Well, I am here on Reddit, because, well, sometimes it just nice to be anonymous and spill my guts.
I am 36 years old. I am married with three kids. I am large. Very large. I weight around 550lbs. I was always a big guy, but some of that had to do with body image. I never hated myself, just say myself as big and it hurt my confidence. Looking back at old videos of myself I wish I was that skinny again. I was chubby, but I was also a looker. My wife says I still am, but I feel like Jabba the butt over here.
Physical activity was never really as much as issue as it is now, but I was never much into pushing the physical limits. At times I would go to the gym regularly to keep healthy, I went to military academy and did PT every morning, I've played plenty of sports and always been the big tough guy with a heart of gold. Touch on the outside, soft on the inside. Now I am just soft all around.
I have been going to bariatric treatment for over a year now, but I have just gotten bigger. Mostly its just seeing the nutritionist once a month. My insurance requires 6 visits before I can have the surgery, and also a psych eval, sleep therapy, and other things. When you can hardly walk its hard to go do all these things. I think if I could walk it would be so much easier. I was never really an unhealthy eater. I ate my share of crap, but many times I was eating salads, protein, good food. What I could afford. Much of what I ate was limited by cost. I don't drink, i don't smoke, I don't do drugs. I have my guilty pleasures, but I try to eat healthy. My biggest vice is Soda. Its nice the soda itself, its the carbonation. I love carbonated drinks. I do like a nice soda every now and then, but honestly they are getting too sweet for me and I am starting to turn off of them. Though, i cannot find any cheap drink work drinking besides water. I have tried mio and other mixes, but I drink a lot. I always have to have a drink on hand. Soda just offers a cheap drink that is also carbonated.
As for the walking thing, I used to work as a correctional officer. A couple years ago I was injured on the job. I won't go into it, but it caused my to tear my meniscus in my knee and injure ligaments in the ankle. The ligaments healed, by my knee never did. Workers comp screwed me over, and the doctor tried to chalk it up to arthritic, blaming my weight. Because I was too big to get a clear image on the MRI. I was also having some freak out about the MRI. I even tried an open one, but it was restricting breathing. So, I eventually settled. Got some money from it, but nowhere near what was deserving.
Now, that money all pretty much went to bills with some other things for the family. In the meantime I have grown bigger, and that weight, coupled with the knee pain has made it hard for me to walk. At first, it was just trying to avoid the pain. I could walk, but I was being lazy and not wanting to get out on my knee. In time my legs atrophied and now they are collapsing under my weight. I work from home now, and so I literally don't even have to walk except to get up to go to the bathroom.
The last time I went to the doctor to get blood work done, I was in so much pain that I could not stand by the time i got to the car. The doctor prescribed me a rollator which is a walker with a seat. The insurance would not let me get it, and they just gave me the more traditional walker. Without a seat. So, I spent about 300 bucks and bought myself one. It must have a seat. I need somewhere to sit from time to time. So, the walker must have a seat for when my legs just won't function anymore. I have not used it, yet. I am scare to. The pain is so intense walking. Think about it this way. Take a nail, drive it under one of your knee caps. Then take a full grown male adult and strap him to your back. Then take child and strap him to your front. Then try to walk about and do your daily activities. At 550 pounds with a bad knee, that is my daily life. I can barely fit in my car, I have a hard time just getting in and out of it. I used to just sit, but I after a while I could not even stand up straight. The muscles that relax to let you stand up from the seated position, were so tight that it was light someone strapped thick rubber bands to my shoulders and my knees and then asked me to stand up against their pull. I literally could not. I would walk bent over.
I bought a bed I could lay out in, and after a while my muscles relaxed. It took a long time but eventually my muscles let me stretch out. Now I can stand up straight, but my legs are simply giving out under the weight. Just getting to the car is very difficulty. I have a couple big steps down from the front door to the yard. Like 6 inches or more. I literally hold the walls and the door just to get out. I have cried out in pain on more than one occasion. My wife helps me, but how is she to hold up this 550 lb man.
