Starting weight 241.2lbs
Current weight 240.8lbs
Weight lost 0.4lbs
There are a million reasons I’m this fat. I like food. It feels normal, because I’ve been obese since I was at least eight. My mum always pushed food on me, and was angry at me for being wasteful if I ever didn’t finish my plate piled with rice. My home was a bit repressed and we didn’t really know how to express feelings except through the medium of food; Sad? Eat! Happy? Eat! Celebrating? Eat! Commiserating? Eat! Bored? Eat? Trying to make someone feel better? Eat! Trying to tell someone you’re worried about them? Eat! Don’t know what to do? Eat! No matter the question, eating was the answer.
I have actually done pretty well at not letting my weight dictate my life to me. I know that most of our limitations are the ones we put on ourselves. I have travelled across Asia and Africa as a lone female traveller. I have ridden a camel in the sand dunes of the Thar desert. I have gone clubbing with my friends and walked home with them as the sun rose the next morning. I have done treetop assault courses. I have run a 5k for charity. I have walked 12 miles across Barcelona in a day, just because it was sunny and I wanted to explore. I went to university and got my medical degree. I was brave and put up an online dating profile that made no attempt whatsoever to hide my size. I even put up ‘honest’ photos so potential dates would know what they were getting, and I didn’t have to be terrified that they would turn up on the first date and be disappointed. I wear what I please, pretty dresses that compliment my curves, not the baggy monstrosities I used to use to hide away from the world. When my favourite man in the world asked me to marry him, I know it was because he loves me exactly as I am, and has never asked me to change for him, and never will.
I live my life holding my head held up high and knowing that I’m as good anyone else. I deserve a place in this world. I have made every effort to do all the things I want, putting my weight in a little box marked ‘irrelevant’. I’m proud of that.
Now my weight is still not restricting me. My wedding dress terror was remedied by a gorgeous dress with a flattering shape and some impressive corsetry. I know the people in my life love me truly. I can still keep up at work. I can generally do all the things that I want to do. But, I know this can’t last forever. I’ve been playing with fire for too long.
While I would generally like to be more ‘trim and toned’, my health is becoming an overriding concern. My life so far has allowed me to sidestep the issue of my weight, but I know it won’t be long before it catches up with me. My dad died of a heart attack at 57, my mum is a diabetic with angina and mobility problems. Every day at work, I see patients who lose limbs, function and years of their lives due to poor lifestyle choices. The old crumblies in bad shape aren’t the ones that scare me. It’s the middle-aged folks that just didn’t see it coming. The ones who didn’t realise that they could lose a limb to diabetes, and that being so unfit to begin with would make it so hard to progress with rehab and ever walk again. The ones so big that one day they just sat down and never stood up again. The ones who never saw it coming, that never thought that the heart attack or the renal failure, or the intractable infected ulcers would ever happen to them. I feel like my work is just a massive parade of warnings that I haven’t been paying attention to.
I don’t want to have a big health scare of my own before I am spurred into action. When I look at the man I love I can’t bear the idea of ever losing him, or of ever having to burden him with my self-imposed failing health. I don’t want him to be stuck with me in a wheelchair, going to dialysis three times a week, not being able to go the places we want to go, because I’ve been negligent. I hate the idea of having kids while I’m like this: running the risk of complications like gestational diabetes, not being able to keep up with them, not being a good role model for them, not being around to see them grow up...
The wedding and the kids issues have spurred me on a bit. I want to look great on my big day. Despite my I’m-as-good-as-anyone attitude, I’m still basically terrified of being the centre of attention, and my size is a really big part of that. The dress is helping, but there is still quite a way to go before I’ll be at my most confident.
The kids issue is more complicated. My fiance has Huntington’s disease in his family; he is currently at a 25% risk of developing it, and our kids would be at a 12.5% risk. It is late-occurring in his family (60s-70s), but the effects are pretty devastating. There is a form of IVF called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PIGD) that would allow us to select unaffected embryos, and eliminate any risk to our kids. It is a pretty revolutionary idea, but daunting in its own way. To have it for free on the NHS, you have to satisfy quite a few criteria. As a couple, we satisfy every single one… apart from ‘the female partner should have a BMI of more than 19 and less than 30’.
My weight loss journey is about more than just my health, it’s about protecting my kids before they even exist.
So, I am ready to this. I am motivated. I am going to make myself proud.