What I Wish I’d Known About Suddenly Becoming A “Fat Girl”

I haven’t always been a big girl. I didn’t use to worry about my weight, nor did I always invite unsolicited advice about how to lose it.

That was until my gallbladder was unceremoniously taken from my body, discarded with the promise I wouldn’t need it.

How wrong my doctor was with his assessment.

Without my gallbladder, I’ve suffered immense trouble keeping my weight at a healthy number. Now suffering from bile acid malabsorption, a condition that keeps me chained to the toilet in constant fear of a faecal accident, I can’t eat properly.

Fats of all types, dairy, most meats, and foods that aren’t soft and predigested (even wonderfully wholesome raw vegetables) don’t agree with me.

My weight has spiralled out of control without being given a chance to know it was going to happen.

According to my gastroenterologist, who I met a decade after my operation, my weight gain is expected — an epidemic for people like me. Still, unfortunately, it is a battle I will have for the rest of my life.

“Fat for the rest of my life” is all I heard.

It felt like my weight gain happened suddenly. Woosh, just like that, I was in a different body. I was living a different life, confronting a reality full of things I would never expect.

Here’s what I wish I’d known about suddenly gaining weight.

People try to give you advice (but they don’t)

As I mentioned, I have an explanation for my weight and why it’s challenging to lose and manage. It’s not an excuse, but it’s a medical condition.

What my medical condition means is that no amount of commonsense advice or even unqualified medical advice is going to help me.

Everyone can tell me the basic rules of losing weight, rules I know intimately.

Eat less and move more.

Count your calories and engage in a certain amount of daily physical activity.

Yeah, I got it. And yes, I’ve done that.

As I’ve gained weight, people want to tell me all about these magic rules that I apparently don’t know (I wouldn’t be this size if I knew the rules, right?!).

But some dance around the issue, subtly offering their suggestions. They give me advice without giving it to me.

I don’t hear anyone specifically say I need to lose weight or how I should do it. Instead, I get questions about my health or if I had asked my friend who lost twenty kilos how she lost the weight. I get asked whether I’ve been to the gym or gone for a walk, what I ate that day, and what I plan to eat.

They’re specific questions pertaining to how much I move and what I put into my mouth.

These are questions I’ve never had before — not when I was skinny, that is.

Sometimes, I want to ask these people to be honest with me and say what they mean instead of acting cryptic and leading me to wonder what they're implying.

But when I let my imagination run wild, I think of the most awful things they're trying to say to me. Then I began piecing together all the other comments and questions they've asked me, and it's impossible not to think the worst.

I'm already harbouring the most alarming judgement about my body and health. Could their thoughts be worse than mine?

Gees, I hope not.

Sweaty shopping

I used to love shopping. I still do. It doesn't matter what kind of shopping. I can thrill from visiting Costco, which I did for the first time this year.

The oversized packaging delighted me. The hundred-roll pack of toilet rolls was a sight.

What I loved the most was the cool warehouse. Despite the size of the building, they pumped the air conditioning so much that I didn't realise how hot it was outside.

I wanted to thank them for the air conditioning. Every other time I go shopping, I'm covered in sweat within the first few minutes.

When I’m shopping, I tell myself to slow down. If I don't walk around so fast or quickly around people, I can control the sweat and get through shopping without needing a shower once I’m done.

But inevitably, the sweat takes over.

After trying on one T-shirt, I'm coated in it. After one cup of hot tea, I'm dripping with sweat. I seem to have a sweating problem, which I know I wouldn't have if the weight weren’t involved.

I've never battled with excessive sweating when thirty kilos ago.

It's one of those activities I didn't think would be difficult once I gained weight. I didn't know picking up groceries would involve carefully selecting clothing. The time of day and my internal conversations about how to slow down and not get too hot, I never thought I would need to think about it.

It was a task I could do without thinking.

Now, my concentration involves managing my sweat levels and appearance, which often outweighs the joy of the task.

I refuse to give up doing these tasks just because of sweat. But this revelation makes me understand why people find it hard to go about their everyday lives (or change their weight-related habits) because of their weight.

When the basics are hard, everything else seems impossible.

