Obesity is a gateway disease in the way that it opens the door to other diseases. The first time I realized that obesity was a gateway disease was back when I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. At 25 years old I found that I had frequent *choking* dreams, would snore louder than a freight train, had trouble deep-sleeping, and would wake up with massive migraines. Of course all of this would cause me to be drastically tired all day long. I remember taking full days off from work because I felt so drained of energy. Back then, I would be able to sleep all day long and then also sleep all night long. I knew that something was wrong. Sure, I was overweight, but why was I so chronically tired?

When I first approached my doctor about being tired all of the time, it was about 8 months after I had my first child. At the time, he chalked it up to me being a new parent and the baby not quite sleeping through the night. When Owen was 18 months old, I couldn’t take it anymore. Not only was I tired all of the time, I had started to fall into a deep depression and I found that I couldn’t concentrate on even the simplest of tasks. I felt sick… but yet not sick in a traditional sense. Know what I mean? So, I made an appointment with my doctor and described my symptoms. He set up an appointment with a sleep-doctor (I can’t remember the technical term for this particular area of medicine so bear with me).

The first time I went in for my sleep study, they hooked me up to all kinds of monitors and wires. I had to sleep on my left side, my right side, my back and my stomach so that they could get an accurate reading. I remember being wakened by the nurse to position myself accordingly. It was a rough night. I got less sleep than usual.

I went to see the sleep-doctor to discuss the results. I stopped breathing 10 times an hour or once every 6 minutes. This was not something surgery could correct. So, I got a CPAP machine. It helped me sleep much better. At first it felt obtrusive and I would wake up in the middle of the night to take my mask off (sometimes I would do it and not even remember doing it). But soon, it got to where I was used to it.

This was the first time that I realized that obesity was a gateway disease. Even though in the back of my mind I *knew* that being 250 pounds was what caused my sleep apnea, something in the back of my mind was relieved to have a solution to that particular problem. The right solution would have been to use the CPAP machine as a temporary solution and then weight-loss as the long term solution. Looking back, I couldn’t tell you why I didn’t think that way. I can’t tell you why, once I got my energy back I continued to live like I was sick. Maybe it’s because I became pregnant shortly after the diagnosis? Maybe it’s because my doctor told me I would lose the weight once I solved the sleep issues? All I know, is that I continued to use my weight, my CPAP machine, and my pregnancies as a crutch.

Obesity is both a disease and an addiction. It’s not just a case of eating too much and not exercising enough. If you have a food-addiction, then you know what I mean. And the sad thing is, obesity is the cause of other diseases and disorders: fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, depression, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, edema… the list goes on and on.

I finally realized this year… (don’t ask me why it took so long for the light bulb to click on) that there is so much more at stake here than just being fat. There is so much more at stake than just not being able to fit in normal-sized clothes or even more at stake than being able to just buy 1 ticket for one seat to ride on a plane.

So… that is my realization post for the day.

When did you realize that this journey is about more than your weight?

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