thefatnewlywed-blog

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

it’s a bird...it’s a plane... it’s Super Tracker!

10/26/16

Current weight: 237 lbs

It’s been almost exactly a month since I last posted. Apparently that was how much time I needed to recover from my previous freakout about serving sizes. 

I’ve been doing better lately. Trying some new approaches to eating, which includes (never thought I’d say it) actually counting calories. I found a great website that is free and easy to use. It’s the USDA Super Tracker, and while it may sound weird to use a government entity for help managing your weight, it’s actually a really useful tool. I trust it more than I trust some of the calorie counter apps out there, since most of the food entries are created by the app’s users, and who the hell knows if they’re typing in the nutrition facts correctly?

I’ve had to readjust my eating patterns again after falling off the wagon, so there were some days where my stomach got super pissed when I didn’t feed it pizza or extra helpings. But that’s where the Super Tracker comes in. It’s really satisfying to track what I’m eating. I can enter in recipes that I use frequently, divide the recipe amount into portions and save for later. So when I make a specific dish, I can just enter in “1 portion of Kale White Bean Salad” and the site cal tell me how many calories and servings of each food group I’ve eaten. 

The only bad part about the site is that it’s not mobile friendly, but it’s a government site. I’m just happy it works in a browser other than IE.

So with the help of Super Tracker, some willpower, and a lot of false starts, I have finally reached the 20 pound marker. AND I can fit back into a pair of jeans that I haven’t worn in a over a year, which is really the most important milestone here.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

baseballs and dice

9/27/16

Current weight: 243 lbs

Not much to report this week, as I have gained nothing but lost nothing either. I have come to the depressing conclusion that the only way to tip the scales (pun totally intended) is to either decrease the number of calories I take in, or increase the number I burn. In other words-- be hungry or go to the gym. Which option do I find marginally less objectionable? Let’s break it down, shall we?

Option 1: Decreasing calorie intake. I’ve touched a little bit on portion size in this blog (specifically with servings of vegetables) but I don’t think I’ve truly communicated just how ridiculous these measurements can get. I’ve mentioned before that I’m trying to follow the American Heart Association’s guidelines for healthy eating. Don’t get me wrong-- they’re good guidelines to follow. But some of their serving size recommendations are laughably optimistic.

For instance, the AMA’s recommendation for one serving size of grain (pasta, rice, etc.) is half a cup. Or, if you need a handy visual aid: “about the size of a baseball.” Are you kidding me? Do you know how much pasta you can fit in a baseball? Not that fucking much. I even found a stock photo that compares a half cup of pasta to a baseball:

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s one fucking small amount of pasta. That wouldn’t keep Joey Tribbiani alive for five seconds. I’m angry just looking at it. Also hungry. Son of a bitch, now I want pasta.

Another example: a serving size of cheese should be 1.5 ounces. Or, to use the AMA’s handy-dandy description: “about the size of six stacked dice.” ARE YOU SHITTING ME RIGHT NOW?

And just to add insult to injury, it’s supposed to be LOW FAT cheese. What the shit? Low fat cheese is to dairy as decaf coffee is to caffeine-- seriously, why bother?

Fuck this. I guess I’ll go to the gym.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

Do or do not...

9/19/16

Current weight: 243 lbs

I’ve recovered somewhat from my emotional, fuck-everything meltdown last week. I haven’t gained any weight back since then, so that’s probably part of it. I was also able to remember my Jedi training and let go of (some of) my anger.

I think I just got tunnel vision. I was doing so well for so many weeks that I started fixating on the number on the scale without paying attention to any other progress I was making. When the number went up instead of down, I took it as a personal failure and berated myself for being so weak.

The reality: losing 14 to 15 pounds in 7 weeks is pretty damn good. And I guess it’s pretty common to lose significantly more weight at the beginning of a diet change than at the middle or the end. Problem is, I got used to seeing that number dip dramatically each week-- Wow, 4 pounds lighter! 7 pounds lighter! I’m doing great! I’m not even having to exercise that much! I am awesome at this! It was too good to last.

I think my body has finally adjusted to my new eating habits, and I’m simply going to lose weight more slowly from now on. There will be some weeks when I don’t lose anything, and some weeks when I gain something. It’s okay. This is not a graded assignment. It’s okay to fail sometimes. I’m not doing this for other people, I’m doing it for me. Unfortunately, “me” can either be my greatest champion or my worst enemy.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

fuck everything

9/13/2016

Current weight: Fuck off.

