400-Pounder: 'I Feel Like My Life Is Almost Over'
Lurking about in the great blogosphere are quite literally millions of people who are searching for answers to their problems. Family issues, work stresses, health ailments, and especially weight loss all are heavy on the hearts of so many people that they seek out assistance from others who have been through the struggles they are currently enduring.
Many of these people who are just like you and me are hurting and feel so all alone in their predicament. Sometimes I wonder exactly who is out there checking out the blog, reading about my weight loss, scouring through the nearly 1800 articles I've written over the past two years about low-carb living.
Nothing thrills me more than to hear from these courageous people who are brave enough to pour out their hearts to me in an e-mail. It takes a lot of guts to write to a complete stranger about your personal struggles with something like morbid obesity. But that's exactly what an e-mailer sent to me this week and I wanted to share his story with you that left me breathless.
Here's what he wrote:
Hello Jimmy,
I currently weigh 412 pounds and have been disabled due to a back injury for almost four years now. I've had two back surgeries to relieve the crippling pain of sciaticia. In fact, my last surgery was in February 2006. It has been over a year now and I've tried to exercise regularly.
But the pain of exercising keeps me down. Maybe I could do more, but I've come to a place in my life where I've just about given up on the idea of losing weight. I want to try one more time to start the low-carb lifestyle which I've tried before. But it only lasted a few weeks.
There's nothing more important to me right now than to start again with the low-carb diet and exercise as much as I can take. I want to finally be the man I picture myself being in my mind. I wonder why I haven't done more and I why haven't done this sooner. I honestly can't give an honest answer to these.
I just feel so defeated, useless, helpless, and hopeless. I had to quit work when the doctor finally discovered what was wrong with my back. Now I am drawing Social Security Disability, but most of the time I feel like my life is almost over. The sad thing is I'm only 37 years old.
Reading your incredible low-carb weight loss success story over and over again lets me know it is possible for me too which is why I'm willing to give it a try again. Thanks so much for the inspiration.
WOW! That sounds so heartbreaking, but I'm sure there are many thousands more that feel EXACTLY the same as this reader does. The sense that all hope is gone is undoubtedly how my 600-pound brother Kevin feels right now, too.
God bless this reader for writing and I'm so glad that he did. I'm sorry to hear about all of your struggles, but let me encourage you that YOU CAN DO IT! All hope is not lost and I'm glad to see my story encourages you.
Let me start by saying don't worry about the exercise as much as your diet at first. If you get your low-carb lifestyle down by reading the low-carb book of your choice, then the exercise will come later. You sound like you have the want to...now you need to JUST DO IT!
Take this lifestyle change seriously and you can't help but be just as successful as I did just three years ago when I was in the same position as you are. Don't give up hope! Think about this former 410-pound man who went on to lose nearly 200 pounds thanks to the low-carb lifestyle. It IS possible, so it's time to MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Feel free to share your encouragement and advice for this reader in the comments section below. As always, the lines of communication are always open, so please don't hesitate to e-mail livinlowcarbman@charter.net anytime.
Many of these people who are just like you and me are hurting and feel so all alone in their predicament. Sometimes I wonder exactly who is out there checking out the blog, reading about my weight loss, scouring through the nearly 1800 articles I've written over the past two years about low-carb living.
Nothing thrills me more than to hear from these courageous people who are brave enough to pour out their hearts to me in an e-mail. It takes a lot of guts to write to a complete stranger about your personal struggles with something like morbid obesity. But that's exactly what an e-mailer sent to me this week and I wanted to share his story with you that left me breathless.
Here's what he wrote:
Hello Jimmy,
I currently weigh 412 pounds and have been disabled due to a back injury for almost four years now. I've had two back surgeries to relieve the crippling pain of sciaticia. In fact, my last surgery was in February 2006. It has been over a year now and I've tried to exercise regularly.
But the pain of exercising keeps me down. Maybe I could do more, but I've come to a place in my life where I've just about given up on the idea of losing weight. I want to try one more time to start the low-carb lifestyle which I've tried before. But it only lasted a few weeks.
There's nothing more important to me right now than to start again with the low-carb diet and exercise as much as I can take. I want to finally be the man I picture myself being in my mind. I wonder why I haven't done more and I why haven't done this sooner. I honestly can't give an honest answer to these.
