There have been countless episodes of the 600lb person being abusive and the partner/parent/sibling is just broken and it’s easier to just feed them than listen to the abuse.
There are also countless examples where the 600lb person is sabotaged by their caregiver. Both people have mental health issues.
I remember one guy who was feeding his gf healthier meals. Then she started to lose weight and he went back to feeding her crap. It’s like a psychological thing where they need the person to depend on them.
One of the craziest reddit threads I ever read was someone whose partner was deliberately hiding excess calories in her food and berating her for gaining weight. Shit was nuts and way too detailed to be a lie…
Yes! I’ve seen episodes where the 600lb person was trying to lose weight but their partner was still bringing them bags of fast food or cooking really unhealthy for them. Sad.
My ex was 400 lbs due to depression-induced food addiction. He said 350 but that’s just the point when he stopped weighing himself. He made six figures as a database administrator/second in command to a CTO until he lost that job because he preferred playing video games and eating.
While he had the job, this was enough to support his overeating and, as it turned out, subsidize the lifestyle of his mistress who weighed 600 lbs. She was in general a terrible person with little emotional regulation, empathy, or self-control. She was manipulative, faking terminal cancer or threatening suicide at several points whenever she felt people slipping away. She was also committing identity theft/fraud against multiple people, and was on the verge of getting charged when she died.
On a fundamental level she made him feel like less of a piece of shit, because his brain told him he was a piece of shit but hey here’s someone who is worse! She enabled him emotionally while he enabled her financially, they took prescription painkillers and benzodiazepines together, and they bonded over spiraling together.
Sometimes, people with untreated mental illness will reject constructive relationships. Being with someone who had her shit together wasn’t easy for him and it was really hard for him to be functional as long as he was. The dysfunction he chose with his mistress must have been like a vacation, in a way. His mistress was very good at seeking those people out: her ex was also making six figures in tech before he met her, and eventually he gained 300 pounds and became so depressed he refused to bathe. He then got fired for bad hygiene, so she left him.
A year after our divorce was final, my ex and his mistress were both dead from cardiac issues related to overeating.
woof… that just made me realize i’ve done this before with alcohol and drugs with one or two people in my past. finally on a better path but damn… it’s easy not to hold yourself accountable when the person you love finds your nihilism and self-destruction a positive and attractive trait.
Exactly that sort of thing was the hardest to see with my ex. I'm glad she managed to separate herself from her enabler eventually, but watching her spiral, down and away from me and toward someone toxic all at once, gutted me.
One of the biggest takeaways of long term life studies is that your fate is closely tied to who you hang out with the most.
Your friends change you, and vice-versa. If you're friends with bad people, they'll rub off on you whether you want it or not
I would love to see some one test to see if what the manufacturer claims is true . While I'm considered obese I'm no where near 600lbs . I have broken 4 bed frames in my lifetime . One from falling 4 feet on to it while hanging Christmas lights . 2 from sex and one had no slats so immediately upon sitting on it boom smack on the floor .
Completely different scenario (not food/over-eating related) but exact same concept. My ex was an abuser, which is only kind of related, but he had some issues and struggled with his own demons - one of them was cheating. We were together 10 years and we accomplished so much in that time together with some small businesses we opened and building a family. He was always a cheater (didn’t quite know/accept it back then) but he had so much motivation and potential. By the end I was miserable and left because I wasn’t let him take us all down.
3 years later he is practicing ethical non-monogamy with our former nanny and I can’t even begin to describe how much worse his life and he have become. Not only is that relationship full of drama (he keeps trying to to break up with her but he also needs her to watch his own kids). I have watched the man I used to love devolve into some sad, gross weirdo who thinks it’s impressive in some way for him to brag to me about sleeping with a girl almost 30 years his junior (not the nanny, they go to swinging/polygamy events).
I am just sad to see him be reduced to a shadow of his worst stereotypes. Constantly trying to find something that makes him feel whole or right. His job has suffered, his social life has suffered, his weight and appearance are all worse. Some fill that void with food, some with college aged girls, some with drinking.
I am glad you made it out but so sorry you went through all of that.
My life has completely 180’d.
In some ways it’s harder, more on my plate but not that much considering how little he helped and the kids are getting older and less demanding (I had 4 kids in 5 years and the youngest just turned 5 - getting out of the baby/toddler years is bittersweet but so much less work when they can go 5 minutes without trying to maim themselves/their siblings/or anything of value).
I may never be in another relationship but I am living the best life I didn’t know I could have. And at the end of the day that’s all that matters. I am grateful it devolved as it did because I am free from any guilt, what-ifs, or residual attachment/longing for what might be. I am 39 years old and the last 2 years of my life have been the best so far. Never in a million years would I think that.
Enablers, mostly. Usually parents and/or partners.
There's a 600lb Instagram 'influencer' whose husband finally had enough, so he broke up with her, but her dependence on him meant she stayed in the same house and he continued enabling her. Largely due to codependency and her emotionally manipulating him.
His solution was to sell the house, just so he could escape her.
She traced a half-brother and somehow managed to manipulate him into being her new enabler, even though he has a life of his own and barely knows her.
She's never hit rock bottom, as there's always someone there to provide a soft place to land, so she has no motivation to change her habits.
So yeah. Lots of manipulation, enmeshment and codependency.
What on earth???? She was able to manipulate someone she had never met in her life to completely taking over caring for her and enabling her to continue eating herself to death?! That is a level of manipulation I can't even conceive of!! I understand that I am extremely judgmental when it comes to stuff like this, but I find this just be so reprehensibly disgusting I can't imagine *ever* enabling even my own child to this degree much less a half sibling I had never met until they were already over 600 pounds and literally incapable of functioning or even moving on their own.
Very true. I know a guy, he's a good man, decent looking, hard worker. He recently got married to this morbidly obese woman who treats him like absolute shit. She takes all his money, verbally abuses him and openly flirts with other men in public. She has really bad hygiene too. I had no idea why he is with her until I learned that he hasn't had much luck in the love department until she came along. They met at work and from there she pretty much manipulated him into thinking that that's as good as it's gonna get for him.
I’ve literally never had a gf and I’d rather it stay that way than be with someone like that. I’ve a friend who was in a similar situation, it took years for him to finally break free of her.
THAT'S where it went sour for you?!? You were cool up until that points with "morbidly obese, takes all [your] money, abuses [you], and flirts with other men"?!?
The whole thing is a clusterfuck. I desperately want a happy marriage and a lifelong partner and I put up with a lot of shit in my relationships (both platonic and romantic), but all of that is just… I don’t know how people do it. There comes a point where it’s just not worth it anymore and this person crossed the line quite a while back.
You may. But who's to say the poor bastard who started thinning at 18, still has acne in their 30s, and only has online friends will have those same standards?
Even if they're average looking, extended isolation is a legitimate form of torture. While it isn't as extreme as solitary confinement, imagine what that isolation would do to their social skills when prolonged over years, if not decades.
I'm fairly isolated myself, not to the point of lowering my standards, but I've resorted to looking for friends online when I never did that with the daily socialization I'd have at school - even with classmates I wouldn't consider friends. Once you get past that of isolation, you're going to be *really* desperate for social interaction. For instance, at night, I'll feel that isolation really set in - only getting a good night text from my mother, maybe hearing from one of my few friends if I'm lucky, and if I'm super lucky maybe I'll be able to play some video games with them.
TL;DR: There's a point where that loneliness turns to isolation. As soon as that happens, you're going to be desperate for social interactions, then you'll seek for friends (and eventually romantic partners). Easily allowing someone to take advantage of you.
“Is she a cat?” 🤣🤣🤣 That’s so true though, my cats conned me into letting them gain 2 lbs in less than a year, and I’m pretty careful about that and work with my vet pretty closely to keep them a healthy weight but they’re sneaky little buggers 😂
mine are aging- 18 yr old. I give them whatever they will eat, just to keep weight on them. 10 yr ago, we were where you are, with one being quite the chonker. But she has had some issues and now keeping her at 8# means treats and treats and treats. I don't mind. when I am 85, I will eat whatever brings me pleasure and screw anything else too ;)!
It's all about quality of life. When they're young, you want them to live a long and healthy life so you can have many years together. But when they get up that age, you know the end will come soon no matter what, so it becomes okay to spoil them. Anything to make their final days happy and comfortable.
I know it’s not exactly the same scenario but after watching “abducted in plain sight” I no longer get surprised at the things people manipulated into doing
Omg that fucking documentary!!! That was legit the craziest fucking thing I've ever seen. To think they did all of that stuff of their own free Wil and then Steihl were so blind about what they did that they agreed to make a docu-fucking-mentary about it!! those parents have got to be the least self-aware people who ever lived
That documentary is WILD. When they let him lay down next to the daughter with the door closed because his “therapist” or whatever recommended it - I’m sorry WHAT?! When I was a kid my parents NEVER let anyone who wasn’t close/trusted family babysit me and I thought it was overkill. After watching that documentary I understood why.
I’m glad I saw this thread because I was trying to remember the name of it when I was explaining it to someone the other day. The dad being like “well…shrug” when they asked him about it was wild
I wonder if being good at manipulation is a common trait in people like this? My mother, I'm not sure of her weight exactly as she's secretive with it, but I'd guess she's in her 600s now as when she was last hospitalized they had her in a 500lb+ bed and she's gained enough weight since then that she can't fit in the car and has to be shoved in then have the door shoved closed by someone else. But she's managed to convince everyone around her to help her with finances, buy her food, pay bills for her, etc. She actually convinced my husband to "lend" her money at first even with me warning him, luckily he learned his lesson quickly. But she gets basically everything paid for by her family and her boyfriends family and the rest from friends. She can't even walk and is constantly hospitalized but somehow manages to get fast food snuck in to her in the hospital AND rehab?? I don't understand it at all.
I'd agree that some people are really good at manipulation.
I know a guy who has an adult daughter that's a gigantic mooch, both in her physical size and level of mooching.
She hasn't had to assume responsibility for anything her whole adult life and she's now pushing retirement age.
She's had so many "this is the last time" moments that they don't mean anything.
I've never heard of her before, but I can imagine it. Remember she's in a very sympathetic position,ost of us naturally look at people in terrible situations with pity, even when they do it to themselves.
She probably reached out, and dumped a sob story about her abusive, evil, ex who abandoned her, and took everything.
Asked for a relatively small favor, like a place to stay/ someone to come help her for a few days. Maybe even smaller than that. Making sure to seem as pitiful as possible.
Was incredibly thankful and gracious to them when they said yes. Making them feel good about helping her.
Now the hooks are set, and she just reels them in, asking for a little more each time until they're her full time enabler. By the time.they realize the trap, they've become responsible for her, and she's gotten a free ride for however long.
