Pre-GLP-1s: What It’s Like to Live Over 300 Lbs.

NOTE: I am not affiliated nor paid by any pharmaceutical company, doctor, or anybody or any company associated with GLP-1s or otherwise. All of this is my opinion and experiences. YMMV. Always talk to your health care provider about starting or changing any medications you put in your body, including GLP-1s.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how different my life was before being on GLP-1s three years ago. I’ve been writing down things I did, couldn’t do, wore, and couldn’t fit in so I could share them. I am not putting them down on paper so I and other people with super-obesity (over 300 lbs.) can be seen as circus freaks or humiliated, but to put a face and a voice on a human being who, first hand, knows what life is like unable to do things most people take for granted.

I’m speaking specifically to those who know this world as I did most of my adult life (I am 63 now). I’m talking to you who weigh 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, and up, including those of you who do not fit on any scale except at the post office. I’m hoping my voice reaches you because I know. I know because I have been there. Decades of my life have been devoted to maneuvering in a world too small for me. I want to offer hope to those of you who recognize yourselves in me, to you who think there is no way out of the cocoon of fat, but only a long and painful slide into death.

The analogy of cocoon is apt, though. I have finally, finally, after 60 years of maddening immobility and illnesses, found the pinpoint hole with which to release myself from all that I despised and believed from which I never could escape.

My freedom came with GLP-1s.

Exposing the Humiliation of My Super-Fat Life

• I went to jail in 1998 and was so fat I didn’t fit in the huge women’s jumpsuit. They had to leave me in the waiting cell until they could get an XL men’s jumpsuit for me. In jail, I was assigned a top bunk, but could not heft myself up there, so they had to move someone from the bottom to the top so I could have a bottom bunk. Was I ever hated for that. I thought I was used to being called fat names before, but once in jail, it was continuous and mercilous. If you go to jail, try not to be hugely fat.
• When I worked at Disney, on my way to work, I stopped at McDonald’s and ordered 3 Super-Sized fries (remember Super-Sized?) and ate them before heading into the office.
• At that time, I wore skirts and flowy tops because they covered all my rolls. I loved the circle skirts lots. One day, after I’d walked through the breakroom, a woman grabbed me and said I’d ripped my skirt. I felt behind me and the torn skirt was split and now resting on each hip, showing my pantied fat bottom and humongous cellulite thighs. I never lived that down.
• At lunch while working at Disney, I would drive to McDonald’s again, order 2 more Super-Sized fries and 2 fish sandwiches. And a Diet Coke.
• When I took a Mindfulness Meditation course, I had to sit in a chair because I could not get on the floor with everyone else.
• When I did get on the ground, it was because I fell there. During COVID, I fell in my room and had to call EMS to help me up. It took 4 guys to lift me. I pooped on myself as they raised me to my feet. After they left, I had to clean that up. Leaning over was excruciating. I was worried I would fall and have to call them again.
• Another time, I did something to my big toe that made it bleed. I never figured out what I did, but it bled and bled. I grabbed a towel and stepped on it, trying to stop the flow. It wouldn’t so I had to call EMS to come help me get a bandaid on my big toe. They were so kind, but my face burns with shame even as I write this years later.
• I had to have two stage 2 malignant melanomas removed during surgery, one on the front, one on the back. When I was being turned onto my back, the several people in the OR turning me over almost dropped me and I woke up with a split under my breast and many finger mark bruises. No, I did not sue. They didn’t drop me on the ground. I was very thankful for that. And I got a heart-felt apology.

• I got to be so fat, I couldn’t find underwear or bras that fit. I went without both for over a decade.
• During that decade of weighing 380 or more, I only wore tie-dye stretchy dresses like the one below. In the picture, you can also see my small necklace way up on my neck. This was not as big as I got, probably 20-25 lbs. more to my highest weight. The necklace got so tight, I had to buy a necklace extender, 10 inches long, and it was still very close to under my neck.

Then look at this picture that was taken two months ago, extender long gone. See how long the necklace is now? Wheee!

For those that I know will ask, what is it?

My necklace is a reminder of the 15 years of Jewish studies I did to convert. I never did the conversion, but hold Judaism close to my heart. Literally.

• I’ve ridden in Uber for several years and before GLP-1s, I could not sit in the back without the front seat being moved completely forward. I also was so big no seatbelt fit. Now, when I climb in, I can cross my legs, but I often forget to buckle up because I did not buckle for so many years!
• I’ve had Uber drivers start to go down my driveway and then, when they see me, turn around and leave. I’ve had that happen several times.
• If an Uber vehicle came that was an SUV or van, I had to send them away because I could not get into it.
• I had to use this tool (below) to clean myself after using the bathroom, both pee and poop. I had to carry it with me everywhere, in a giant Ziplock bag, a separate bag of baby wipes, and spare rubber bands. I carried this in a huge tote that came with me wherever I went. I also carried grocery bags to put the used baby wipes in so I could dispose of those at home. Here at home, I have one of those trash cans that automatically opens when you wave your hand over it, that has a tight lid to throw the used wipes in after I went to the bathroom. I easily went through 4-5 grocery bags a day. Fanwer sells this on Amazon. I had several in case I had to throw one out along the way. They are great quality. This one I am showing is unused.

