Sunday, July 12, 2009

33,000 Calories


Tonight on Discovery Health I watched " I Eat 30,000 Calories a Day." and I have to say I was both amazed and nearly tearful.  It kind of amazed me in the way that someone can actually consume that number of calories a day.  I can hardly grasp those numbers and what it entails to eat them, even if I think back to my life pre-WLS.  Could I have ever wound up there, weighing at 600 or 700 pounds?  I would hate to think so but anything can happen.  I never expected to weigh 315 pounds either.  I used to measure myself against other people and think "As long as I never allow myself to get that big."  But then I would gain weight and the standard by which I measured that would have to change.  It's funny the things we try to do to make ourselves feel better or at least not as bad as "that person over there".

But more than anything in watching this program I felt such empathy for most of them.  One man I think took a second mortgage on his house to pay for some repairs and used half the money on food.  Now he is struggling to lose about 140 pounds so he can have RNY and he has social services helping him.  I just want to go visit him and cheer him on and tell him he can do it...but he is in England.  He was one of the two (there were four people they featured who were morbidly obese) who seemed like he wanted to change.  They say these individuals are addicted to food and this man said something that struck me.  He said if he was surrounded by empty whiskey bottles people would believe he had a problem. 

When it is a food addiction, people just expect you to stop eating but in reality for these people it is not that easy.  And eventually, when addicted to food to the point that you become bed-bound, what else is there to bring happiness other than eating?  It's a deadly and vicious cycle, and one that few people look at with any kind of sympathy. 

I followed that show by watching "The 650 Pound Virgin" about a guy who lost 400 pounds through diet and exercise because he was courageous enough to approach a young personal trainer and ask for help.  And the trainer was more than willing and now the two are best buds.  But it a morbidly obese man having the guts after living a childhood of ridicule asking for the help and it took the compassion of another man to say yes.  It could have been easy for the other man to laugh or say "dude, just stop eating" but thank God for his maturity and wisdom. 

Those are the things that have the power to change the obesity epidemic: maturity, compassion, wisdom, courage.  Ridicule and laughter in the face of someone else's pain is never going to change the world. 



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