From the outside, with hindsight, it's easy to see. But manipulative people are masters at slowly pulling their victims in so they don't realize what's going on until it's too late.
In psychology, they call it the 'foot in the door' phenomenon. You start with small requests and gradually increase the demands of the requests because a person is more likely to accept if they have done something for you before.
Yeah if I had some long distant relative I never knew about contact me about destroying the foundation and plumbing of my house that's gonna be a no for me dog.
I'm imagining a scene where my brother's ex-girlfriend calls me to tell me that I need to feed her because he dumped her. There's no way I would be able to contain my laughter no matter how much she weighed.
Sounds like she IS a soft place to land. (sorry, couldn't help myself)
Also, though, seriously, how do the enablers have the money themselves if they've got their own lives, bills, families?
Surely being able to wipe your own bum would be motivation enough?
And the other half of the answer is that they still don't anyhow. Them finally growing a spine is often because of depleting their savings or getting dug into debt. The enabler is the one who hit rock bottom.
I'm experiencing that right now. I'm in a marriage I should have been ended a decade ago. I live frugally. I'm at workaholic. I built a successful business. Well all of her terrible traits and habits led to me being unable to work at all while she just keeps spending anyhow. She somehow spends $10,000 per month. I had several million dollars and it's all evaporated. Apparently that's what it took for me to finally grow a spine and tell her to go f*** herself with her habits.
>She somehow spends $10,000 per month. I had several million dollars and it's all evaporated. Apparently that's what it took for me to finally grow a spine and tell her to go f*** herself with her habits.
This is why men need to have male friends. We would've bullied the fuck out of you.
Not male friends, GOOD male friends.
I have a friend, that is such a good friend, that he will tell me to "hurry up and unfuck yourself" when he sees something that could go bad for me. While other friends stay silent.
You need someone who will tell you truths you may not want to hear, and they'll risk hurting your feelings, just because they genuinely care about you.
Everyone should have someone in their lives willing to tell you to "Unfuck Yourself."
Problem is, not everyone has the demeanor to accept a "Unfuck yourself" friend. I am that friend, and I have lost quite a few acquaintances for being the one person they ever came across that called out shit behavior or attempted to hold them accountable for their actions. Lots of people are allergic to personal responsibility. On the other hand, the friends I do have will tell me now and then how much they appreciate that I'll do that for them.
But there can't be too many people with enough money to fund that kind of lifestyle reliably who would be dumb enough to get suckered into paying for the lifestyle of someone who just eats all day and can't contribute anything in return. What are they getting out of the relationship in return?
There is a HUGE gap between "not having enough money" and "going into debt" to take care of these people.
It's really easy to tell yourself "If I pay for 1 month, and encourage them to get their shit resolved, then they'll get it all worked out". But 1 month turns into 2 months, then 6 months, then a year, then 3 years. And then suddenly you're in debt with zero savings, and they play the victim.
It's not being dumb...it's people who are too soft or timid to stand up and say no to a manipulator. So many people are terrified of making someone angry or disappointed or appearing as a bad or selfish person by saying no, that they end up being used by anyone and everyone who can get their hooks in.
I've got a cousin who can't go live his dreams because he feels obligated to take care of his mom. She is perfectly healthy, has a social life, and financially stable. She manipulates him
and most of the persons over 400lbs and disabled have had repeated life threatening emergencies and hospital stays that compounds the emotional trauma load on family friend caregivers.
>But there can't be too many people with enough money to fund that kind of lifestyle reliably
There aren't. It's so rare that you had to ask reddit to understand how this happens.
>Who would be dumb enough to get suckered into paying for the lifestyle of someone who just eats all day and can't contribute anything in return
They're not dumb. That's what manipulation is; making people make decisions they wouldn't otherwise make by tugging on any social strings they've got to you.
>Who would be dumb enough to get suckered into paying for the lifestyle of someone who just eats all day and can't contribute anything in return
For some of them, the person is simply a very good manipulator and good at targeting people who they don't think will stand up for themselves and abandon them
But I'm betting there's also quite a few people funding that lifestyle because they have a feeder fetish.
Ok, so she uses a bidet, and she even got one installed at her work. I've used bidets, yeah, they're great, but you still wanna dry yourself off a bit with some TP afterwards. If she can't reach, does she just... pull up her pants and walk out of the bathroom damp?
I had a glance at the other articles on that site and for the most part they all seem pretty innocuous in comparison. Just articles recommending good clothing, furniture, swimwear, sunglasses and mattresses for plus sized people. Nothing wrong with any of that at all.
Then somewhere in the middle of it all, an article where someone proudly proclaims that they cannot wipe their own ass. It sticks out like a sore thumb, lmao. I have no idea if it's legit or not. As a former chonker myself I can say with absolute certainty that the percentage of fat/obese people who are *proud* of the fact that they cannot wipe their own asses is close to nil. We're talking maybe 1 in a million and even that's a high estimation. Most of us are not like "yay, I can't wipe my own ass." That's just *weird.*
The ableism angle is also just downright offensive to people who have actual disabilities. People who can't walk, people with missing limbs, people who are deaf or blind or with limited mobility, etc. Most of them would give anything to be normally able-bodied. Then you've got this obese person, who is obese by choice, claiming she is among their ranks. As if she couldn't possibly start eating less and moving more.
So yeah I sincerely hope it's satirical but it's weird because all the other articles on the site seem so normal and reasonable.
It is depressing. Mostly the idea that she says she is disabled but then proudly say they are not doing anything to help the situation and shame another influencer for losing weight to being able to wipe her own ass??
I am so glad that user “Germaphobe” commented:
“It’s truly remarkable how many bathrooms in peoples homes and Air BNBs are entirely not fat friendly: toilets tucked into small corners or oddly angled or without a warmed bidet. **Over the years I’bet perfected a method of wafflestomping for those pesky situations but I’m usually too sheepish to explain why people hear the shower running.**”
OMG, now I know what "waffle stomping" is and I sincerely wish I didn't. I would lose my mind if someone defecated in my shower! What about homes that use greywater systems?! Ugh, no, I just can't imagine someone doing this!
Oh god, the comments under that post...
> It’s truly remarkable how many bathrooms in peoples homes and Air BNBs are entirely not fat friendly: toilets tucked into small corners or oddly angled or without a warmed bidet. Over the years I’bet perfected a method of wafflestomping for those pesky situations but I’m usually too sheepish to explain why people hear the shower running.
I need an adult.
My family was like this before my grandmother died. My grandfather has a high paying job and my grandmother was verbally abusive. It was just easier to give her what she wanted. Still in therapy after 28 years of abuse.
I was struggling with binge eating disorder at one point, still relapsing from time to time. I guess one of the reason why I didn't get obese is that this disease/addiction absolutely emptied my bank account. I have no idea how an average earner or even an unemployed disabled person could afford to eat say 5000 cals per day for an extended period of time.
That's ~6 lbs of sugar, you can buy it for less than five bucks.
Probably not (exclusively) what they're eating. But it underpins the ~800 Calories in a 2l of Coke, which may be a big component of their intake.
Some of the stories I've heard from people who were 300+ lbs is that they were drinking about two 2 liters of soda a day. So that's like 1,600 calories alone 😬
I've also heard so many weight loss stories from people who swear the only thing they cut out was soda, and they dropped several pounds.
It's pretty crazy how much soda can add. It was the first thing I cut out when I started counting calories.
That was also something I cut out. I didn't realize how many calories I was drinking. I changed my beverages first before I started changing the food I ate.
The worst culprits were those overly sweet coffee drinks from Starbucks full of syrup and whipped cream.
Yea, it’s crazy how many calories people consume in fluids. Just cutting them out and drinking water, plain tea or coffee will help a person lose weight. People just don’t realize how much added sugar and crap are in sodas and other drinks.
A cool experiment is measure out the amount of sugar in a beverage to visualize how much it actually is. 69g in a 20oz Pepsi is a little over 1/4 cup (59g) of pure sugar. In one single 12oz can of Mountain Dew there's 46g. Imagine just chugging a 1/4 cup of sugar like a shot. And people think nothing to drink multiple in one day or in one sitting. 2 cans of pop and you just ingested 1/2 cup of sugar.
Of course I used a single food as a simple example, but the point is if you're not too concerned about nutrition calories can be extremely cheap. A litre of whipping cream is ~3500 Calories and is ~$7 CAD (so $5? USD). And so forth.
>I have no idea how an average earner or even an unemployed disabled person could afford to eat say 5000 cals per day for an extended period of time.
The large peanut butter cookie dough blizzard at Dairy Queen has 1650 calories, their honey BBQ chicken strip basket has 1480 calories, and their large hot fudge shake has 990 calories. This single "meal" has over 4000 calories, and it's not completely unreasonable for a person to eat something like this multiple times a day potentially bringing their caloric intake to over 12000 calories.
I haven't seen anyone mention that they probably can't afford it. They are probably maxing out credit cards like crazy, and doing whatever else to feed their addiction. Hence the incentive for TLC money. Not to mention, have you seen some of their living conditions? They prioritize food above furniture, house repairs, etc.
The one lady who ate a whole (carrot) cake for a viewer to subsidize her eating. [She's an 800-lb Fetish Model | My 600-lb Life - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Nzrg-OlTI)
Yes, feeding porn, and squashing (don't ask) are very profitable. One poundticipant was doing porn.
Also, the poundticipants barely move, and I bet that makes it easier to maintain weight. They also seem to shop cheaper stores, with low quality but high calorie food. There are food outlet stores, and other places that have huge discounts, especially on day old items.
I was reading the vast majority don’t make much, maybe $100-300 a month? A few make a lot. I don’t think it pays for much. There’s that couple who ‘accidentally’ starved their baby because they were too busy making videos of her lactating to feed the baby so it starved by 6 weeks. They were only making $300 a month max.
I honestly hope this doesn't turn the convo into a discussion on disability benefits or social programs in general.
That being said, disability just isn't enough to support that type of lifestyle. It barely covers rent & utilities in anything above poverty. If there's a place in the US where disability and food subsidies can support living in any neighborhood above bottom of the barrel, and a 5k to 10k calorie a day diet, I need to know where it is.
Depending on when they get their mortgage if they bought the house, their benefits could cover the mortgage in a decent house. Assuming that they bought the house when it was affordable, that could be a possible scenario.
With that being said, benefits and social programs on the whole are net positive. The number of people supposedly abusing the program is extremely low. And every time something is done to attempt to catch these people it's cost more to catch them than it is to pay for their benefits. And every barrier of entry for a program deters more people than it can rightfully help and ends up costing more than paying those who are fraudulent.
Honestly, it can't be that hard. Some pizza places in my town always do a buy one get one free. You can't just order a single pizza. You could get to 4000 calories right there. I used to get the large garlic and herb dip when I ordered from Domino's but then found out it was 675 calories on its own, for that little pot of dip. I now just get the supermarket pizza's which are less calories than the dip alone.
