I have. and it was horrible. I was skinny as a child and pretty athletic, so when I turned forty my eating habits didn’t change and I gained sixty lbs. OMG. It was a nightmare. There is so much prejudice against fat people and I felt like the attention I received from my looks was GONE. I mean nothing. I disappeared. Fortunately I lost it, and am pretty thin now, but it will always haunt me.
I treat fat people differently now. I will always be one in my heart.
I used to work as a chef years ago, but “got out” and worked in a bank. After five years of sitting at a desk my weight had ballooned to over 275 lbs at 5’9"! 
Yowza, dat’s fat! 
Happily, though, a combination of Atkin’s [diet] and going back to restaurant work has melted off 70 of those pounds already (about 3 & 1/2 months…yeah, I’ve lost 20 lbs/mo! 
). While I’ve still got a ways to go, Atkins and Matt Furey’s “Combat Conditioning” program has gone miles towards having me back in good shape again.
I really used to wonder how anyone could let themselves get so fat! 
Well, it’s not as hard as I thought. But I honestly think almost anyone can lose weight if they’re determined to do it.
When I was in high school I weighed 194 lbs. and I’m only 5’2"- I’m 115 now and had surgery to remove excess skin when I was 22.
I never have been (besides being pregnant twice – that /feels/ huge), but most the female blood-relatives in my family are. I kept the pregnancy weight (twenty-five pounds accumulated over two pregnancies) for a long time and have in the last year-and-a-half lost most of it 'cause I started smoking again (not recommended). I don’t feel different. Less jiggly, maybe. I don’t like to feel like there’s more of me than there needs to be, hehe.
When I was younger, we were all sitting around the tube watching a funniest-home-videos thing and this fat lady jumped off a diving board and made a destructive splash… My sister (who has always been heavier, but at that time wasn’t “fat”) and I commented, “That lady’s /fat/!” Apparently this really hurt my mom’s feelings… My dad at first sort of snorted in agreement, but then noticed my mom’s reaction right away and back-peddled with some comment about the female form being beautiful, period (paraphrasing…) (I didn’t think anything of it at the time.). When we found Mom crying in her bedroom and went to console her, she asked us, “Do you think I’m fat?” (all pathetic and teary-eyed) – the question blew my mind. Apparently I had this idea that being fat was disgusting … but it had never occurred to me that my /mom/ was fat. At the same time this was occurring to me, I lied and said, “No! My mom’s not /fat/!” So that’s when it hit me that to look down on fat people is to look down on my mom… and I certainly didn’t look down on her… so why look down on other fat people? Plus, since then, I have seen my sister in tears over other idiot peers teasing her for being fat.
I still think fat jokes are funny, though… atleast sometimes… the ones that are meant to be funny (from people who like you) rather than cruel (from people who are just mean).
Ah this is my inner demon telling you this, but:
According to my doctor i’m supposed to GAIN 15 pounds, which I have found very difficult to do. Heheheh.
Someone’s physical apperance really shouldn’t matter… but for some reason society demands it does. However, something meant to be funny should not be taken as malicious…
Being really fat really does suck, though- screw whatever “society” says. When you can’t touch your damn toes or walk up a flight of stairs, it’s time to do something. Doctors are still arguing over just how much health risk there is to being, say, 100 lbs overweight, but try this- put on a backpack with 100 lbs of junk in it and carry it around for a few weeks. Doesn’t feel very good, does it? There might be fat people with loads of energy that always feel great, but I can say that’s the exact opposite of the way I felt when I was grossly overweight.
Phaedrus- So you lost a bunch of weight once you started being a chef again? That doesn’t exactly commend your cooking skills very well!
Uccisore said:
HAHAHAHAHAHA
i lost weight when i moved to CA…then i kinda got too into loosing it, and i became underweight…sigh either extreme suchs…
Smartass! 
Basically in a kitchen you’re always on your feet and moving, while my bank job was just my fat ass parked at a desk all day. Plus, by eating Atkins style the weight just drips off you. You can eat Steak Au Poivre slathered with butter in a puddle of heavy cream, with a side of creamed spinach and a wedge of cheese for dessert. And you can do that every damned day and still lose. What you can’t eat is bread, sugar, flour or milk.
“Steak Au poivre slathered with butter in a puddle of heavy cream.”
That sounds absolutly repulsive… how about a delicious ceaser salad… or pasta. well, to each his own [size=59]weight category[/size]
bread? flour?
Man, there goes my main food source… what’ll you remove next? fruit? Veggies?
Ok, sugar and milk can leave.
btw Phaedrus: you should be very careful w/ atkins and get a doctor checkup, cos it raises your cholesterol by ALOT…a friend of mine was on it and his blood pressure and cholesterol level shot up…not too healthy i would imagine…
That’s soooo very wrong for the vast majority of people. If his cholesterol went up, he did something wrong. In nearly every documented case (me included), HDL goes up while LDL goes down. Some tests only show your total blood lipid count- if that’s the case you need the more specific test. My BP also went down dramatically after a few months on Atkins as is overwhelmingly the case for most people.
At any rate, thanks to Atkins, for the first time I’m not giving my doctor a heart attack. 
Don’t worry about me, my bloodwork’s not been better at any time in my adult life.
oooh! im so proud of you!keep up the good work 
Yeah, I still got a few pounds to go.
Uccisore – that was really funny!
Are you still doing the Atkins Nutritional Plan? I love that diet. Lost the 10lbs I needed to lose and adopted a modified Atkins Plan for my lifestyle. Atkins all week and Party on the weekends…moderately, of course. Summer bbq = steaks and lo-carb beer. 
Me too. I love it. I do modified as well, and the Atkins shakes get me through the blood sugar lows. How is that lo-carb beer?
lo-carb beer doesn’t have the robust bite of european or mexican beers – to me, it tastes like carbonated water with a beer flavor. 2 carbs per bottle – same alcohol %.
I’ve noticed that Coke is now using Splenda in their diet drinks. Has anyone tried it?
I’m six foot and work out five days a week. As a result I am about 240 pounds of muscle and bone. This is pretty heavy.
When I first started work I was creating behavioral plans for autistic adults and putting them into action. These were very violent autistic adults, so I spent a good amount of time chasing people around and wrestling. I could eat like a horse if I wanted to.
Then, I got a office therapy job and shortly there after got a pretty bad leg injury. Both of these things created a weight rapid weight gain.
Then, I moved to the suburbs and it only got worse.
All during this time I’m going to non-stop graduate school. Working all day, then going to school at night, and studying well into the night left little room for anything. So I gained even more weight.
Back then if you looked at me I did not look fat, but what I was, was heavy. That was exhausting, and being a large framed person to begin with made it tough to get clothes.
When I moved to Philly much of this problem disappeared… I walk a mile just to go to the store and take a large backpack to carry my groceries in. I try to walk everywhere. Now I’m a much leaner person, although I am still very heavy I’m not fat.
The amusing thing with me and getting fat is that I don’t see it coming. It creeps up on me. One time I thought that all of my underwear had shrunk! Actually it was me that had quickly expanded!
Here’s a question:
I did Atkins and I know that it works. I was a Ketosis machine. Breath mints were a must around others, but the nasty taste in my mouth was the taste of success!
However, the diet tended to create problems with constipation. I tried adding fiber and fiber substitutes. It seems like the only thing that will work is eating more fruit and salads (which is ok). The fruit is not though.
Has anyone had this problem and if so what works for you?
It is just like regular Coke… with no soul.
It is an empty, pale, soulless simulacrum of real soda.
You all should avoid it like the abomination it is.