It happened. I predicted it in my last post and then it fucking happened. I gained 3 pounds last week for no apparent reason (water retention? eating too MUCH salad? who the fuck knows) and thus proceeded to give zero fucks and eat whatever the fuck I felt like this weekend, all the while feeling like a fucking failure. In short, I fell off the fucking wagon.

I haven’t gotten on the scale yet and I’m not going to for at least another week. I don’t know why I am taking this so fucking personally, this shit happens to everyone once in a while (right?) and I shouldn’t be so fucking emotional. But I just fucking am.

The other reason I’m fucking pissed right now: fake followers. This started out as a personal blog to help me stick to my plan. I didn’t expect anyone to read it except myself, but I did put a few basic tags in my posts in case there were any other people experiencing the same struggle who would be inspired/amused/comforted by my little journey of madness.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover last week that I had amassed 42 followers. “Wow,” I thought, “people must really like what I’m writing!” No such fucking thing.

As with any social media, there are spammers and fake accounts that start liking/following you if your posts contain specific content. I’ve been using tags like “weight loss,” “weight management,” “healthy eating,” etc. so I really should have anticipated this. But somehow I thought Tumblr was the exception to the rule. Fuck no.

To all of the spammers that momentarily made me believe that there were others out there like me who care: Fuck you. Specifically,

Fuck you @conversationswithbenedict​. How dare you use the great and holy name of Benedict Cumberbatch as click bait for weight loss?

Fuck you @hiv---positive​. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you name your blog after an STD? Are you trying to take advantage of people with STDs who are looking for help or support? If so, you are a special kind of asshole.

@icantfuckingchill. I agree, you can’t fucking chill. Not on my blog anyway.

Fuck.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

fear of failure

9/6/2016

Current weight: 240 lbs

6 weeks almost to the day since I started this thing and I’ve lost a total of 17 pounds. Over the weekend I had to buy a belt to keep my size 22 jeans from falling down. How the fuck did this happen? Obviously it’s the radical change in diet and portion size, but I’m still having trouble believing it.

To make it seem more real, I finally told a few people about my weight loss goals. I’ve been avoiding discussing it with anyone but my husband because a) I don’t want to jinx it, and b) I don’t want to make anyone else feel uncomfortable. I always hate it when people go on and on about their eating habits and how many pounds they’ve lost and how much they’re exercising. Their success always makes me feel like a fat and lazy failure.

But I finally decided to share my progress with a few close family members, because it’s a lot harder to quit something once you’ve told people about it. They were of course very supportive and congratulatory, so now I really have to keep going. Shit.

I’m sure there will come a time when a week goes by and I haven’t lost any weight (or worse, gained some.) That’s going to be really hard, because one of the main things that keeps me motivated is getting on the scale every week and seeing that number go down. I worry that if I gain back a pound or two, it’s going to weaken, not strengthen, my resolve.

Healthy weight loss is generally considered to be about 1-2 pounds per week. My long-term goal is to lose 100 pounds, meaning I’ve got about 83 left to go. So if I average around 1.5 pounds a week, it will be approximately 55 more weeks before I reach my goal, or a little over a year. That seems like a really, really long time.

I know that weight loss is not the only goal-- I also want to change the way I think about food, eat more healthy food, and exercise more. But those goals seem less attainable somehow. I haven’t been to the gym in weeks. I’m still not getting enough vegetables and fruit every day. I don’t even look like I’ve lost any weight. So the pounds I’ve lost are the clearest indicator that I’m making progress. If I stop losing pounds, I’m afraid that my motivation to keep going will also stop.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

more side effects...

9/1/2016

Remember that post where I was talking about how what I’m eating is affecting my mood and energy level? Well, this week I got a taste of how it can affect my physical state of being.

Monday night my husband had a craving for really good burgers, so we went out to a pub restaurant. I had done really well all that past week, so I felt all right indulging for once. I ate half a greasy burger, many fries and some bread pretzels with mustard. I was pretty full after that so I asked for a box for leftovers. Once we got home, my husband took a king-size Hershey bar with almonds out of his bag and handed it to me. I informed him that he was an evil man, and he responded with taking out a second king-size candy bar for himself. He’s such an enabler.