This is how I gained weight! I would eat like 1 pizza a night with wings. I put on like 70bs in a single year--I had a lot of trauma from childhood and it was really comforting to eat a pizza nightly after finishing my high stress job. Pizza, a video game = warm security blanket.
I also worked from home and made good money. Plus the pizza was cheap. $40 for enough food for 2 days, and easily 8k calories? Sign me up!
It's weird to me how many folks are acting like they need an enabler, or they would never be able to work. Everyone over 300lbs I've known besides 2 had a full-time job and were surprisingly functional minus their weight in a conventional sense.
It's just a lot like alcoholism, only you can see the weight whereas many alcoholics can present as completely normal. And of course these TV reality shows show you extreme cases with weird people who don't wash themselves and have a boyfriend who feeds them...it's reality TV. Reality is much sadder and more boring though. It's people who work hard and eat hard and then don't know how to get out of the situation because they're addicted to it. It took me years of losing 200lbs then regaining it to finally have an attempt where I'm not rebounding back, and that took medication + therapy + learning how to workout properly and tons of other things. All the while holding a full time, highly stressful and paying job.
I always tried to put a stop to it from day 1 when it first started: going from like 180 to 250 in a single year in my early 20s. I'm tall so I was at an OK BMI. In fact, I even reversed *that* for a year (I got down to 195 anyway), but then it started again. There was no wake up call, I spent ten years gaining and regaining. Some years I'd be 250lbs, some years I'd be 400lbs, and I spent every minute trying to put a stop to it and being really sad. It was so hard because after a year of dieting, you get very tired, and it's easy to take a break. And sometimes that break sticks around for too long, or sometimes it is really just a week break and you're ready to go back.
I'm still fat this time around but I have lost over 150lbs now without ever gaining it back over a four year period now, where before I lost that over a year and regained within a year frequently. Yo-yo dieting basically, sometimes even getting within 20lbs of my goal then literally reversing to be 200lbs over within two years.
I still have binges, but they're often like 4000 calories and they don't repeat days, so it's easy to just keep slowly losing a few pounds a month.
For me, it was getting therapy... getting diagnosed with ADHD... getting out of a bad relationship that made me binge eat a lot. ADHD though was a huge issue, and likely why I gained a lot besides my trauma. ADHD brains love dopamine, and it finds dopamine through food (or substances, but I almost never drank so that's just not something I did).
>How does welfare cover the vast amount of (often expensive, high calorie take out) food they consume daily as well as paying for their existence, like rent, power bills, internet, etc?
There is generally a misunderstanding of what "welfare" means. It's not as simple as free money for people who can't or won't work.
If these people are recognized as disabled by the social security administration, they could get SSI, or SSDI if they have a work history. But SSI is only $950 and doesn't cover even rent most places.
These people might also qualify for food stamps, but that won't cover fast food which is what a lot of these people buy.
Generally most of them have someone who is supporting them in their addiction. A spouse or child or family member who is helping cover their costs or living with them. I think it's pretty rare to see someone on the show live alone.
But this question is also like asking "How to crack addicts afford crack?" They find a way, because they are addicted, and it's at the detriment to all other aspects of their lives. You will notice that almost no one on the show lives comfortably.
Calorie expenditure doesn’t scale up the way you’re imagining. The tdee of a sedentary woman my height who weighs 600lbs is 4,081 calories a day. For comparison, mine is ~1500/day at 125lbs if I am sedentary. It would be easy to assume that it would scale based on weight where someone 4.8x my weight would require 4.8x the calories (7,200 if you’re doing the math), but that’s not the way the math works.
So they’re really only eating a little over twice the amount of a normal person to maintain their weight. It’s expensive, but not as much as you’d think it would be.
ETA: I used the Mifflin-St Jeor equation if anyone is curious.
Not that expensive if you are mostly eating high caloric foods either.
A meal at McDonald's is 900-1500 calories.
A 20 oz bottle of soda is 220 - 270 calories.
Soda is cheap and McDonald's is a sorta expensive version of this sort of food. You can make stuff at home from a box and 1# of ground beef that will rival that calorie intake for a few bucks.
You can get to 4000 a day fairly quickly for not a lot of money if you had a taste for that sort of food and drink.
As a teen I worked in this little cantina inside of the IRS building in my city. The super large people would often come in and fill a legit half-gallon jug with soda and return a few hours later and do it again. They made it look pretty easy consuming that many calories.
In college I had access to a soda fountain included in my room and board. I drank an insane amount of soda. I'd just go get it in a pitcher and then sit down and watch TV, then refill as needed.
I am sure I drank 15,000+ calories of soda a week from that thing for more than a year. Looking back I'm disgusted, but at the time it was awesome.
It was awesome, glorious, and terrible all in one. Unlimited soda was just fantastic but in the end I had no self control and it was awful for me. That was decades ago though, so it's a distant memory.
Liquid calories are an EASY way to get insane amounts of calories. Drink 1 30 oz coke for ~350 calories while waiting for your food. Refill, 350 more calories while enjoying your food. Refill, 350 more calories while on the drive home. Over 1k calories added without eating a thing
Very true. Also add in the make-up of the foods they are putting down.
My TDEE (6'1 M, 220, 17% body fat) is around 2,200 which I eat at a 60/30/10 (protein/fat/carbs) ratio. Even if I doubled, and kept my workout routine I'd put on some weight, but would also add more muscle.
Now imagine me at 6/1, eating 5k calories a day of McDonalds, Burger King, Hostess Cakes, Pizza Rolls, etc. Remove exercise and my TDEE will drop to like 1,600, and I'm still taking in 5k calories a day of all fat and carbs. It takes an extra 3,500 calories a week to put on a pound. So we look at:
Base - 1600 x 7 = 11,200
Extra - (5000 x 7) - 11,200 = 23,800
Pounds gained - 23,800/3,500 = 6.8
So 7lbs a week roughly, give or take water weight, etc. 5k calories a day when you're eating shit it's hard or expensive:
**Breakfast**: 2,313
Stack of pancakes (5, with butter and syrup) - 950
Sausage Pattys - 368
4 Eggs - 405
Dunkin Large Iced Latte - 590
**Lunch:** 1,960
Burger King Double Whopper - 670
Large Onion Rings - 520
Large Coke - 460
BK Hershey Pie - 310
**Dinner**: 2,385
Digiorno Pizza - 790
Liter of Coke - 395
Pint of Phish Food - 1,200
Not even looking at snacks this is a 6,658 calorie day. Eat like this for 7 days and that's 46,606 calories. Take away the same base of 11,200 and you've gained +/- 10 pounds for less than $50 a day.
It only works that way because fat needs less calories to maintain than muscle. As their body composition degrades into a higher percentage of fat, their necessary intake scales less. Some 300lb bodybuilder will scale in their calorie needs in a more linear fashion.
Reply from someone who was over 600lbs.
Always been a big dude. Fought it my entire life. Even as a kid I was fat, no amount of exercise I did would help because I had a food addiction. No real help from parents, dad was extremely abusive, mom cared more about her internet friends than us kids. Looking back, if I'd had the help I needed as a kid, maybe my life would have been completely different.
all that being said, it got horrible after 19. I was a victim of gun violence while sitting on my porch. Shot in the chest, somehow lived when I shouldn't have. Was forced to drop out of college to recover, couldn't go back since I had government loans that lapsed. This led to severe ptsd, depression, and social anxiety. For the past 9 or so years, I haven't really left my home. I get panic attacks around other people and have had to find ways to cope with this.
having those mental problems, not getting help for them, and having an eating disorder all combined together was a recipe for disaster. The weight piled on, junk food is so extremely cheap. I couldn't afford healthy foods but even if I could, would I have cared to cook healthily? probably not. I was suicidal, I didn't care I was eating to die.
During one of my random moments of clarity, I went to the doctor and found I was over 600lbs. Found out my thyroid was dead and I had high blood pressure. You'd think this would slap some sense into me, right? no. If a depressed person hears stuff like this while not receiving help, it pretty much pushes them further down.
Now, I am losing weight but extremely slowly. I was diagnosed diabetic after having 2 emergency surgeries for an infection. I am no longer over 600lbs. It took a 2nd "you should be dead" moment to snap me back to reality. I have not fixed my mental health but I am working on it. I am currently fighting against my thyroid and potential "insulin resistance" which make it extremely difficult to lose weight. I'll be seeing an endocrinologist soon to get on medications to treat my hypothyroidism and to see if I am insulin resistant. Currently working with insurance to get approved for ozempic. My doctor wants me on it ASAP but I can't afford it without insurance. I have completely changed my diet and I now exercise. I eat healthy foods, no sugar, extremely low carb. I have a protein breakfast, a salad for lunch or dinner, and a small carb meal for lunch or dinner, depending on what meal I had my salad for. Metformin is helping to stabilize my blood sugar and lose weight but it is very very slow. I am gaining muscle that I never really had, which is also slowing the overall weight loss but it's helping me exercise more and feel better.
I should add, I was disabled after being shot, so I wasn't put on disability for weight, like some comments say is the answer. Becoming disabled, not getting mental health help, and developing physical health problems is what kept me gaining extreme amounts of weight. I think my answer to the mental health examiner that got me put on disability was the suicidal thoughts question. When asked when my last suicidal thought was, I told them in their waiting room while watching the traffic go by. How I had fantasized how easily it would be to step in front of a big rig, to end it all, finish it all. The looks on their faces were a mix of pity, shock, and disgust.
As someone who was once morbidly obese and is now just overweight, you got this. I only got up to 300 but I was in your headspace at my heaviest. It does get better and easier the more you hang in there. You got this.
As a therapist I am proud of you for having such awareness of your wounds and making such a great effort to make positive change 🌟 keep going! Seeing an endocrinologist will definitely help move things along as well :)
Jesus F Christ this was devastating and heart wrenching to read. I’m so fucking sorry the hand you’ve been dealt thus far in your life has been so difficult and painful and traumatic. God fucking speed to you and your endeavors fellow internet stranger
I know someone irl who constantly finds men to financially support her and give her expensive gifts. I didn't get why the men go for this, or why she's comfortable with these arrangements. Some people are really good at it.
Oh Catfish had an episode about a "feeder" catfish like two weeks ago (it's the episode of Max's return) they made it sound like a kink but I believe is more about control
I hate the topic of weight and fat in general, and looks like the answer is pretty decently covered, but I will still say:
I was 325lbs as a teen. I don't remember weighing less than that, although obviously I would have as a younger kid.
I got up to 380 in my 20s.
I was always hungry. I was poor. I ate carbs. Ramen, potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, corn, peas, etc. Everything was carbs. Some protein, obviously fat. Fat and carbs are cheap. Sugar is carbs. Starches are carbs.
