475.3

A few days ago I accompanied my wife to a doctor’s appointment to check up on our soon to be born twin girls.  While we were waiting to check out I took the chance to weigh myself on an unattended nearby scale since I’m too heavy for conventional bathroom scales.  I was quite dismayed at the result which is also the title of this post.  Being that it also came more than 40 days since I quit eating sugar and began exercising regulary it is quite concievable that I would have tipped the scales at 500 pounds when I wrote my first post in this blog.

How can that be?  I know that I am heavier than I have ever been, but I had not imagined numbers nearly as staggering as what I found myself staring down a few short days ago.  I didn’t even deem it possible to be 500 pounds and still be walking around going about my business.  When people throw around those kinds of numbers I envision h0spital beds and IV’s.

When I saw what I saw on the scales digital display that day I was immediately disheartened and embarrased.  I quickly zeroed the scale before anybody could see what most people probably already assume just by looking at me.  The shameful feelings I felt came natuarally but not rightfully.  Our society paints the obese in a manner that ultimately questions their self control and self respect.  We are told that we are fat because we got lazy, give up to easily, and don’t try hard enough.  Weight loss and keeping yourself fit is treated much more like a vanity issue than a health issue which allows the media to indirectly pass judgement on fat people with out much backlash.

Even now that I firmly believe with all I am that my weight and my shape are not my fault I am still filled with the same negative feelings toward myself that I have been programmed to emote since I was very young.  The thing that people don’t understand about obesity is that it is only a symptom, it is not the disease.  Ask a yo-yo dieter how successful they have been at treating the symptom of being too fat for great periods of time.  The disease of sugar addiction is the root cause for me and many many others who are often led astray even by their doctors.

It is not our fault.  We are not weak minded or lacking discipline.  We are sick and suffering from a disease.  As unsightly as I may look, it doesn’t compare to the damage going on inside my body.  Hypoglycemia, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer are some of the very real risks facing the obese.  We just don’t see those things when we look at them.  Too often even I am guilty of just seeing a weak minded, lazy, sloppy soul with no self respect.

As miserable and unconvenient as it is to be obese, I am willing to wager that most people who suffer from the condition have tried very hard to change it.  Whether it be because they found it hard to move, hard to fit in cars or chairs, hard to be confident and outgoing, or hard to be snickered at and ridculed.  When somebody weighs 500 pounds it is not because that person doesn’t want to stop eating and lose weight, it is because he or she cannot.

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