What's it like to be really, really overweight?

[sloanedanger]

This isn't meant to be goady.

I have issues with binge eating and often have days weeks where I eat far too much - snacks mainly. I eat several packets of crisps on the trot, several biscuits. This has gotten so much worse since WFH, I graze from lunchtime onwards. I can follow a full day of eating, snacking and dinner with toast late night.

I enjoy desperately need it for my mental health exercise, mainly running, so I think decades of this together with fairly healthy meals day-to-day, not much alcohol and being quite tall have kept me from being too overweight, although at 5"7 I'm borderline (BMI is almost 25).

I often wonder, genuinely, what it must be like to just eat whatever you want, whenever you want, 24/7, without care at all for weight gain. I hate feeling heavy, which I really do at the moment; I feel bloated constantly, uncomfortable in my stomach, hate seeing myself naked in the mirror and my running has definitely slowed because I'm carrying a few extra lbs. But it's not enough to stop me binge snacking so I can see how easy it is to gain the weight if you also don't exercise and are more genetically dispositioned to it.

I do wonder if it’s not solely to do with food though - why do boys/men eat like horses yet so many teen boys are rake thin?

for teens/children in general the calorie needs just from growth are enormous. So if they’re in an active growth phase, plus their normal daily calories needs, that can be a massive calorie need. Even relatively inactive kids are probably more so than adults- my secondary school age kids track nearly 20k steps a day walking to and from school, and from
class to class. I do 3-5k walking from the house to the car, car to my desk, desk to the toilet.

What a welcome addition to this thread.

I have friends who are obese and they eat much less than me on meals out, or takeaway nights in.
I think it is worth remembering that the difference between obese and overweight is quite small. Obese doesn't necessarily look what the image of obese looks like.

I'm overweight. Sometimes I think I look good and sometimes I absolutely hate myself. My problem is overeating and no self control. I can not buy sweets at home but if I'm visiting someone I will have too many. I eat healthily but I eat too much. I enjoy restaurants but why bother paying £20 for a meal that I don't really want. I also like fun fruity cocktails on night out. If I'm paying £12 for a drink then might aswell have the one I want filled with sugar.

I exercise and play and coach team sports. I can run 5k easily etc. However I don't get the same joy out of it like l did when I was younger. Unfortunately exercise has minimal effect on weightloss ( other massive health benefits obviously and can help mentally). I don't know any overweight person who just eats whatever they want.

I suppose but I can’t see how it creates the disparity between the sexes? So many boys are tall but very thin now and look out of proportion.

6 weeks?????? My god. A baby's insides are nowhere near developed enough for solids at 6 weeks! You can’t even sit up straight at that age. I'm sorry but that's neglectful

So many people don't realise that years ago this was the advice given by Doctors and Health Visitors so it was far from 'neglectful' parenting.

My eldest is only 30 and I was advised to give him baby rice, which was like a powder that you mixed with the baby's milk, because they said he was an 'extra hungry baby'.

I assume you're being sarcastic.

The OP asked in paragraph 4 what it was like to eat whatever you wanted so I answered. She put the word genuinely in and stated she wasn't being goady, hence my honest answer. People were discussing 'full' switches. Sorry if you have a problem with that.

I suppose but I can’t see how it creates the disparity between the sexes? So many boys are tall but very thin now and look out of proportion

is there one? Many teen girls are thin or slim.

if there is the most likely reason is the social conditioning around exercise. Most girls give up their sporting hobbies by 12, it’s not the done thing for girls to run around getting sweaty and messing up hair and make up. Boys playing football/skateboarding etc in the park is also more normal.

both my dc did sports science at gcse. Massive school, about 60 doing the subject. Nearly all boys, all of which played football. There’d be one or two girls, ones who’d stuck with their sport past 12 and were pretty much elite level.

I'm super fat (that's a technical term). I was a size 30-32 before I got my underactive thyroid medication. Once medicated I lost lots of weight through calorie counting and weightlifting and exercise. My lowest ever weight was 260lb, I was a size 20-22 and five stone heavier than my friend who wore the same sized clothes. Then I found I had lipoedema. I had 50kg of fibrotic fat that wouldn't diet off. I have a letter from a consultant to confirm this.

Being fat was never an issue for me, it was an issue for other people. When I went from 25 to 26 stone, that affected me greatly. Up to there I'm always fit and mobile.

The hardest part of being fat is being excluded. You can't get sports equipment in your size. You don't get the same choice for clothes and shoes, although it is better now.

No, actually the worst part of being fat is being tarred with the same brush as other fat people and being told we are lazy, ignorant, stupid, irresponsible, a danger to society, that we HAVE to change for our own good. And then when it turns out my going -to-kill-you fat is actually not obesity but a fat disorder, there's no funding to take it off my body. Fat middle aged women can rot. We are worthless under Patriarchy.