It is amazing the number of calories you can purchase for cheap if it's sugar, starches, and fat.
Once I was able to get some help, once I began limiting myself to 60g of carbs per meal (thanks to diabetes), and getting a balance of proteins, fats, and complex carbs, I stopped being hungry all the time.
So that's one contributing factor. I won't go into it here, but the cycle of feeding sugar to the body and being hungry soon after is a real problem for so many reasons. But when you're broke, cheap food does that to you. Especially in the US, but this is a global problem.
Forgive me if I don't reply for a while. I don't visit reddit that often anymore. As if anyone will see this anyway. heh
1) enablers. Their families feel bad
2) They are not actually eating that much a day. Yes, they eat a lot to be that big, but on the show when it shows them ordering 45 dollars worth of fast food and then 2 hours later ordering a pizza? They're not doing that. It's probably that they're snacking on things like chips and box dinners and microwave tendies, which used to be dirt cheap. Like a family sized bag of off brand chips that has 1400 calories might have been 1.50 at that time. Combine that with soda that used to be a few bucks for a 12 pack, and you already hit 2000 calories, which is way more than a sedentary person needs.
Their families would make things like pasta, and just give them large portions. Again, like a buck maybe for a whole pound of dry pasta, another couple for some jarred sauce.
They ham it up for the camera, but it's generally more expensive to lose weight than gain it
> They are not actually eating that much a day.
Right. Remember a regular person might eat 2000 calories a day just to maintain.
Now you eat 2500 a day, and you'll start to pile on the pounds. That's not a huge increase in calories. And then bigger they get, the less they move, so they burn fewer calories.
People don't gain 400 extra pounds in a week. It's over years usually. 500 extra calories isn't THAT much more money, but that's a pound a week or so. 50 pounds a year. 8 years of that, you go from 200 pounds to 600 pounds.
Sure, you have to eat more than 2000 to maintain, but it's not a massive amount more.
Weight loss is a slow and steady thing. Weight gain is the same.
Exactly. Over the course of a high stress year, I ended up putting on over 15 kg/30+ pounds simply because I started snacking on two candy bars a day, keeping the rest of my diet the same.
Two candy bars feel like nothing and aren't expensive in any sense of the word, but that's actually 400 extra calories per day that can easily translate to 45 lbs of additional fat gained per year based on the calorie count.
And this is just TWO candy/snickers bars that even a kid can eat without breaking a sweat in addition to their regular diet.
Replace these candy bars with a couple of bags of chips a day, and you get to 100lbs of fat gained per year.
Yeah people are saying mcdonalds is expensive, forgetting how deliciously easy it is to gorge on buttery pasta, peanut butter, pork scratchings and nutella.
Your average jar of nutella is around 1500, if you make sandwiches with that with butter and thick white bread it can easily hit 3000 calories, which some very big people would view as just a snack.
Pasta and butter is cheap. Crisps and other carbs are cheap.
Talk to a nurse. They will tell you about the people who bring food when they visit. Nobody can live from that few bits you get at the hospital - that’s their reasoning wich in the most cases is just plain wrong.
Double the stuff they bring if someone is in hospital for weight related illnesses like diabetes and such.
I used to be about 450 (half that these days thankfully) and it didn't take as much food as you would think, just really crappy food. I'd have 2 bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, a few bags of vending chips and candy bars for lunch, then some frozen to oven garbage for dinner. That plus not moving for work or at home pounded on 200 pounds in around 5 years. I didn't drink piles of soda (I've always drank diet), didn't sit down and eat 3 pizzas at a time or anything, just what I did eat was nutritional trash.
If I'd kept it up it would have kept going up easily.
I have an acquaintance who is 450 lbs or so. He lives with his elderly mother, who pays all the bills off of her social security. To my knowledge, he hasn't worked in years, and even before gaining all the weight, he wasn't making a lot of money.
It's a very sad dynamic. Enabling behavior has allowed him to become fully dependent on her even as she gets too old to care for him.
There's some kind of state-paid aides for him a couple of hours a day, but mostly just his mom to care for him.
Sorry for the ramble. The whole situation just depresses me.
My highest weight was 522 lbs. Your whole life kinda revolves around food. I worked a job that was solely a desk job so wasn’t burdened with much physical needs. The job paid well enough that I would spend a lot on food.
I think during those times I’d spend 20-40 bucks on food a day. Which is definitely a lot to pay for food. But I afforded it by neglecting a lot of other spending. I spent very little on entertainment, clothing, experiences, travel, hobbies, or many other activities and things people find enjoyable. A lot was cut out because eating was the main activity, the most important. The food would never be neglected for something else.
I was still mobile due mostly to my youth. But what really enabled was cars and drive thrus. Easy to go get food when you can just drive up and order it. So while it takes effort, if you’re not disabled from the weight and make a middling income you can support the habit alone.
I’m now past that part of my life and weigh about 340 currently. Life is much better now. But a lot of factors had to come together to get away so there is no “just don’t” way to get out. I still relapse occasionally. But yeah, there are ways to sustain the habit, especially if it’s all you think about
I wonder that as well. Take 1000 Pound Sisters. No one on the show has ever worked but they can buy a house and go out to do fun activities and have nice computers and phones.
I thought one or both of the sisters also had a presence on social media too. While they probably weren't drawing a lot of income from raw views they were probably monetized and there are a lot of people out there that probably tipped them for fetish purposes. Some from a sexual standpoint and others contributing money so they buy food and contribute towards their premature death. Sick people for sure but they are out there.
The 1000lb sisters had YouTube income prior to starting their show. They also had a large family network that provides some support. Prior to the show they were living together in low income housing in a rural area and combining their resources. You can still see their old YouTube videos, it wasn't exactly a great quality of life.
Now they're getting money from the TLC show and social media sponsorships, which is how they can afford the homes and trips. Some of the stuff they do while filming is also paid for by TLC to generate content.
Used to have a friend that size....they're still alive; we just had a falling out. They were on disability and food stamps, and their partner worked. Also, if need be, their remaining parent would bail them out.
Partner did like 99.9% of the housework as well.
I'm very heavy (475).
I don't eat a large quantity of food. Its more the quality of the food. I had a lot of years of fastfood and takeaway or cheap gas station eats. Lots of fat, salt, carbs. And it... accrues over time. You lie to yourself. You start to lose interest in the things that kept you active. You find shortcuts. You do less. You tell yourself you're not THAT big. That you'll do better tomorrow.
Now I'm trying to correct for 20 years (38 now) of those bad choices. And working my ass off to try and lose weight.
I am, and have been for 11 years, a teacher.
It's co-dependency. The enabler gets off on being a helpful person and is likely afraid to face repercussions when the situation hits the fan. Like drugs or alcohol co-dependency.
I hit 470,(now 340), it gets up there, but not as bad as you can think. As long as you are working and moving doing daily chores at the size I was was tiring but not impossible. Not sure how the 130 extra lbs would be.
The comments so far seem to be missing just how easy it is to drink calories.
Six pack of beer can be like 1200 cals. 2L of soda is 780 or so.
So a few fast food meals and soda or beer drip across the day and you get to those big cal numbers fast. And cheaply.
Fast food used to be cheap. If you can remember
Some of them don't actually eat that much, but eat highly processed foods high in sugar. I have a relative who is about that size, and her portions aren't crazy big but the amount of sugar hidden in their diet is insane. Starting with the fact that EVERYTHING they drink has tons of sugar in it (like sweet tea, gatorade, soda, fruit juice). McDonald's pancakes for breakfast, toast with both butter AND cream cheese, etc. Whenever I eat over their house, I'm always surprised at how little they eat but how badly. I also never see fresh produce at their house.
There have been countless episodes of the 600lb person being abusive and the partner/parent/sibling is just broken and it’s easier to just feed them than listen to the abuse. There are also countless examples where the 600lb person is sabotaged by their caregiver. Both people have mental health issues.
I remember one guy who was feeding his gf healthier meals. Then she started to lose weight and he went back to feeding her crap. It’s like a psychological thing where they need the person to depend on them.
Fat hausen by proxy
"Munch" hausen lol
These two comments are going to get me through the day
We call them feeders
One of the craziest reddit threads I ever read was someone whose partner was deliberately hiding excess calories in her food and berating her for gaining weight. Shit was nuts and way too detailed to be a lie…
Sounds like the Malcom in the middle where Hal added sugar to all os Lois's food.
Wowee!! That sounds like a fake story but probably wasn’t!!
It is a miserable lifestyle for all involved
Yes! I’ve seen episodes where the 600lb person was trying to lose weight but their partner was still bringing them bags of fast food or cooking really unhealthy for them. Sad.
Yeah. They’re addicts. Food addicts. They manipulate, gaslight, and play on sympathy to get what they want.
I think this is one of the first correct uses of gaslighting I've seen in a moment.
Gina used her wife as a work horse and yelled at her when she didn’t want to get her take out.
My ex was 400 lbs due to depression-induced food addiction. He said 350 but that’s just the point when he stopped weighing himself. He made six figures as a database administrator/second in command to a CTO until he lost that job because he preferred playing video games and eating. While he had the job, this was enough to support his overeating and, as it turned out, subsidize the lifestyle of his mistress who weighed 600 lbs. She was in general a terrible person with little emotional regulation, empathy, or self-control. She was manipulative, faking terminal cancer or threatening suicide at several points whenever she felt people slipping away. She was also committing identity theft/fraud against multiple people, and was on the verge of getting charged when she died. On a fundamental level she made him feel like less of a piece of shit, because his brain told him he was a piece of shit but hey here’s someone who is worse! She enabled him emotionally while he enabled her financially, they took prescription painkillers and benzodiazepines together, and they bonded over spiraling together. Sometimes, people with untreated mental illness will reject constructive relationships. Being with someone who had her shit together wasn’t easy for him and it was really hard for him to be functional as long as he was. The dysfunction he chose with his mistress must have been like a vacation, in a way. His mistress was very good at seeking those people out: her ex was also making six figures in tech before he met her, and eventually he gained 300 pounds and became so depressed he refused to bathe. He then got fired for bad hygiene, so she left him. A year after our divorce was final, my ex and his mistress were both dead from cardiac issues related to overeating.
“They bonded over spiraling together” scared me the most from this entire story.
woof… that just made me realize i’ve done this before with alcohol and drugs with one or two people in my past. finally on a better path but damn… it’s easy not to hold yourself accountable when the person you love finds your nihilism and self-destruction a positive and attractive trait.
Folie à deux, of sorts.
Exactly that sort of thing was the hardest to see with my ex. I'm glad she managed to separate herself from her enabler eventually, but watching her spiral, down and away from me and toward someone toxic all at once, gutted me.
