no one really knows them, and they do not even know themselves.

The Fat Girl's New Clothes or I Don't Want to Dress Like a Construction Worker!

Being tall and fat, my round features and double chin consigned me to Sears Roebucks "Pretty Plus Department', where my mother worked. I couldn't count on the safety net of my jumper uniforms-with their blue, plaid, Peter Pan style collars that had gotten me through seven years of Catholic school. I dreaded shopping for clothes with every ounce of my being: I'd see my mother getting frustrated, dragging me from store to store, hoping for the right pants to fit my extreme-pear shaped figure.

I'd shot up to a 24/26 misses size--where I'd stay until around age 26 before the fun really began and a size 12-13 shoe. Being 5'11, I stood taller then 80% of the boys I'd meet, and a good deal heavier too; but how could I stage-manage my height, when the weight was ever present.

I'd dream of cutting off my toes and shrinking into the "petite' drawer where all the popular girls resided. Truthfully, I hardly felt like a girl, when they were supposed to be cute, thin and smaller then men.

Adding to my misery, the larger women's clothes were usually ill-fitting, too short, and locked into those mysterious half sizes for the "stocky and short". In the mid-80s of axis of Calvin Klein, Guess and Gloria Vanderbilt, my grandma styled shirts with those weird useless tabs on the sleeves, men's shoes and "high water pants" only cemented my low high school status.

The pattern never changed with my mother admonishing me as she fit pants over hips that outpaced my waist by 10 inches. That didn't include my arms--always too long for the '80s blazers--causing my mother to tell me, "you have very long arms!"

Other times I'd hear, "Soon you will be wearing muu-muus", or "What will you do for clothes when you get too fat to buy any?" since I was at the tippy top of the size scale for the 16 Plus shop. Such one-liners became an unpleasant reality when I shot up past my mother's 18-20 size during my junior year. It couldn't be any fun for her either, but not surprisingly, these trips ended with me getting mad or in tears, and my mother fuming about the weight that refused to come down: "Don't you want to be able to wear pretty clothes?"

I'd shoot back, "Why don't they just make them in larger sizes?"

But even the plus sized stores, it seemed, were prejudiced against my upper end of the scale. For years, I noticed the odd size 24 mingled with the endless colors of size 14-20 styles-even though I was seeing plenty of older women my size too.

Everything seemed made for extremely short fat women with big bosoms, not fat tall, extremely flat chested and large hipped women like myself. I dreamed of flowing fabrics, long dresses and tunics, but felt consigned to my mother's taste for Oxford shirts and narrowing jeans--everything unforgiving of a large figure. Even then I wouldn't find any dresses that fell below my knees until the mid-90s.

When I got out of the house and become free to make my own fashion choices, I started buying more dresses and started breaking the constricting fashion rules I was brought up with such as the odd rule that one had to wear uncomfortable nylons every time they wore a dress. Those things were abysmal.

Into the 90s there become more choices for clothes but even then they were hard won. I would travel 20 miles to this one specialized clothing store that catered to large women, dropping 400 bucks [a huge amount of money for me] to buy decent dresses. Most of what the mainstream plus size stores offered was far too masculine, boring, too form fitted and "tailored". Walk into those places, you see a couple dresses on the far wall, and there's nothing but jeans and construction worker clothes!

Most of these places make the mistake of just making the thin women's styles "bigger" which doesn't mean on a fat women they will be flattering. Wide waist bands on pants? Come on! , these pants if anything will make a woman look far fatter. Culottes? Do not get me started. One thing I'd love to tell the plus sized moguls, do not design dresses with top to bottom buttons for fat women! Why are most of these dresses so short?!

Modern fashion has lost a lot of zing, and gotten uglier and uglier, where it seems we have gone to a place of everything look like it's from the 80s but shorter and tighter. OK, so maybe I dress like it's 1890 but at least I can move around and bend over without everything being put on display. What is it with those tops that are cinched in right under the bust, that make everyone overweight look pregnant?

Also someone needs to tell women over size 18, jeans are not flattering! Actually I do not think they are flattering to anyone! If anything has become the new Maoist uniform for American it is blue jeans! I'm bored even seeing them on everyone! Adding high heels to the picture, doesn't help either, it just looks tacky.

Today, I wear all dresses, yes there is some practicality to it, weighting 500lbs and trying to hoist some pants over your rear-end, isn't easy. Pants on a body shaped like mine look ludicrous. I buy my clothes special made from couple stores that specialize in the ultra plus sized woman. The main one already mentioned is sancutarie. but there are deals to be found on ebay too.

