To be aware this is going to kill me but seemingly be unable to stop

[fatfatfat]

I am really overweight. Historically this has never been the case. I was a skinny teenager and I used to have dinner ladies trying to fatten me up.

I had a pretty major trauma when I was 18 and I developed an eating disorder, which seems SO ironic now. In some ways it never really went away, although once I started FT work I did have to eat a bit more just to not draw adverse attention to myself. I remained quite underweight though.

The problem is, the last three years or so have been immensely stressful and my weight has ballooned. I had to get to a healthy weight in order to start a procedure and I was 9 and a half stone in 2013. I remember DH saying he thought that was a good weight for me. But then it just ballooned out of control.

Eating (and drinking) has become the thing I do, it's my absolute favourite. And obviously the more weight I've put on the worse it's got. None of my clothes fit. I don't go to places. I don't see people. I won't have my photo taken. All in all I am miserable as fuck ... so why the fuck can't I stop eating!?

DH, my own sister, MIL and a couple of friends have in various ways pulled me up on it, some gently and some not so. I've been reminded of the effect on my own children, that diabetes and a premature death may be the end result. But it also impacts on all our lives in a thousand different ways. DD was desperate for me to ride a horse alongside her but I wouldn't (I knew the owner would ask me how much I weighed and I wouldn't say and also didn't want the poor creature to collapse.) I won't go swimming with my children. Last weekend DD wanted me to go on a ride with her - it was only a carousel thing (she is 3) but it was one of those carriages you sit in and I knew I would struggle to get my fat arse in it! I barely see my friends. I pull out of social occasions because - honestly - I just can't find clothes.

I don't know why I am posting. Well, I want to start Monday. Again. But I'm so miserable.

Smallereveryday thank you for that post, and thank you as well, Christmas. I’ve learnt a lot I didn’t expect to on this thread. I had some of those misconceptions about surgery.

I’m obese, but not enough to qualify for that help. But it’s very useful to know about it, as I’m struggling more than I used to be, because of my mental health (PTSD from childhood trauma and I’m on anti-depressants which doesn’t help).

I’m also very interested to hear about Overeaters Anonymous, which I will be looking into. I’d never heard of them before this thread.

It all makes sense of why some of us struggle so much to ‘keep it off’. It’s led to feelings of failure, which isn’t great when you’re depressed.

DOn't let the door hit your ass el

So, so rude. I posted several times giving you advice based on deeply personal and very difficult experiences, and that's your response?

Disgraceful.

@smaller everyday thank you for your post.

There are some great points on this thread, hopefully lots will be helpful to

Op so many messages

What do you think you’d like to change?

Fwiw I think counselling does help people I’m sure but I’ve not experienced it being helpful, in one case making me feel worse (I didn’t need it again as what was making me feel anxiety was resolved tg)

Lots of readers, even if fatfatfat doesn’t find them so. I do think that too much emphasis is put on weight itself-when health should be the goal, especially when, as it has been stated, achieving and sustaining a significant weight loss after a lengthy period of being obese is extremely difficult if not impossible. There are several factors that contribute to health and weight is just one - not smoking, not drinking, exercise and a healthy diet are huge factors too. The trouble is that doing those four wrong often go hand in hand with weight being an issue. If weight loss can be put aside and focus put on the other things then quality of life will improve for most people and weight loss will often be a great bonus. But being able to feel well and move comfortably every day has to be the sensible aim, rather than merely achieving a number on a chart. For some people surgery is the right thing, but it should be a last resort.

To be aware this is going to kill me but seemingly be unable to stop

Yes.

You are coming across as SO rude and ungrateful, @fatfatfat.

A lot of people have taken time out to try to help you, sharing their personal struggles and so on. SMH.

Why have you dismissed speaking to your GP about the NHS pathway to surgery ? If you are as big as you say then you would qualify. ?

What do you want from this thread, OP?

Are you unreasonable because you persist in doing something that you know will kill you? Well, yes. Killing yourself is unreasonable. And you ARE killing yourself.

What do you want people to tell you?

And you ARE able to stop.

You don't want to, and don't want to get help.

You need to be clear about that. The only person responsible for what happens to you here is you.

15 pages!

I haven't read it all. Saw a lot of posts at the beginning demanding the OP have counselling when she says she doesn't want it .

Finding a healthy weight for some people, even many people, can be quite a complex issue, so in one sense there doesn't always seem to be an easy answer. The OP is not going to go into all her beliefs and ideas and experience of weight and eating in a few sentences on a thread like this.

First of all you sound incredibly busy - I would say almost too busy. If you haven't got time to eat in the day, you are clearly overly stressed. Your priorities are clearly your work and your children. And when we have lots of priorities its much harder to focus on a specific area that needs change. So, don't beat yourself up about that.

Second, its the all-or-nothing thing. I have so many demands on my time, I won't consider my own health at all. You may not be able to prioritise your health and spend 10 hours a week in the gym looking for the perfect sculpted body. But you can try and look after it at least basically. Don't you think your body would love that, deserves that? Typing that made me feel a bit sad.

Sometimes its easy to fall into "all or nothing" thinking. At times it may be the right thing to do e.g. I won't drink alcohol for a month, whatever. At other times, it is not the right thing to do, and you can't force yourself or your body to do what it doesn't want.