We are in season 5 of The Walking Dead, which is insanely addictive, so I had no idea how much chocolate I had eaten until the episode was over. Then I looked down and groaned. I’d eaten the whole damn thing.

Without getting into too much detail, I paid a visit to the bathroom, where my stomach informed me that it was not pleased with this turn of events. I really felt that I might throw up, which shocked me. Just five weeks ago that type of eating would not have bothered my stomach at all. I didn’t end up puking, but I felt nauseous for a good portion of the evening. My poor husband felt like it was his fault, but as I told him, I was the one who decided to eat that entire candy bar, not him.

I’m still not sure how I feel about this development. On the one hand, I’m glad that I had that reaction because it will motivate me to keep eating healthy. On the other, I don’t like the idea that I can’t overindulge once in a while without being physically sick. Everyone has times when they overindulge in eating-- Thanksgiving being a prime example. I love Thanksgiving and all the food that comes with it, so this year is going to be hard for me. 

Actually, the entire holiday season is going to be a bitch. My coworkers already bring in way too much food the rest of the year, but at holiday time that shit gets out of control. Every day, on every desk and in every cubicle, there will be bars, cookies, candy, breads, nuts, pie, and every other treat you can imagine. And it doesn’t work to say no, because usually people have made the stupid things and you have to take one to be polite.

I’m scared of two things-- overeating, and that I won’t be able to overeat. How’s that for a paradox?

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

fast, cheap, and easy

8/29/2016

Current weight: 243.5 lbs

I’m nearing the 15-pound mark, which is slightly unreal to me. I was reading back over some earlier posts and remembering how hard it was that first week. All I wanted to do was eat, and almost every second of every day I was thinking about when my next meal was going to be. My stomach has since adjusted to smaller portions, so I no longer feel that constant hunger-rage. I’m still obsessed with food, but it’s turned into more of an obsession with healthy cooking rather than what/when I’m going to eat.

I’m constantly searching for new ways to incorporate healthy food into my daily diet, and consequently I’ve developed a new approach to recipe-hunting. I discovered that just Googling “healthy cooking” doesn’t really work because it’s too vague. What does “healthy” mean? Does it mean cooking the same things using low-fat versions? Using entirely new ingredients? Is it more about counting calories or increasing nutritional value?

I did better when I started “reverse-engineering” the search. At the beginning of this thing, I decided I wanted to follow the American Heart Association’s guidelines for a healthy diet, which include a certain number of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, lean meats, low-fat dairy, nuts, seeds, and legumes per day. So instead of searching for “healthy recipes,” I started searching for “recipes with whole grains,” “recipes with dark leafy greens,” etc. I’ve made some interesting discoveries that way. Did you know that there is an entire website dedicated to barley recipes? There’s also one devoted solely to mango and another just for walnuts. Who knew?

By searching for a specific ingredient, rather than a completed recipe, I was able to slowly build up an arsenal with the help of the mother of all organizational tools-- Google Drive. I fucking love Google Drive. Now when I find a recipe that sounds promising, I copy the text, go to the appropriate Google doc and paste it in. (I have multiple docs for different categories of food-- meat recipes, vegetarian, soups, salads, snacks and spreads, baking, etc. I don’t have a problem. Really.)

Before the recipe gets the honor of being placed in my Google arsenal, it has to meet two requirements. One-- it can’t contain ingredients that I never use. Too many recipes call for 1 teaspoon of grated lemongrass or 1/4 of a cup of grapeseed oil or some other obscure shit I’ve never heard of. The recipe has to be flexible enough that if I substitute dried herbs for fresh herbs or leave out the lime juice, it will still taste good. Otherwise, why fucking bother?

Two-- the recipe cannot require constant babysitting or lots of dicking around. When I get home I am fucking tired, and I do not want to spend and hour and a half fussing with some temperamental dish that will fall apart or be ruined without checking it every five minutes. I want something that either cooks in 20 minutes, or something I can throw in the oven and forget about for 2 hours.

There’s a wall hanging I saw once in a thrift store that summarizes my feelings about cooking perfectly: “If you are what you eat, I’m fast, cheap, and easy.”

And with that, I present two recipes that made the cut:

Kale and White Bean Salad

Slow Cooker Pumpkin Oatmeal

Bon appetite, bitches!

