Afraid to face the truth \u2014 that was my reality for probably most of my life. It wasn\u2019t like I would have admitted it because I don\u2019t think that I truly was aware of the situation the way I am now.
\nYouth and lack of experience in life along with a good dose of denial led me to gloss over the facts.
\nThe fact is that almost all of my life I have been overweight to some degree, with my waistline growing almost continually to the point that I have reached now: the point of super-morbid obesity. That\u2019s right, super-morbid obesity, not just morbid obesity.
\nBeing overweight in the beginning didn\u2019t seem like such a big deal. I could always lose weight, and I tried; but obviously I never got control of my weight and here I am, needing to lose the weight more than ever before.
\nI don\u2019t remember when I entered the category of being classified as obese, but I\u2019m pretty sure it was pretty early on in my life. Sadly, I imagine it was probably when I was a teenager. By the time I was in ninth grade, I was already wearing a plus-sized 22\/24 in both tops and bottoms. For a ninth grader, I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s not a healthy size to be.
\nDid it bother me? Sure.
\nThe problem is that being this size didn\u2019t bother me enough.
\nI wasn\u2019t afraid for my health. I could get around pretty well and by that time I hadn\u2019t seen much of a doctor\u2019s office since I was about the age of 4 or 5 years old \u2014 and that was for an earache. I had no reason to be scared \u2014 not yet anyway.
\nI cared about my appearance, I cared about what other people would think of me, but I didn\u2019t care enough about what the weight was really doing to me.
\nFor a long time I wouldn\u2019t wear shorts and I wouldn\u2019t wear sleeveless shirts. I didn\u2019t want people to see my fat legs or my fat arms. So even in the heat of the summer, I would dress in clothes that would cover these things up, sometimes to my detriment.
\nI remember one hot summer day, when I was wearing jeans, a top that I can not remember, and I was standing next to the trash compactor in my grandmother\u2019s home. Suddenly my vision went away, everything turned white and cloudy, and I felt myself about to faint. If I had not had the presence of mind to yell in those last seconds to my grandmother that I was fainting, she would not have caught me and I probably would have had a nasty knot on my head after that. But fortunately, I have a quick-acting grandmother who did catch me and knew exactly what was wrong when I went down.
\nIt was the heat. I fainted because I was not dressed appropriately for the hot summer temperatures.
\nHow she got me from the kitchen to laying on the couch in the living room, I\u2019m not sure.
\nMy self-consciousness had caused this fainting incident, but fortunately I had a nurse for a grandmother and she knew just what to do. She got me cooled down, and that day I ended up wearing shorts. They felt so much better than the jeans I had been wearing. I probably also ended up wearing a cooler summery shirt too, but my memory of this detail is long gone. After all, I wasn\u2019t exactly all that with-it at the moment, if you know what I mean.
\nI think it was that event that got me to set aside my silly idea that I needed to cover myself up so much because of how I looked, but it still didn\u2019t provide the additional wake-up call that I really needed.
\nObesity gave way to morbid obesity. I don\u2019t remember when I became morbidly obese because I didn\u2019t even really know it existed until someone battling with weight issues had decided to get gastric bypass surgery. They told me that I was morbidly obese and should consider getting the surgery myself.
\nI didn\u2019t like how this sounded, me being called morbidly obese. Yet as much as this didn\u2019t exactly make me happy, I didn\u2019t face the reality of what this meant.
\nI knew that health problems sometimes were caused by obesity, but I didn\u2019t quite understand that concept the way I do now.
\nFast-forwarding to the present, I am now super-morbidly obese. I\u2019ve gained a lot of weight in recent years and with it I have gained a lot of obesity-related health problems too.
\nMy eyes have been opened up to the reality of what it means to carry extra weight. Just because I seemed so much healthier in my earlier years when I wasn\u2019t quite so heavy, I shouldn\u2019t have been free of concerns about my health. I should have cared. I should have realized what I was doing.
\nBut now it\u2019s too late to go back and undo the damage that I had done.
\nIf I could go back in time, I would do things differently.
\nIf somehow the me of today could talk some sense into the me of yesterday, I would try to convey that message loud and clear.
\nThe thing is, I knew then that being heavy led to a larger waistline and that this wasn\u2019t considered healthy. But I didn\u2019t make the connections the way I should.
\nFor instance, I knew that decisions to emotionally overeat would lead me to gain weight, but I never looked at it the way I do now.
\nHow is that?
\nI take out the middleman, so to speak.
\nInstead of thinking that emotional overeating causes obesity, and that obesity causes health problems, I go straight to this: I think that emotional overeating causes sleep apnea, GERD, dyspnea (shortness of breath), diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, tendonitis, and more.
\nHow can I make that claim? Emotional overeating does not actually cause those problems in and of itself; but yes, it does cause all of those problems \u2014 and it does cause those problems every day all over the country and maybe even all over the world. It\u2019s common knowledge that obesity has become increasingly more of a problem nowadays than it was before. While obesity is not always caused by emotional overeating, I mention it here for the purpose of demonstrating a point.
\nThe point is that the decisions I make each day do matter.
