Want you to make me feel like I’m the only(fattest) girl in the world.

I’ve been chubby since I was a child. My awful stepfather asked me once if I wanted to lose ten ugly pounds quickly and when I eagerly said yes (after seeing my mother gloat over her weight loss, after hearing about it from everywhere – because it is everywhere. The diet industry is making bank, y’all.); he told me to cut off my head and then laughed.

When I realized I weighed more than my mom in middle school, I started to realize that I was going to be the fat one. The fat friend. The fattest person in the group. The one who’d be so pretty if I just lost some weight. I felt unattractive and ate mostly things like hamburger helper and less of the homemade foods. We were all about convenience in my house growing up.

I’ve been yelled at on the street walking places, every doctor I see seems to feel the need to tell me I’m fat..like I don’t know? I suppose some of that is my fault. Because when I gave up hope on ever being thin and pretty; I just stopped talking about it. I stopped asking questions but I keep reading everything on the internet.

I bought some miracle pills in my early twenties but then chickened out and didn’t take them. Diet industry won that one! I was a reader and not encouraged to go into sports because it was too expensive, and my mom needed me to be able to babysit at any given moment. In high school, I was 180.

I wish I was 180 now.

But I was still the fat one and as I listened to people obsess about their weight, it started to gnaw at me.

Then I got pregnant at 16. And my 180 became 240. No one seemed concerned, not even the doctors who tell me how unhealthy I am now. I think they were just happy as a teenage mom that I wasn’t starving myself? I did use it as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted. I had two part time jobs and was finishing high school, I ate out a lot. I was living on the streets when I got pregnant, couch surfing when I could, sleeping in random places on campus when I couldn’t couch surf. I had food stamps so I ate fine, but mostly convenience items.

I had my son and I didn’t immediately lose the weight. I tried to eat better, but everything I was taught in school was wrong, like the whole 8-11 servings of carbs…or maybe that’s still true, but carbs are in EVERYTHING. Which no one ever told me. At one point, I was going to college during the summer and I took a P.E. credit and worked out before or after my classes and then I’d walk to pick up my son from daycare (it was a decent walk; a few miles at least) afterwards. I’d stop at the quickie mart and grab a bagel or something for lunch. Bagels are healthy, right? I didn’t watch what I was eating really at all…

And I lost 30 pounds. It was amazing, but no one seemed to really notice because I was that overweight I guess. And then summer ended, and my classes changed and my determination to work out guttered and died, like the brief flicker it was.

I graduated and found myself a real person job, by then I was probably around 270 and feeling it. I developed a back issue after standing the wrong way for far too long one day and people said…well, you are fat, you’re carrying extra weight, that’s bad on your body. But no one had any advice and maybe I shut them down anyhow. Because you see, being fat is always. I’m ALWAYS thinking about it. It’s tiring, both mentally and physically. I look in the mirror and think ugh. I look down at my stomach and hate it. In some moments, I don’t think about it and that’s wonderful, until I hit a mirror or a reflection in a window.

Every year when I would go to get my birth control, the number would creep up about ten pounds. I’d be dumbfounded and renew my goal to lose weight already. All the time berating myself for being so lazy, for boredom eating, for eating sweets. I was on Depo right after I had my son and then nine months in, they said I was gaining too much weight and put me on the pill. When I started forgetting my pill randomly, my new gyno put me back on depo. I thought to myself, this can’t be good for me and I gained all that weight. So I blamed it all on birth control. When I was good about what I ate, I gained weight, when I was less good and not thinking about it, I’d lose. Nothing made sense. In was out, up was down.

Then high protein, low carbs became the rage. All the time I had been told how bad meat was for me. Eggs would give you cholesterol problems! Meat would clog up your arteries! Again, everything was backwards and confusing.

I’ve always been clumsy and my ankles are notoriously for twisting. Turns out I’m hypermobile. I hold my whole body wrong and my knees bend a little backwards when I stand up straight. My PT said..you probably fall down a lot, huh? Well, yes I do.

Somewhere in this timeframe, my significant other and my son started going to Magic every Friday night. I would get bored. In an effort not to snack my boredom away, I made a drink. And then two. And then three. It became a regular weekly thing. I remember feeling betrayed when someone said something about alcohol calories. Alcohol didn’t have calories! Yes, yes it does. And all of them “bad” calories. By then I was boredom drinking every weekend and you guessed it, my weight ballooned. My doctor was not very helpful. High protein, low carb, but no menu plan, no referral to a nutritionist. I asked if she’d “prescribe” me a gym membership but then never signed up. I was already exhausted after working 40 hours and not spending time with my son, I couldn’t afford it monetarily or the time needed. My knees are getting bad now. And of course, it’s because of my weight, but where do I even start?

