I Wash Myself With A Rag On A Stick

Do you know what it’s like to be fat?

I don’t mean, do you know what it’s like to have some clothing get tight?

I don’t mean, do you know what it’s like to overeat for the holidays and have to burn it off after the first of the year?

I don’t mean, do you know what it’s like to get a little chunky?

I mean, do you know what it’s like to be Fat?

To not be able to put your shoes and socks on because it makes your back hurt?

To not be able to cut your toenails because you can’t see them, and you’re afraid you’ll cut the flesh?

To have your arms and legs go numb because you’ve stayed in one position for too long?

To have to rock yourself up from a sitting or laying position so you don’t land on the floor belly or back first?

To feel the agony of trying to get up from the floor?

To not be able to catch your breath after a walk up a short flight of stairs or from the house to the car?

To not be able to reach far enough to wipe, so you either have shit in your undies or you take a shower?

To not be able to have sex because you can’t get it up, and even if you can, you get too exhausted to finish?

I mean, DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO REALLY BE FAT?!

I do.

Thanksgiving 2023, I scared the proverbial (and later literal) shit out of myself.

As I posted a few nights ago, On Thanksgiving, I ate more in one meal than ever before. Literally, in my entire life, I've never eaten that much in a single sitting. The food kept coming, and I “pushed through” the pain and let unfettered gluttony reign.

I spent the night breathing hard and pretty much beached on the couch, almost unable to get up. I fell off said couch one of the times I tried to get up. Rising from the floor is painful, to say the least.

I’m short, five foot eight inches tall, and I’m a type 2 diabetic. Add that to my weight, and you can see why I got scared by my inability to function that night.

At the very beginning of the pandemic, I’d scraped 265 pounds for the first time in well over a decade. I’d been bouncing between 270 and 280 pounds for a long time.

I was weighed two weeks ago at the Doctorb's office. I've never been this heavy, and I think I'm about an inch away from the point of no return, as in I’ll achieve the approximate size of a baby elephant.

I have never shared my weight online, but I will do it now.

Deep breath...

I weigh 306 pounds plus or minus a few ounces.

It hurts to even write that.

Here's the hard truth, Boils and Ghouls. I'm a 47-year-old, five foot eight inch tall, 306-pound diabetic man. If I don't make fundamental changes, I will die.

I don't want to die.

- Josh (11/28/2023)