I just feel so defeated, useless, helpless, and hopeless. I had to quit work when the doctor finally discovered what was wrong with my back. Now I am drawing Social Security Disability, but most of the time I feel like my life is almost over. The sad thing is I'm only 37 years old.
Reading your incredible low-carb weight loss success story over and over again lets me know it is possible for me too which is why I'm willing to give it a try again. Thanks so much for the inspiration.
WOW! That sounds so heartbreaking, but I'm sure there are many thousands more that feel EXACTLY the same as this reader does. The sense that all hope is gone is undoubtedly how my 600-pound brother Kevin feels right now, too.
God bless this reader for writing and I'm so glad that he did. I'm sorry to hear about all of your struggles, but let me encourage you that YOU CAN DO IT! All hope is not lost and I'm glad to see my story encourages you.
Let me start by saying don't worry about the exercise as much as your diet at first. If you get your low-carb lifestyle down by reading the low-carb book of your choice, then the exercise will come later. You sound like you have the want to...now you need to JUST DO IT!
Take this lifestyle change seriously and you can't help but be just as successful as I did just three years ago when I was in the same position as you are. Don't give up hope! Think about this former 410-pound man who went on to lose nearly 200 pounds thanks to the low-carb lifestyle. It IS possible, so it's time to MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Feel free to share your encouragement and advice for this reader in the comments section below. As always, the lines of communication are always open, so please don't hesitate to e-mail livinlowcarbman@charter.net anytime.
Labels: diet, encouragement, helpless, hopeless, low-carb, morbid obesity, motivation
posted by Jimmy Moore at
5/02/2007 09:39:00 PM
4 Comments:
Jimmy, this fella needs support. If he doesn't have family or friends willing to help, then he needs to find an online support group. People who post in these groups are more then willing to give low carb advice, help, and most of all, encouragement to those who are trying to lose weight. Just for starters, there is Low Carb Eating, Low Carb Friends, and George Stella has a forum on his website. Best advice - get a book, read it, make a shopping list, and get started. I sure wish him success.
I have a friend who is 300 pounds, I keep telling her that she need to do Weight loss surgery since it looks like she can't lose a thing (she give up hope already).
How do you motivate such person to realize that she need to drop 150 pounds not for the sake of good looking but for the sake of healty good long life ?
You are exactly RIGHT, D! He does need support and I hope he continues to seek it out here at my blog and at those sites you mentioned,
Cherry, your question is a very good one and I have answered it previously in this blog post. There is a fine line between nagging and lovingly helping them understand.
I'm dealing with this very thing with my 600-pound brother. He just won't listen to me and it can be frustrating. But I've come to the realization that the individual needs to make up their mind to do this. You can't force it, unfortunately.
My wife used to nag me and I hated it. When she stopped and just loved me for who I was, I finally opened my eyes to livin' la vida low-carb. The rest is history.
I, too, have a friend in the 300 lb range.
I hear one excuse after another about why she can't begin her preferred way of eating. (Sonoma - not really low carb, but certainly lower carb than the SAD) Yep, you heard that right, she's picked out a plan, she wants to do it, but there's a million reasons why she can't.
I used to try to encourage her to just do it - to just do whatever it took to eat the way she believes she should eat... but I've pretty much given up doing that, because there's one reason after another why she just can't. Any time the subject even comes up, she becomes somewhat hostile about it - and I'm not even the one bringing up the subject! She starts it, but anymore, it seems like she's only doing it to have a chance to continue to express her argument that she can't do it.
I also hear from her the same things about how she thinks her life is over, because her physical abilities are deteriorating, and she feels so bad. She only has one or two chronic health problems. Unfortunately, when you have a chronic health problem, you treat those with medication, the medication makes you feel even worse, so there's more medication to control the side effects, which has it's own side effects and requires more medication to control those... Eventually you just get to the point where you feel bad, and it's unclear whether it's from the weight, the chronic health problem, or all the medications.
In a way, I understand her frustrations, and her inability to do what's necessary to begin... but then I remember back before I began low carb, and remember all the excuses I made too. That's when I have to come to the conclusion that she's not going to start her new life until the old one is so intolerable that she has no other choice.
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