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

30 is the new 5

8/23/2016

Current weight: 245 lbs

It’s been a bad eating week, so bad that I didn’t want to get on the scale for fear it would set me back mentally. It was my 30th birthday this weekend, plus our Star Wars RPG night, so I wound up eating many unhealthy things-- pie, cake, pizza, more pie, etc. I did try to listen to my stomach more and stop eating when I was full, and I must have done okay because I lost a pound instead of gaining one. Whew.

It’s also been a bad week for exercise. I haven’t been to the gym all week, and with each day that passes comes a new excuse for not going. I can actually feel my muscles slowly atrophying into blobs of grape jelly. My one saving grace has been the 10-minute walk uphill to work from the parking garage (I work downtown where parking spots are more expensive and sought-after than crack.) I am also lucky enough to have a “standing station” at work so I can alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day. This has been a lifesaver for my lower back and I recommend it to anyone with a desk job.

Speaking of desk jobs, I went to a presentation today on “fitness for people who sit” and it was actually very interesting. The guy is a licensed massage therapist and he made a pretty convincing case for why we need to move more-- bottom line, sitting for long periods is terrible for your body. I already knew that, but what I didn’t know was that even if you exercise regularly, apparently you’re only exercising a specific set of muscles (the “power muscles” as he called them.) Aerobic exercise doesn’t help your “pulling muscles,” the ones that help you maintain balance and do the most work when you’re sitting or standing for long periods. That’s why it’s important to move your body in other ways, too.

He compared the behavior of kids, who are always running around and playing, to adults, who are typically very sedentary, and said we should act more like kids. Not just walking, standing or running, but stretching, twisting, bending, reaching, and jumping should also be a normal part of your workday. 

Now, I’m already five years old emotionally-- I watched The Land Before Time the other day and when Littlefoot’s mother died, I may or may not have felt a lump in my throat. So it shouldn’t be too difficult for me to physically act like a five-year-old as well.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

side effects

8/15/16

Current weight: 246 lbs

I wonder if I will ever get to a point where I don’t have to think about everything I eat. The past three weeks have been an exercise in self-awareness (and a bit of self-obsession.) I’m constantly thinking about what I’m going to eat, when I’m going to eat, and how much I’m going to eat. I’m constantly scouring the interwebs for ways to incorporate new healthy foods into my diet. I’m constantly battling with myself over whether to spend the limited time I have with my husband cooking, or just give in and order takeout.

We ate out twice this past week, which is about average for us. Monday night we gave in to our craving for pizza. There’s a pizza place nearby that makes the absolute best bread sticks ever. I don’t think they even qualify as bread sticks. It’s basically a whole pizza sliced into strips, with cheese and bacon crumbles and garlic butter sauce for dipping. No one can resist that shit, least of all me.

I ate a lot of pizza, and it was fucking delicious. I’d made my peace with it once we ordered and just decided to enjoy it and not feel guilty. But an interesting thing happened the next morning. The way I felt physically, compared to the previous few days where I’d been eating healthy food like kale, had changed dramatically. Frankly I felt like shit-- I was sluggish and tired all day.

You always read about how eating right is supposed to make you feel great, and you always go “yeah yeah I know, whatever.” But based on my own experience, there is some truth to that. I have been feeling more energetic lately. Normally I hit the snooze button four or five times before getting up, and when I finally do haul my ass out of bed I bitch and moan and whine. I am not a morning person and possess an all-consuming hatred for those that are. At least until I’ve had coffee or a shower-- after that I’m usually far less homicidal.

But for the past couple weeks I’ve been noticing that I’ve been getting up earlier without feeling the need to bitch or moan. Part of this is due to our new kitty, who has decided that wake-up call is 6:00 AM sharp every morning. He will not stop meowing until I get up and feed him, so it’s a great motivator.

Bottom line: I think this change in eating is doing something besides weight loss. It’s improving my mood, bitches.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

I ate kale and it didn’t suck.

8/8/16

Current weight: 249 lbs

Two pieces of good news to report: 1) I have lost 8 pounds since I started this thing, and 2) I actually found a recipe for kale that tasted good and was easy to make.

I’m trying hard to incorporate more vegetables into my daily diet. The American Heart Association (yes, I did my research) recommends 3-4 servings of veggies per day. Sounds easy, right? Fuck no.