Common experiences with other big folks include:

• Not fitting on several Disney/amusement park rides
• Not fitting through turnstiles and having to use the handicapped gates to get through
• Having to use scooters when going any distance where everyone else is walking
• Owning a walker and/or cane to walk
• Living with unending pain in the joints, muscles, body, and mind
• Not being able to do your own pedicure
• Having to maneuver around fat in order to have sex
• Being high risk for almost anything… medically, when pregnant, etc.
• Having to use more than one seat on an airline or have people pray to not be sitting next to us
• Having to ask the flight attendant for a seat belt extender (hint: bring your own!!)
• Not fitting in booths
• Not fitting in non-handicapped bathroom stalls
• Worrying about breaking a toilet seat
• Worrying about breaking a chair
• Having broken toilet seats
• Having broken chairs
• Having our thigh skin squish under the toilet seat and being pinched-to-hell when we sit on it
• Not being able to buy clothes except at specialty stores that make clothes way bigger than “Plus-Sized” stores,
• Casing every space and area to see where we can sit
• Hating to stand and if we have to, standing against a wall
• Not being able to sit on the ground
• Not being able to sit in a soft sofa
• Not being able to pull socks on
• Not being able to lace shoes (I wore only Birkenstock sandles for 30 years)
• Not being able to pick things up off the floor, leaving them for someone else to grab for you
• Not fitting in waiting room chairs
• Being taken in an ambulance and hearing the 4 huge guys grunt lifting you into the vehicle
• Not having the scale read your weight at the medical office because it doesn’t go that high
• Having your blood pressure done with the machine (or person) going so high you leave with bruises

Have I missed any?

Habits I’ve Had to Break as a Smaller Person

As I’ve gotten healthier and lost weight, I’ve started traveling to my daughter’s home in Texas. Initially, when I was going, I was still using two airplane seats. I once had to buy 3 to fly because I was that large. I was staying upstairs in my grandson’s bedroom and it was a chore to get up and down the stairs. When I came down in the morning, I would bring as much as I could carry, take a step down, then the other foot would go to that same step. Slowly, I got downstairs. I tried not to go up again during the day because it was so challenging and tiring to go up and down. If I needed something to go up, I would ask one of my grandkids to take it up for me. The last two visits, when I found myself starting to ask a kid to run up for me, I had a flash of a thought that I didn’t need to do that anymore! I began going up and down the stairs several times a day. I don’t even need to put both feet on one stair at a time anymore. I can walk up and down a staircase “normally” now. Surreal.

This is an eating one. When I ate pre-GLP-1s, I ate until whatever was in front of me was gone. And then would get more and eat another plateful. On GLP-1s, I’ve learned there is a signal that tells me when to stop eating. It’s a whisper so soft I have to ask myself, “Did I hear that or imagine it?” The whisper says, “Stop now.” It took many, many months to be able to recognize the signal. It wasn’t in my body. It wasn’t in my mouth. It was in my mind. Is in my mind.

Early on, when I wasn’t attuned to hearing it, I would finish eating and have a stomach ache and curl up on the bed until it went away. As I began hearing it, it was hard for me to stop eating if I still had food to eat. Mind you, I eat mostly Lean Cuisines and Healthy Choice, so the portions are really small (compared to what I used to eat, for sure!). Sometimes I got the word to stop eating when there were five bites left, other times, just one. If you have lived a life like I have, you know what I am going to say. I wanted to eat those last few bites! If I did, I was majorly sorry. Over time, I got used to throwing away whatever was left. I tried to save it for later, but it repulsed me if I went back to it.

Eating in shifts is exactly what I did pre-GLP-1s because I had the RNY Gastric Bypass anatomy still in play. I’d eat until I felt like I was going to throw up, wait an hour, and do it all again. When I ordered food from Uber Eats, I would get at least two dinners and would eat that over several hours… “grazing” is what some people call it. I consider it eating in shifts. I was stuffing, not grazing.

While I know it is wasteful to throw the extra away but it is what it is.

I no longer ignore the whisper. Sometimes I want to, and have, but have been mega-sorry for it. I’d rather toss the food in the tray than toss the food out of my stomach.

Starting at 405 Lbs. 3 Years Ago

I’m 5 ft. 1 inch tall and, as I write this on January 13, 2025, I weigh 131 lbs. I can’t even believe there is any connection to that number and me! My mom tells me I have not been this weight since 4th grade. Besides two short periods of massive weight loss… in 1997 with Fen-Phen (losing 111 lbs.) and in 2001 after an RNY Gastric Bypass (losing 210 lbs.)… I have lived most of my adult life weighing over 300 lbs., and too much of it over 350 lbs.

In April 2022, I weighed 405 lbs. I was put on Trulicity and took that for a year. Then in August 2023, I started on Mounjaro. I am still on Mounjaro, recently down from 15mg. to 12.5 since I seem to be in maintainence now. My labs are amazing, I am infinitely healthier, I am more active than I’ve ever been in my life, including childhood, and my doctors are all thrilled.

I am flabbergasted this is my life.

O, the Joy!