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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Ask a 300 lb. Nestie
I will say that I never hear anything mean said to me as an adult. I am SO sorry to those of you who do hear the anti-catcalls. That is bullshiit. I'm a teacher, so the kids may talk behind my back, but whatever, they'd do that anyway. I'm also pretty nice, sometimes because I don't want to be "Ms. Bunnybean, that fat biitch."
Although actually a few years ago, someone did call out to me as I walked up some steps to a nice dinner...on my birthday. I don't even remember what it was, but it was mean and definitely directed at me. ON MY BIRTHDAY!
I was alone, which was such a blessing. My husband was already inside. Even though he's awesome, I would never want anyone else to hear it and pity me. That makes it worse.
The Gardettos and Skittles are totally a rarity here, too. Leftovers from the Girl's birthday celebration stuff. It's like post-Thanksgiving foods around here in early April!
I've pretty much always eaten like this. Actually, I was a vegetarian for 12 years (between when I was about 22 to 34). During some of that time I was actually also eating no dairy and food combining (as recommended by a friend) and I was still pretty much a fattie.
I've moved more to things like brown rice and quinoa (instead of white rice) and smaller amounts of tastier things (like the jalepeno goat cheese, which I use way less of than conventional cheese), but it's more of a wanting to eat better and more interesting foods now that the kids are around.
Biggest problem for me is probably that we eat out too much (often unplanned, because we're running around). In those circumstances we try not to do fast food, but any eating out isn't going to be as good as eating at home. Full stop.
I've pretty much always been overweight. I was a totally skinny skinny little kid, but I was sick all the time. I had my tonsils out when I was six, stopped being sick, and got heavier. I was about 160-170 lbs on 5' 7" through high school and college. I'm 43 now, and have had two children (and two major abdominal surgeries) in the meantime, and I'm hovering around 200 lbs.
More or less activity isn't as helpful to my weight as I'd hope. In the months leading up to my wedding, I was doing Bikram yoga daily (like 6-7 days a week for months and months). Bikram is an hour and a half of yoga in a 110 -120 degree room. You'd think I'd lose weight, and I really didn't. My H, though doing fewer workouts than me (he was more likely to blow it off) made a visible difference in his appearance in the same time period.
Right now my goal is to increase my activity level, at least formally. It gets easier in the springtime, running around outside after two kids, but we've resolved to join the Y, where we can work out, swim, and have child care while we do it.
I am the 99%.
My parents are overweight. Well, they are obese. They both got worse as adults, even though my mom was a chubby kid, then a very slender teen and young adult, and then she loves to say how she got so much worse after her C-section with me.
My mom hates her body and always has. She therefore prevented us from ever having anything yummy. I never had sugared cereal, pop tarts, candy, etc. at home. So I was denied anything fun ever, and as a result, would go hog wild when I finally saw those things. We also ate out more than we should. So we were healthy at home, but then I'd eat nuggets and fries and burgers out.
It is so painful for me to think of the things my mom said to me growing up. Like one time she accused me of being like an anorexic person, but in reverse. You know how anorexics still think they look fat even though they're so thin? Well, I thought I looked okay, even though I looked horrible. It was like being with Lucille Bluth, only it wasn't funny and I wasn't actually cute and thin like Lindsey.
ETA: I forgot to add that I also was the busiest child on the planet. I took ballet, tap, jazz, played soccer, played piano, was a Girl Scout, etc. Then when I was older, I still played soccer, and then got into Irish dance, where I competed and sometimes won! AS A FATTIE!
I was never "lazy." My ass was always outside moving.
I think my parents could have encouraged more outdoor activity or organized sports. They aren't really sports people. My mom played field hockey and swam, but wasn't really a jock. My dad is outdoorsy, but I don't think he really did organized sports.
We played outside as kids, especially in the summer, and I did a little dance (age 12-15) and my brother did karate twice a week, but it wasn't really enough, and it wasn't seen as important when compared to, say, piano lessons. Or homework, of course.
My parents were both hard on me about eating and also not. There were some things they wouldn't keep in the house, like ice cream. There were some things we had all the time, like soda and chips.
I didn't struggle with my weight - I guess I was high-normal - until puberty. My mom started getting on me about my diet when I was tipping the scales into high overwight/obese. But she never helped me with figuring out how to be more active and healthy, or how to eat the right foods. Just, "don't eat until you're full! Save some room!" But that's because SHE didn't really know.
