16. Can’t hide their physical “shame”
The fact that you can’t hide it. Everyone has stuff that they’re embarrassed or ashamed of, but with a lot of those things you can hide them from other people. When you’re fat, that’s the first thing people see about you, and you have to work a lot harder to overcome that negative stigma and to get people to like you. And knowing that some people see you as less than human because of your weight and think that you deserve all of the negative consequences because you brought it on yourself.
17. Knee pain
As somebody who was fit as all hell just two years ago, and currently not, I feel like I can give some perspective to this question. I remember what it was like to be lean and mean very well, and I know my stuff well enough to have helped other people to lose immense amounts of weight. I have two friends who I coached through losing over 100 pounds each and keep it off for a few years. I know exactly how to lose the weight I’ve gained, but due to the fact that I have hundreds of excuses (that don’t really account for much) I’ve just let it pile on.
Two years ago I was 5’11”, 190 pounds, and <10% bodyfat.
Today I am 5'11", 275 pounds, and 90% Big Macs.
Oh, and I'm 25.
So what are the big differences? My fucking knees. Oh lord my knees. My joints have never been as tired or as sore as this in my life. My father has always been big and, if prompted, has admitted that his knees bother him a little. I think that a person who has always been big doesn't realize that their knees aren't supposed to feel that way. I don't want to move much because my knees man. My fucking knees.
Related to this is how much I hate moving now in general. I used to love it. Now I can't seem to do anything without sucking wind. I was painting my bathroom and olympic swimmers could've done laps on the sweat on my face. I never used to understand why people who were overweight didn't just do something about it. I now see that, when you're big, doing anything is hard. My muscles complain, my lungs burn, I get winded jogging from one end of the house to the other if the baby cries.
And all that sweat means I smell. I keep clean, maintain my appearance, use whatever products I used to use, but I just smell different. I don't know where it comes from but I can't get rid of it. I can probably portion some of the blame out to the swampass. Because that's also a thing you have to contend with. There's more of you, skin touches skin, smells get produced.
And because there's more of me my underwear doesn't fit right anymore. It's like the waistband gets rolled up into a tube. It doesn't sit where it's supposed to sit and it's always moving on me. I mean… I can't just ignore it. It bugs the shit out of me.
What sucks though is going out to eat with my wife. A few weeks ago, just before our appointment to have labour induced, we went to an all you can eat chinese buffet. She couldn't eat much being pregnant, and I couldn't eat much being nervous, but that didn't stop the looks we both got just sitting at our booth. Looks of disgust and of pity. I remember those looks, I used to make them myself, but it was my first time being on the other side of that coin.
I don't enjoy being fat. But I also know how hard it is to lose that weight, having done it before, and knowing how hard it is makes it very discouraging.