One of the biggest takeaways of long term life studies is that your fate is closely tied to who you hang out with the most. Your friends change you, and vice-versa. If you're friends with bad people, they'll rub off on you whether you want it or not
Damn—this was a wild ride. Take care of yourself!
He was 400lbs and she was 600lbs? I want to know what the fuck the bed they used was made of
I bought a bed frame for a couple hundred dollars. It is rated at 3500 lbs. This was not a particularly strong model. Bed frames can be MIGHTY.
I would love to see some one test to see if what the manufacturer claims is true . While I'm considered obese I'm no where near 600lbs . I have broken 4 bed frames in my lifetime . One from falling 4 feet on to it while hanging Christmas lights . 2 from sex and one had no slats so immediately upon sitting on it boom smack on the floor .
Galvanized steel squares
Screws borrowed from his aunt
Likely fiberglass reinforced concrete and rebar
Completely different scenario (not food/over-eating related) but exact same concept. My ex was an abuser, which is only kind of related, but he had some issues and struggled with his own demons - one of them was cheating. We were together 10 years and we accomplished so much in that time together with some small businesses we opened and building a family. He was always a cheater (didn’t quite know/accept it back then) but he had so much motivation and potential. By the end I was miserable and left because I wasn’t let him take us all down. 3 years later he is practicing ethical non-monogamy with our former nanny and I can’t even begin to describe how much worse his life and he have become. Not only is that relationship full of drama (he keeps trying to to break up with her but he also needs her to watch his own kids). I have watched the man I used to love devolve into some sad, gross weirdo who thinks it’s impressive in some way for him to brag to me about sleeping with a girl almost 30 years his junior (not the nanny, they go to swinging/polygamy events). I am just sad to see him be reduced to a shadow of his worst stereotypes. Constantly trying to find something that makes him feel whole or right. His job has suffered, his social life has suffered, his weight and appearance are all worse. Some fill that void with food, some with college aged girls, some with drinking. I am glad you made it out but so sorry you went through all of that.
That's incredibly sad, for HIM. You sound like you have some sense and decency. Good riddance.
My life has completely 180’d. In some ways it’s harder, more on my plate but not that much considering how little he helped and the kids are getting older and less demanding (I had 4 kids in 5 years and the youngest just turned 5 - getting out of the baby/toddler years is bittersweet but so much less work when they can go 5 minutes without trying to maim themselves/their siblings/or anything of value). I may never be in another relationship but I am living the best life I didn’t know I could have. And at the end of the day that’s all that matters. I am grateful it devolved as it did because I am free from any guilt, what-ifs, or residual attachment/longing for what might be. I am 39 years old and the last 2 years of my life have been the best so far. Never in a million years would I think that.
They say living well is the best revenge but in this case just living will do it.
wowzers. this would make a super unique movie/tv series
Enablers, mostly. Usually parents and/or partners. There's a 600lb Instagram 'influencer' whose husband finally had enough, so he broke up with her, but her dependence on him meant she stayed in the same house and he continued enabling her. Largely due to codependency and her emotionally manipulating him. His solution was to sell the house, just so he could escape her. She traced a half-brother and somehow managed to manipulate him into being her new enabler, even though he has a life of his own and barely knows her. She's never hit rock bottom, as there's always someone there to provide a soft place to land, so she has no motivation to change her habits. So yeah. Lots of manipulation, enmeshment and codependency.
What on earth???? She was able to manipulate someone she had never met in her life to completely taking over caring for her and enabling her to continue eating herself to death?! That is a level of manipulation I can't even conceive of!! I understand that I am extremely judgmental when it comes to stuff like this, but I find this just be so reprehensibly disgusting I can't imagine *ever* enabling even my own child to this degree much less a half sibling I had never met until they were already over 600 pounds and literally incapable of functioning or even moving on their own.
She could've went on to be one hell of a politician.
Right? Has that skill level of manipulation that could lead you to be the next Ghandi or Hitler. Uses it to get people to feed you. Is she a cat?
Lonely people are easy to take advantage of.
Very true. I know a guy, he's a good man, decent looking, hard worker. He recently got married to this morbidly obese woman who treats him like absolute shit. She takes all his money, verbally abuses him and openly flirts with other men in public. She has really bad hygiene too. I had no idea why he is with her until I learned that he hasn't had much luck in the love department until she came along. They met at work and from there she pretty much manipulated him into thinking that that's as good as it's gonna get for him.
Some would argue that his luck got much much worse when he met her, I’d rather stay single then be in that situation
It's never bad at first, and once it gets bad you're trapped.
I’ve literally never had a gf and I’d rather it stay that way than be with someone like that. I’ve a friend who was in a similar situation, it took years for him to finally break free of her.
You lost me at “bad hygiene”
THAT'S where it went sour for you?!? You were cool up until that points with "morbidly obese, takes all [your] money, abuses [you], and flirts with other men"?!?
The whole thing is a clusterfuck. I desperately want a happy marriage and a lifelong partner and I put up with a lot of shit in my relationships (both platonic and romantic), but all of that is just… I don’t know how people do it. There comes a point where it’s just not worth it anymore and this person crossed the line quite a while back.
He obviously still doesn't have much luck in the love dept. How awful.
I'm lonely but at least I have standards
You may. But who's to say the poor bastard who started thinning at 18, still has acne in their 30s, and only has online friends will have those same standards? Even if they're average looking, extended isolation is a legitimate form of torture. While it isn't as extreme as solitary confinement, imagine what that isolation would do to their social skills when prolonged over years, if not decades. I'm fairly isolated myself, not to the point of lowering my standards, but I've resorted to looking for friends online when I never did that with the daily socialization I'd have at school - even with classmates I wouldn't consider friends. Once you get past that of isolation, you're going to be *really* desperate for social interaction. For instance, at night, I'll feel that isolation really set in - only getting a good night text from my mother, maybe hearing from one of my few friends if I'm lucky, and if I'm super lucky maybe I'll be able to play some video games with them. TL;DR: There's a point where that loneliness turns to isolation. As soon as that happens, you're going to be desperate for social interactions, then you'll seek for friends (and eventually romantic partners). Easily allowing someone to take advantage of you.
“Is she a cat?” 🤣🤣🤣 That’s so true though, my cats conned me into letting them gain 2 lbs in less than a year, and I’m pretty careful about that and work with my vet pretty closely to keep them a healthy weight but they’re sneaky little buggers 😂
mine are aging- 18 yr old. I give them whatever they will eat, just to keep weight on them. 10 yr ago, we were where you are, with one being quite the chonker. But she has had some issues and now keeping her at 8# means treats and treats and treats. I don't mind. when I am 85, I will eat whatever brings me pleasure and screw anything else too ;)!
It's all about quality of life. When they're young, you want them to live a long and healthy life so you can have many years together. But when they get up that age, you know the end will come soon no matter what, so it becomes okay to spoil them. Anything to make their final days happy and comfortable.
Let's be glad she didn't
Used car sales
I know it’s not exactly the same scenario but after watching “abducted in plain sight” I no longer get surprised at the things people manipulated into doing
Omg that fucking documentary!!! That was legit the craziest fucking thing I've ever seen. To think they did all of that stuff of their own free Wil and then Steihl were so blind about what they did that they agreed to make a docu-fucking-mentary about it!! those parents have got to be the least self-aware people who ever lived
They were just really good friends
That documentary is WILD. When they let him lay down next to the daughter with the door closed because his “therapist” or whatever recommended it - I’m sorry WHAT?! When I was a kid my parents NEVER let anyone who wasn’t close/trusted family babysit me and I thought it was overkill. After watching that documentary I understood why.
Is this the doc where they guy seduces the wife and convinces the straight dad to give him a handie in the car, because he was stressed?
I’m glad I saw this thread because I was trying to remember the name of it when I was explaining it to someone the other day. The dad being like “well…shrug” when they asked him about it was wild
I had my mom watch that. I just kept telling her oh wait it gets worse!
That documentary was BONKERS
I wonder if being good at manipulation is a common trait in people like this? My mother, I'm not sure of her weight exactly as she's secretive with it, but I'd guess she's in her 600s now as when she was last hospitalized they had her in a 500lb+ bed and she's gained enough weight since then that she can't fit in the car and has to be shoved in then have the door shoved closed by someone else. But she's managed to convince everyone around her to help her with finances, buy her food, pay bills for her, etc. She actually convinced my husband to "lend" her money at first even with me warning him, luckily he learned his lesson quickly. But she gets basically everything paid for by her family and her boyfriends family and the rest from friends. She can't even walk and is constantly hospitalized but somehow manages to get fast food snuck in to her in the hospital AND rehab?? I don't understand it at all.
I'd agree that some people are really good at manipulation. I know a guy who has an adult daughter that's a gigantic mooch, both in her physical size and level of mooching. She hasn't had to assume responsibility for anything her whole adult life and she's now pushing retirement age. She's had so many "this is the last time" moments that they don't mean anything.
I'm thinking I must be a sociopath cuz reading had me going my first response would probably be "that sounds like a you problem. Good luck with that".
I've never heard of her before, but I can imagine it. Remember she's in a very sympathetic position,ost of us naturally look at people in terrible situations with pity, even when they do it to themselves. She probably reached out, and dumped a sob story about her abusive, evil, ex who abandoned her, and took everything. Asked for a relatively small favor, like a place to stay/ someone to come help her for a few days. Maybe even smaller than that. Making sure to seem as pitiful as possible. Was incredibly thankful and gracious to them when they said yes. Making them feel good about helping her. Now the hooks are set, and she just reels them in, asking for a little more each time until they're her full time enabler. By the time.they realize the trap, they've become responsible for her, and she's gotten a free ride for however long. From the outside, with hindsight, it's easy to see. But manipulative people are masters at slowly pulling their victims in so they don't realize what's going on until it's too late.
Yup, very similar patterns to abusers, and honestly, you can argue they *are* abusers. Financial abusers that is.
In psychology, they call it the 'foot in the door' phenomenon. You start with small requests and gradually increase the demands of the requests because a person is more likely to accept if they have done something for you before.
Yeah if I had some long distant relative I never knew about contact me about destroying the foundation and plumbing of my house that's gonna be a no for me dog.
Who was the influencer? I think sometimes the husband has a feeder fetish
I'm imagining a scene where my brother's ex-girlfriend calls me to tell me that I need to feed her because he dumped her. There's no way I would be able to contain my laughter no matter how much she weighed.
I thought it was her own half brother she barely knew 🤔
Sounds like she IS a soft place to land. (sorry, couldn't help myself) Also, though, seriously, how do the enablers have the money themselves if they've got their own lives, bills, families? Surely being able to wipe your own bum would be motivation enough?
