Hey everybody

This weekend my husband Steve and I were talking about my recent weight loss and I had a revelation. For most of my adult life my weight stayed between 275-295lbs. I was fit and felt great and never had any health problems at all so I didn’t think my weight was a major issue. I met my husband Steve about 5 years ago and we moved in together about a year after that. Everything was fantastic and it felt like I was starting a positive phase in my life.

Four months after we moved in together my mom called me one morning on my way to work and told me my dad had passed away from a sudden heart attack an hour earlier. Being an only child and a daddy’s girl there’s no way to describe losing him even at 29 years old. I also knew that being an only child, I had to put my grief aside for now and take care of my mom. My mom and I grew closer than we’d ever been in the months following his death and she became my best friend. Steve and my mom also grew very close and he became the man of the family very quickly. About 6 months after my dad passed away my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. We decided the best approach was chemo followed by radiation but the doctors didn’t have much hope. The night before her treatment started, Steve went to her and asked for her permission to marry me and of course that took her mind off of chemo for a little while until he proposed a few weeks later. In the weeks of her treatment we spent alot of time together driving to her treatments an hour and a half away. The treatments didn’t cure the cancer and 6 months after that the cancer had spread to her liver and she was considered palliative care. She immediately moved into a cancer hospice to make her comfortable. The second day she was in the hospice we told her we had decided to move our wedding up and have a very small cermony in the beautiful sunroom at the hospice. That last month was spent with her planning our wedding. I think that was the happiest I’d seen her since my dad passed away. She never made it to our wedding because she passed away 2 weeks before. We still went ahead with the wedding as planned and exchanged the rings my parents exchanged 31 years earlier.

It’s been almost 4 years since my dad passed and almost 2 years since my mom passed and I just realized this past weekend that the grief process was part of the reason I had gained almost 100lbs in 4 years. I felt the ‘click’ back in august before I even knew about Scott and Motivation to Move and it was nice to know that others feel it too. I felt a shift in my attitude and realized that I either needed to do something or give up altogether and of course I couldn’t do that to my loving husband. I joined Weight Watchers immediately and got myself back to the gym. To date I’ve lost 34.6lbs and I feel better than ever! For a long time I was blaming myself and thinking that I was weak because I had gained so much weight in such a short time but I really think there is a psychological part to weight gain. I have also been reading that grief affects hormones and metabolism.

Has anybody else experienced weight gain related to grief? I’d love to hear about the different experiences and how you came out the other side.

Michelle

Hi Michelle,

Thanks for starting this topic, and sharing your story. I’m so sorry to hear of your losses, what a traumatic time this must have been for you. I can’t imagine how I would handle the loss of both my parents, as you have. It sounds like you did a wonderful job of taking care of your mom and bringing light into her difficult days.  I’m 31 years old, my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer three years ago and has been battling it ever since. There has been major surgery, three rounds of chemo, depression, anxiety, lots of drugs...and she’s currently in the midst of nasty side effects from the current chemo treatment. While I can’t say I’ve lost a parent, I do know how the feeling hit me upon realizing the possibility of losing her much earlier than expected. So there has been a kind of grief at the loss of my expectations of what life would be, as well as stressful anticipation of grief to come.

More often than I would like, I turn to food to deal with emotions. I initially lost about 15 lbs in the 8 months after my mom’s diagnosis, then put on almost 40 lbs in the next year and a half. Of all that time, I’ve felt the most successful these past 2-1/2 months, when I started the 100 Days of Exercise challenge. I’ve just shifted my focus to developing healthy habits, rather than obsessing about the scale. I think I’ve lost weight, but I’m not even weighing myself until the challenge is over. Exercise provides immediate benefits for me when it comes to dealing with emotions and sleep problems.

There is DEFINITELY a psychological part to weight gain, and I hope you are no longer blaming yourself or thinking you are weak because you put on weight. I’m glad to know you’ve felt ‘the click’ and got going with WW and exercise, congratulations on the weight you’ve lost! You’ve built up momentum, and that will carry you forward.

