The Superfat
 

I'm not trying to cut anyone down with the title of this thread just being honest. There's obese, and there's Superfat.

I had a friend and colleague that was not even 40, and he died suddenly on Saturday of a massive heart attack. He left behind two young daughters that he raised as a single father, the mother was not in the picture at all. My friend was at least 600 lbs.

My sister is also superfat. At 5'6" she weighs at least 425, and she's 43. I am scared to death that she will meet the same fate as my friend and yet all i can do is stand by and watch. And it's not as if I am not speaking from my own experience, because up until about 7 years ago i carried 350 lbs on my 6'2" body. I managed to lose 150 lbs with diet and exercise and conveniently, dialysis now keeps me at 90 K (198 lbs) reliably.

It's dangerous to do weight loss surgery on people this big. I wish there was some way to motivate people like this to lose at least a little bit of weight without seeming like you are insulting them. I know my sister gets VERY defensive when i approach the subject of weight loss.

Do any people here have a person that they love that's one of the superfat and what do you do to try and help your loved one?

I don't know how to have that conversation, other that to tell them that they are not going to see 50 unless they make some changes.

I know that they know that in their heart and head already Craig. It's almost as if they have chosen a slow way to suicide, much like an alcoholic that can't change their direction and know that liver failure will eventually get them. I had another friend, a former alcoholic, that died of liver failure in November. He stopped drinking years ago but the alcohol had done it's damage. I was overweight for years with diabetes and hypertension that i paid not one iota of attention to and now i am paying the price even though i cleaned up my act after the fact so-to speak. Heck now I am hoping to make it to 50 myself lol.

I don't know what to tell you, it's like drinking or smoking, each individual has to make these decisions for themselves. All you can really do is express your concern and offer to help.

At my heaviest I was almost 280 lbs. I did the diet where you don't eat many carbs and 75 lbs later I feel pretty good at 205lbs. I picked up a 70lb case of paper the other day and couldn't believe that I have lost that much weight. If I can do it, anyone can. I grill most of the food I eat, I don't eat anything deep fried. :D

Shoot I am right there with you if I could do it anyone can but I can also see how daunting a task that could be for someone 200 lbs or more overweight...

My diet was 600 calories a day of grilled chicken, 3 miles walking in the hot Houston summer sun (sweating is losing weight) followed by three more miles walking on a treadmill in the gym, each and every day.

I think i am going to try to reach Richard Simmons and see if there is anything he can do to help my sister. He seems to be good for the superfat.

You guys should give yourself more credit, not everyone is able or willing to change their lifestyle. I suspect there is a point where many people just lose hope and give up.

I suspect my sister may be at that point and it makes me want to cry.

The terminology is morbidly obese.

Funny you should mention Richard Simmons. He has (or had?) a chain of exercise clubs aimed at helping people lose weight. My mom was a member in the early 80's and lost some weight.

Unfortunately, we moved and Mom pretty much quit exercising after that. She was always big and always had hypertension. Later, she also got Type II diabetes and high chloresterol. Around that time, I started trying to persuade her to start exercising, but she always had excuses. Once in a while she would diet, lose some weight-sometimes up to 60 pounds, but then gain it back. A little later, she also got congestive heart failure, depressed respiration, and most likely sleap apnea*, the combination of which finally did her in. She did live to be 65, which is quite old for someone as obese as she was. My sister and I tried off and on for years to get her to change a few habits, which would have helped her health a lot, but by the time Mom started getting receptive to the idea, she was already too sick to really do anything about it. Stubborn old broad; I miss her.

*Her snoring was sometimes almost as loud as the neighbor's Harley, and she always slept poorly. The doctors tried forever to get her to go for a sleep study. She finally accepted and was scheduled to go, but died shortly before her appointment.

No I was morbidly obese at 350 i am talking about a whole other league of obesity, people that weigh so much that they are at too high risk to even qualify for weight loss surgery. Again not trying to offend i know i was fat i made no bones about it.

This is what i am talking about, people 400 lbs up to and over 1000 lbs.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/390465/brookhaven_obesity_clinic_helping_the.html?cat=51

Actually we seem to be talking super mobidly obese, BMI>50. Not a good problem to have.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=46582

That's really heart-breaking to read. I know i still have sleep apnea at my weight so i need to get myself on a CPAP/BiPAP machine soon.

Exactly. I knew I was not using a PC term, but also knew i meant something more than your typical obese person. Thanks.

I lost 70 lbs to around 150 lbs(I'm 5'11). Mine was depression and food was the medium for my emotional sustenance.