A serving, roughly, is 1 cup leafy veg (spinach, lettuce, kale, etc), 1/2 a cup raw or cooked veg, or 1/2 cup vegetable juice. Now, I am NEVER going to drink V-8 or anything else like it, because it’s disgusting. Juice is not supposed to taste like diluted ketchup, it’s supposed to taste like fucking fruit. That leaves us with regular veggies, which present different problems. One, I can’t eat them fast enough. When there are only two people (and a cat who is exclusively carnivorous) living together, it’s hard to use up an entire head of lettuce before it goes bad. And I HATE wasting food.

Two, my knowledge of vegetables is fairly limited, so when I do eat them, it’s usually boring stuff like broccoli, green beans, peas, carrots, etc. Whenever I do try branching out with a new vegetable, I usually end up cooking it the wrong way (looking at you, asparagus) so it tastes like crap. And then I’m discouraged and don’t want to spend more time and money trying again.

So when I bought a head of kale, I thought “there’s no way in hell I’m going to eat all this.” But I wanted to try, because kale is one of those dark green leafy magic foods that has a fuck-ton of Vitamin A, C, and K, plus iron and calcium. I sifted through dozens of recipes on the interwebs until I found one that sounded easy and didn’t call for too many ingredients. I was pleasantly surprised. The key is to saute the kale for a couple minutes first-- that gets it all wilted and tender and crunchy. Then I added white beans and a lemony-pepper dressing. Yum. Plus the husband liked it too, so that’s going on the list of shit I’m going to make again.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

8/5/16

I am obsessed with food. It’s ridiculous how much time I spend thinking about it. Do you suppose there are people who don’t do that? People who don’t constantly think about what they’re going to make for dinner, what they should take for lunch the next day, how they can avoid overeating at a potluck or buffet?

Part of me wants to be someone who just doesn’t care about food that much. It would be a relief not to worry about it all the time. But the other part of me is glad I enjoy food. It’s one of the little pleasures in life, to eat a really delicious meal, either one you cooked yourself or one that you ordered.

This week we ordered takeout twice-- pizza one night, Chinese another night. I have no one to blame but myself (and my husband a little bit.) However, while I did make a choice to eat unhealthy food, I also made an effort to eat less of it. I stopped eating when I felt full, something that is difficult for me to do. I also let my husband have most of the leftovers, which made him happy. Not earth-shattering changes, but I would count that as a small step toward changing eating habits.

I also worked out twice this week, which is twice more than I’ve worked out in the past 4 months. **slow clap**

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

7/31/15

Holy shit is it hard to control portions. My stomach has been in shock these past couple days. After I’m done eating my stomach is like “WHERE’S THE REST OF MY FOOD?” 

This weekend was challenging in other ways too. A word to the wise-- if you’re planning to make a major change in your diet/eating habits, you might want to discuss it with your spouse/significant other first. My poor husband did not know I had decided to embark on this new food thing, so he was of course doing normal things like buying ice cream at the store, suggesting Indian buffet for lunch, etc. Being hungry does not make me a nice person. I was irritable and grouchy all day, until finally I told him what I was trying to do. He was like “well, that explains a lot!” Yes, indeed.

By Sunday night I had mellowed out somewhat. My stomach had stopped being so angry with me, and I was able to relax and eat my dinner while watching Stargate SG-1 with my sweetie (after seeing the “Prisoners” episode in Season 2, I felt pretty grateful that I got to eat taco salad instead of grayish-white Cream of Wheat glop in a wooden trough.)

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

So...

Due to several recent events, I have arrived at the conclusion that I need to lose weight. Not just lose weight, but get healthy too. And more importantly, I have to STAY healthy. We’re not talking crash diet/lose 20 pounds in two weeks/get thin by eating nothing but almonds/fuck you Cosmo.

Diets don’t work. They don’t work because they are temporary changes. To lose weight and keep it off I need to make a radical change-- I need to change the way I look at food and the way I eat it.

I currently weigh 257 pounds. On a recent visit to my doctor (whom I love) she was being assisted by a doctor-in-training, a thirty-something guy who went through my list of health conditions like a fucking customs agent. He grilled me about my diet and exercise habits and gently admonished me for having a BMI of 42, which in his words, “is a whole other level of obesity.” (18-32 is the normal range, 32-40 is considered obese.) It’s also worth noting that this happened one week before my wedding. Nice job, asshole.