Younger Disabled People Ending Up in Nursing Homes

A New Nursing Home Population: The Young It's cheaper to keep someone at home with aides, but now the trend has been to institutionalize people in nursing homes. This articles says a full 14% are ending up in nursing homes. With so many cuts being made to programs that help the disabled [while they still pour trillions into useless Middle Eastern wars], many people are finding making it on their own to harder and harder. It's not just the wheelchair bound but those struggling with severe obesity too. I had a close friend, who ended up in the nursing home, so I know what those places are like, especially if you are poor and destitute, it is not a pretty picture. The wealthy can afford apartments where the nurses and aides come in--assisted living, but the poor end up in an 8x10 room with a roommate included. My friend told me, that much of the population of her nursing home were younger severely obese people who could not take care of themselves out in the world. The nursing home associations themselves are discussing this issue. The disability advocacy organizations are warning about the new trend towards shoving people into nursing homes, some young people given the right supports are able to live independently. Every severely obese person does worry about the nursing home, one broken leg, any condition that precludes walking, the nursing home can be a fate worse then prison. If I was not married, I could easily be in a nursing home right now and two years ago, I was in even poorer health. It is a somewhat frightening thought. Some of the homes are run nicer then others, the small town non-profit ones are usually nicer then ones ran as holding tanks for some corporation to make money.

My Life As a Fat Teen #1

Square peg in round hole syndrome all the way! A constant blur of activity and motion characterized my high school years, starting at home-where I spent hours doing yard work, or helping my mother clean the house.

During my first two years of high school, I had gym every day, and also join the golf team as a sophomore. We weren't allowed to use golf carts, so we had to walk the entire course. The next year, I spent hours on my feet as a salad girl [this was when salad bars were in vogue in the 80s], among other jobs.

For all this exercise, I was was still fat. However back then I wasn't falling into the super sized category yet: I ate normal meals and had lots of movement. Magazines like Seventeen reflected a different reality: to have any prayer of getting a boyfriend, I had to be micro-miniature. All their clothes were sizes 3-5, a world that lay beyond me.

Somehow, these girls always had time for a boyfriend between their part-time jobs, perfect grades, flawless makeup, and shopping for an endless array of clothes to show off their lithe figures, with not an ounce of fat.

At school, a few girls were fatter then I, and a few more approached my weight. But the majority were blessed with thighs that magically never touched in the middle, their stomachs flat as a board, and blemish-free; and their necks were sinewy, and showed veins.

I saw the outline of clavicles in their shoulders, and the pelvic bones in their hips. Their bodies were so unlike my own, we might as well have been females of a different species!

In secret, I liked the curves of my own body, particularly my stomach. As an asthma free teenager, I could run around in 20 degree weather without a coat and barely feel it. Nowadays when the temperature dips that low, the heat is on high and I'm buried in blankets. I was stronger back then too: the ill health of college had not yet hit full force, teachers asked me to move heavy objects just like the boys, with whom I'd wrestle with and win at times.

Thinner girls though had a license to be carefree, happy-go lucky and most important vulnerable: I was none of these things. At home, I could relax a bit while hanging out with my siblings, in school, if I showed any weakness, I would have gotten squashed.

I wasn't anybody's girlfriend: people sought my advice with their problems or homework but never offered party invitations. Taking my weight out of the equation wouldn't have mattered: I went to a provincial upper-class high school-think of the one in The Breakfast Club but with the jocks in charge and the art kids pushed to the back of the bus and an even more fascist tinge. Annoying constant pep-rallies and Reaganomic politics provided the icing on the cake.

I was more interested in a good book then going to a basketball game, or buying makeup. Whenever my weight dipped from increased activity, the jokes changed from fat jokes to "Amazon"! [related to my near 6 foot height], "nerd", "bookworm" and ---funnily enough--since I was such a wallflower, "goody two-shoes".

Yet I knew all the popular girls puked to keep their figures trim after eating French Fries and 2 pizza squares [a disgusting lunch from the health angle]. My high school bathroom was a nightmare with it's ever pervasive odor of vomit.

Although seen as serious illnesses in the media, anorexia and bulimia garnered a strange respect at my high school: the biggest pukers always had the best reputations. On TV I watched these type of girls martyr themselves as they replayed stories about cutting celery into bite-sized pieces, fighting with their parents over half a sandwich, and fighting to remain under 90lbs for the big national gymnastics meet.

At least their starving earned merit badges as they mutated their bodies into fur-covered non-menstruating sticks, reminding me of saints I read about in Catholic school, who allegedly lived on on communion wafers and small sips of water.

On top of all that, endless books extolled the sufferings of these poor girls who couldn't eat a carrot stick for dinner to save their life! Somehow I was supposed to shed copious tears over The Best Little Girl in the World as it's heroine did many life-threatening exercises to avoid turning into me. Not to deny the seriousness of these problems, but Betty Bulimic and Annie Anorexic had school therapists, groups and parents to save them from the horrors of puking. No such books or movies existed on fat girls except one fat character in the book by Judy Blume called Blubber.

I continually heard the message of a life deferred, this will happen for you when you are the proper size. Talk about setting up false expectations.

"Conspiracy Theory" and Fat; Asking Some Hard Questions

I found this interesting video the other day, tell me what you think. Yes it is on what people call the "conspiracy theory" side of things, you may not agree with everything he brings up, but there is some really creepy things going on with our food! Profit and greed explains a lot of it, but why so many chemicals?. I found his comment about it being some of the substances being poured into our food, being made illegal in other countries to quite revealing, on this blog I have shared my theories about growth hormone already. I found this video on a website, that describes what they think is happening.

