Bariatric Betty looks at Sticks and Stones

...but names will never hurt me.  Right.  I am confident that every person on this planet has been teased, tormented, or verbally abused at some point or another.  And we all know it hurts. 

Being overweight seems to attract insults like a magnet.  Somehow our society thinks it's acceptable to laugh at someones weight,and some even call them names to their faces.  I have always hated the train of thought that says people need to develop thicker skin, or take it as encouragement to make a change in their lives.  Yes, there is definitely something positive about being able to assimilate into society and it's standards.  But why is it so hard to accept someone overweight? 

I think that many people continue to think that people are fat because they are lazy.  Or stupid.  That we don't know that eating too much and exercising too little makes us fat - or that we don't care.  Don't they understand that nobody WANTS to be fat?  That all of us have dieted.  We have all lost weight.  And most of us have gained it back.  Plus more.  That many of us would remain overweight if we even ate just the 1800 calories in the USDA recommendations.  In the case of those of us looking at bariatric surgery, we will be committing ourselves to eating under 1000 calories for 1-2 years.  And even later, we will probably not eat more than 1300 calories for the rest of our lives.  That doesn't seem so simple, does it?

I think what really bothers me is that people make judgements about others without having a clue about them.  Do they know that you've been exercising every day for the last month?   Or that you are losing a pound every week?  Or that you are going to have surgery to try and have success for the first time in your life by sacrificing your diet, your time, your money, and addressing your deepest issues.  No, they make assumptions based on your appearance that you are less worthy of their respect and kindness.

This reminds me of a story I read a long time ago.  Paraphrasing to the best of my memory:  It was about a man riding home on the train or bus.  Some kids were running loose; screaming, laughing, and falling into other passengers.  Through it all, he notices that the father is sitting there, doing nothing about their poor behavior.  Eventually the father catches the upset look and quietly says "I'm so sorry, I know I should tell them to sit down and be quiet.  But you see, we've spent the whole day at the hospital with their mother.  She's dying.  And after they were quiet all day with her, I just don't have it in me to be mad at them and tell them to be quiet again."  I've always remembered that story - that we DON'T know the story behind other people.  What they gone through.  What they are going through right now. 

Instead of being viewing fat people as funny, disgusting, or sad - think of them as brave.  Every step they take uses more energy than a healthy person's step.  They have frequently gone to work or bed hungry even with food in the house, in hopes they could be healthier the next day.  Their brain has different reactions to even images or descriptions of food - behaving much like an addict's brain when it is on drugs.  Those of  us who have considered or gotten weight loss surgery like a gastric bypass have risked our lives with major surgery to get healthy.  Most of us would probably consider brain surgery if it could cure obesity. 

Instead, look at us and somewhere inside you, think "Good Luck". 

And if that doesn't make sense, think of it this way.  Most of the adults in the U.S. are at least overweight now, and unfortunately more are gaining weight all the time.  Hope it won't include you and your loved ones.  Or that one of us doesn't sit on you ;)

Bariatric Betty gets the call, just in time.

First, a warning, there is a rant coming...
A lot of things happened this week, starting this weekend.  I took the family to a local apple orchard where we got to pick our own apples.  It was a beautiful sunny day, my waistline is smaller than it's been in a year thanks to my increased exercising and decreased after dinner snacks, and I felt great.  Most of the best apples were high up on the tree, so after sending my older son to climb up a couple of times, I left him on one tree and climbed another next to it.  My younger son was with me and I climbed up about three or four feet and started picking.  When I came down I was pretty pleased with myself until I saw my older son stomping towards me. 

It turned out he had overheard a family laughing at me, saying "I bet that branch is going to break with that fat lady on it".  He was trying hard to restrain himself from going and starting a fight.  My younger son looked like he wanted to cry.  The family had moved on, and I steered us into another part of the orchard.  It's not the first time my weight has been made fun of, but that hurt my kids.  Try explaining that some insecure people are going to always find something to make fun of other people about - and that it's not worth getting mad over.  Not a fun discussion.  I tried to make light of it by saying "at least next year there will be less of me for people to make fun of..."

Here's the truth.  I feel horrible.  My kids had to hear people laughing at me.  And it is those cruel people who are responsible for their pain.  But I have to take responsibility for being a target.  I know that I'm working on losing weight.  I know I don't deserve to be made fun of.  But I also know that there are ways that you attract the wrong sort of attention and if I had already lost the weight, they probably wouldn't have sad anything this weekend.  Of course, they might have made comments about my chest, or my clothes or anything else, but something about being overweight paints a neon target sign on people.  Don't they think I would be thin if it was easy?  I know that most thin people don't understand the difficulty of losing a signifigant amount of weight (and keeping it off) when you're obese.  That over 85% of us either don't succeed in the first place, or gain it back.  And some people think that having a gastric bypass is "the easy way" to lose weight.  They don't understand that I'll still be on a restricted diet for the REST OF MY LIFE.  That I will never be able to eat as many calories as a naturally thin person.  My body will not stay a healthy weight if I eat like they do. 

I read a quote from an actress recently that talked about how she easily lost weight for a role recently.  She said "you just have to want it enough, eat less, and exercise more".  She went from being skinny to being underweight for the role.  Does she realize that she gained the weight she lost back, too?  For her, that was healthy, but I'm sure she was relieved to stop feeling hungry.  I'm happy for people who can eat the proper amount of food and feel satisfied and stay a healthy weight.  But my brain doesn't work like theirs, my metabolism doesn't work like theirs, and I'm always tired because I'm carrying around 100 extra pounds.  It's not easy.  Don't people like that understand that we wouldn't subject ourselves to lifelong dieting and surgery if there was any other way that we had found to make it work???

So when I spoke to Diane, my Patient Advocate at Hospital C for the rest of my life, on Tuesday it couldn't have come at a better time.  She recommended that I see a P.A. (physician's assistant) at a health services center nearby because he does a fabulous job documenting medically supervised weight loss for the insurance company, I called and made an appointment.  I meet him later today.

I also returned the elliptical I bought at Walmart for $200.  It was wobbly and having problems with the LCD screen and starting to make louder thumping noises when I used it, so I got a full refund.  Luckily, I found a used Nordic Track elliptical for $150 through craigslist, and bought it.  So now I have a better elliptical that was more affordable and I am back on it daily!  90 days from now, I should be able to get pre-certified approval for the surgery from my insurance company.  I'm on track, and not looking back.