A bit of kindness to yourself and your body, an acceptance of competing priorities which make it harder, but still strive to at least look after yourself in simple ways. That means for-the-most part enjoyable and healthy food, some sunshine, walking, etc. when you feel able to go out. No worry. No guilt.

Good luck OP.

This thread makes unpleasant reading. The op has lots of ideas to consider, and plenty of links have been posted. The only suggestion she has said she doesn't want to do is counseling. That's fair enough.

It feels a bit like 'ltb op, come on do it now!' When the op has only posted a couple hours ago. Give her a chance to look at all these ideas. Don't be offended that your suggestion isn't helpful to the op, it might help someone else. There's a lot of anger being shown here and I would also feel attacked if it was my thread. Take a step away if you can't be kind, maybe?

Agree kwack.

I think it’s actually incredibly offensive to say counselling doesn’t work and is an expensive placebo. It might not have worked for you - unclear whether you’ve tried it - but way to belittle people who have had therapy and found it to work. It saved me from my anxiety, and I swore BLIND that it wasn’t for me, that I had friends I could talk to etc and that was the same.
It wasn’t.

Fair enough you don’t want counselling. I only accepted counselling where I felt
SO BAD I couldn’t actually live my life on the day to day.
Starting this thread is a great step because you’ve acknowledged that you need to do something but I don’t feel like you’re at the next step yet - being willing to actually do that something, whatever it is.
Whatever people have suggested you’ve given obstacles immediately. Or shut them down. So I think maybe it will take a bit of time.

Ultimately you have to decide that you REALLY want to get a grip on this and that will mean making a change, accepting help in some form, making time to do what’s required, maybe even something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

My issue was avoidance - subconscious avoidance. I didn’t want to dig too deep as I didn’t want to think about the actual
Issue - even though I didn’t realise this is what J was actually doing. You’re quite defensive and resistant to any ideas that involve looking at it from a mental health perspective (not just therapy, other ways too) so I wonder if you’re the same and just don’t realise it yet.

I really hope you manage to get a grip on it OP. It must be a horrible way for you to live and for your DH and children to see that you’re so miserable, and for your children to grow up with your difficult relationship with food. Hopefully some small steps (no pun intended!) like walking a bit more with the Fitbit and reading some of the books suggested will help but it’s not going to be a quick fix by the sounds of it. Good luck!

There are some really interesting and helpful links and suggestions here, thanks to all that took the time to post them.

Have you considered hypnotherapy Fat ? A friend of many years went for smoking cessation and saw a poster about getting control of food cravings with hypno. She had hypno for overeating instead as she decided that was actually more of a health issue for her personally. The results were extraordinary and she gave up smoking in the background as she became so interested in getting healthy generally. She went for three sessions and this was five years ago. She has cut refined carbs out (which is good advice obviously) but the hypno seemed to just take away the urge to have them. She herself said it was like having her brain rewired :)

I think if someone has had a negative experience with counselling it can do more harm than good . Clearly many of us had positive experiences but negative ones do exist. I remember seeing a bad one after I self harmed .

I think OP needs time to digest the feedback

Literally tomorrow she can start via healthy food choices and reading some of the books and websites recommended

Acknowledging the issue is a great first step and she had taken that step

The hectoring tone from some posters is unpleasant reading

That's a great post smaller. I do think the whole general population is stuck in this, well people do it to themselves so fuck 'em mentality that totally over rides all logic and evidence.

Doing more surgeries is very much cost effective for the NHS. We could apparently do 10 times more and still not catch up to our comparitor EU countries. Talk about cutting off nose to spite your face!

This thread is actually amazing, I've learned a lot and several other posters have too. Yes there are a lot of health myths, whether diet related, or counselling related, but a lot of people have done a lot to educate and disspell those.

Its just a bit of a shame the OP is being so unnecessarily rude and stubborn.

@fatfatfat

How are things going?

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to ask if you had explored different mediums of therapy (phone, online?)

I have eating issues (comfort / binge eater) and I have a bulging schedule but I've managed to get some sessions over the phone after the kids are in bed.

Sorry the thread has made you feel so bad.

I don't necessarily think you should get counseling. Sounds like you may have had a bad experience with it.

Just wanted to say that not everything that gets called counseling is the same. I had a course of counseling for stress and it was totally useless. I got more out of talking to friends and DH.

HOWEVER I also at a different time did a CBT course for depression and anxiety. (CBT = cognitive behavioral therapy). That's very different and is about teaching you how to recognize and correct systematic problems in the way you think about things. I found that amazingly helpful. I did it online on the NHS and it wasn't very time consuming.

I have no idea if CBT would help with eating disorders (i didn't get help for mine but recovered anyway) but i expect there are other 'talking ' treatments out there which are not really counseling too. Please don't necessarily dismiss everything because you hate counseling.

How did you get over your original eating disorder? Did anyone help you or did you do it alone? Does this feel similar to that, or totally different? (I know the effect is different but sometimes the emotions and triggers can be similar).

Hope you find something that works. It's awful to feel trapped by a food addiction as unlike other addictions you can't exactly just give it up! Best of luck.