I literally have major trouble stopping before I'm full. I need to portion my food and count every calorie or else I can very easily go overboard. I can eat healthy food, I just eat way too much of it. And if I felt like I wanted/craved a treat? I would sneak it somewhere and eat it and try to hide the evidence. This would include things like 6 ounces of cheese, or a bag of chips/cookies.
So, yeah. They weren't terrible parents. They didn't take me to McDonalds every week. We ate out maybe 1-2 times per month. My dad would pack my lunch when I was a kid (sandwich, drink, piece of fruit) and we always ate dinner as a family - a whole dinner, main and sides. Usually no dessert. But there are things I would do differently with my own children.
I also hate to say it, but my genetics are crap. My dad's mother was a tiny, tiny woman, but my dad takes after his father, which is to say stocky with a propensity to rotund. My dad actually exercises okay - he runs with the dog. But his body shape is that of "roundish." Everyone in my mom's family has struggled with weight. Everyone. My mom is only 5'4", but some of her great aunts are just large women - 5'10", close to 300 pounds. (One of whom used to say, "hmm, looks like you put on a little weight" every single time she saw my mom!) This is why high end of normal/low end of overweight seems do-able for me. For my height, technically I could be 120 pounds and be "normal." BWAHAHA! Yeah right.
40/112
OP,
I wanted to echo everyone else who said you're not alone. I hit over 300 when I was pregnant.
I hope that you're able to get the help that you need and deserve to make you happier.
Good luck you and ::creepy internet stranger hugs::.
Yup, this was our house. Although another added component for me was that my grandparents would have all the good stuff at their house - the ice cream, sugary cereal, the white bread. I also had a strained relationship with my Mom growing up, and a great one with my grandparents. Guess what? Over time, I started equating the fact that I loved going to me Grandparents house with good food. Happiness started equaling food for me. Plus, since I knew I wasn't supposed to be eating that stuff, it was like a rush from doing something forbidden.
Both my parents were overweight, my mom moreso than my dad.
The big thing for me, I've come to realize, is that they valued stillness... like, it was all "sit down and be still" and such. I wasn't encouraged to do any sports, or any activity that involved moving around. At all. Like, the only organized moving around I did was in gym class, which I hated.
I am the 99%.
So, between TTT's mom and bunny's, there's a happy medium I hope? I like to think that's the way my parents were. They ate really healthy (my dad started when he was single, so he could start dating again), but treats weren't forbidden. They were just a lot more rare than most households.
My mom did go overboard on the requirement for healthy snacks, but we're still talking about "healthy" like fat free granola bars. At least she didn't make me eat a raw green pepper like one of my babysitters during my dad's single days.
Ohhhh yeah, me too. My grandmother would ask, "do you guys want your ice cream now or do you want to wait a little while?" Like we had a daily ration of ice cream.
40/112
I hope so, too. I feel sad for my mom because I realize how unhappy she is/was about her size, so I'm not angry with her anymore. But I really, really, really don't want to do what she did.
My grandma was the same way. She would get the giganto tub of neapolitan ice cream from the commissary every few weeks. She, my grandpa and my at-the-time-14-year-old-uncle would eat the chocolate and vanilla right away. When I stayed with them, she would give me a strawberry ice cream cone every day until the strawberry ice cream was gone.
My mom was in the middle ground. She was overweight when I was a child, is overweight not. Not obese just overweight. She's as smo put it earlier, a middle.
I don't want to say she was always on a diet but she was always trying to start over on her healthy eating plan and try to exercise more. My mom never skipped meals, never drank lemon and cayenne pepper, didn't do anything of that fad diet stuff or even count calories. But we had TONS of healthy eating/weight loss cookbooks around.
She focused solely on raising her activity level and preparing healthier meals and snacks. By healthier, I mean she would meal plan things like turkey chili made with healthier ingredients, switch out hamburger helper with stir fry, buy less ice cream and make more smoothies. Things like that. It worked out pretty well as I know how to feed my kids healthy plus it led to her introducing foods we probably wouldn't have eaten otherwise, particularly vegetables.
I do have issues with disordered eating but mine come from a combination of childhood tummy troubles and growing up broke. I was lactose intolerant as a child but we didn't know that. A standard breakfast in my house included a glass of milk with oatmeal or milk in my cereal. Both would give me a stomach ache from hell but instead of knowing to stop trying to drink milk, I stopped eating breakfast. Now just the thought of eating in the morning gives me a stomach ache. For the growing up broke part, as a teenager, I used my babysitting money to buy the type of food that didn't fit in our budget. I also used to use my babysitting money to take us all out to eat. Because of that, I tend to view yummy food as a treat. Yummy food has sentimental value to me that's difficult for me to walk away from. Like Ben and Jerry's literally makes me feel awesome in ways that the yogurt my mom used to buy, while equally tasty doesn't give me the same feeling.
