so i was watching discovery health last night and they did a few shows with "super morbidly obese" people. it was really sad. my body always seemed to top out at 220, seriously, with no activity and eating anything i wanted, i just never seemed to go over 220. i wonder sometimes how it gets to the point where people are confined to bed and can't do anything.
does anyone here think that they could've ended up like that if they hadn't taken control?
My warning sign was buying a pair of size 32 jeans at The Avenue. Seriously, I had tried losing weight multiple times and had been on/off a diet since I was 9 years old but really I started thinking about what would happen if I could no longer fit pants in the biggest size available in the store. I was 364ish pounds. Although it took me 5 years from that point to actually lose any weight but I bounced between 330/360 for 5 years.
I have this fear all the time, that sick feeling you get when you imagine the way a situation could easily have been much worse.. but you know, I think it's a good fear to have.
It means then that you do have a top off point where you hold your hands up and say, Whoa, enough already..
I definitely think I could have ended up like that...with no end in sight to the weight gain. I am a food addict and I have a problem with compulsive binge eating. I would eat and eat until I was sick. It was so uncomfortable and yet, I would search for more. I have a better handle on it now and I haven't had a binge since around Halloween and even that was only once since September, but if I didn't get myself together, I would just be gaining with no end.
This may sound insensitive and I really don't want it to because I feel SO sad for people who are so over weight they cannot get out of bed, but: why do their caregivers make so much food for them? Why don't they just bring them less food? Maybe do a very gradual decrease? I know that the person who has to lose weight has to be on board and in charge, but this is life and death here, so I just wondered if anyone knows what could be going on there?
luckymommy- i cant remember the name of the show, but in one of them many carers tried to do that. Some of the obese people would call out and get food delivered from pizza hut, etc, and hide it from their carers. I think in those cases it really has to be treated as an addiction
Yes, thanks Iconised. It's just so hard to fathom since you would think that they could remove their access to a phone, anything. I think maybe some part of the caregiver is either afraid of the rejection/anger from the person they're helping or maybe they are contributing to the problem is some sick way. I dunno, but I guess it varies.
There have been times when my hubby has tried to stop me mid-binge and I would absolutely not let him....also, most of the time, he didn't even see me since I was a secret binge eater. I'm so ashamed to admit (although not here, since it's safe, but even to myself) that I would buy myself cakes and cookies and hide them from everyone just to sneak them as much as I could. I would even take them to another room, lock the door and eat them as if I had to just force them down my throat or something sick like that. Once, I bought some deserts for Xmas for my kid's teachers and I kept one of the tins and kept it under my bed and ate it when no one was around. I still keep it there as a reminder of how far I've come.
So yeah, I get it and I could very well have become that large. I am so grateful that I'm doing so much better. I wish I never had this problem, but I still think it's better than having a problem with meth or alcohol. But, maybe that's just me.
I remember going into a large department store to buy a pair of jeans and the largest waist size they carried for my pants length was one inch too short. I would think most people would get to a point where they couldn't do enough "normal people" things that they would change, but obviously not everybody does.
A few years ago I would have said no. My body didn't go past 190 when I gained weight. Now... I am not so sure that I wouldn't end up like that. I am up to 217 & still can't get a grip on this eating thing. I am trying though.
Yes, thanks Iconised. It's just so hard to fathom since you would think that they could remove their access to a phone, anything. I think maybe some part of the caregiver is either afraid of the rejection/anger from the person they're helping or maybe they are contributing to the problem is some sick way. I dunno, but I guess it varies.
there might also be the fear that removing the phone means that they cant call for help when the carer isnt there, but they could get a medic alert bracelet or something i guess
As for super morbid obesity - I'm still there. As for bed-bound, I got dangerously close (and not entirely out of danger, in that regard). I was having so many health problems especially respiratory that I couldn't leave the house easily. I was mobile, but not very - and with the chronic bronchitis and frequent bouts of pneumonia I spent a lot more time in bed than I care to remember. The sicker I got, the less active I became, the fewer calories I needed, the more I yielded to comfort foods (mostly carbs) the lower my metabolism got and the more cravings I had for comfort carbs, the sicker I got, .... Endless spiral downward.