Needless to say, after I walked out of the office and got into my car, I started sobbing. I felt so disgusting and ashamed of my body. I knew the doctor had meant well, that he was trying to be helpful, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like shit. I texted my fiance and told him what happened. He was, of course, very indignant on my behalf and reassured me that I’m beautiful and wonderful. Just one of the infinite reasons why I love that guy.

I wrote a message to my doctor that contained some feedback for Dr Dipshit (no, I didn’t actually refer to him by that name, I was actually quite civil. You can read the entire message here if you want.) I explained to him that my weight is a sensitive topic because it is linked to major depression that was not diagnosed until I was in my freshman year of college, and that I didn’t really want to discuss the topic with a doctor I had just met. It takes trust and mutual respect to share private shit like that, neither of which we had established.

The idea of losing weight had been on my mind for a while. I think the encounter with Dr Dipshit was just the catalyst for making the decision. There were other factors too. Eventually my husband and I are going to start a family, and I don’t want to be carrying a lot of extra weight around when that begins. Obesity can increase the likelihood of complications during pregnancy, and isn’t very good for the baby or the mother in the long run. You also need to eat a very healthy diet while you’re pregnant, something I’m not used to doing. Also, diabetes and heart disease run in my mom’s side of the family (thanks a lot, genes) so I have about a 50/50 chance of developing one of those conditions. The best defense against those diseases is to maintain a healthy weight, exercise frequently, and eat right.

So... my goals, as of July 25, 2016:

1) Stop letting food control me. It’s amazing how much food dominates my daily life. I’m always thinking about what I’m going to have for lunch, what I should make for dinner, if I should stop by the break room at work to see if someone brought doughnuts. I want to break that cycle and not let food control my thoughts.

2) Reduce the amount of food I eat and increase the amount of nutrition in the food I do eat. It’s not necessarily that I’m never going to eat any junk food or indulge the occasional craving. That would be a sad, sad, existence. The “everything in moderation” philosophy is what I’m going to try and apply to my daily meals. No calorie counting, or Weight Watchers “points,” or however the fuck else people decide to measure their food. Again, this is a lifestyle change, and while tracking every single thing I eat might work for some people, I’ve tried it. And it takes too much goddamn time and energy. I’d rather just try to stop eating when I’m full and make sure the majority of what I eat is healthy (vegetables, whole grains, fruits, low-fat dairy, lean meats, etc.)

3) Exercise. I belong to a gym, I just don’t go. I’m now going to make my best effort to go three times a week. I bought a sports bra that actually fits my giant boobs, so it’s happening. I ain’t throwing 70 bucks away.

4) Lose about 100 pounds. That will put me at the weight of my 18-year-old self, which I think is a pretty good goal. If I decide to lose more later on, that’s fine. But 100 is a good place to start.

Ok, so that’s about it. I can’t imagine anyone is going to read this but myself, but just in case, I will put a bunch of tags in here in case there’s other fat ladies out there somewhere who can relate to the struggle.

Here we go, bitches.

[thefatnewlywed-blog]

Message to my doctor

This is the note I sent through the online medical system to the doctor who basically called me morbidly obese...

I would like to offer some feedback for the doctor who was assisting Dr *** today during my appointment: I know you had the best of intentions when speaking with me about my diet, exercise, and weight today. You were concerned about my health and well-being-- I am too. I am well aware that I am overweight and have been for some time. I started gaining weight in college freshman year, before I had been diagnosed with major depression and didn't realize how out of control my eating had become. While my depression is well under control now and I am doing much better emotionally, my weight has remained a constant struggle and a source of low self-esteem. It is something I'm very sensitive about and not something that I came prepared to discuss today, especially with a new doctor whom I had just met. Again, I know your intentions were good, but the way you expressed your concerns about my weight was not very tactful. Telling me that my BMI is off the charts, in "a whole other level of obesity" that goes beyond an acceptable scale, made me feel awful. Telling me I am morbidly obese just a week before my wedding (an already stressful event with a lot of attention focused on the bride and her appearance) made me feel even worse. I felt judged and self-conscious, and it seemed like I was just a number on a chart to you, not a person. I have never felt that way with Dr ***, and I think it's because she understands that not every medical issue can be effectively addressed in a single visit, and that it's very important to build trust between doctor and patient before bringing up difficult topics. I think you have a really great mentor in Dr *** and you can learn a lot from working with her.