People watch you eat

The weight gain watchers — a genuine phenomenon.

The other day, I talked to my trainer about this in the gym as he showed me my new weightlifting program. I used a machine for the first time and couldn't get the seat adjustment lever unlatched. We both laughed as I tried to pull back the release.

I told him it always feels like people are watching you as you struggle. The longer it takes to figure it out, the more you think people watch you.

We both agreed that no one was watching us, that it was all our heads. But when you're overweight, people are definitely watching you eat.

It's hard at restaurants, mainly when it's a banquet-style meal.

• As I take another piece of meat from the shared stir-fry, I have people watching me.
• They turn their nose up as I ask for more rice.
• They often ask me during the meal if I'm still hungry.

These experiences reminds me of my childhood when my parents tried to get me to eat vegetables. They watched me like a hawk.

This is the same thing, but instead of making sure I’m eating the right thing, they're waiting for me to eat the wrong thing.

The battle I face the most is that people are more interested in what you're eating or doing with your diet than anything else happening in your life.

I've just launched my debut novel, which took years to assemble. I've slaved away over this fictional masterpiece (I keep telling myself that). I've just surpassed a milestone in my career and achieved my most significant professional accomplishment ever.

Yet, the conversation still turns to my weight and what is happening with my body. There can't be a narrative about my life that doesn't involve my body.

Sometimes I wonder — if I’d launched my book when I was 40 kg lighter, would people have supported me more or even bought the book (most people in my life, including most of my family, haven't purchased my book)?

Is my weight the thing that holds people back from being supportive?

Are they deliberately withdrawing because they don't want to support someone who “cannot control their weight”?

I can't read minds, so I don't have the answer.

But I know that conversations about my life don't focus on what I do. They are more about what I put into my mouth.

Skipping exercise warfare

If I skip one exercise session or one day at the gym, I deal with the questions.

• What happened to my plans to go to the gym?
• Why have I missed the gym?
• Am I going to go later instead?

I won't reveal who asked me these questions. Best not to ask.

It’s easy to assume these are well-intentioned questions — they’re just interested in my life, right?

In my biased opinion, the questions are too specific about a very specific area of my life to be just “well-intentioned,” especially when they don’t ask anything else.

People often say that no one can bring you down further than yourself. When it comes to skipping the gym, other people make me feel worse than I do.

I'm at least kind to myself, understanding why I've made that decision. Other people don't seem to understand why I chose to do this, especially in my condition.

Jewellery problems

A common challenge faced by people who have gained weight is finding that their clothes no longer fit. You don’t need to have gained weight before to figure that out.

But it’s only been from gaining weight that I learned jewellery would also fall into the same category.

For all my efforts to lose weight, I can't get my engagement ring on my finger. For some reason, my wedding band is unchanged in size but still seems to fit.

But my beautiful engagement ring that my (ex) husband so lovingly designed with the jeweller does not fit.

When I first lost my ability to put it on, I thought it was because it was the middle of summer. I thought my fingers were swollen from the heat. That's happened before. But now I'm writing this in the depths of Melbourne winter, and I still can't get my ring on my finger.

I have a mountain of clothes, including beautiful dresses and tailored blazers, that I can't get on my body. In many ways, I have succumbed to the fact that they don't fit. I’m hopeful I will wear them again, but I have bought replacements to keep my life going.

A girl needs clothes and all.

For some reason, I drew the line when resizing my engagement ring. Once I make that change, I feel like I'm permanently stuck in the situation. As much as my medical condition makes my weight a thousand times harder to budge, I hold out hope that this won't be forever.

I will get my ring back on my finger one day. I'm determined.

But my ring isn't the only thing I can't get on. I have a beautiful crystal bracelet that I've never been able to wear, and I have two watches that were given to me on very special occasions—one for my wedding and the other for my 30th birthday—but I can't get them on my wrist.

It's another one of those moments where I didn't think this would be a problem.

It's only once you walk in these shoes that you realise the problems are more than having to shop in the plus section of the store.

You also realise you can’t fit into the shoes.

