"Heavy"--new show on A&E

I watched this with some trepidation and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I had to watch, wanting to see how the issue was handled.

There are going to be people who watch it and freak out: "How did they let themselves get so big?" and "Oh my God, fat people are just so disgusting." That's par for the course. I thought the show was quite good, better than I expected (the first episode aired last night). Both people were likable--they had their issues and owned them; they were shown struggling but making progress, falling and getting back up again.

I'm sure this show, like "Intervention" (I am a fan of that show as well), will be good sometimes and not as good other times. You simply root for some people more than others. I actually liked the trainers on this show, which was a surprise. They were real, but compassionate. It was nice to see a buffed-out trainer offering his shoulder to a man over 600 pounds who couldn't walk for more than half an hour at a time; to the camera later, buffed-out trainer remarked, "Imagine if you had to walk up a hill with a refrigerator on your back; that's what this guy has to do every day." Not all personal trainers are meant to work with obese people, obviously, and this show found two that are. (The one I had certainly wasn't! I had to laugh; the female subject of this first "Heavy" episode said, "No fat person wants to work with a personal trainer who has never been fat." Preach it, sister!) The trainers were full of praise for a job well done; they knew how to motivate and really took the time to get to know the people as individuals.

The premise of the show is to follow the people for six months. The first thirty days, the folks go to a facility where they are monitored and trained and isolated from everything. The next five months, they go home and take the tools that they use. If they gain weight, they go back to the facility.

A nutritionist went to the store with them and taught them how to shop. They dealt with things in their personal lives; one gal asked her mother to move out of her house, and how to deal with unsupportive people was addressed.

I will be interested to see how this show progresses and is received.

"The Science of Obesity" TV documentary

In May 2008, National Geographic Channel aired a special called "The Science of Obesity". Clips from it are available on Youtube, Hulu, and other sites, but I don't see any DVD availability, unfortunately. I saved it on my DVR and re-watched it again this morning.

It explores a few different reasons that people may become obese, following cases specifically--one subject who had become morbidly obese from overeating over a long period of time and who ultimately underwent gastric bypass surgery, and one subject who has a rare hormonal disease called Cushing's Syndrome, caused by tiny tumors on the pituitary gland. The second subject was particularly compelling, as she had always been thin and athletic, weighing about 130 pounds, and suddenly her weight just skyrocketed to over 300 pounds without explanation. An endocrinologist has to diagnose Cushing's, and it is extremely rare. The second subject also underwent a surgical procedure, but hers was to remove the tumors.

I really recommend this show, simply because it is a scientific discussion that brings up topics regarding obesity that are not often discussed, such as how internal organs, digestion, and the body's movement are affected by obesity. In all my research and years of medical issues and testing, I had never heard of Cushing's syndrome. Rare as this syndrome is, it is something people at least be aware of. It can be present in children as well as adults.

The statistics given by this TV special for gastric-bypass surgery were that the mortality rate for gastric bypass-related complications were 1 in 100, much less dire than the ones I remembered hearing a while back and wrote about yesterday. Also according to this show, it takes about two years to lose 100% of excess weight post-op, and up to 20% of patients regain some of the weight they have lost. It was the only weight-loss surgery discussed; WLS was not really the focus of the show. I appreciated the way the information was presented. It didn't pretend obesity couldn't be serious or problematic, but it didn't promote body hatred and shame either--one of the featured subjects simply said he wanted to feel better, enjoy his life, and hopefully be around longer. However accurate the show may be, I feel that shows like this are beneficial, simply because they raise some awareness and promote discussion.

How Long Have You Been Fat?

I don't remember not being fat. More precisely, I don't remember not being called fat. Puberty and all its hormones seemed to do a number on me--as it does on everyone, to a greater or lesser extent--but I felt like a science experiment gone awry. 3 cup sizes in one summer, for instance. Men yelling at me out of cars if I wore a shirt that wasn't too big. Boys at school giving me smiles that begged for their mouths to be washed out with soap. It was terrifying to me. There was nowhere to hide. My dearest wish at the time was to be invisible, but between the ages of 12 and 16 felt like the most visible time of my life. I learned to wear baggy clothes, to make jokes, and to grit my teeth.