My only saving grace is that while I eat junk and eat strangely, I don't eat very much.
Click me, click me!
Oh, I forgot school lunches. School lunches were gross (except when I lived in Guam because those were awesome) and we qualified for free lunch so there was no way my mom was going to let me make my lunch when we were so broke.
So I didn't eat breakfast because it would make me sick. I only ate the non-gross options from my school lunch like the fruit cup, pulling the meat out of the bread (except for the hamburger which looked like ass), corn, turkey, etc.
Now that I'm an adult, I don't eat breakfast and then I pick at what sounds good. I really don't eat until dinner, just like I did as a child.
That one chick yammering about self control doesn't realize just how damned hard it is to overcome childhood programming. It would be like asking someone to stop brushing their teeth every morning.
As an aside, thanks to school as a child, I also have no urge to use the bathroom during the day while I'm at work but I have to piss like a mofo the minute I see my front door when I get home. It's because I hated the bathrooms at school and just wouldn't use them. Just a random factoid.
Click me, click me!
See, this:
is something that I think a lot of people do not understand. At some point in the physiology of a human who is overweight, a real, biological change happens that makes weight loss incredibly difficult. I have not had weight problems but sure, struggle with vanity pounds and guilt over the fact I just ate a cookie and a peppermint patty - but I also know that if I reduce my calories I will lose weight. And for me that happens when I go down below 1800 calories a day. I would go mad on 1200 calories a day. People who say that "fatties don't have willpower" have NO CLUE what willpower they do have - it is evident in every extreme diet an overweight person tries. The simple fact is that among overweight people, it is objectively harder to lose weight.
Bunny, how are you feeling on 1600 calories and what is your rate of weight loss? Do you feel it's sustainable?
OP, I guess one question I have is have you ever found something that does work? If so, is there some way that, with the right support and possibly modification (if it's an extreme measure) that you could try anew?
Also - how do you feel about family asking about your weight? I ask because my younger brother has lost over 100 pounds in the last several years, and apart from telling him how proud I am of him, I really don't know how hard (or not) it's been to keep losing and keep it off. In a way, I feel like I discouraged so many diets before (the unhealthy kind, like ephedrine based diet pills) that I don't have a right to ask.
I am a runner, knitter, scientist, DE-IVF veteran, and stage III colon cancer survivor.
I didn't get back to this, but I hope it was apparent that I was being tongue-in-cheek and that as a fellow fattie I seem to get it a lot, like I apparently have no idea. I am WELL aware of it. I realize that my size is something people meet about me before we even "meet."
Fattie lurker chiming in.
I am 36 years old, 5'6 and currently 257 pounds. My all time high was 294 and beginning of 2012 I was 284. I've been big my whole life. I don't have many memories of childhood but the ones I have are vivid and about my weight and the cruelty of other children.
I remember being 5 and my mom having to write down everything I ate for a week so the Dr. could see why I was chunky. The only thing he could see was I had 2 bowls of cereal for breakfast so he told me mom to just give me 1. Didn't help.
I was the chubby elementary kid who got made fun of, picked last for sports and didn't have many friends. I took dance (15 years total) and got made fun of because of my size. My only friend in dance class was the little girl who was bigger than me who was also shunned due to her size. Same for middle school. I had been put on every diet when I was a kid. I would starve myself the day of weigh in then pig out.
At 15 yo I hit 155 pounds and was thin for the first time ever. I liked the way I looked, but my life wasn't any better like I thought it would be. I thought if I got thin I'd be popular. Didn't happen. At 15 is also when I was raped by a 20 year old and 19 year old. The pounds came back on after that.
Graduated High School around 175 or so - size 16/18 and I thought I was so fat. I WISH I could be that "fat" again. Went off to college, ate all bad foods. Had issues with food and spending money. I realize now I was compensating for not having friends and whatnot. Senior year of college I packed on a lot of weight and I can't even tell you how or why. Graduated as a size 20 or 22 (24 in some clothes).
15 years later, countless times on Weight Watchers and Calorie Counting and I am still obese. I don't have the will power or self control. I know that. Bad food tastes SOOOOOOOOO good. I am on a Dr. supervised diet now that I hate but I felt I had to do something. Every day is a mental war to not slip and eat off plan. Every day is repeating to myself that I am worth something and I am a good person and people should like me because I am a good person. Every day I lose the internal fight with myself and I feel like crap and the spiral downwards continues.
