My Story (FatMan911)

Hi my name is Jerry Bacik and I’m Fat, actually fat is an understatement; I’m super morbidly obese. At my heaviest I weighed 510lbs. It still amazes me that at that weight I still had a job, possibly the only place that would hire me, I worked as a in home support staff for the developmentally disabled, it wasn’t a hard job, and I could do most of my work sitting on a stool which I carried with me where ever I went, and because I worked only 3 days a week I had 4 days off to rest up and to maintain my sedentary life style. And over the 8 years that I worked for that company I grew larger and larger. Then in 2009 when the economy tanked and the government cut back on funding for the disabled, my company had to reduce staff, and guess, who was one of the first persons to be laid off? You guessed it, the good old fat boy who did his job but just wasn’t the image of health and vitality that they would like to project. And so at age 54 I found myself pretty much unemployable, depressed and seriously considering suicide. Oh I tried to get another job, mustered any marketable talents that I had, sent out hundreds if not thousands of resumes, but the few interview that I did get, you could see that I wasn’t even considered, Oh they were polite enough, but look at me I wouldn’t even hire myself. And I got more and more depressed as time went on, and after 3 months I was ready to check it all in. I was eating like a pig, barely ever left my bed; I could hardly walk or move. So I bought some razor blades, and some sleeping pills and some booze and was in the process of tiding up any loose ends that I could think of, when I was playing around with an old picture of Marylyn Monroe, digital art was always something of a hobby with me, and I created something I would considered beautiful. I somehow convinced myself that I still had purpose in the world. I told myself that I still had 3 months of unemployment left and that I could always kill myself when that runs out. And so my weight loss journey began. A weight loss journey in which I’ve lost 130lbs and continue to work hard at losing more, every day however at 380lbs I still have a long ways to go.

I started out by asking for help, living on unemployment at $800 a month, unable to afford health insurance, driving around in a 20 year old broken down minivan which literally floods with water every time it rains, I felt I needed assistance, and wrote to everyone I could think of from Dr. Phil, to Ellen Degeneres, I even wrote to the President, But no help ever came, everyone’s so interested in the overweight unwed mother who’s addicted to drugs and has five kids with one on the way. I was just an old fart, who’s worked hard all his life and tried to keep his nose clean, I guess my story was just not compelling television. The only inkling of interest I received is when people thought that I was about to commit suicide, but when they realized that I was actually trying to survive and lost interest really fast.

So I started writing this blog. Even put my self up as a human guinea pig and started to develop a program which has helped me lose 130lbs and I continue to work at today.

But before I get into how I’ve lost the weight let me tell you a little about how I lived before.

I never considered my self to be a massive overeater; I traditionally lived by the 5 dollar rule. Everyone knows that it cost like 5 dollars to buy an average meal at a fast food restaurant, Even Subway’s theme song is “5 dollar foot long”. And so I told myself as long as I only spent close to 5 dollars I wasn’t over eating. I was just being thrifty and economically responsible, I would buy 5 double cheese burgers instead of a hamburger, French fries and a coke, or a 5 dollar pizza, I would go to the grocery store where they would sell 12 pieces of fried chicken for 4.99, and you can get a whole bag of tacos for 5 bucks. And so that’s how I lived for the last 10 maybe 20 years. So pretty much I was eating around 2500 calories a meal, and even though I normally skipped breakfast I would make up for it during lunch and dinner, and adding to that, snacks and drinks, and I probably put away 8 to 10,000 calories a day, everyday, and that didn’t even count the days that I binged ate, which wasn’t to often, but maybe twice a month when I was faced with a difficult situation or problem. Food has always been my favorite form of self medication, some people drink, some people take drugs, I eat, and eat, and eat. I don’t know when this all began, some people tell me that I started to gain weight right after I had my tonsils out, around age 12, but for the most part I’ve been obese for the better part of my adult life. Normally weighing around 350lbs, as long as I was able to move around, and had no serious medical problems, it didn’t bother me, I went into theater, played the funny fat guy, wore loud Hawaiian shirts, and somehow fit into the world. Of course women and relationships where out. There is an old Groucho Marx saying that goes “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member” well I somewhat felt that way about women, and for the most part I have resigned myself to the fact that I will probably remain single all my life. I even spent 6 years trying to become a Catholic priest thinking maybe that’s what God wanted me to do, but my obesity proved even too much for them. Anyways I spent a long time studying theology, biblical history, the scriptures, and the meaning of scriptures and combining my knowledge of theatre I wrote a one man show on the writers of the four Gospels, which is the main focus of my energies today, unfortunately I got to heavy to perform it back in 2003 and only did a few shows, which were warmly received, but everything went into storage and I concentrated on making a living.