This happened 8 years ago. A relative of mine called me fat!! That freakin' insult was my motivation! I've kept the weight off and have been fairly scrawny since!

Sometimes you just have to tell them as it is. It hurt for me (greatly) to hear the words come from my cousin. They were cruel. But they were necessary.

Food addiction is like any other, very hard to quite or adjust your habits. Never had a huge weight issue but I did loose 25+/- lbs at my new job at Cost Co. I was the new kid (44 yrs old) and they put me out on the lot pushing carts. You would be surprised how much weight can be lost in 100 degree heat over 3 months:D

Not to make light of the problem, but Gabriel Iglesias says there are 6 levels of 'fatness"

Big
Healthy
Husky
Fluffy
DAM!!!
Oh Hell No

I'm familiar with the phenomenon. I graduated high school at 140 lbs. I went to work at the Pep Boys DC in McDonough, GA right after and got down to 125 pretty quickly, despite eating Waffle House almost every night after work. The shift was 11 am "until", and the place had no AC, so it was always pretty hot in there. It was common for new employees to pull half a shift and then just leave. I left when it was time for college to start.

I'm one of the poster-children for improved lifestyle effects. I wasn't too bad off, but I'm 6'2" and was 270 at my heaviest. Had hypertension, bad cholesterol, aching knees, blah blah blah

I needed to be under 200lbs to race motorcycles. I started running, eating right (another shout out to the "no deep-fried foods" crowd)..and started doing things I only dreamed about. I stopped in at a local boxing gym after reading an article in the local fishpaper, fast-forward two years and I'm fighting veteran class in Golden Gloves / USA Boxing. Also doing any triathlon that fits my schedule, I've always loved swimming. Last summer I had a bit of a problem with not eating enough, and I started going into regular ketosis. Was down to 170lbs and @ 6'2" with a large frame, I looked pretty sick.

You'd be surprised what happens when you get yourself into shape - knees start working correctly as they get strong..all the other plethora of ailments I had just disappeared. The only exception was the hypertension - that turned out to be hereditary.

But yeah, when I see other people in the same place I was, and worse, I feel horrible because past poor eating habits/sedentary lifestyle...it's a choice. Most people choose to be like that - as someone else posted, it's no different than alcohol or drugs - a slow suicide.

http://i47.tinypic.com/9rubt3.jpg
FAT Stimpy451 circa 2005 - ~270lbs and really bad long hair braid

http://i49.tinypic.com/2dmilis.jpg

Smaller Stimpy451 with stepdaughter ~175lbs 2009

Good to see you lost the really bad long hair braid. ;)

Does make him look a tad like Penn, doesn't it.

It's very funny that you mentioned that. It was one of my "motivators" to lose the weight (and the hair braid - I was growing it to donate to "Wigs for Kids" because a friend of mine had a daughter with lymphoma and lost all her hair)

i think the hair braid accounted for about 2lbs

We could pass for twins in the second pic.

I had the exact opposite problem, but the end result was still the same.

I know a few of you meet me at the GTG in September a couple of months ago. For those that didn't I'm 6'00 weighing in at 160lbs.

For many many years I weighed consistantly 150 lbs. That's fine and all with me since I don't strength train or do much energy exertion.

My freshmen year of college was bad however. The food in one of the dining halls is abhorid. So bad I never eat there anymore. This was the closest place to my dorm though so convinence over came me.

Well in the course of a month I notice that I was eating less and less. I eat till I am comfortably full, but my appetite would be gone after 4 bites. I ended up going on my friends scale and freaked at my weight LOSS of 5 lbs down to 145. For someone as tall as me that was unhealthy.

I started going to the gym and doing strength training (cardio only in warm up). That was the best thing I did for me. My appetite returned and I'm at a healthy 160 lbs.

I've been lazy and haven't returned but my New Years Resolution to never work out again might change that!

Instead of doing cardio guys for weight loss, consider strength training. You burn fat during the work out, but afterwards when your muscles are repairing you will continue to be burning calories.

80 lbs of fat and 80 lbs of muscle are two entirelly different things. Muscle looks so much better!

Brother of a guy my wife works with, age 40, 5'10" 400+ lbs. Kids found him dead in the bathroom. He left behind two young kids.

There really is stuff you can do. The cycling world has tons of examples where people rode hundreds of pounds off their bodies. Google LFOAB for example.

Brother of a guy my wife works with, age 40, 5'10" 400+ lbs. Kids found him dead in the bathroom. He left behind two young kids.

There really is stuff you can do. The cycling world has tons of examples where people rode hundreds of pounds off their bodies. Google LFOAB for example.