Some of these hard questions do need answered. For example why are none of the obesity epidemic researchers who are MAINSTREAM even honestly dealing with the facts of how the American diet has been switched over to being corn based, especially high fructose corn syrup which was used formerly to fatten livestock! In this article he states:

Today, 75% of foods in the grocery store contain at least one corn-based ingredient. Guess what corn does? It makes you fat. That's why cows are fed so much corn; it beefs them up so there's more meat to profit from

.

Then there is the GMOs, and other chemicals. GMO food they have successfully snuck in food with altered DNA, into the food supply, maybe this is some of the cause of rising rates of food allergies and celiac...

So much of our population is getting sick, fat, and just in bad shape. Some of my elderly friends have told me people in their 20s, 30s and 40s are far sicker and chronically ill [even the thin ones] then they were when they were young. I personally know so many people in their early 40s, with cancer it is shocking. While medicine has had some advances, the life expectancy rates in America ARE DROPPING.

I don't buy the normal calories in, calories out onus put on the obese. We have become a sick people. The food has less nutrition. I am telling my husband we need to grow some of our own food and consider getting into a living space where there is either a patio or a small yard instead of an apt without any because anything decent costs so much money but financial pressures leave this change undone.

Our food is being turned into a bunch of toxic trash. I pay $6.00 bucks for a loaf of gluten free bread. I have scary food allergies that have only gotten worse. In cooking things from scratch, one can do better, but now even basic foods like spaghetti sauce have the corn syrup and crap poured in. Buy a package of hummus and you get some yummy sodium benzoate for your trouble, I found it very fascinating its used for fireworks manufacturing too.

One thing about me people may figure out reading this, blog, I do ask some of the hard questions, I am not someone brainwashed by Jenny Craig and or the powers that be that profit off endless human suffering. I believe I stayed alive this long, because I refused to be brushed off, and go home and shut my brain off--[in regards to my 400lb weight gain] where doctors told me I was to blame and to go home and "diet". What a joke before I was diagnosed with severe endocrine problems!

Just even the most basic research brings up some scary things, MSG is one of them. Why is that being poured into almost every food product? Read this article and DO NOT MISS THE SCIENTIFIC STUDIES LISTED TOWARDS THE BOTTOM:

He made an amazing discovery while going through scientific journals for a book he was writing called The Slow Poisoning of America. In hundreds of studies around the world, scientists were creating obese mice and rats to use in diet or diabetes test studies.

No strain of rat or mice is naturally obese, so the scientists have to create them. They make these morbidly obese creatures by injecting them with MSG when they are first born. The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats (and humans?) to become obese; they even have a title for the race of fat rodents they create: “MSG-Treated Rats,,,,,,,, MSG”?

I was shocked too. I went to my kitchen, checking the cupboards and the fridge. MSG was in everything! The Campbell’s soups, the Hostess Doritos, the Lays flavored potato chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy, Swanson frozen prepared meals, Kraft salad dressings, especially the ‘healthy low fat’ ones. The items that didn’t have MSG had something called Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, which is just another name for Monosodium Glutamate. It was shocking to see just how many of the foods we feed our children everyday are filled with this stuff. They hide MSG under many different names in order to fool those who catch on.

It's there. Try avoiding any of these chemicals, its nearly impossible. By the way, the more expensive a food, the less chemicals, interesting huh?

My Body Does Not Work Like Yours

One thing about me, people don't know is I credit God more with keeping me alive then medical science, and avoid going to the hospital unless I'm acutely dying. I hate the hospital and while I have liked a couple doctors [my present nurse practitioner, and previous doctor from Ghana, are among my favorites], the impersonal and dehumanized part of medicine freaks me out. I believe it is prayer that has kept me going this long. Even two weeks ago, I had my digestion totally check out, to the tune of where bowel cancer seemed to be on the list, and I was hunched over in pain, feeling like I was going to die. Now it's 9-10 days later, and I have had normal digestion for 8 days. How did that happen? I thought my bowels were forever ruined. Sometimes you just have to ask God what is wrong, pray for help and then figure out what to do. Trial and error, has allowed me to figure out wheat is bad to the bone [along with diagnosis of my celiac skin condition, all eggs must be forever removed from the diet, and all dairy. If I did not do these things I believe I would be long ago dead. Just eating one smidgen of hard boiled egg or eating some spaghetti sauce with cheese added [why on earth are they pouring cheese into everything nowadays?] is enough for hours of extreme abdominal pain. In my 20s, I was in and out of the hospital for severe asthma attacks over and over until I figured out I was allergic to potatoes! [knowledge like that is literally life saving]. I have already talked about my story of weighing almost 700lbs after a huge weight gain and stepping away from the brink of death. I am losing some weight recently, I lose it in the "thin parts first and the face" which is weird, visions of looking like an orange [or better metaphor may be a basketball, LOL] with toothpicks sticking out of it swim in my head.