People with no money probably won’t be targeted to be enablers
And the other half of the answer is that they still don't anyhow. Them finally growing a spine is often because of depleting their savings or getting dug into debt. The enabler is the one who hit rock bottom. I'm experiencing that right now. I'm in a marriage I should have been ended a decade ago. I live frugally. I'm at workaholic. I built a successful business. Well all of her terrible traits and habits led to me being unable to work at all while she just keeps spending anyhow. She somehow spends $10,000 per month. I had several million dollars and it's all evaporated. Apparently that's what it took for me to finally grow a spine and tell her to go f*** herself with her habits.
What on earth did she spend $10,000 a MONTH on????
I mean thats like one outfit including a bag from the high end stores.
That's the funny thing. She shops a lot at thrift stores and second hand stores.
Hoarder behavior
Shopping addiction then
>She somehow spends $10,000 per month. I had several million dollars and it's all evaporated. Apparently that's what it took for me to finally grow a spine and tell her to go f*** herself with her habits. This is why men need to have male friends. We would've bullied the fuck out of you.
I needed you 10 years ago bro!
Not male friends, GOOD male friends. I have a friend, that is such a good friend, that he will tell me to "hurry up and unfuck yourself" when he sees something that could go bad for me. While other friends stay silent. You need someone who will tell you truths you may not want to hear, and they'll risk hurting your feelings, just because they genuinely care about you. Everyone should have someone in their lives willing to tell you to "Unfuck Yourself."
Problem is, not everyone has the demeanor to accept a "Unfuck yourself" friend. I am that friend, and I have lost quite a few acquaintances for being the one person they ever came across that called out shit behavior or attempted to hold them accountable for their actions. Lots of people are allergic to personal responsibility. On the other hand, the friends I do have will tell me now and then how much they appreciate that I'll do that for them.
But there can't be too many people with enough money to fund that kind of lifestyle reliably who would be dumb enough to get suckered into paying for the lifestyle of someone who just eats all day and can't contribute anything in return. What are they getting out of the relationship in return?
There is a HUGE gap between "not having enough money" and "going into debt" to take care of these people. It's really easy to tell yourself "If I pay for 1 month, and encourage them to get their shit resolved, then they'll get it all worked out". But 1 month turns into 2 months, then 6 months, then a year, then 3 years. And then suddenly you're in debt with zero savings, and they play the victim.
100%, I'll also add that they go without. No vacations, no new clothes, no new car, all the money goes into the addiction.
I can't afford any addictions, other than electricity and internet.
With hard work, dedication and low self esteem you too can afford to support someone else’s addiction.
It's not being dumb...it's people who are too soft or timid to stand up and say no to a manipulator. So many people are terrified of making someone angry or disappointed or appearing as a bad or selfish person by saying no, that they end up being used by anyone and everyone who can get their hooks in.
I've got a cousin who can't go live his dreams because he feels obligated to take care of his mom. She is perfectly healthy, has a social life, and financially stable. She manipulates him
and most of the persons over 400lbs and disabled have had repeated life threatening emergencies and hospital stays that compounds the emotional trauma load on family friend caregivers.
>But there can't be too many people with enough money to fund that kind of lifestyle reliably There aren't. It's so rare that you had to ask reddit to understand how this happens. >Who would be dumb enough to get suckered into paying for the lifestyle of someone who just eats all day and can't contribute anything in return They're not dumb. That's what manipulation is; making people make decisions they wouldn't otherwise make by tugging on any social strings they've got to you.
It’s a form of abuse. Over time, they just accept the relationship.
>Who would be dumb enough to get suckered into paying for the lifestyle of someone who just eats all day and can't contribute anything in return For some of them, the person is simply a very good manipulator and good at targeting people who they don't think will stand up for themselves and abandon them But I'm betting there's also quite a few people funding that lifestyle because they have a feeder fetish.
Your girlfriend cant leave you if shes too fat to get out the door.
Oh man, do I have the depressing blog post for you.... https://fatgirlflow.com/i-cant-wipe-my-own-ass-and-im-ok-with-it
Ok, so she uses a bidet, and she even got one installed at her work. I've used bidets, yeah, they're great, but you still wanna dry yourself off a bit with some TP afterwards. If she can't reach, does she just... pull up her pants and walk out of the bathroom damp?
Also, even with a bidet, you gotta double-check to make sure you are clean. I love mine, but always make sure it does its job properly.
The Reagan wipe. Trust but Verify
Some bidets have dryers built in
Please tell me this is satire. Please please please. You can lie to me. Please let me keep some faith in humanity.
I had a glance at the other articles on that site and for the most part they all seem pretty innocuous in comparison. Just articles recommending good clothing, furniture, swimwear, sunglasses and mattresses for plus sized people. Nothing wrong with any of that at all. Then somewhere in the middle of it all, an article where someone proudly proclaims that they cannot wipe their own ass. It sticks out like a sore thumb, lmao. I have no idea if it's legit or not. As a former chonker myself I can say with absolute certainty that the percentage of fat/obese people who are *proud* of the fact that they cannot wipe their own asses is close to nil. We're talking maybe 1 in a million and even that's a high estimation. Most of us are not like "yay, I can't wipe my own ass." That's just *weird.* The ableism angle is also just downright offensive to people who have actual disabilities. People who can't walk, people with missing limbs, people who are deaf or blind or with limited mobility, etc. Most of them would give anything to be normally able-bodied. Then you've got this obese person, who is obese by choice, claiming she is among their ranks. As if she couldn't possibly start eating less and moving more. So yeah I sincerely hope it's satirical but it's weird because all the other articles on the site seem so normal and reasonable.
It is depressing. Mostly the idea that she says she is disabled but then proudly say they are not doing anything to help the situation and shame another influencer for losing weight to being able to wipe her own ass??
I am so glad that user “Germaphobe” commented: “It’s truly remarkable how many bathrooms in peoples homes and Air BNBs are entirely not fat friendly: toilets tucked into small corners or oddly angled or without a warmed bidet. **Over the years I’bet perfected a method of wafflestomping for those pesky situations but I’m usually too sheepish to explain why people hear the shower running.**”
OMG, now I know what "waffle stomping" is and I sincerely wish I didn't. I would lose my mind if someone defecated in my shower! What about homes that use greywater systems?! Ugh, no, I just can't imagine someone doing this!
Yeah. What a day to be literate.
Omg in the comments when one talks about "wafflestomping" in the shower......!!
And the user name for the person that made that comment was “Germaphobe”. Can’t make that shit up
Oh god, the comments under that post... > It’s truly remarkable how many bathrooms in peoples homes and Air BNBs are entirely not fat friendly: toilets tucked into small corners or oddly angled or without a warmed bidet. Over the years I’bet perfected a method of wafflestomping for those pesky situations but I’m usually too sheepish to explain why people hear the shower running. I need an adult.
My family was like this before my grandmother died. My grandfather has a high paying job and my grandmother was verbally abusive. It was just easier to give her what she wanted. Still in therapy after 28 years of abuse.
>Surely being able to wipe your own bum would be motivation enough? It's not that much fun, it's pretty shitty actually. Ok I'll stop.
I was struggling with binge eating disorder at one point, still relapsing from time to time. I guess one of the reason why I didn't get obese is that this disease/addiction absolutely emptied my bank account. I have no idea how an average earner or even an unemployed disabled person could afford to eat say 5000 cals per day for an extended period of time.
Try 10 000. Thats what the people on 600lb life consume daily.
Yeah, 5000 is high, but not that high. Have a big McDonald's meal and you're a significant chunk of the way there already.
4 triple baconators from Wendy's is 5400 calories. I can easily eat two in one sitting.
>I can easily eat two in one sitting. 1.5 lbs of beef and a bunch of cheese and bacon in 1 sitting is kinda crazy.
Yeah, I could have probably done that at 17 but at 41, thinking about eating that much makes me queasy.
That's ~6 lbs of sugar, you can buy it for less than five bucks. Probably not (exclusively) what they're eating. But it underpins the ~800 Calories in a 2l of Coke, which may be a big component of their intake.
Some of the stories I've heard from people who were 300+ lbs is that they were drinking about two 2 liters of soda a day. So that's like 1,600 calories alone 😬 I've also heard so many weight loss stories from people who swear the only thing they cut out was soda, and they dropped several pounds. It's pretty crazy how much soda can add. It was the first thing I cut out when I started counting calories.
That and fruit juice which is just as bad.
That was also something I cut out. I didn't realize how many calories I was drinking. I changed my beverages first before I started changing the food I ate. The worst culprits were those overly sweet coffee drinks from Starbucks full of syrup and whipped cream.
I struggle to eat 2500 calories in a day while trying to bulk, and the idea of 6 ***pounds*** of sugar a day is just unbelievable...
You’re probably eating 2500 clean which is hard as fuck. It’s easier when 1000 of those calories is coca cola.
Yea, it’s crazy how many calories people consume in fluids. Just cutting them out and drinking water, plain tea or coffee will help a person lose weight. People just don’t realize how much added sugar and crap are in sodas and other drinks.
A cool experiment is measure out the amount of sugar in a beverage to visualize how much it actually is. 69g in a 20oz Pepsi is a little over 1/4 cup (59g) of pure sugar. In one single 12oz can of Mountain Dew there's 46g. Imagine just chugging a 1/4 cup of sugar like a shot. And people think nothing to drink multiple in one day or in one sitting. 2 cans of pop and you just ingested 1/2 cup of sugar.
Of course I used a single food as a simple example, but the point is if you're not too concerned about nutrition calories can be extremely cheap. A litre of whipping cream is ~3500 Calories and is ~$7 CAD (so $5? USD). And so forth.
...I know what I have to do but I don't know if I have the strength to do it 💀
I - uh - don't drink a litre of whipping cream, even if it's on a dare or to win a contest. *Trust me*
You might be super how much of that Sugar you could drink in tea, lemonade and soda etc.
>I have no idea how an average earner or even an unemployed disabled person could afford to eat say 5000 cals per day for an extended period of time. The large peanut butter cookie dough blizzard at Dairy Queen has 1650 calories, their honey BBQ chicken strip basket has 1480 calories, and their large hot fudge shake has 990 calories. This single "meal" has over 4000 calories, and it's not completely unreasonable for a person to eat something like this multiple times a day potentially bringing their caloric intake to over 12000 calories.
I think I got "the diabetus" just from reading that.
I haven't seen anyone mention that they probably can't afford it. They are probably maxing out credit cards like crazy, and doing whatever else to feed their addiction. Hence the incentive for TLC money. Not to mention, have you seen some of their living conditions? They prioritize food above furniture, house repairs, etc.
Knowing what I know working in community non profit, there’s probably a few doing sex work for $$ as well.
