Valkyriegirl’s blog

I just had my driving lesson which went very well for the first time in weeks, I'm learning in a manual car, I hate manual cars and could never hadled  the clutch well , but i change my trainers to flats and I finally had control finally after 7mths of  lessons  I'm getting a grip on it.

the start of my diet went well today, I'm gonna do some exercise later, some situps and squating, my favourite form of exercise is walking I just love it, tomarrow i'm gonna do lots of walking I'm starting slowly and hoping to build my fitness up.

I watch another programme called 34 Stone Teenager last week and I just like to post a article about it.

Beth

Teenage years can be hard enough without the trauma of being overweight. So when insults pushed "morbidly obese" Bethany Walton to eat even more, she saw only one solution: surgery.

Diets are hard to stick to at the best of times. But when you face daily insults from strangers about your size, the urge to comfort eat can be over-whelming. Which is why Bethany Walton has instead turned to risky stomach surgery.

Fewer dieters are as honest about their weakness as Bethany. "It's will-power. I tried all the diets with the help of the hospital."

As she needs to lose at least 20 stone (127kg) to reach a healthy weight for her 5'6" (168cm) frame, that requires an awful lot of will-power, strenuously applied over a number of years.

"You lose your will-power really. Food comforted me; it made me feel better. When you are feeling low, and something makes you feel better, you're going to want to keep doing it," explains the soft-spoken 19-year-old from her Lincoln home.

"Sandwiches and bread were a big thing for me. Sandwiches with cheese. I'd maybe have a salad and sandwiches for lunch at college. But it wouldn't be a tossed green salad - it would be pasta mayonnaise with cheese on top."

One in 40 children is severely overweight. Obesity levels have trebled in 20 years - now almost one-fifth of Britons are obese. This week, the government unveiled its so-called "fitness minister", Caroline Flint, ahead of publishing new figures which are set to show that obesity has risen by 38% in adults since 2003.

Puppy fat

Bethany has always been a big girl. Weighing more than nine pounds when she was born, her mother Julia says Bethany grew into a "chubby toddler".

But what the family dismissed a "just puppy fat" kept piling on. Most children gain about half a stone a year; Bethany was putting on double that. By the age of eight, she was eight stone - almost twice the average weight for a girl her age.

"I'd be having larger portions - that's the problem with me, I was having portions that were far too big for me. I'd throw a tantrum if mum didn't give me extra food. I couldn't understand why my brothers - who were 10 years older than me and doing manual jobs - were having a dinner twice the size of me."

After her much-loved grandmother died - a woman more like a second mother after her father left when she was little - the only thing that made 12-year-old Bethany happy was eating. So food became a comfort. She gained eight stone (50kg) in a year; at the age of 13 she weighted 23 stone (146kg).

Replete

It was only after she underwent weight-loss surgery in April that Bethany felt full for the first time - that was after eating a small pot of yoghurt.

The average human stomach can usually hold about a litre of food, and can expand to hold up to four times that amount. Bethany's now holds just 200ml after undergoing a sleeve gastroectomy. "It reduces the stomach to about the width of your thumb," says her surgeon, Simon Dexter.

One patient in 100 dies from weight-loss surgery, so it's a risky procedure. Bethany decided it was a risk worth taking after her doctors warned her that without it, she'd most likely be dead by the age of 30.

The operation is starting to have an effect, but still Bethany's weight is killing her. Her heart is overloaded, her periods have stopped as her body overproduces oestrogen, and she risks developing a raft of diseases such as diabetes. She doesn't go to the cinema because she can't fit in the seats. "I'm all right with doorways but I still worry about it - what if, you know?"

Four months on, she's already lost four stone and wants to lose a further 10 stone in the next year. She then hopes to have her stomach re-trimmed to help her hit her target weight. How does she describe herself post-surgery? "Not as fat as I was, but still morbidly obese - that's the label the doctors put on it. I'm a size 34 now. Unrealistically I'd like to be a size eight. Realistically a size 16."

Judgemental stares

Just because food makes her feel better doesn't mean that Bethany subscribes to the "fat is fabulous" movement: "I hate the way I look. I hate my body. I hate my clothes," she says. (It's telling that her voice lifts and brightens when we get off the topic of her weight, such as when she speaks of her hopes to be an artist).

Most teenage girls are self-conscious about how they look - and a recent survey for a teen magazine found that 92% are unhappy with their bodies - but at four times the size of the average teenager, Bethany says she has never felt pretty. She's self-conscious about walking or exercising, finding it embarrassing that others can hear her getting out of breath.

Nor is this helped by the stares and catcalls that accompany every outing - Bethany's size has made her public property.

"People stare at you, you get glares, you get children saying 'Mummy, why's she like that?' They just chuck everything at you - throw abuse from across the street."