People find my view of medical science odd, but before in life, I told one lady her daughter showed every sign of a pituitary tumor and in her case she got diagnosed. Too many medicos have become linear thinkers and do not look at the "whole picture", also lowest common denominator medicine does not work, right now I found myself telling a friend who is in her early 40s, they cannot blame severe muscle and joint pain and pulmonary blood clots [at that age!] just on smoking. The smoking does not help but something else is going on!

Being severely obese you have to stay in tune with yourself to stay alive. I took a walk today where I threw out a knee, yes 500lb me does attempt to exercise and I have a rule about taking at least one 500-1000 foot walk a day, Why? to make sure I still can! This includes during housebound days taking 10 length up and down the apartment hall when the hallways are too cold. To a normal thin person it is nothing, but I was able to get it back in, and have some of the swelling go down. It takes me a lot of work, to keep myself going. Anyone who looks at me and says YOU HAVE TOTAL CONTROL OF YOUR HEALTH, is insane. The only control I have is praying to God and asking for His help. I'd love them to be me for a couple of days and figure it out for themselves. My body DOES NOT WORK LIKE YOURS!

700lb Woman Told To Go to the Zoo for a MRI

Doctors suggest Zoo MRI to 700lb Woman. I had an experience like this during my 400lb weight gain.....A doctor wanted to rule out a pituitary tumor, but I was unable to fit in the MRI machines or for the ones where I could fit [an open MRI out of state], being able to lay on my back and breathe was impossible. The endless rules about positions didn't help. I managed a CT scan of the abdomen for adrenal tumors on full blown oxygen and being allowed to sit up every few minutes to hack up a lung with my head elevated. But having the head down, nope not going to work, say goodbye to breathing from the fluids from my stomach coming up to the chest. The designers of this medical equipment you'd think they know better, that the sick and old have a long time laying flat? Look at the table in the picture, they couldn't have made it any skinnier if they tried.

I even once traveled three hundred miles to attempt an standing MRI where I ended up not fitting. Intubation for a test that could be positive or negative, also was considered too risky. When I was at a certain medical center in a big metro city, I got the zoo story too. The doctor told me "Well maybe you can go to the zoo for an MRI!" I said, "In my case, I fit I just cannot lay flat!". But wanting to find out more, I did contact a couple zoos, one I even got the director who runs the zoo MRI, only to be told "No way, the insurance would never cover that!". In our over-regulated society, rules often will be put above human lives. Why isn't there one extra large MRI for the severely obese? They can't afford one out of thousands of MRIs out there. Why was the standing MRI, where many conceivably would go being fat, only 21 inches wide [if the flat open one where you have to lie down is bigger?] The inventors are failing. Ironically when this article mentions "brain tumor" I wonder if they mean pituitary tumor. Even going deaf, I haven't been able to get a brain scan. The shortage of MRIs for large people in many places is not good... see here. Some hospitals are addressing it.

Fat Celiacs

I wanted to see if there were others out there like me dealing with a gluten problem or out and out celiac and obesity at the same time. I know some weight has come off doing all this. I don't have the same cravings anymore. It is nice to go days without itching to death too. [celiac skin disorder] One thing I found out from the doctor, is malabsorption issues seem to be changing. I need B vitamin shots for at least over a year, now suddenly I don't.

Fat Studies Classes?

Colleges are now promoting fat studies classes. Some of this sounds like it "could" be good, but then is anyone studying anything that is meaningful or will this be the same brainwashathon I got in a women's study class in college back in the late 80s? Back then to get an A, all you had to do was rant a bit about "patriarchal society", and how you were reading books on the "goddess". It was liberal social programming under the guise of "education". Are liberal professors demanding that their fat studies students hold to the NAAFA line? What does fat studies really include? Out of curiosity, I had to go look....

Examines body weight, shape, and size as an area of human
difference subject to privilege and discrimination that
intersects with other systems of oppression based on gender,
race, class, age, sexual orientation, and ability. Employs a
multi-disciplinary approach spanning the behavioral sciences
and humanities. Frames weight-based oppression as a social
justice issue, exploring forms of activism used to counter
weightism perpetuated throughout various societal
institutions.

I can't say some of the above doesn't bug me. It reads like the out of touch-Whole Foods granola munching upper class crowd, trying to put out the usual liberal feelers for a new victimized class, they can cry copious tears of guilt over, while hanging out at the country club. While they are correct about discrimination and being wise to some of it makes sense, but the liberal message of oppression and "victim hood" is right there for the reading.

Why do young people need to study fat people's oppression? What is this a new form of Fat liberation theology? Wouldn't this have the affect of marginalizing fat people further? Here too "weight" is only one aspect of a person, Fat Studies turns what is a physical attribute, which happens to be just a minor part of what a person is, into a overwhelming proposition.
Will this be more ideological testing via the fat studies world? Here is a fat studies reader. You know elsewhere I told people elsewhere how both parties lie to Americans for a certain agenda, Republican/Democrat, what is the difference, both are selling this country down the wealth clean-out, outsourcing globalist river. Fat people are being sold out too between two side of a divide as well, the fat studies crowd, won't tell the truth about what is happening to our food and environment, the true medical implications of weight, or talk about the toxic American lifestyle, on the other side we have the haters who scream "You gluttons: you control your world and your body totally". Both are liars.