I put on 6 stone when I was pregnant with my first baby . I was 8st 10lbs at my first ante natal check up...14st 10lb at 9months . I was brought into hospital for the last month of my pregnancy as they were concerned about pre eclampsia. I was having other physical problems too and after a lot of tests I was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular disorder . That was 40 years ago and since then I've had an almighty struggle with my weight . My disorder means that I don't burn calories like a "normal" person does and I put weight on really easily and fast. My mobility is also restricted and my neurologist has said he'd only be happy if I was exercising in a hospital setting not a gym. I'm fairly tall so can carry a bit of weight and not look overly obese but my self esteem plummeted. Every time I managed to get "nearly slim" i 'd relax my eating habits and i 'd shoot up to a size 20 again.
I was diagnosed with gallstones in Feb this year and spent 12 days in hospital. I'm on a waiting list to get my gallbladder removed and the consultant recommended low fat/low dairy to try and reduce the gallbladder attacks. The fear of suffering that pain again has made me reassess my whole pattern of eating and instead of dieting have incorporated healthy eating into my lifestyle. I've lost just over 3 stone since Feb and now a size 14 and hopefully get to a healthy size/weight by Xmas . My sons and D P call me the diet nazi....I'm so strict about what I cant/won't eat. In a bizarre way I actually kind of enjoy it....I'm always thinking up new recipes to make what I can eat more interesting. I used to feel sorry for myself that I have this disorder but now I'm older I'm more philosophical about it all.....it is what it is....and if I can improve my health, mobility and well being then it's all worthwhile.

Having been size 22 this is how it affected my life

Back pain so hard to walk far so I avoided meeting friends where too much walking was involved

Only 0.3 mile to my train station id still grt the bus and not walk

I dont sit on tube seats, dont fit in them. On buses I'd stand instead of sitting next to someone cos I know my body would encroach into their space

Haven't gone abroad again fitting into seats.

I hated meetings in the office cos the meeting room chairs had arms that are round and I couldn't fit in the seat so just perched on the edges

People would stare at me and its not ina good way probably cos they don't see fat ppl often

Didn't really feel much different - that's the thing with autoimmune diseases, you feel crappy whatever your weight if it's flaring. I think it's much the same with any MH condition, if you're feeling crappy psychologically, it doesn't matter what size you are, even if you think that everything will be fixed if you wake up tomorrow morning looking completely different. I know being in a shitty relationship contributed/caused the overeating with enforced lack of activity, as I was swallowing down the fear, the wish to escape, the wish to scream and shout and fight. And there was a huge element of wanting to be too heavy to be picked up and thrown against things.

It was more difficult to find clothes that fitted right, as not every person has the extra in exactly the same place; I was never very large chested, so things that would fit elsewhere would drown me at the front, and there was always a huge gap at the back of my waistband if trousers fitted my upper thighs and front. Although, since Regular and Short have been redefined as having legs about 6 inches taller than previously, no trousers fit me now.

When I wasn't in a flare, I felt fine - I was still strong, still active, could still run, swim and play in a band at the weekend. And I could do 200 situps, leg raises, crunches and whatnots, even if my tummy got in the way of getting flat to the floor in yoga.

Bloods were fine, blood pressure was fine, heart rate normal, no signs of osteoarthritis, bone density perfect despite prolonged steroid use for years.

Being in remission, though - that feels good. It means I can exercise more, which means I'm more relaxed, the muscle development is visible rather than cunningly concealed and my RHR has dropped from about 63 to 54. Haven't had my blood pressure done recently, but I'd imagine that's gone from its usual 115/65 to a bit lower.

The most irritating thing was being told by randoms that my autoimmune disease would magically resolve if I lost weight. No, it's autoimmune. It doesn't work like that. Never really sunk in with them that I wasn't limping because of excess weight, I was limping because my immune system was identifying the tissues around my ankle as alien substances, as it had been doing intermittently since I was a 3 stone kid in infant school. And even if I had been 30, 40 of 50 stone, that wouldn't have had the slightest bearing upon the inflammation in my elbow or fingers because they aren't weightbearing joints.

In short though, no, eating loads of things will not make you feel better. Because the desire is a symptom of wanting to feel better emotionally, not just to eat. Work on the emotions, the mood, the feelings, rather than trying to squash them down with food, or you'll still feel crap, just with some additional inconvenience and potentially some health issues.

It's not all about weight. I'm 5'9 and weigh just over 9 stone on a good day, so thin, but I think increasingly that I overeat. Have just eaten a massive Chinese takeaway and most of a box of After Eight Mints, also had two glasses of orange juice and two (large) glasses of wine. Also had a very large lunch and various snacks. My skirt is now painfully tight and feel bloated and sort of gross in all the ways you describe, and the fact that it's a size 8 skirt doesn't make me actually feel less bloated or gross. I know many people who are much heavier than I am who do not eat nearly as much or as badly.

I didn't used to eat as much as I do, or to eat as much junk food, but I have started to feel that my body in some way 'needs' it, or that I am massively short on calories and energy the rest of the time. I doubt this is really the case, because I don't have a very active lifestyle. It seems fundamentally to be a disconnect between brain and stomach. (I do also go for long periods of time without eating at all, either because of anxiety or just being busy, and that feels equally unhealthy and disconnected from actual need.)

are you for real????