"If someone had been particularly horrible to me, like a drunken person across the street shouting 'Oi you fat bitch' [she giggles to take the obvious sting out of the memory], I'd feel so low that I'd just go to the corner shop and buy two or three packets of sandwiches, a packet of crisps and a fizzy drink."

So what does she do now to make herself feel better? "I hug my mum. That helps."

Source:BBC

I was touched by the programme, I watched and felt nothing but sympathy for her, she was ridculed and abuse on the streets by total strangers, watching the programme you see someone who sensitive and caring girl who's more mature then you think, I can totally understand her decsion to go through with the operation for it was do or die, I for one have never considered having a gastric band or stomach stapiling as I think that for me it's to extreme, but for some people who are really overweight it's there only option, but it's become scary that people with weight issues are turning to these kind of methods to help them lose weight, it get you think is this what it's gonna be like for the future? with obesity become such a epidemic and being compared to being as bad as Bird Flu or Global Warming is this the new craze to stop people from becoming fat. Hayley

What is your favorite children's movie?

The Wizard Of Oz even though I never saw until I was 17,but loved it even now.

I just relised that I have to loose nearly 10st/65kg to get my ideal weight of 10st which I've caculated by my height which is 5ft 11inches, Well I've set myself the goal of losing 4st by december, I've decided to do little steps or other wise I'll lose the motavtion if I try to lose 10st in the next couple of months.

It seems that obesity in the last couple of years is starting to get more and more media coverage, last night I watch  a show call F**ck  off I'm  Fat , where a guy who was overweight was trying to put the GREAT back into great britian personally i thought had some interesting ideas, first it's known fact that most high street stores do knock stock for the larger person, shops such as Top Shop or Selfriages do not cater for fat people, from the programme I think they went up to a size 18 and the girls in the programme where told to go in and find something they like and but could not find anything to wear from any of the stores they even went into the stores and could not find anything in a size 18 even though they said they stock it, is it terrible? yes but I doubt it will change. Personally I advoid these store at all cost and only go in them if my friends who are slim goes and shops in them, it make you feel like a lemon and ashamed that your the way you are, I don't bother even looking in stores like those for the the fact I know they will not stock my size which is 22-24, the only shops i shop in are George and Evans who go up to my sizes. what did I learn from the programme people will Judge and have preconcieved Ideas about you wheather it's you body shape or the way you look, that will never change everyone even fat people judge people for the way we look, what did the  bloke from  the programme achieve , personally nil he went out on a misson to get people to treat fat people differently, not gonna happen. Obesity is a empidemic sepcially in the uk, they've got people like Jamie Oliver adovatcing for school meals to be healthy which is great, but they can't force people to change the way they eat, it has to be down to the person to help themselves.

Did You Know?

This gonna be my weblog of my journey to lose my fat, I'm currentley 21st/135kg/297lbs i think that's the right figure, my body mass index (BMI) is 41.07 which class me very obese, not a suprise, I've been trying to loose weight for the last couple of years with very little success, last september I join Slimming World and lost 1st, 5lbs, but I soon lost interested and retreat back in to my usually depressed self, low self-esteem and  no confidence. The weight starting piling on when I was about 8 years old, I was a normal baby weight, by the time I was ten years old I was wearing 18 size clothes, my constant overeating which started out of my folks feeding me and my brother unhealthy junk food, letting us eat what we wanted, as years when on it became obvious that my seemless harmless  thing was becoming my  companion , is overeating or obesity a eating disorder like bulimia or anaroxia who knows??, years when on I'l piled on the weight quickly and this is when bulling and taunting started at school which is when food be a comfort, it knocked my confidence, but I was not a total push over , and was not bullied phsyical but the verbal abuse can just be as damaging, but looking back i just wish i had the courage to do somthing back then, it follow into high school, my attendance was horrendace, I just hated school and doing P.E( Physical Education) espcially which I tried to advoid at all costs, I when from a happy girl who could not keep my mouth shut and who loads of friends to a quiet, depressed teen who only liked a small group of friends, I like to feel invisable, not to be seen, I hate people staring or looking at me and i'am always parniod that people whisper about me my imagination goes wild thinking there saying things nasty thing like you fat bitch, I know it's me, but my life taken a u-turn I approaching my last 2 years at college and working with childrens great but my weight is affecting my life, I know it  gonna get worse if I don't get a grip on it, my family are all overweight, my mum, dad and brother, and two of my aunts are over twenty five stone, one who is gonna have a the gastric band bypass and another who is so desprate to have kids but cant be cause her weight is affecting not just her fertility but her marriage, most of my mother's family suffer from obesity, I'm eighteen my life is only just begining, I'm sick of be this way, who's fault mine, because i don't have the motivation or will to stop my overeating but not anymore the person who's gonna stop my waist from expanding anymore is me and that is while I've started this blog to help me. so that is my rant, my diet started tomarrow. Hayley