Obesity and Early Puberty: They Are Missing Something!

Here is an article linking obesity and early puberty. Well as a disabled person taking a class for fun, I did a research paper on the obesity epidemic and was able to find studies that prove even just one endocrine disruptor PCP, is linked to serious weight gain and early puberty. Come on put the dots together, they are warning about men becoming more feminine via all the birth control pills in the water including estrogen and other thousands of chemicals, why not women having a preponderance of female hormones too, too much estrogen, leading to holding weight and obesity? Sure there is some gene involvement but sometimes, even their articles contradict with one another. I am going to do an more intense article, about obesity and endocrine disruptors. This is the truth they want very few to know.

Ten Lessons In Buying Bicycles for Fat and Plus Sized People.

I found this article to be very interesting. One thing, even if I have to use a three wheeler bike, one day again, I would like to be able to ride a bike again, some of my best memories as a teen and kid are from riding my bicycle around. I don't know if that day will come, but if I ever get to the point where I can walk over a block, I want a bicycle. Here is a discussion on a forum that is quite interesting, "Bicycles for very overweight people".

Poverty and Being Fat: Food is So Expensive Now

The prices are already shooting up, I'm already ready to pass out from sticker stock at the grocery store.There seems to be a direct correlation between how healthy a food is and how much it costs. The conspiracy theorist in me seems to think its like they WANT all the poor people who can't afford good groceries, to get fat and die younger. Why can I get bologna for a buck but every package of lean turkey lunchmeat in the store costs at least 3.99?-4.99a pound? Why do I have to pay $6.25 for a loaf of gluten free bread? Yes I have the flours to make my own, but the experiments have failed miserably lately, sigh, I will learn with trial and error.

I wonder if being broke, I will suddenly be pushed into out and out starvation too poor to even afford the fattening cheap stuff, and finally maybe weight will fall off. Well hasn't happened yet. I'm one of those strange people who loses weight the more food and money I have. Being a celiac, and poor, is nightmare city, that diet is designed for the millionaires of the world, but I got tired of itching to death, and fear now my bowels may be destroyed beyond the breaking point. One slip up can mean a week of pain and being doubled over. Pain teaches one not to monkey around.

Eating things at the end of the month like some old veggie patties from the freezer for breakfast and having only a few dollars to spend, one's food options get very limited. Being penniless and trying to assemble meals with the fewest ingredients as possible, it's gotten harder.

I dread meal time, and sometimes it seems such a hassle, with the lactose intolerance and celiac, I'd just skip if it didnt mean passing out. I'm quite sure my doctor would not like to hear about my 3-4pm lunch times. Meals on Wheels is full of wheat and says I am too young.

Grocery costs are skyrocketing. Even when I read the working class "Cooking Quick" magazine which keeps things more basic, I think well how am I going to afford all these herbs, and my pantry is getting pretty empty. Coupons are a joke, they allow for the most sugar laden, processed crap food, there are no coupons for green peppers or rice noodles that I have ever seen.

I plan meals out for when husband shops, and exact ingredients, I have no choice but to do so. It's getting tough. Right now I am craving salad, and some plums, and more. I am making left over chicken with rice noodles and some canned bean sprouts [the fresh are almost 4 bucks here] for dinner, I had soup made with kale and carrots for lunch with sandwiches on gluten free bread. So still trying my best, but just the effort to acquire food, and make it, seems like a marathon anymore. American wages are sinking like crazy, at least we still have a roof over our head and some income coming in, but food insecurity is nothing I am new to.

That said, the food pantries, are scary as well. They are short on food now due to the growing poverty and if you have special dietary needs there is no way they will take time or even have the resources to match them. One time I got some corn, 2 packages of cookies, pasta and a box of potatoes [I'm allergic to potatoes too] from one food pantry, the only edible item for me was some apple sauce. So avoid food pantries if you can help it. Beggars can't be choosers, and they are basically bastions of starch and sugar.

But overall, the less money you have the hardest it is to eat and afford a healthy diet, I still remember this one pre-Whole Foods Health food store, I used to for a treat in a city, I lived in years ago. The hippies still ran it, this was before they sold out to Whole Foods. Scads of salad, beans, seeds, varieties of hummus, cut vegetable salads, lean meats, the place was a mecca of the healthiest tastiest food on the planet, the rare times I had money, Id go fill up on their organic salad bar and swoon it was so good!. Is it funny, I have dreams about that place, ok maybe that is showing a little food obession, but I LIKE the healthy stuff. Too bad so much of it is so expensive.

