Morbidly Obese

Morbidly obese. That's an ugly phrase. It just sounds awful. The clinical definition of a person who is morbidly obese is someone who is more than 100 lbs. over their ideal weight. That's a description of me. Another measure is having a BMI over 40. Mine is 48. That's awfully darn close to the definition of "super obese" or having a BMI of 50. To be just plain "overweight" by clinical standards I would need to lose 120 lbs. or about one average woman. The standard charts say that a person who is 5' 6" should weigh between 117-143 lbs. At my current 300 lbs. I have a long way to go to get to "ideal." This brings up the question of just what exactly will be a good weight for me?

I think that I have been seeing myself through such a warped lens for so long that I wouldn't know an "ideal" weight if it came up and bit me. Since I have always felt fat, I haven't really noticed the degrees of fat. There is a huge (pardon the pun) difference between the 200 lb. fat me in high school and the 300 lb fat me I see today. But in my mind, fat was fat. So I think I have developed a false picture of myself. I thought that I was the same fat girl of 20 years ago. Instead I failed to see how much I had really changed. I definitely have some body image work to do.

I am still waiting to hear from my insurance company. I called last week to make sure that they had received all three of the initial consultation reports, which they had. But they offered no information about how long the approval process might take. It is a long process, and I am finding that it takes quite a bit of patience. I need to think about a plan, whatever decision is made. If it is OK'd to go straight to surgery or if I am put on up to a 12 month weight reduction plan; I need to piece all of this together and prepare for the many changes ahead.