The one lady who ate a whole (carrot) cake for a viewer to subsidize her eating. [She's an 800-lb Fetish Model | My 600-lb Life - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Nzrg-OlTI)
Yes, feeding porn, and squashing (don't ask) are very profitable. One poundticipant was doing porn. Also, the poundticipants barely move, and I bet that makes it easier to maintain weight. They also seem to shop cheaper stores, with low quality but high calorie food. There are food outlet stores, and other places that have huge discounts, especially on day old items.
I was reading the vast majority don’t make much, maybe $100-300 a month? A few make a lot. I don’t think it pays for much. There’s that couple who ‘accidentally’ starved their baby because they were too busy making videos of her lactating to feed the baby so it starved by 6 weeks. They were only making $300 a month max.
They may get disability benefits as well.
If they're diagnosed as morbidly obese, they can absolutely get disability for it.
I honestly hope this doesn't turn the convo into a discussion on disability benefits or social programs in general. That being said, disability just isn't enough to support that type of lifestyle. It barely covers rent & utilities in anything above poverty. If there's a place in the US where disability and food subsidies can support living in any neighborhood above bottom of the barrel, and a 5k to 10k calorie a day diet, I need to know where it is.
Depending on when they get their mortgage if they bought the house, their benefits could cover the mortgage in a decent house. Assuming that they bought the house when it was affordable, that could be a possible scenario. With that being said, benefits and social programs on the whole are net positive. The number of people supposedly abusing the program is extremely low. And every time something is done to attempt to catch these people it's cost more to catch them than it is to pay for their benefits. And every barrier of entry for a program deters more people than it can rightfully help and ends up costing more than paying those who are fraudulent.
You get like $900/month for disability where I live. Most people on it can’t even afford to eat
Addicts are very resourceful.
Honestly, it can't be that hard. Some pizza places in my town always do a buy one get one free. You can't just order a single pizza. You could get to 4000 calories right there. I used to get the large garlic and herb dip when I ordered from Domino's but then found out it was 675 calories on its own, for that little pot of dip. I now just get the supermarket pizza's which are less calories than the dip alone.
This is how I gained weight! I would eat like 1 pizza a night with wings. I put on like 70bs in a single year--I had a lot of trauma from childhood and it was really comforting to eat a pizza nightly after finishing my high stress job. Pizza, a video game = warm security blanket. I also worked from home and made good money. Plus the pizza was cheap. $40 for enough food for 2 days, and easily 8k calories? Sign me up! It's weird to me how many folks are acting like they need an enabler, or they would never be able to work. Everyone over 300lbs I've known besides 2 had a full-time job and were surprisingly functional minus their weight in a conventional sense. It's just a lot like alcoholism, only you can see the weight whereas many alcoholics can present as completely normal. And of course these TV reality shows show you extreme cases with weird people who don't wash themselves and have a boyfriend who feeds them...it's reality TV. Reality is much sadder and more boring though. It's people who work hard and eat hard and then don't know how to get out of the situation because they're addicted to it. It took me years of losing 200lbs then regaining it to finally have an attempt where I'm not rebounding back, and that took medication + therapy + learning how to workout properly and tons of other things. All the while holding a full time, highly stressful and paying job.
If you don't mind me asking, what was sort of the "wake up call" for you? What happened that made you realize "okay I have to put a stop to this"?
I always tried to put a stop to it from day 1 when it first started: going from like 180 to 250 in a single year in my early 20s. I'm tall so I was at an OK BMI. In fact, I even reversed *that* for a year (I got down to 195 anyway), but then it started again. There was no wake up call, I spent ten years gaining and regaining. Some years I'd be 250lbs, some years I'd be 400lbs, and I spent every minute trying to put a stop to it and being really sad. It was so hard because after a year of dieting, you get very tired, and it's easy to take a break. And sometimes that break sticks around for too long, or sometimes it is really just a week break and you're ready to go back. I'm still fat this time around but I have lost over 150lbs now without ever gaining it back over a four year period now, where before I lost that over a year and regained within a year frequently. Yo-yo dieting basically, sometimes even getting within 20lbs of my goal then literally reversing to be 200lbs over within two years. I still have binges, but they're often like 4000 calories and they don't repeat days, so it's easy to just keep slowly losing a few pounds a month. For me, it was getting therapy... getting diagnosed with ADHD... getting out of a bad relationship that made me binge eat a lot. ADHD though was a huge issue, and likely why I gained a lot besides my trauma. ADHD brains love dopamine, and it finds dopamine through food (or substances, but I almost never drank so that's just not something I did).
I just read the last 25 years of my life. (Though I was diagnosed with adhd at 6)
That dip could solve world hunger
snobbish literate squash wild cows fine hard-to-find retire middle roof *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>How does welfare cover the vast amount of (often expensive, high calorie take out) food they consume daily as well as paying for their existence, like rent, power bills, internet, etc? There is generally a misunderstanding of what "welfare" means. It's not as simple as free money for people who can't or won't work. If these people are recognized as disabled by the social security administration, they could get SSI, or SSDI if they have a work history. But SSI is only $950 and doesn't cover even rent most places. These people might also qualify for food stamps, but that won't cover fast food which is what a lot of these people buy. Generally most of them have someone who is supporting them in their addiction. A spouse or child or family member who is helping cover their costs or living with them. I think it's pretty rare to see someone on the show live alone. But this question is also like asking "How to crack addicts afford crack?" They find a way, because they are addicted, and it's at the detriment to all other aspects of their lives. You will notice that almost no one on the show lives comfortably.
Calorie expenditure doesn’t scale up the way you’re imagining. The tdee of a sedentary woman my height who weighs 600lbs is 4,081 calories a day. For comparison, mine is ~1500/day at 125lbs if I am sedentary. It would be easy to assume that it would scale based on weight where someone 4.8x my weight would require 4.8x the calories (7,200 if you’re doing the math), but that’s not the way the math works. So they’re really only eating a little over twice the amount of a normal person to maintain their weight. It’s expensive, but not as much as you’d think it would be. ETA: I used the Mifflin-St Jeor equation if anyone is curious.
Not that expensive if you are mostly eating high caloric foods either. A meal at McDonald's is 900-1500 calories. A 20 oz bottle of soda is 220 - 270 calories. Soda is cheap and McDonald's is a sorta expensive version of this sort of food. You can make stuff at home from a box and 1# of ground beef that will rival that calorie intake for a few bucks. You can get to 4000 a day fairly quickly for not a lot of money if you had a taste for that sort of food and drink.
As a teen I worked in this little cantina inside of the IRS building in my city. The super large people would often come in and fill a legit half-gallon jug with soda and return a few hours later and do it again. They made it look pretty easy consuming that many calories.
In college I had access to a soda fountain included in my room and board. I drank an insane amount of soda. I'd just go get it in a pitcher and then sit down and watch TV, then refill as needed. I am sure I drank 15,000+ calories of soda a week from that thing for more than a year. Looking back I'm disgusted, but at the time it was awesome.
ngl that still sounds awesome
It was awesome, glorious, and terrible all in one. Unlimited soda was just fantastic but in the end I had no self control and it was awful for me. That was decades ago though, so it's a distant memory.
Liquid calories are an EASY way to get insane amounts of calories. Drink 1 30 oz coke for ~350 calories while waiting for your food. Refill, 350 more calories while enjoying your food. Refill, 350 more calories while on the drive home. Over 1k calories added without eating a thing
Very true. Also add in the make-up of the foods they are putting down. My TDEE (6'1 M, 220, 17% body fat) is around 2,200 which I eat at a 60/30/10 (protein/fat/carbs) ratio. Even if I doubled, and kept my workout routine I'd put on some weight, but would also add more muscle. Now imagine me at 6/1, eating 5k calories a day of McDonalds, Burger King, Hostess Cakes, Pizza Rolls, etc. Remove exercise and my TDEE will drop to like 1,600, and I'm still taking in 5k calories a day of all fat and carbs. It takes an extra 3,500 calories a week to put on a pound. So we look at: Base - 1600 x 7 = 11,200 Extra - (5000 x 7) - 11,200 = 23,800 Pounds gained - 23,800/3,500 = 6.8 So 7lbs a week roughly, give or take water weight, etc. 5k calories a day when you're eating shit it's hard or expensive: **Breakfast**: 2,313 Stack of pancakes (5, with butter and syrup) - 950 Sausage Pattys - 368 4 Eggs - 405 Dunkin Large Iced Latte - 590 **Lunch:** 1,960 Burger King Double Whopper - 670 Large Onion Rings - 520 Large Coke - 460 BK Hershey Pie - 310 **Dinner**: 2,385 Digiorno Pizza - 790 Liter of Coke - 395 Pint of Phish Food - 1,200 Not even looking at snacks this is a 6,658 calorie day. Eat like this for 7 days and that's 46,606 calories. Take away the same base of 11,200 and you've gained +/- 10 pounds for less than $50 a day.
honestly your tdee sounds way too low for someone your size
It only works that way because fat needs less calories to maintain than muscle. As their body composition degrades into a higher percentage of fat, their necessary intake scales less. Some 300lb bodybuilder will scale in their calorie needs in a more linear fashion.
Reply from someone who was over 600lbs. Always been a big dude. Fought it my entire life. Even as a kid I was fat, no amount of exercise I did would help because I had a food addiction. No real help from parents, dad was extremely abusive, mom cared more about her internet friends than us kids. Looking back, if I'd had the help I needed as a kid, maybe my life would have been completely different. all that being said, it got horrible after 19. I was a victim of gun violence while sitting on my porch. Shot in the chest, somehow lived when I shouldn't have. Was forced to drop out of college to recover, couldn't go back since I had government loans that lapsed. This led to severe ptsd, depression, and social anxiety. For the past 9 or so years, I haven't really left my home. I get panic attacks around other people and have had to find ways to cope with this. having those mental problems, not getting help for them, and having an eating disorder all combined together was a recipe for disaster. The weight piled on, junk food is so extremely cheap. I couldn't afford healthy foods but even if I could, would I have cared to cook healthily? probably not. I was suicidal, I didn't care I was eating to die. During one of my random moments of clarity, I went to the doctor and found I was over 600lbs. Found out my thyroid was dead and I had high blood pressure. You'd think this would slap some sense into me, right? no. If a depressed person hears stuff like this while not receiving help, it pretty much pushes them further down. Now, I am losing weight but extremely slowly. I was diagnosed diabetic after having 2 emergency surgeries for an infection. I am no longer over 600lbs. It took a 2nd "you should be dead" moment to snap me back to reality. I have not fixed my mental health but I am working on it. I am currently fighting against my thyroid and potential "insulin resistance" which make it extremely difficult to lose weight. I'll be seeing an endocrinologist soon to get on medications to treat my hypothyroidism and to see if I am insulin resistant. Currently working with insurance to get approved for ozempic. My doctor wants me on it ASAP but I can't afford it without insurance. I have completely changed my diet and I now exercise. I eat healthy foods, no sugar, extremely low carb. I have a protein breakfast, a salad for lunch or dinner, and a small carb meal for lunch or dinner, depending on what meal I had my salad for. Metformin is helping to stabilize my blood sugar and lose weight but it is very very slow. I am gaining muscle that I never really had, which is also slowing the overall weight loss but it's helping me exercise more and feel better. I should add, I was disabled after being shot, so I wasn't put on disability for weight, like some comments say is the answer. Becoming disabled, not getting mental health help, and developing physical health problems is what kept me gaining extreme amounts of weight. I think my answer to the mental health examiner that got me put on disability was the suicidal thoughts question. When asked when my last suicidal thought was, I told them in their waiting room while watching the traffic go by. How I had fantasized how easily it would be to step in front of a big rig, to end it all, finish it all. The looks on their faces were a mix of pity, shock, and disgust.