For me, only a few happy accidents prevented me from going down that road to bed-bound. Probably the most dramatic (though not the first) was discovering that NSAID pain relievers were causing what my doctors had diagnoses asthma and COPD. Unfortunately the discovery wasn't made until after causing significant scarring on my lungs (which is kind of sad, because this reaction to NSAIDs isn't uncommon, but instead of suspecting NSAIDs - doctors just prescribed more and more asthma meds, never mentioning to me the possible connection).
Ironically, now when hubby and I watch these shows, my husband says that he would never be an accomplice to that for someone - forgetting how much he was (and still can be).
Once you become bed-bound (even part-time), your metabolism does drop significantly. You wouldn't believe how much. So, it really does take a lot less food than you would think to maintain your weight (but if you can't get food for yourself, your caretaker should be able to keep reducing the food until you DO lose weight, even if he or she has to limit you to only 600 calories worth of food - at least in theory, right? At some point, you should start losing.)
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. When I was really sick with the bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia, all I could do was sit in bed and watch tv, read, and sometimes do a bit of needlework. Getting to the bathroom was tough. Showering was tough (I needed a shower chair, and even then just taking a shower would exhaust me. I'd have to rest before I had the energy to towel dry).
Hubby was constantly trying to cheer my up, mostly with food. I don't think he realized how much. I tried to be very aware of it. I did (and do) well enough to keep from gaining, and losing slowly, but it's still a constant battle.
I spend a lot less time bed-bound, though I still do have boughts of the pneumonia, and other issues that do occasionally knock me out of commission for a while - and I have to be very aware of what I'm eating, because hubby still has a tendency to want to overfeed me when I'm sick.
It's part of the nurturing instinct "can I get you anything?" "Can I do anything to cheer you up?"
I think there's also an aspect of a person's world becoming so small, that food becomes their only enjoyment and loved ones can be hesitant to take that away.
And there's also the selfish aspect. Being a caregiver is stressful, and food is a tranquilizer, and can make a person easier to manage. Hubby has admitted as much to me, regarding my PMDD hunger issues. I would get so cranky and ill-tempered before and around TOM (and only worse if I was trying to diet, and/or I was also ill) that hubby was bringing home fast food burgers (the only time of the month I wanted a burger) for his own sake. Essentially, it kept me quiet, and off his back.
It's been a real battle to work for our own - and each other's best interest. It doesn't take many just-this-onces to derail progress. Then the what's-the-uses start coming out.
I think most people thing "it will never happen to me," until it does. And it's not just bed-bound super morbid obesity. STDs, unplanned pregnancies, marital infidelities, divorces, alcoholism, drug addiction (and I'm not comparing or calling each of these equivalent)... all manner of foreseeable, preventable consequences.
Everyone makes a few poor choices. Some people are able to keep the poor choices to a minimum, some learn to make fewer poor choices (or at least a constant level) life long. Others end up on a poor choice spiral, each bad choice making the next bad choice that much easier, and the undoing of it more difficult.
Not excusing the behavior, but it's not nearly as simple as it looks from the outside.
I have never feared that I would become superobese, but I did become obese and that was scary enough for me.
I never thought I was on the road to alcoholism, either, but I was. I stopped drinking a long, long time ago.
It's really easy to think, Why didn't the carers just cut off the food, take away the phone, etc. It seems like a simple solution. But there is such a thing as individual rights in this country. Look up "false imprisonment," which is a crime. Even at Brookhaven Clinic, the director decided that it was pointless to try to force some people to give up their takeout, because when he tried that, the clients just left. I think that the situation develops really slowly, and by the time someone is bedbound or wheelchair bound, it takes serious medical intervention to change things. Edited to add: AND it takes the consent of the client!
could it have been you?