There is something new out there being called recession pounds, they are predicting that more Americans will become fatter from the Great American Depression Redeux. That definitely will happen. Read this quote:

The specter of “recession pounds” is a concern weighing on health professionals, who point to numerous studies linking obesity and unhealthy eating habits to low incomes.
They fear that as people cut food spending they will cut back on healthy but relatively expensive items such as fresh fish, fruit, vegetables and whole grains, in favor of cheaper options high in sugar and saturated fats.
“People … are going to economize and as they save money on food they will be eating more empty calories or foods high in sugar, saturated fats and refined grains, which are cheaper,” said Adam Drewnowski, the director of the Nutrition Sciences Program at the University of Washington in Seattle.

I'm buying a grow light for my apartment to grow food in the corner of the living room. Yes that is how expensive food is getting.

Maire Claire Writer Gets Her Comeuppance!

Interesting article, "Obesity ? It's those sickly tiny pots of light yogurt that gross me out!": I'm glad to see someone fighting back against those snooty, elitist magazine types who put down everyone who is not a size 2. The idea of seeing someone kiss, and being revolted just because they are a bit fat, is beyond the pale.

Here is the article she is crying out against:



I find mainstream women's magazines more and more obnoxious, boring, the same re-run articles, the same obsession with body size. Blatant fat hatred is no surprise. Looks like they "apologized" well it's a little bit too late and the "apology" is weak.

Chubby Chasers Give Me the Willies!

Chubby Chasers and Fat Admirers/Fetishes:, the men that are out there with their overwhelming desire for the full figure and who love fat women over all other kinds. I have absolutely nothing against a man who thinks a 300-lb. and over woman is beautiful, as a summation of all her parts personality, values, and even, yes, looks, but to be frank the ones who have turned fat into a top priority and a fetish creep me out.

I'm glad whoever wrote this Wikipedia entry on fat fetishism gave a nod to fat people in size acceptance who got a bit fed up with the objectification of fat women. This website will help explain some terms I use here, like "fat admirers" [though they hold a more fence-sitting view], feederism and more.

Some people involved in the fat acceptance movement argue that fat fetishism undermines social movements towards fat acceptance, through counter-productive objectification and dehumanization of fat people.

This may be politically incorrect to some liberals and others but when it comes to Chubby Chasers and "Fat Admirers", outside of men who are dating fat women because they are overweight themselves, or looking for you as a whole person....Run like the wind!

I was a pretty enough woman [today I'm much older with years of illness notched on my belt], which garnered their attention, and have had some chubby chasing type strangers, show up at the grocery store, bookstore, and other places, come up to me to say "hello". Perhaps some were truly interested in me as a person, but I know especially at my peak weights, I was fat enough to gain some attention, and in my case, was oh so young, when hitting the top weights. Anyhow, their efforts were for naught, hitting on a woman who was attached by age 25.

Years ago, once at a conference for fat people, I got a secret admirer sniffing my trail and remember telling a lady whom he wanted to serve as a go-between: "Tell him, I'm married!" In certain circles of size acceptance, this was no stumbling block, but of course it was for me.

Luckily this man didn't even know my name or address, but a realization hit me: somebody who never spoke to me was enamored because of how I looked. Now this can happen to all women, thin women talk about their objectification, and when a men and women do meet each other, appearances is all they got to go on in the first seconds and minutes of meeting each other, but it just felt weird overall.

This is because by then, I had seen so much weird stuff around me. As a fully monogamous, then engaged and married woman, I was an outside viewer to the size acceptance date and relate world. I know today I was beyond very horribly naive, in thinking these groups could be about platonic friendship, size activism and not just about sex, but then being in the 500-lb. and rising class, social isolation from my size was already affecting me and I just wanted to make regular friends. My experiences include some fat acceptance conferences and social groups that focused on BBWs and larger women.

When it came to the men, the few good ones loved fat women regardless of their weight -- maybe they were overweight themselves, maybe they had grown up among a loved fat role model -- anyhow, they just saw weight as a physical trait, and did not glorify it. These were the ones who were overweight themselves or in some way, could relate to previously suffering from obesity or growing up with it in some way.

The worst men gravitated towards fat women whose mannerisms left their would be suitors believing that they were passive, compliant and easily controlled. In some cases, this was true, in others the vultures left empty-handed, sorely disappointed.

I believe most fat women who are mid-sized can date normally, the world is full of all sorts of sizes in healthy marriages, but very super-sized women especially need to be careful. People under turmoil and in vulnerable positions can attract those who do not have their best interests at heart. One friend said it this way, "Broken people can attract other broken people". This doesn't mean everyone who is very fat is "broken," but definitely they are facing things the normal healthy folks are not facing. This may include severe health problems or food addiction.

I have heard horrifying stories, even from other people in size acceptance circles and organizations, about the treatment of very large women. They ranged from an 800-lb.-plus woman being kept entrapped in a walk-in closet on the floor, to finding out about feeders. I had the experience of befriending a lady near my size [she was in the high 400s], thinking we would relate to each other, and then being shocked on finding her feederism website. That new friendship was ended quickly.