It has cost me a lot of money to be this weight

Speaking of shopping in the plus-size section of the store, it has cost me a lot of money to buy the size.

I've had to replace my entire wardrobe with larger sizes—everything from jeans to jackets to dresses to stockings.

There aren’t many options for women of a larger size, and they're especially limited because of my height. At 6 feet, I already found it very hard to buy jeans. Now, add the waist size, and jeans are my kryptonite.

I don't have the money to keep gaining weight and changing my size. I equally despise the consumerism problem behind this.

I already have all the clothes and jewellery I need in my wardrobe, but not my size. It irks me to throw them out when I'm not done with them.

As you can see, a lot of wrestling of emotions and logistics is going on.

Health problems — is it my weight causing this?

I’ve recently been diagnosed with a fragrance allergy.

I went through extensive testing through an allergy hospital and discovered a long list of fragranced ingredients I’m allergic to.

Under doctors' guidance, I can no longer use certain ingredients in my products, including fragranced toothpaste, body wash, and skincare.

Certain people are convinced my fragrance allergy was born from my weight gain. They convinced me that not only would I no longer be allergic if I lost weight, but the doctors' findings weren't accurate because they didn't factor in weight into the testing.

Now, as a bigger girl, this is typical of what happens. Every time I have an ailment, it can't possibly be that I'm sick or there is something seriously wrong with me.

It's usually something to do with my weight.

I hear many others talking about this in terms of the way doctors approach them, lamenting how their symptoms are dismissed based on their weight.

I don't have that with my doctors. Instead, I have it with people who have no idea what they're talking about.

Though I'm hopeful that some of my problems will go away with weight loss, I don't think something like a fragrance allergy will improve because I've lost weight.

According to my dermatologist, allergies don't work that way. They progress as you get older and don't come from gaining weight.

So, holding out hope that things will get better when I lose weight is an exercise in futility.

It's also not logical that everything that happens to me is because of my weight. Not every health condition is linked to my weight. If I trip over a tree branch and break my ankle, it's not because I've gained weight—it's because I tripped over something.

One view judgment

Now, I'm not saying that health and weight aren’t related. It's common sense that people who are overweight cause physiological stress on their bodies and are more prone to serious diseases.

However, I’m frustrated with the practice of examining a body and assessing its health based on its appearance. When people see fat, they immediately assume health problems that don’t exist, like blaming an allergy on weight.

In a very simple comparison, I could stand next to my stepdad, who is at a healthy weight, and everyone would swear that I have health problems and that he doesn't. In reality, he's currently battling cancer, and I'm not.

You can't judge a health concern by its cover. And you can’t assume all health conditions are directly related to weight.

I don’t want to be fat

Many people in the world tell me to embrace my body. They tell me to love my curves and to love the body I'm in, no matter the number on the scales.

As much as I adore the sentiment, I don't want to love my body right now. I don't want to accept it as it is and feel content in this way.

That's because I hate being this way. I hate all the things I've discovered about gaining weight and the problems associated with doing everyday things.

I know my life won't get easier because I lose weight. For example, problems in my business won't improve because I'm skinnier.

But I know the problems I'm suffering from related to my weight should go away.

I shouldn't have problems like spending all my money on new clothes or staring at my ring and being unable to put it on.

Those things will go away.

In truth, I still love my body. I want to look after it and help her get better, no matter how slow and painful the process is — that means I love my body. It means I'm trying to get my body what it needs.

To me, that's love.

But I don't have to love being my current size and everything that comes with it. I'm allowed to hate the weight gain.

In fairness, it seems to hate me right back.

I haven't shared this side of my life for sympathy. I'm not interested in a pity party because that doesn't change my situation. My aim is to offer a point of view that gets lost in the conversation about loving our bodies and weight loss.

I've also shared this private conversation to stop the rest of the conversations.

I am not just my weight.

I am not just the body that I'm in.

You are not just how you look or the body that you come in. You're so much more than that.

I hope you realise it.

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I write about the emotional and practical reality of being a writer - drafting, doubt, discipline, and publishing while still figuring it out.

Mostly for people who write because they have to, need to, want to | https://linktr.ee/ellenfranceswrites