I hate the word “fat”.

I really don’t like it. It sounds dirty, gross, ugly and unkempt.  It makes a mockery of us who are truly overweight. Obese. Morbidly obese. It tells us we’re not good enough when we should know that we are MORE than enough. Here’s something I had posted on my Facebook a while back. Raw. Real. My truth.

There are many people who have no idea what it feels like to be morbidly obese. There are many people who have no idea what it feels like to even be overweight. Let me give you an idea:

1. It’s embarrassing
2. It happened for a reason and not just because we love food.
3. It is most, if not all, of the time a mental health issue and not a will power issue.
4. Something happened in our lives that we had trouble getting past or have never gotten past. Food became our comfort… and our enemy at the same time.
5. It is cheaper to eat unhealthy foods than it is to eat healthy foods. Especially if you’re on a major budget, earning minimum wage, or just trying to get by as a single parent.
6. We love life and want to live it if we can get to that place. Most of the time, we cannot.
7. We hate not fitting into booths, movie seats, airplanes seats, cars and anywhere else we have to fit our bodies.
8. Rock bottom is lower than you think it is.
9. We need support like we need air to breathe and that doesn’t mean saying “Should you REALLY be eating that?”.
10. We don’t love ourselves enough so we need support to over-love us. We know that it’s hard on the people around us and we feel constantly guilty about it.

We know that we are slowly killing our selves. Tough love should come from a gym trainer or a doctor… NOT from family members or people who love us.

I’m was watching My 600 lb life and this woman’s sister was so crazy unsupportive I wanted to find her and explain to her that she’s NOT helping her sister…  (Ok, truth be told, I wanted to punch her) but I’m not violent. It was an old episode so I’m sure the emails were rolling in. If you’re a parent… stop telling your son or daughter what they shouldn’t be eating and instead give them other options that they CAN eat and help them portion control. If you’re a brother or sister of an obese person, encourage them, remind them you love them, if they ask for help even in a weird way like “Can you give me your recipe for turkey meatloaf” give it to them but, better yet, offer to help them make it.

We need you. We need your guidance. We need your will power. So, can we borrow it for a while? We promise we’ll give you back the best of us. First we need to find it within ourselves.

#fromcouchtofitness #foodislife #eatinghealthy #mystandardsmyway #familyties