Thank you for starting this thread. If nothing else it helps to know others get it and have been there. I mostly lurk but am trying to post more. Today's thread (the other one) hit a raw nerve in me.
Even though I am a creepy lurker, feel free to PM me or ping me if you want to chat or whatnot. Or ask me anything.
I have some questions for all who have been so good as to share:
In the field of work that I do, we talk a lot about examining "controllables" and "uncontrollables." So basically identifying the things what are the things in any situation or performance that you obviously CAN affect change on and what are the things you can't..and then figuring out how you will handle those things. (If it's uncontrollable, how can you move to let it go so it's not sapping your energy--if it's controllable how can you move to conquer it, get it out of the way etc)
What are the things you feel are controllable within your situation?
How do you use these things to your advantage? How could you better use them to your advantage?
What are the things that are uncontrollable in your situation? How do these things hold you back? Could you do more to get them out of your way?
Thanks for sharing about your experiences...I really respect that you have all been so open...I'm not obese/overweight, but I agree that this is an experience that is definitely discriminated against. It makes me sad to hear some of the things people have said to you--because you are all so awesome. Inside and out.
I'll answer this. I'm 5'6, and I weigh 195 pounds. This is pretty typical for me. I bike any where between 10-30 miles on the weekends. I also work nine hours a day as a nanny for three children in a three story house, five days a week.
Exercise - 1.5 mile bike ride (commute to and from work), 5 mile walk, core work on the yoga ball.
Breakfast - French toast using nutty oat bread (2 slices, made with 2% milk, an egg, cinnamon and nutmeg), clementine, iced coffee with a tablespoon of half and half and a sprinkle each of raw sugar and cinnamon.
Lunch - Leftover chicken mei feng (about 3/4 cup - rice noodles, chicken, cabbage, onion, carrot), 2 cups spinach with 2 tablespoons light Greek vinaigrette, iced chai tea with 2% milk.
Dinner - 1/3 cup whole wheat spaghetti with 1/2 cup tomato/carrot/ground grassfed beef sauce, asparagus (about 6 spears).
I'm about to have a summer shandy.
Not typical, only happens occasionally.
Not sure what I'd classify the diet as. I eat when I am hungry and don't when I'm not.
Oh, and I drink 100+ ounces of water daily.
I was on diamox for a year but got weaned off it. Honestly I started to gain weight again when I stopped taking diamox. It helped to suppress my appetite.
I have an IUD (mirena) and I first got symptoms after getting the mirena. I had read that hormonal BC can be part of the IIHC but I asked my doc and she told me that was hogwash, so I still have my mirena. I was seeing a neuro-opthamalogist regarding the condition but haven't been back in about a year.
The worst was when I was getting diagnosed initially I got a terrible, terrible spinal headache after the lumbar puncture. I couldn't do anything other than lay flat on my back for a week and was in intense pain.
Trains Across America
Would you like to buy my condo in Salem?
Another person struggling with weight here. So much so I am convinced (though the doctor says no) it is causing me not to stay pregnant. I feel for all that shared and can now see what occurred today and I am only in thread 2.
Dev-thanks for the recs. I will have to look into it.
For me,it is totally emotional eating. I am scared for my family, but that feeds the emotional eating and so the cycle continues. We just joined WW so I have hope, but it's a fear.
I will respond with regard to what's controllable versus what isn't.
For me there is a cycle. I have control over whether or not I cook regularly, whether I stay on any kind of a schedule, that sort of thing, BUT when I don't eat regularly I have no energy to stay on top of things, which causes me to eat rarely, and my blood sugar plummets and I don't eat normally, rinse, repeat ad nauseum. And I realize that EVERYONE has these struggles of wanting to eat better and being exhausted from life/work,kids/etc, but the difference is that I have a predisposition to carrying extra weight. It's balls-out genetics. My mother eats like a damn squirrel but I was adopted so I could eat like her and run around like her and still be the size I am.
Something I also can't control is that I don't have a passion for cooking at. all. I have never ever ever been into putting food together. I've tried. It does nothing for me. And yet I know people look at me and think I just looooove to eat which is absurd. There are things I really do love to indulge in, just like everyone else, but the reality is I don't scarf it down like people think. I hate food. I eat because I have to and because in Kentucky it's what you do when you hang out with people but I will never be a foodie. Because of that I have a crap diet.
Sorry I had a work meeting that I had to go to right after I posted the first time, but here is what I ate yesterday.