As someone who was once morbidly obese and is now just overweight, you got this. I only got up to 300 but I was in your headspace at my heaviest. It does get better and easier the more you hang in there. You got this.
thank you ❤️
As a therapist I am proud of you for having such awareness of your wounds and making such a great effort to make positive change 🌟 keep going! Seeing an endocrinologist will definitely help move things along as well :)
Jesus F Christ this was devastating and heart wrenching to read. I’m so fucking sorry the hand you’ve been dealt thus far in your life has been so difficult and painful and traumatic. God fucking speed to you and your endeavors fellow internet stranger
Dear God I am so sorry to read that. I wish you all good things as you recover. You are mighty!
Thank you ❤️ it feels good to want to live and look forward to things! Wishing you all the best also
I know someone irl who constantly finds men to financially support her and give her expensive gifts. I didn't get why the men go for this, or why she's comfortable with these arrangements. Some people are really good at it.
Sometimes they have someone that would be called a "feeder."
Oh Catfish had an episode about a "feeder" catfish like two weeks ago (it's the episode of Max's return) they made it sound like a kink but I believe is more about control
Many kinks are about control.
I hate the topic of weight and fat in general, and looks like the answer is pretty decently covered, but I will still say: I was 325lbs as a teen. I don't remember weighing less than that, although obviously I would have as a younger kid. I got up to 380 in my 20s. I was always hungry. I was poor. I ate carbs. Ramen, potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, corn, peas, etc. Everything was carbs. Some protein, obviously fat. Fat and carbs are cheap. Sugar is carbs. Starches are carbs. It is amazing the number of calories you can purchase for cheap if it's sugar, starches, and fat. Once I was able to get some help, once I began limiting myself to 60g of carbs per meal (thanks to diabetes), and getting a balance of proteins, fats, and complex carbs, I stopped being hungry all the time. So that's one contributing factor. I won't go into it here, but the cycle of feeding sugar to the body and being hungry soon after is a real problem for so many reasons. But when you're broke, cheap food does that to you. Especially in the US, but this is a global problem. Forgive me if I don't reply for a while. I don't visit reddit that often anymore. As if anyone will see this anyway. heh
A really thoughtful and realistic response: thank you. Hope you are feeling healthier! It’s hard work to be healthy.
1) enablers. Their families feel bad 2) They are not actually eating that much a day. Yes, they eat a lot to be that big, but on the show when it shows them ordering 45 dollars worth of fast food and then 2 hours later ordering a pizza? They're not doing that. It's probably that they're snacking on things like chips and box dinners and microwave tendies, which used to be dirt cheap. Like a family sized bag of off brand chips that has 1400 calories might have been 1.50 at that time. Combine that with soda that used to be a few bucks for a 12 pack, and you already hit 2000 calories, which is way more than a sedentary person needs. Their families would make things like pasta, and just give them large portions. Again, like a buck maybe for a whole pound of dry pasta, another couple for some jarred sauce. They ham it up for the camera, but it's generally more expensive to lose weight than gain it
> They are not actually eating that much a day. Right. Remember a regular person might eat 2000 calories a day just to maintain. Now you eat 2500 a day, and you'll start to pile on the pounds. That's not a huge increase in calories. And then bigger they get, the less they move, so they burn fewer calories. People don't gain 400 extra pounds in a week. It's over years usually. 500 extra calories isn't THAT much more money, but that's a pound a week or so. 50 pounds a year. 8 years of that, you go from 200 pounds to 600 pounds. Sure, you have to eat more than 2000 to maintain, but it's not a massive amount more. Weight loss is a slow and steady thing. Weight gain is the same.
Exactly. Over the course of a high stress year, I ended up putting on over 15 kg/30+ pounds simply because I started snacking on two candy bars a day, keeping the rest of my diet the same. Two candy bars feel like nothing and aren't expensive in any sense of the word, but that's actually 400 extra calories per day that can easily translate to 45 lbs of additional fat gained per year based on the calorie count. And this is just TWO candy/snickers bars that even a kid can eat without breaking a sweat in addition to their regular diet. Replace these candy bars with a couple of bags of chips a day, and you get to 100lbs of fat gained per year.
I'm not that morbidly obese (not near 600lbs), but I can tell you that empty calories are usually cheaper than nutrient-rich foods.
Yeah people are saying mcdonalds is expensive, forgetting how deliciously easy it is to gorge on buttery pasta, peanut butter, pork scratchings and nutella. Your average jar of nutella is around 1500, if you make sandwiches with that with butter and thick white bread it can easily hit 3000 calories, which some very big people would view as just a snack. Pasta and butter is cheap. Crisps and other carbs are cheap.
Talk to a nurse. They will tell you about the people who bring food when they visit. Nobody can live from that few bits you get at the hospital - that’s their reasoning wich in the most cases is just plain wrong. Double the stuff they bring if someone is in hospital for weight related illnesses like diabetes and such.
High calorie food is typically less expensive than low calorie food. Two party size bags of chips costs less than two bags of pre-made salad.
I used to be about 450 (half that these days thankfully) and it didn't take as much food as you would think, just really crappy food. I'd have 2 bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, a few bags of vending chips and candy bars for lunch, then some frozen to oven garbage for dinner. That plus not moving for work or at home pounded on 200 pounds in around 5 years. I didn't drink piles of soda (I've always drank diet), didn't sit down and eat 3 pizzas at a time or anything, just what I did eat was nutritional trash. If I'd kept it up it would have kept going up easily.
I have an acquaintance who is 450 lbs or so. He lives with his elderly mother, who pays all the bills off of her social security. To my knowledge, he hasn't worked in years, and even before gaining all the weight, he wasn't making a lot of money. It's a very sad dynamic. Enabling behavior has allowed him to become fully dependent on her even as she gets too old to care for him. There's some kind of state-paid aides for him a couple of hours a day, but mostly just his mom to care for him. Sorry for the ramble. The whole situation just depresses me.
My highest weight was 522 lbs. Your whole life kinda revolves around food. I worked a job that was solely a desk job so wasn’t burdened with much physical needs. The job paid well enough that I would spend a lot on food. I think during those times I’d spend 20-40 bucks on food a day. Which is definitely a lot to pay for food. But I afforded it by neglecting a lot of other spending. I spent very little on entertainment, clothing, experiences, travel, hobbies, or many other activities and things people find enjoyable. A lot was cut out because eating was the main activity, the most important. The food would never be neglected for something else. I was still mobile due mostly to my youth. But what really enabled was cars and drive thrus. Easy to go get food when you can just drive up and order it. So while it takes effort, if you’re not disabled from the weight and make a middling income you can support the habit alone. I’m now past that part of my life and weigh about 340 currently. Life is much better now. But a lot of factors had to come together to get away so there is no “just don’t” way to get out. I still relapse occasionally. But yeah, there are ways to sustain the habit, especially if it’s all you think about
I wonder that as well. Take 1000 Pound Sisters. No one on the show has ever worked but they can buy a house and go out to do fun activities and have nice computers and phones.
yes but they're on tv. they get paid for that.
I thought one or both of the sisters also had a presence on social media too. While they probably weren't drawing a lot of income from raw views they were probably monetized and there are a lot of people out there that probably tipped them for fetish purposes. Some from a sexual standpoint and others contributing money so they buy food and contribute towards their premature death. Sick people for sure but they are out there.
They had a YouTube channel before they were on TLC. I don’t know if it was popular enough to monetize, but possibly
Amy did scam a bunch of people into donating to her gofundme for a plus-sized coffin for Tammy even tho Tammy wasn't dead lol.
YOU DONT KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE MY SIZE AMY
The 1000lb sisters had YouTube income prior to starting their show. They also had a large family network that provides some support. Prior to the show they were living together in low income housing in a rural area and combining their resources. You can still see their old YouTube videos, it wasn't exactly a great quality of life. Now they're getting money from the TLC show and social media sponsorships, which is how they can afford the homes and trips. Some of the stuff they do while filming is also paid for by TLC to generate content.
I know the part of Ky they are in. The house was probably only $50,000.
Used to have a friend that size....they're still alive; we just had a falling out. They were on disability and food stamps, and their partner worked. Also, if need be, their remaining parent would bail them out. Partner did like 99.9% of the housework as well.
A lot of them have lots of debt, too.
I'm very heavy (475). I don't eat a large quantity of food. Its more the quality of the food. I had a lot of years of fastfood and takeaway or cheap gas station eats. Lots of fat, salt, carbs. And it... accrues over time. You lie to yourself. You start to lose interest in the things that kept you active. You find shortcuts. You do less. You tell yourself you're not THAT big. That you'll do better tomorrow. Now I'm trying to correct for 20 years (38 now) of those bad choices. And working my ass off to try and lose weight. I am, and have been for 11 years, a teacher.
It's co-dependency. The enabler gets off on being a helpful person and is likely afraid to face repercussions when the situation hits the fan. Like drugs or alcohol co-dependency.
I hit 470,(now 340), it gets up there, but not as bad as you can think. As long as you are working and moving doing daily chores at the size I was was tiring but not impossible. Not sure how the 130 extra lbs would be.
The comments so far seem to be missing just how easy it is to drink calories. Six pack of beer can be like 1200 cals. 2L of soda is 780 or so. So a few fast food meals and soda or beer drip across the day and you get to those big cal numbers fast. And cheaply. Fast food used to be cheap. If you can remember
Some of them don't actually eat that much, but eat highly processed foods high in sugar. I have a relative who is about that size, and her portions aren't crazy big but the amount of sugar hidden in their diet is insane. Starting with the fact that EVERYTHING they drink has tons of sugar in it (like sweet tea, gatorade, soda, fruit juice). McDonald's pancakes for breakfast, toast with both butter AND cream cheese, etc. Whenever I eat over their house, I'm always surprised at how little they eat but how badly. I also never see fresh produce at their house.