With my weight comes many other issues. Mostly muscular/skeletal, but I am anemic from low iron, my vitamin D is in the crapper, my Testosterone is like 20 or so. Should be closer to 400. I had erectile dysfunction, but the testosterone is helping that. Now I just have too much fat in the way to get it out much. I still have some erectile issues but the testosterone was a big part of the issue. I also have precursors to type 2 diabetes. I also have severe sleep apnea. Sometimes like 130 average instances per hour and it is causing my hypoxia and cerebral hypoxia. . I feel like I am circling the drain.
Right now all my wife wants from me is sex. I don't mean that to say she only wants me for sex, but I am a loving man who still financially provides for the family. I make enough money to support the household of 5 and I do it from sitting in bed. I am lucky as I can be for the job I have. Especially, coming from the world of corrections. I work in IT and can do it from home. I have an Associates degree and I am finishing my bachelors now.
Ill be honest. All I want to do is sit here, work, and watch YouTube. With the sleep apnea and low t and low vit D and all that, I feel I have lost energy for everything and anything. I barely can get homework done. i don't even want to play games on my laptop anymore. I have all these things I "want" to do, but that "want" does not motivate me enough. So, I do whatever activity is easiest. I eat whatever my wife puts in front of me, and I try to spend as much time with her and the kids as I can. ...but she wants more. She needs sex. I am fulfilling all of her emotional needs, but not her physical ones. I also feel I am making my kids miss out on an important part of their childhood. Playing catch with Dad and going camping and all that. Stuff I absolutely love to do, but physically cannot. I want so bad to throw the ball around, or share my hobbies with them. RC helicopters, sports, camping, shooting, fishing, etc. We are all big nerds and geeks. We came together, have regular family movie nights, etc. We are a closely bonded family who love and support one another as much as we can. We just have limits to the physical stuff we can do.
So, I am holding myself more accountable. To the random strangers of the interwebs. I don't know if it will work, but anything I can do to motivate myself I will try to do. This may be a continued thread, or it may die here and now. i don't know, but we will see.
To top it all off I am OCD. I have a thing about other people's bodily fluids, specifically spit. This makes it hard because when out and about, I cannot just lean against any wall or sit in any chair. Think about standing and hurting so bad that you want to die, but the only option is a chair that your brain won't let you sit in because it has a stain on it. Its choosing between the physical or mental anguish. If I did not have OCD I would probably get a wheel chair. My wife already said she has no issues with pushing me around in a wheel chair if it means I can go out to the store with her, but the idea of those big wheels on that dirty ground and then those big dirty wheels spreading that filthiness in my car and then my home. Someone spits on the ground, a wheel rolls through it, that spit winds up in my stuff. In my car, in my home. Even the though of it makes my skin crawl and my anxiety spike through the roof. So, using a cane, or a walker, or anything else adds in the extra layer of OCD issues. I never used to sit at the doctor, for example. I used to stand for an hour or more waiting to be seen because I was OCD about shared chairs in the lobby. Now, I cannot stand for even a minute on my own.
So, here is where we stand.
I weight 550 lbs.
I see a bariatric nutritionist once a month
I have a CPAP machine I need to use regularly but do not. I was using a nose only mask that was not working well, so they are sending me a full face mask in the mail (doctor is too far away)
I am taking testosterone shots every two weeks but I think I need a bigger dosage. Its 200 mg/ml. I can feel the impact but i wish it was more. It boosts my metabolism and makes me eat more and gets me some motivation to do things. I sleep better when I have my shot, I get erections again and get more mojo going. Its a start.
I need to eat as much protein as I can and limit my carbs. I eat healthy in my food, for my most part, but want to eliminate Soda as much as I can. I doubt I will go cold turkey, but I want to get close. Its my one big vice.
My weight loss goal is initially to be under 500 lbs. I have to meet this goal before I can have the surgery. I am going for gastric Sleeve.
My ultimate goal is 260lbs. Close to what I was in high school (245lbs or so). Though, I would be happy just to be able to have sex with my wife and walk normally again. So, I can take my boys outside and do things with them.
So, i guess it boils down to "Drop Soda, lose weight, Have sex, walk."
I have other goals, but I am starting with those right now.
If you want to know anything feel free to ask me. I want to remain somewhat anonymous, so, I will avoid talking about anything that my give away identifying information, but otherwise I am open to talk.
