Amber Rachdi’s uncontrollable eating habits were threatening her own life. In fact, doctors had told her that she wouldn’t live past her twenties. Understandably, then, she finally made the decision to tackle her obesity once and for all. And when you see the results of her incredible transformation, you’ll surely agree that it was worth the effort.
Amber, from Troutdale, Oregon, weighed in at 154 pounds when she was just five years old. And this was only the beginning of her problems with weight gain. You see, Amber claims that she ate healthy food throughout her childhood – just far too much of it. In adulthood, though, she would often consume five large meals in a day, all served up by her parents.
Amber has since realized that her eating habits were linked to the extreme anxiety from which she suffers. “I have a lot of anxiety, and I am at peace when I eat,” she subsequently told the Daily Mail. Her mom, Patty, agreed, stating that food has a calming influence on her daughter. It also came to be her demon, however, and set her on the path to massive weight gain.
In February 2015 a 23-year-old Amber appeared on an episode of the TLC show My 600lb Life. “Sometimes I think to myself, I’m never going to change,” she said. “Everything hurts, my back hurts, my shins hurt. I am so limited in what I can do and where I can go. I feel trapped. I feel like a nasty yucky monster, and I don’t like being this person. I don’t like being this size.”
Amber further explained that there was simply no satisfying her constant craving for food. “I could be stuffed sick, but I would still want to eat something if it was put in front of me,” she admitted. It seemed as if those closest to her were part of the problem, too. “Amber is surrounded by enablers,” her doctor said.
The doctor identified one such enabler as Rowdy, Amber’s boyfriend of two years. After all, Amber claims to have put on over 200 pounds during the course of their relationship. Faced with accusations of being a “feeder,” Rowdy conceded that he did experience guilt. “But what else do you do when you love someone?” he asked.
Amber then said she wanted to change for a variety of reasons. For one thing, intimacy with Rowdy was unachievable – despite him being, in her words, the type of person who “prefers bigger women.” But her size prevented them from being together in that way, and she said this left Rowdy “very sexually frustrated.”
But the main reason why Amber wanted to tackle her weight issues was because she was housebound. Indeed, she’d dropped out of college and could not find employment in her condition. Eventually, the only time she would leave the house would be to buy food. And even then she would ride around the store on a mobility scooter.