Hey Former Fattie

Thanks so much for your response. I’m so sorry to hear about your mother. It sounds like you’re keeping strong and you’re making the right decision to think about your health also. You can’t be much support if you’re not healthy yourself.

When I was going to grief counselling someone posed the question “Is it more difficult to have someone die suddenly or from a long illness?”

Having had both situations I still don’t know the answer to that. In some ways I think it’s better to have someone die suddenly because there’s nothing like the feeling of helplessness when you’re watching someone you love suffer. I think that’s part of the reason I gained so much weight. I felt that if I couldn’t help my mom how would I be able to take care of myself when she was gone. I guess the only thing you can do is let your loved ones know how you feel while they’re here.

Michelle

I’m trying to do the right thing by my health, but it’s definitely a daily struggle. The 100 Days Challenge is the reason I came to these forums in the first place, and that has been going well for me. My diet is another story...I often feel like I’m sabotaging all my exercise efforts with the food I choose to eat.

The feeling of helplessness wears me down too, plus the constant questioning of whether I’m doing or saying the right thing, am I doing enough, providing emotional support, etc… That’s an interesting question you shared. I imagine there is no right answer. If someone died suddenly, it might be really hard to achieve closure because you didn’t see it coming and may suffer from a feeling of unfinished business and not getting the chance to say goodbye. But the long, painful fight of an illness like a cancer that won’t go away is exhausting, and so difficult, especially if you can’t seem to embrace the “live for today” attitude we all know we’re supposed to have.

It does call into question a lot of things about ourselves, but I’m glad to see that you’ve come through the experience and you are here with the conviction to take care of yourself, and you’re already on your way, showing yourself that you can indeed do it.

-Jonathan.

Michelle—I just came across this post and felt compelled to reply. I am 31 years old and lost my mom 5 years ago to lung cancer - I too, am an only child and I know the pressures that have come with that. When she died I had also started dating someone who quickly became my fiance and husband and we live with my dad… luckily my dad is very healthy and my husband and him have a great relationship. I would say that I lost 10 pounds in the month up to her death—and then put the 10 back on and 20 more!  Food was just so comforting and I really didn’t care what I looked like—just trying to find a way to get through each day. I also lost my godmother/aunt to ovarian cancer, so I know what that is like as well.

Finally last October I decided I needed to do something about myself—I joined a local gym and started listening to Motivation to Move—one of the best things I’ve done in a long time. I’ve lost about 10 pounds and can’t wait to lose 20 more. Grief is a long, long process and I’m sure you’ve experienced the rollercoaster of emotions.

Hang in there, sounds like you know what it takes to lose weight and start feeling better!

Thank you so much for sharing your story!

Grief is definately a long process. I just recently passed my mother’s 2 year anniversary and it made me reflect on how far I’ve come. At first, every day was a battle to just get it together enough to go to work and to go about the ‘normal’ routine of life but I knew I had to do it for my own well being and of course to pay the bills. If you would have asked me how I was doing 6 months after, I wouldn’t have seen much progress in getting through it but I was making progress whether I knew it or not. Every day is a small triumph whether it’s a good day or a bad day because it makes you stronger to deal with the crap life throws at you. Looking back in the past 2 years I’ve realized that I am a much stronger person because of everything I’ve gone through and I like to think it has made me a better person because I have more compassion for other peoples struggles.

I think weight loss is a lot like the grief process where you can look day to day or even week to week and not seem like you’re getting anywhere but when you look at it in months or years you’ve gone miles.

Michelle

Michelle, that was so well said, about the process of grief. It can be tricky for us to work with things that operate on such a large and indistinct time scale, maybe even worse as the pace of modern life picks up ever faster. That’s an apt parallel you draw between weight loss and the grief process. Sometimes it feels like you’re standing still or even backtracking, but in the larger picture we definitely learn and grow from the experience. From these painful times we do receive some gifts, emerging a stronger and more compassionate person for having gone through the process of having your heart broken and mended. Likewise, all my “failed” diet attempts have given me invaluable knowledge that informs every decision I make as I go forward.

Thanks Jonathan

Thankfully I was never alone in the process. I always had my wonderful and patient husband to lean on. The experience has definately brought us closer and made us stronger.

Michelle