\nWhen I decide to lose control of my eating behaviors, it\u2019s like making a decision to have an obesity-related illness. It\u2019s like saying, yes, it is okay. Bring on the pizza, wings and hard arteries please. I\u2019ll take that with a side of GERD and sleep apnea please. There\u2019s a reason people don\u2019t order their food like that. We want the pleasure, but not the consequences.
\nBut ignoring those consequences has consequences.
\nSo I think it helps to take out the middleman and associate my decisions and my actions with the consequences that could result. It helps bring me face-to-face with the reality that even though I don\u2019t see the health impact of those decisions immediately, years down the road, I may regret that pizza or those wings.
\nI may regret not having exercised. I may regret not having gotten enough sleep. I may regret not having taken care of myself the way I should have right from the beginning.
\nIn fact, I do regret those things. I regret those things now, because I do have sleep apnea and I have GERD. I have arthritis and I have tendonitis. Then add to that, I have chronic dyspnea.
\nTo spell all of that out in layman\u2019s terms, I stop breathing when I sleep. I also have terrible acid reflux if I don\u2019t take medication to control the production of acid in my stomach. I used to pop Tums and Rolaids like they were candy until someone told me that having too many of those tablets could cause problems and that I should see a doctor.
\nI\u2019m glad I did because now I can get through a day without suffering from the acid.
\nI also have arthritis in my knees, and frankly I have it in joints all over my body. It hurts to stand too long and it hurts to do simple things like holding on to a clipboard in a doctor\u2019s office.
\nThen there\u2019s the tendonitis. I have foot pain every time I stand without the proper arch support. The condition got so bad at one point that I could barely walk across a room. The moment I woke up, the first step I would take would be excruciating. I thought that if only I could lose weight I could make it go away, but never did I think until much later that I should tell a doctor about the pain. I\u2019m glad I did. I\u2019ve since had physical therapy for the pain, have gotten better shoes and wear arch supports. I can walk again without the pain. Then having pulled my Achilles tendon while doing squats, I had another pain at the back of my heel. I babied my feet after that for a while, and then created a whole new pain on the side of my foot I think because I have a bad habit of trying to accommodate an injury by changing the way I walk. That\u2019s how I turned one bad knee into another bad knee, so I should have learned my lesson earlier on. But I didn\u2019t.
\nBut getting back to the point, I wish I could go back in time and change the decisions I made that led me to be the weight that I am, because I am now facing health issues that I would not otherwise have to face. In fact, I think that although those problems are clearly worse now because of the excessiveness of my weight, I think that it\u2019s important to make the connections between these types of illnesses and being overweight in general, no matter what category one falls into on a BMI chart, because one does not have to be super-morbidly obese to face these health issues.
\nHow many people weigh a whole lot less than I do and face Type 2 diabetes every day? I don\u2019t know the number, but I know that it happens, and that it\u2019s not all that uncommon anymore.
\nIn fact, I don\u2019t think any of the illnesses I have listed is exclusive to those that are super-morbidly obese. If I had continued on the path of simply being overweight, obese, or morbidly obese, I may still be facing the same health problems, albeit perhaps to a different degree.
\nSo if you\u2019re overweight, obese, morbidly obese or even super-morbidly obese, please take a moment and think about how your everyday decisions and actions could lead to the types of conditions I\u2019ve mentioned and what that could mean. Is that cheeseburger worth the risk? Is it worth the sleep apnea, the GERD, the arthritis, the shortness of breath? Is it worth making it hard to walk or is it worth the risk of Type 2 diabetes?
\nI realize that every now and again a person may have a cheeseburger or even a piece or two of pizza. But having it all of the time can be a problem. If the majority of one\u2019s diet is healthy, one may be able to afford the occasional treat, but if the majority of one\u2019s diet is not healthy, then something needs to change.
\nI know, because I\u2019ve been there and I\u2019m still facing the consequences of all those moments I chose to indulge excessively and all the moments I chose to give in to emotional overeating. I may be able to distract myself from my emotions by eating and I may even feel a little bit better for a moment, but that moment will pass and what am I left with? I\u2019m left with a long-term consequence if I do that type of thing too often.
\nIt\u2019s better to face the consequences before they happen than it is to be forced to react to them after they become a reality.
\nSo if the things I\u2019ve written about somehow speak to your circumstances at whatever level it may, please, take a moment to face the potential consequences and do a course correction before it\u2019s too late. If you\u2019re like me, and it\u2019s already too late, the consequences have already settled in, don\u2019t give up. The body is an amazing thing. It can heal itself if given the chance. Give it that chance.
\nIf you\u2019re already at a healthy weight, hold on to that. Don\u2019t let it go.
\nAnd while I realize that carrying extra pounds does not necessarily lead to obesity related illnesses all of the time, I think it is important to be conscious of how our decisions can affect our health, especially because all too often that un-glossed over realization comes after the damage is done.
\nSomehow, I hope the lessons I have learned will help someone avoid the consequences I have faced. And for those that already face those consequences, I hope that you find your way out of those consequences and back to health. That is my journey now.
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