If you look at a regular food pyramid, you have your grains and cereals, which is pretty much carbohydrates to give you your energy, meat’s and proteins to maintain your muscles and organs, fruits and vegetables to give you your vitamins and minerals, and of course you have your fats. Now the body stores its excess food reserves at fat, and you need to deprive the body of its needed calorie intake in order to lose weight. It’s simple mathematics, the less you eat the more the body has to use up its reserve. So my goal is to eat as little as possible and still maintain a greatest amount of nutritional balance. Since the body stores its energy as fat, I cut out carbohydrates and saturated fats, which leaves me with, vitamins, minerals, and protein. Any nutritional label will tell you that you need around 50 grams of protein a day, and 100% of your recommended vitamins and minerals, luckily there are a lot of supplements out there that can assist you coupled with some vegetable and fruit juices, some protein powder or soy milk and you can get your calorie intake down pretty low. Personally I find it difficult to go below 500 calories a day and still retain good health, and so that’s pretty much my bench mark, occasionally I will get up to 700 but I don’t sweat it, I figure as long as I stay below 1000 I’m doing great, sometimes your feeling a little tired and need a few more calories, you really have to monitor yourself and do what’s best to keep you going. And don’t forget to drink a lot of water about 4 quarts a day to keep everything flowing right.

Now everyone knows that trying to maintain such a restrictive diet over a course of a long period of time, can sometimes get boring and repetitive, so to spice up things, I allow myself one meal out, once a week, where I don’t worry about calories or nutrition and I can have anything that I want. I figure that this, is not only good for my moral, but just incase I’m missing something nutritionally I will pick it up in that one meal. I usually go for 90 days and then take a month off, and in that month try to eat like a normal human being and try to stay within 2000 calories a day. But I’m a big believer of first you work at losing the weight and then you work at trying to teach yourself how to eat correctly I don’t think that they are the same thing and too many diets treat them as such.

Anyways, then comes exercise. O.K. I have to admit that I hate to exercise; I really have to push myself to get out of bed and move around. When I was 510lbs it wasn’t a big deal because I got so winded that I had to stop after only a minuet or two, but now that I’ve lost 130lbs I have to go for an hour or two hours everyday. My advice is keep doing a little more everyday. I started out just finding some daily activity, for me it was going to mass, which was difficult just getting out of bed and waddling to church everyday, but soon I was doing laps around the church parking lot, trying to increase evermore, I’m up to 25 minuets now. I like the parking lot because it’s nice even ground, with a slight incline on one end, and if I should trip or fall I can crawl to my car and pull myself up. I go early in the morning before anyone shows up so no-one really sees me, and though it’s repetitive gong around in circles it gives me time to think and meditate. When I get home from church I usually exercise on a mini stair master, and the peddle half of an exercise bike, and some free weights, and use a resistance band, and I try to do some squats holding myself up for balance, and I just work at it, sometimes I push myself too hard and have to slack off the next day, and I usually take Sundays off to give my body some time to heal, but that’s my life.

I guess I’m lucky that I’m doing all this during an economic recession, because they extended my unemployment benefits for 5 more months, but every time it gets close I start to panic and get depressed, which is where I find myself today. I have like 4 more weeks until those extended benefits run out, and I’m not sure whether the congressional act they passed 3 or 4 months ago will effect me or if I will be eligible for any more extensions, and I keep harping at the bargain I made myself at the start of this whole thing, and unfortunately I’m not as physically fit as I need to be, and I can just feel the pressure of time baring down on me. I guess we will find out in 4 weeks what my fate will be, until then I just keep pushing on and hope for the best.

If you want to know more about me read some of my previous articles, I’m a digital artist and so you can check that out at http://www.wix.com/jerrybacik/Digital-Artist also I’m working on a website for my play “The Four Writers” and that address will be http://www.wix.com/jerrybacik/The-Four-Writers but I’m not finished with building it yet, until then you can check out my promotional video at youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y05yqniPWEc

I know that this had been long but I wanted to have a place to sent people who wanted to know my story without having to read all of my 152 and counting posts.

I wish only good things for everyone, happiness, joy, laughter and peace

Jerry (Aka FatMan911)