Oh I'm size 8 and I feel bloated after I eat a horse

read the room love

@Filthycop Yes, I'm for real. Eating much more than you need to and past the point of discomfort is unpleasant and not only the preserve of the overweight. I also (newly) have high cholesterol and a family history full of heart disease, so it worries me. I wish I didn't eat so mindlessly. (In my case the mindlessness also encompasses days of barely eating at all.)

but it isn't what this thread is about - this thread is full of people who feel dismissed, irrelevant, overlooked and generally shit because of their size... and their relationship with food an their medical conditions. People who don' travel because they are scared of seat sizes.

the last thing we need is size 8 whining about feeing uncomfortable after they can eat loads....

people here are talking about starving themselves because they overeat.

I am not saying that you dont have issues and that it is nothing - just that this isnt the time and place.

@Filthycop. The OP asked 'I often wonder, genuinely, what it must be like to just eat whatever you want, whenever you want, 24/7, without care at all for weight gain.' This is my situation. I was simply trying to make the point that behaving like this doesn't necessarily lead to being overweight. There are also many overweight people who eat moderately and very healthily. Eating disorders come in many forms, and they aren't necessarily /primarily about body type or shape, they're about unhappiness, emotional instability, impulsivity, guilt, self-punishment, frustration, etc.

Try to be more broad-minded.

but you could have worded things better - not perhaps mentioned your size 8 skirt feeling tight - but just mentioned feeing bloated.

you could have read what other people have written and understood some of the pain, depression and struggle people who eat far less than you have

your post read as insensitive.

@hopsalong your on the Wrong Thread here and,
@Filthycop was being nice to you.

You have got to remember that weaning advice has changed over the years.

When my niece (now 25) was a baby you were encouraged to wean your baby from 3 months. When I had my DD I was made to feel like a failure by the health visitor as babies were supposed to eat things with lumps then and she was still on smooth food.

I remember my sister having her first food which was a bit of bread dunked in bolognese sauce when she was about 8 weeks old. I think starting solids was common from 6 weeks onwards 40+ years ago.

I have a sibling v overweight, size 22-24.

They did sport at school and were not overweight as a child. During late teens they went out often and started FT work so more sandwich type things for lunch and started to gain. By 20’s they were overweight and it’s steadily continued for 20 years. They don’t eat massive portions or loads of takeaway etc. it’s a combination of:

• slightly too large portion sizes
• home cooked meals but v filling recipes as partner does a manual job
• snacking in between meals
• weekend drinking and dinner out
• zero proper exercise
• sedate job
• never addressed it and now overwhelmed

1-2 pounds a month for years basically.

@sloanedanger if you suspect you have ADHD, I would recommend that you get an assessment (you can use Psychiatry UK under 'right to choose'). If the ADHD diagnosis is confirmed you and let the doctor know about the binge eating (which I think is on the initial questionnaire you have to fill in), they will recommend a stimulant drug called Elvanse. Elvanse is used to treat both binge eating and ADHD symptoms, and works very successfully in most cases. The dose starts low and is titrated over a few weeks until both conditions are successfully managed. You can google it for more information and study results. It's called Vyvanse in the US in case that name comes up instead in some of the search results.

Speaking to 2 close friends of mine who are like this.

One is 50, she put on weight steadily since she was about 18 or so, she was about a 10/12 then. She started dating a man for the next 13 years and gradually the weight piled on, not a happy relationship. She's been at 18-22 dress size, currently 18 or 20 now. She's also 5 ft 2.

She does the jolly overweight woman bit to outsiders but I know she does find it a pain getting clothes for larger women and does find exercise challenging sometimes, she does pilates and walks. Had a stroke approx 5-6 years ago, luckily didn't affect her too badly.

My other friend, I'm guessing she's about size 16-18 but large breasts. She doesn't like being overweight and is happy at about size 14. Any slimmer and she doesn't like it - have seen her slimmer. She's 5ft 10 so carries weight better. She's done everything from personal trainers/gym/diet plans and the weight falls off then goes on again. She's had a rough couple of years with men and also her DM being very ill and then going into a home but has had to care for her a lot. Also was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

I'm 5 ft 5, size 12-14, approx 11 stone. Used to be very very slim - size 4-6 onwards and about 8 and a half stone in 20s, gradually crept on more at 30 and I don't or didn't really like exercising. I carry weight quite well though, I look ok at 10 stone.

Oh, the stroke woman, she was good at gymnastics etc at school.

For my friends its definitely takeaways, drinking in lockdown and chocolate/snacks which don't help.

I don't like takeaways much, drink the odd can of pre mixed drink but don't like drinking at home.

I do love and have ate tubs of dips with crackers plus crisps, cakes etc. Trying to stop that.

I am fat. We do not have takeaways, can't really afford them. During lockdown I drank hardly anything, I only drink really when I go out. The issue is portion sizes. You eat too much of anything and you will put on weight.