There are men who like their women more easily controlled and that can happen especially with fat women facing mobility problems. Very fat people who have faced social ostracization or rejection need to be extra careful as to their selection out in the dating world.

But as an outside observer, with my fiance and then husband at my side, it was quite obvious -- for men, it was an absolute buyer's market with women always outnumbering the men. While some men were overweight, super-sized men were basically nonexistent, and most of the chubby chasers were of a thin or average build. Married or otherwise attached couples made up a sizable number, but still remained in the minority. This was no place for Christians or the traditional, which is one reason I left size acceptance too. A wedding ring meant little, judging by the men who ignored the silver circle on my left hand and those of other women.

It seemed when fat women discovered the opportunities in this new "fat-loving" underground, they went absolutely boy crazy like teenagers. But boy crazy at 35 or 44 is different then boy crazy at 15; hotel rooms can be rented, and trips made with no more required parental supervision. It was no holds barred.

Promiscuity ruled that world [and I think it would be worse today], which is why I removed myself from it. This applied not only to the socially focused groups, but the activism one as well. Ideas about platonic friendship and finding a wouldbe fat sisterhood was a joke, in that crowd. My morals didn't fit into this hedonistic mentality, where very fat women offered themselves to any man who'd have them driven by the nudge that whispered, "Take what you can get honey!"

I still remember one conversation I had with one of the ladies in one of these social groups. "Hilda" [name has been changed] reveled in her largeness, claiming that she liked weighing 320 lbs., and when she fell under that oddly chosen benchmark, ate to get back up there, and dieted to not get too much over it, fearing the immobility that comes with larger sizes. She'd married a very timid man, who catered to all her desires who openly admitted he was only with her because she was fat.

One day I made the mistake of asking, "Well what would happen if you lost weight, say, to getting a digestive disorder or something?" "Hilda" didn't hem or haw for a instant: "Well, that probably would be the end of it!", she said.

It didn't take too to figure out that others like "Hilda" populated these scenes; outside of the regular world of dating and marriage, very fat women seemed all too vulnerable to the new flattery they encountered, and became easy marks for the most predatory of men. This doesn't mean there aren't thin women who also become marks, but just seeing human beings treat each other as objects will forever stay with me.

Towards the end, before I cleared out for good, I realize that some fat acceptance organizations seemed far more interested in fulfilling and pleasing chubby chaser and fat fetish/admirer desires, then raising any awareness or help for fat people. I want to keep this article rated G, but I found out about too much: women my size signing up to have soft porn videos made of them [they were told it would "empower" them], realizing swinging wasn't just something left behind in the 70s. You know life has gotten strange when your local plus sized social club, calls you "the prude" because of your refusal to join in on their lifestyle choices. By then I had seen enough.

McDonald's Happy Meal Resists Decomposition

A picture of a McDonalds Happy Meal exposed sitting outside is making the Internet rounds, and definitely shows something very wrong with our food [particularly fast food]. After I found out about the Silly Putty Chicken McNuggets, that was enough to make my stomach hurt.

Vladimir Lenin, King Tut and the McDonald's Happy Meal: What do they all have in common? A shocking resistance to Mother Nature's cycle of decomposition and biodegradability, apparently.

That's the disturbing point brought home by the latest project of New York City-based artist and photographer Sally Davies, who bought a McDonald's Happy Meal back in April and left it out in her kitchen to see how well it would hold up over time.

The results? "The only change that I can see is that it has become hard as a rock," Davies told the U.K. Daily Mail.

I was thinking about this, even if this lady has an apartment with a humidity of 10% [impossible during humid New York City summers even with air conditioning, how come no flies or bugs even came to pick at the burger?

Psychological Tricks to Get Kids to Eat Healthy Food?

Ah that isn't THAT healthy.....

This seems like 2 million dollars of wasted money, why not cook healthy food and provide it, instead of having to fool the kids into choosing the healthier foods? Kids aren't stupid if you hide the chocolate milk behind the white, they are going to dig for it.

These subtle moves can entice kids to make healthier choices in school lunch lines, studies show. Food and restaurant marketers have long used similar tricks. Now the government wants in on the act.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced what it called a major new initiative Tuesday, giving $2 million to food behavior scientists to find ways to use psychology to improve kids' use of the federal school lunch program and fight childhood obesity.

If they are eating nothing but junk at home, what makes anyone think they are going to pick all the fruits and vegetables at school?

Fat Girl Fights Back #2

In fourth grade, I struggled with an elderly "Wicked Witch of the West" style teacher, who refused to give me anything above a "C", years after being a student with mostly A's. My mind held a picture of this woman who wore the same blue dress everyday, and loomed over me, stuffing dirty Kleenex up her sleeves. She had to be over 80 years old and should have been in a nursing home. Years later, I would find my Catholic school's reunion website on Facebook, where her face was pictured right there from 1977, my memories and imagination did not exaggerate the gnarled cruel face and piercing eyes. Her ancient exhaustion with the youthful exuberance of my 4th grade class mixed into a toxic explosive stew.