I lived with one family member who forced me to do situps until I felt sick and ate ice cream in front of me. I was eight years old at the time. I responded by stealing--money to buy food. I learned to hoard food and to stuff myself when I was able to eat, not knowing when I would be allowed to eat again or how much.

Doctors first became involved when I was about thirteen, first to find out if my accelerated cup growth wasn't abnormal. The diets began. Every stupid diet in the '80s, and there were many.

I tried smoking cigarettes to see if that would make me thin. It didn't.

I lived with another family member in my teens who did not allow me to eat with the rest of the family. I had special diet food, most of it frozen and all of it tasteless. He tried to put me on a doctor-supervised diet where I counted calories--1200 a day--and threw a scale at me one day after I got on it at his command and it read 150. It was an old metal scale, and he was a big man, but I ducked and it missed me.

When the bariatric surgeon asked me what my goal weight was two days ago, I said, "180. In my dreams, 150." He told me, matter-of-factly, I could probably weigh 120 after all was said and done, depending on how hard I was willing to work. I don't remember weighing anywhere near 120; it was probably about the fifth grade. I still can't get that number out of my mind; it is like being told, "Oh, yeah. You can go to the moon."

I became bulimic when I was about fifteen. I abused laxatives and diuretics, felt sick all the time, exercised constantly: aerobics, swimming laps, walking. I binged and purged. Calories, fat grams, and numbers on the scale lined my prison walls, and I never got thin. I never even got average. There's nothing quite like starving yourself for days, the loudest sound in the universe the ferocious growl of your echoing stomach. You're dizzy with hunger, and teenage boys are mooing at you anyway.

After about three years, I gave up on bulimia. I had gained 30 or 40 pounds. I was about eighteen years old by this time. I gave up, period, and concentrated on day-to-day survival.

I continued to gain weight through my 20s and 30s. In my 20s, I remember thinking things like, "Well, I'm okay, and if this is as fat as I'm going to get, that's fine." It started to hurt to walk. I couldn't find clothes to fit me without mail order. I didn't care; I was just trying to get through college and find myself in the world. It took me eight years to get a four-year degree. I dropped out four times, but I went back five times. I got the Bachelors degree when I was 28. I started a Masters program a few months later, ten days after marrying my first husband. I dropped out of the Masters after one quarter; it was just not where I wanted to be and I needed to get into the job market.

My first husband and I tried to have a baby, which required fertility drugs because I had PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). With these drugs, I could get pregnant, but not stay pregnant. The body mimics pregnancy on them, so the taker is in for a roller-coaster ride of symptoms. I had an ectopic pregnancy and several miscarriages within a couple of years and was never able to achieve a live birth. I had a myriad of other female problems, including a cancer scare, and ultimately underwent a full abdominal hysterectomy at the age of 32. The first reaction of many people was to say, "Oh, you'll lose weight!" I don't know what planet they were receiving transmissions from or why they thought I even cared about my weight right then, as I was busy grieving, not only the fact that I could never have children, but my eventual divorce and the loss of my closest friend of 25 years. It was hard to find reasons to get out of bed in the morning for a span of time that seemed endless.

My weight never decreased after the hysterectomy. In fact, it shot up another 20 to 40 pounds and has hovered in that range ever since. Once I had my PCOS diagnosis, which came with type II diabetes, high cholesterol, and sleep apnea, I changed my diet drastically--for the better. I did more aerobics, used a treadmill, swam laps, bought a recumbent stationery bicycle. There were times I could lose as much as forty or fifty pounds, but it would not stay off for more than a few months.

