For all of those who are not vastly overweight, the struggles that an overweight person goes through are completely foreign. Because I am obese, I can let you know what it feels like to live in my world.

|We can begin with the most obvious, appearance.|The first thing people see is how I look, so that is where I’ll start.|People are usually judged by the way they look, and that is first on my list.} You stare wistfully at your reflection in the mirror. No matter which angle you turn, you just don’t quite look right. There are beautiful parts to our bodies but all of the weight hides them from us. Our best efforts at making ourselves beautiful go for naught as people only look at the layers of fat and not the accessories that we put on. The rest of your body is a mishmash of lumps and bumps, protrusions and strange angles that you know you simply cannot hide, regardless of what you wear. You realize this is as good as it is going to get and vow to avoid mirrors for the remainder of the day.

You leave for work. As soon as you exert yourself in the simplest way you begin to leak copious amounts of sweat from pores you didn’t even know you had. You eat your lunch, but regardless of what you decide to have, you know that people are silently judging you and sometimes you think that maybe you should avoid all food and try to lose weight fasting. , but you know that it will never work for you.

You go shopping. It becomes discouraging that there is not a place that had the types of things that will fit you, and you stay away. Just by passing by the shop and looking at the displays in the window, you realize that it is a waste of your time. Not only is it tough to get around in the store, they do not carry any clothes that are close to your size. You may find a few items that could potentially look okay on you and you say a prayer as you take them to the fitting room. As you try these items on you are not surprised by the result. The fact that you are obese is not improved when you are trying on something new.

You live carefully and are forced to ponder and worry about things your thin counterparts give absolutely no thought to. Getting on a plane makes you nauseous because the airline may decide you need two seats, or the seatbelt may not reach.

Then there’s your health that you deal with because your knees creak under your added weight, and your feet swell and throb due to the extra pressure placed on your feet, and your back hurts all the time because of the extra girth you place on your poor vertebrae, and you cannot even do a simple six pack ab exercise program that you used to do when you were younger.

Your friends and family are supportive and you know they love you but they will not let you forget, not even for a moment, how much weight you’ve gained or how much better you would look if you lost some weight and even though you turn to message boards like biggest loser weight loss forum where there are people who are just like you, you seldom find the support you really need. That is what it is like to be really fat. This is what must be confronted by those of us with a weight problem. {Maybe not everyday, but just enough days to make you really seriously consider becoming a hermit.|Sometimes it can be forgotten and a good time can be had, but then reality comes back and wants to make you hide in a closet somewhere.|For the most part, we do not like to live our lives this way, although happiness does find our way intermittingly.