I fell down in 2015 on my stairs one night after drinks. I sat on my foot. Turned it backward. Felt fine (drinks are funny that way) and army crawled into bed from the landing. When I got up to pee a few hours later, I stepped on it and the bone came out. An ambulance was called – they couldn’t get me up. Another ambulance was called, I apologized profusely to anyone who had to lift my fat ass. I’m sure thin people never do that.

I was in the hospital for 3 days. I got a boot eventually, but the boot said it would support up to 300 pounds and by then I was 355. I got a wheelchair. The wheelchair said right on it, it was only good up to 300 pounds. The hospital KNEW this. They brought a new one, it was good up to 350. I called AGAIN and then they ordered one up to 500 pounds. It was really a comedy of errors. Finally I had a wheelchair to get around in. And then my boyfriend was diagnosed with cancer. I spent a lot of time at the hospital. I couldn’t drink or boredom eat. My physical that year showed I’d lost 10 pounds. My doctor practically peed herself with excitement while I was like..yeah, have you seen my wasted sack of a leg? That’s all the muscle my leg has built up carrying my huge potato body around. Losing muscle is not good. =(

Now my ankle swells all the time. So I try not to overdo it, and of course this leads to MORE WEIGHT GAIN.

My doctor, ever helpful, told me that there would be less swelling if I weighed less, which doesn’t really get me anywhere considering I’ve never had any luck. A few years ago I ordered some more miracle pills and paid dearly when I didn’t cancel them. I never even took one of them. Again, the dieting industry knocked on my door and I; being desperate, ordered the magic pills.

All the articles I read say different things. I’m exhausted when I get home from work so I don’t want to work out. I’m eating far better than I ever have before. Less boxes, more veg, but apparently veg has carbs too.

Some years back, my blood pressure elevated. In an effort to not take pills, I asked if I could monitor it myself and try exercising more and changing up my diet. Hence why I’m eating better, that at least seems to have stuck. I walked home from work, 2.5 miles at least 3 times a week. With more walking on the weekends with my boyfriend. I never made it up to 5 times a week, but it was something. Rain or sun, and then the chafing started. My underwear rubbed on my butt cheek, my thighs already rubbed together. Walking home down my street is dreadfully dull. Nothing that pretty, mostly just traffic, and the unevenness of sidewalks made me nervous I would fall all the time. Or be hit by a car since people drive like maniacs on the street I live on. It worked for a bit. And then my blood pressure spiked up again and they put me on pills anyhow and after more than a full year of walking home and getting NO results, I gave up, it was summer and I was sick of being chafed all the time. Then I got a fitbit and thought maybe I could get back into it if I saw number results of some sort, but two weeks later, I broke my fucking leg. I never lost weight, or not anything that stayed off. Once I lost 16 pounds, but then realized it was likely just a variance in scales.

I don’t know what to do from here. That much walking should have done something helpful and maybe my butt toned up a bit and I could wear smaller pants for a bit. This is why I’m the fattest person in the world. (I know I’m not, but I’m the fattest person I know)

I don’t weigh myself regularly. I don’t want to be depressed all the time. Hearing people obsess over their weight, while I try and not think about it, and knowing that they’ll never be as fat as I am anyhow…

I don’t think the numbers on a scale make me who I am as a person, and yet, I find myself getting excited if I do lose weight or if someone thinks I’ve lost weight. I shut down any conversations because I feel hopeless about it and because I’ve tried fixing my weight already and it clearly didn’t work. =(

I want muscles, I want to not be too afraid to have my arms out in public, I want to be strong and not tired all the fucking time. I just don’t know how to start/where to start/how to do it without joining some other program (diet industry!) or joining weight watchers. Where does the fattest person in the world start when just walking around to get to work hurts my body in different ways on different days?

I know, I’ll just stop eating! Except you can’t and everything I get taught turns out wrong later. And in the meantime, I’ll keep dealing with all the jokes about fat people and the fat shaming, because god forbid we think we deserve the right to be treated like real people. We’re all just lazy people who won’t put down the fork!