I met and married my second husband at the highest weight I have ever been. He sees the person I am, having been blessed with that all-too-rare gift of knowing that people are who they are on the inside--a concept many pay lip service to, but do not really practice. He is an average-size person who is horrified by the actions and comments of other people regarding my weight, many of them strangers. He has seen me struggle, feel physically crappy all the time, and try to sleep normally or even find a comfortable seated position. He has heard me say "I shouldn't eat that" more times than he can count--several times a week. He sits across from me in restaurants; he will order fries and a milkshake, I will order a salad and water. He has seen me struggle with depression when I have so many reasons to be content. He is one of them.

It was not his idea for me to pursue bariatric surgery; I was dead-set against bariatric surgery for many years, but have researched it all along, because I believe in knowing what I'm arguing about. He would like me to live a long time and to be around so we can be together, and he supports whatever I choose. He is the cook in our house, and for the past two years, I have eaten better food than I have ever eaten. Fresh, organic, the works. It has affected my weight not at all.

I recently turned forty. The thing that distressed me about the number 40 was not vanity or the loss of youth--I never really felt young--but the notion that our time on this Earth is limited and I would like to enjoy whatever is left of mine a lot more than I am.

That's how long I have been fat. That's why I am doing this.

Only the Beginning

I recently started the process as a serious candidate for bariatric surgery and it seemed like a good framework to begin a blog. I am going through health insurance to do this, so it is an involved process requiring years of documentation, a physician-supervised and monitored diet and exercise program, a psychological evaluation, and more. People I know have many questions about how it works, what the timelines are, and just about every other imaginable aspect of it, and that I thought perhaps a blog would be the way to go. So I'm giving it a try.

My intention is not to write Only Specifically a Bariatric Surgery Blog, or The Definitive Bariatric Surgery Blog, and I hope that isn't all this one is going to be or sound like. I would like to believe that just about everything about me as a human being and what I have to say is more important than my Body Mass Index. A complicated series of events that took place over decades brought me here, and are only one part of the story, as they are for most people in my current position.

Considering bariatric surgery is a more complicated and involved process than one might imagine who hasn't had the need to investigate it completely. It's not an easy cure or way out, not a magic bullet, as many people with an opinion but not education regarding the topic seem to believe. (I have been researching this topic for about ten years and I learn something new about it every day, in part because it is always changing.) Bariatric surgery is one optional tool to help the obese people who choose to have it manage their weight and health in coordination with healthy lifestyle changes in diet and exercise. It is not an easy thing to decide to have, maintain properly once it has happened, and for many, it is not an easy thing to pay for. There is no guarantee that it will be effective, though it has worked for many people.

I am not going to talk about whether this surgery is right or wrong. Its inherent risks are well-documented and the choice to have or not have this surgery is up to the individual. If you believe bariatric surgery is a cop-out, I very much doubt I can change your mind. (My own mind tends to change when I decide it changes, and not a moment sooner.) Most people who reach the point of having bariatric surgery feel that they have tried every possible measure, both healthy and unhealthy, to lose weight--and I count myself among them. Diets, exercise programs, medications, eating disorders, drinks and pills and bars that taste like cardboard coated in flavor-free goo but that just might be full of that all-important protein are a regular part of our lives, along with the conflict that goes into every bite we take or even think about taking. The world at large feels entitled to have a opinion about our bodies--not just our own families and friends, but doctors, adult strangers, even children we've never laid eyes on before. We cannot go anywhere without thinking, am I going to fit in the seats there? We can't put on our walking shoes without thinking, Is some guy going to yell names at me out of the car today? Before we grocery shop, we wonder how many people are going to stare at what's in our cart this time. We try to be ready for any comment some nimrod throws our way, but the nimrods of Earth come up with some real lulus, usually when you're in a good mood, having managed to forget for a few minutes that you're fat and that your very presence offends the world. Contrary to popular belief, we didn't all get this way from sitting at home eating cheeseburger after cheeseburger. As my husband--whose weighs approximately half what I do--is fond of pointing out, "We have the same diet."

I begin this blog today with the hope of documenting my journey to a healthier life with more purpose. When they asked me why I wanted this surgery, I said, "To feel better." That pretty much says it all.