Breakfast: fage greek yogurt 2% with strawberry & a banana (this is always what I eat for breakfast); coffee (black)
Lunch: lean cuisine/healthy choice frozen meal & 1 liter of water
Dinner: grilled chicken with some BBQ sauce, roasted asparagus, and a baked sweet potato, 1 liter of water
Total: 1159 calories - everything was measured/weighed for calorie counting
Then two hours after dinner I did a 25 minute ballet DVD - its not the best workout, but it was better than sitting on my ass watching TV.
I also walk 10 minutes each way to work each day.
Trains Across America
Would you like to buy my condo in Salem?
I'd like to thank everyone for sharing... I don't really have any questions, but it's crazy to read so many things that I've thought or felt myself over the years.
I will say that the one thing that terrifies me about being a parent is my children's eating habits. I try to be chill about it, but I have such disordered eating habits of my own that it makes me anxious to even think about it. I'm currently overweight (5'10' 170 w/ a small frame), and have been struggling to lose, since having Jackson. It's yo-yo'd back and forth over the years with pregnancy and not being pregnant, but the problem for me is that my metabolism is beyond f*cked, so it is so hard to even lose any weight. On top of that, I've had severe back pain and issues for a long time that have been exacerbated by my pregnancies (bigger boobs, c/s that have ruined my core) and carrying around a kid all day every day for the past 5.5 years. So when I get in a good routine of eating relatively well and exercising, I end up flat on my back and in physical therapy for 2-3 months and I have to start all over again.
Like HAB, I HATE HATE HATE eating breakfast. If I had my way, I wouldn't eat until 2pm. And then I'd eat popcorn for dinner. Over the years, this cycle has obviously screwed with my ability to maintain a healthy weight. I also have food phobias and texture issues out the wazoo, which is really fun. I used to be absolutely terrified to eat foods with cheese in them, for example. Like even if I wanted to choke it down, my gag reflex would start up and it just wasn't happening. Up until I hit puberty and really, even until post-college and having Jackson, I ate whateverTF I wanted and stayed super skinny. There are pictures of me as a child and I look like no one was feeding me, but I was eating a lot. Except I was super picky, and would refuse to eat if it wasn't something I liked.
My parents tried, I think... in their own way. But they were busy, and my mom grew up being fat so she has all sorts of f*cked up views on eating and she's pretty much the opposite of being a feminist. I grew up with four brothers, and there's a whole book I could write on how I was treated compared to them - both in body image ways and in the ways my mom wasn't supportive (example: my mom thought sports were a complete waste of money for me and that I should get a job. My brothers, however, she spent thousands+ on their sports endeavors b/c they were athletes and I was not). So my defense mechanism was "hating" exercise. On top of that, my mom is petite now (size 4, if that, short and small busted) and I am tall and big busted. Puberty was really fun with her and how understanding she was of how awkward I felt w/ my big boobs and towering over everyone.
I don't know what the answer is, but my goal is to try to instill healthy eating habits with my kids and be supportive of them and who they are (not who I am, who I want them to be, etc.). And hopefully find a healthy place for myself in the process.
Thanks for responding Lyss
.
What you said about lots of people struggling with the issue of time, being tired etc really resonated with me. I really, really have struggled with this. One thing that worked well for me (and might help you) was figuring out when exactly shopping worked best for me so I had snacks available--so my blood sugar didn't drop and I always got enough calories...turned out I hate shopping on the weekends, but stopping on the way home from work or school isn't so bad.
I also don't like cooking too much but I worked out things that would at least get me through the day (like Bridey I'm a super chobani fan
--stuff like that.
For me at least that helped me move some of that uncontrollable--to controllable--like work (blech) taking up so much time, being tired and not wanting to shop....I figured out the time I wanted to (not) shop the least, bought things I liked etc.
OP: thanks. It took guts to post this. And all of the other nesties who chimed in, bravo.
I've been feeling sorry for myself lately being 20lbs over my ideal weight and it reminds me that everyone (well, mostly everyone) struggles with body image/weight at some point in their lives.
I've recently had a wake up call and it has motivated me to bring running shoes to work so I can get outside when it's nice at lunch and get 30 minutes of fresh air. I am reminding myself that size matters (portion control) and that my meals should be no more than what I can hold in my hands, snacks what I can hold in one hand.
Certain things are out of our (my) control, but some things are in my control. What I eat. How much activity I get. I have control over those things. And if I take control, then I can look at myself in the mirror and feel ok about myself regardless of what the scale happens to say that day.
That sounds like my dad who is about the biggest psychological mess I know.
I think you need to tell your husband he has to be supportive. His jackassery his putting your mental and physical well being at risk.
Even with supportive family, it's so hard (says a fellow fattie.)