This is the year, the boys started playing a new game called "Smear the Q*****"--in which they literally chased down their slower, fatter "peers", and beat them up. I'd see Peter--a slower overweight boy, though not as large as me getting beaten up and teased unmercifully. For him and those like him, the playground was a danger zone of daily scrapes, the occasional bloody nose and bruises.

Sometimes our eyes would meet, and we'd both look downward, sharing in the same outcast shame. In Pete's face, I saw how my tormentor's always operated: always in large groups, so someone couldn't fight back effectively.

Not even losing recess for weeks at a time [a punishment usually bestowed by the principal] dented this peculiar sport's popularity. Back then still, girl's were to be left more alone, but I knew about women's lib [thought I didn't understand it all back then] and knew who the next target could be. I carried rocks in my pockets in case someone picked me out for a lark. But frankly unlike the fat boys, for me there were lines of protection, a big brother who was taller and somewhat fat, but not over the line like me, and the children of Vietnamese immigrants who were being sponsored by the church who I had befriended, with a child in just about every grade including kids, a few years older.

Having been shot at in a helicopter to flee Communists, my best female friend of the same age from that family whose house I spent multiple hours at, playing board games and eating their spicy dishes of meat over bowls of rice, didn't put up with any nonsense, so she taught me to stand up for myself. By 4th grade, I knew to cower before a bully only encouraged them.

Without these personal bodyguards, I think my time on the playground probably would have grown worse then Pete's given enough time. Kids who are fatter, learn the hard way, they have to come up with some different tools to make it.

Fat Hatred and Disability On the Cleveland Show?

This lady is outraged at the portrayal of "Kendra on the cartoon "The Cleveland Show". I don't agree with her politics but understand her anger. It's business as usual sadly in multi-media land. I've only seen this cartoon a few times, it is too raunchy and nasty for me, but everyone is made fun of, on it, as this cartoon is part of the Family Guy franchise. Here is Kendra's cartoon "bio".

Kendra is also a redneck, and is possibly disabled. She is very much overweight, diabetic, a compulsive eater, and can barely get anywhere without use of her Rascal scooter, though is never seen without her cheerful attitude. Kendra first appeared in the Pilot at Cleveland and Donna's wedding. Kendra loves food, and is known to soak deviled eggs in her "flabs" before eating them. Kendra also has very bad gas. In Brown History Month, a paramedic said that her cholesterol was so high that it couldn't be measured by current science.

She is seen in A Brown Thanksgiving at the soup kitchen, with her family, on Thanksgiving, revealing that her family is poor.

More "programming" for the masses, but am I surprised to see a severely fat mobility impaired character married to an extreme caricature hillbilly "Lester" portrayed as doing nothing but eating buckets of ice cream, strewing food wrappers in her stead, with one show plot centering on her falling on the youngest child-Rallo, and almost squishing him to death while about to go into a diabetic coma? Not really. However there is part of me, surprised, that a character like this is even shown on TV, extremely fat people, especially those with mobility problems, well you don't see too many of them. I read about one show, where she was made the hero of an episode, saving two other females from a crooked casino owner.

What is even weirder is one time, they showed "Kendra" as super-thin. Odd that given most super sized people are fat by childhood. Is this supposed to suggest to us her life confined to a scooter led to the obesity?Here is the picture.

Anyhow, watching the cultural messages about fat people out in the world, it's getting worse and worse. Does this mean there are no fat people consigned to scooters who don't have eating disorders, No. But one can see the influences, that lead to a voicelessness in the experiences of fat people? Being super-fat in this world is almost like being forced into a total 24/7 caricature not of your own choosing.

Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss

Say Yes to the Dress, is the TLC program, that shows a large wedding dress shop, where they have made a show out of women selecting their wedding dresses. Well last night, they did their new plus size version.

Some things I noticed:

1. Most of these women were in the 20-26 size range, why couldn't the dresses have been made to actually fit them? Most could not zip their dresses up. Here the dress manufacturers need to actually make the dresses for the real sizes. The majority of the women were apple shaped vs. pear shaped. Any woman with bigger hips would have been even worse off.

2. The staff was very nice and accommodating, of course I found the constant tears and deflated egos, a bit off putting. The thin women cry too out of loving their wedding dress, but what is about TV that always shows fat women bawling their eyes out every two seconds about how horrible and overweight they are?

3. One woman with the square black glasses, had a very over-affected personality, such as if someone was writing a play and wanted to script in, a "tough as nails" outspoken fat "diva".

4. The dresses looked like they just fattened up "thin" women's dresses, I mean for goodness sakes, designing a dress that is "tight" around the stomach area? What fat woman would look good in that? They were far too tailored, and tight, and not enough give. Is this to save money on fabric?

5. I had my wedding dress custom made. Not everyone can afford this or manage that {I sold art to finance it}, but I never got to try on wedding dresses when I was married, I was so far out of the normal sizes, I did design my own dress and got someone to sew it. It had a higher "empire" waist with a full skirt.

6. Watching the ladies choose which dress is always interesting, as well as the reaction of the friends and family.

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.....