[MUSIC PLAYING]
THEDERICK: Most of my days start pretty much the same now.
I struggle to get up.
I struggle to move.
I even struggle to catch my breath
because I'm not your average-sized man.
So it's hard to start my day at my size.
And you got to thank the Lord every morning
that you waking up.
It takes a while to get clothes on me.
But when I'm ready, the first treat for me
is the ice cream man.
He come by every day about 10:00 in the morning
and I like to be outside for him so I don't miss him.
But I can only go so fast.
Thederick loves the ice cream man.
Thederick hear this music coming around the block,
Thederick gets up.
He has an account with the ice cream man.
When do the ice cream man open up accounts with somebody
to get something off the truck every day?
THEDERICK: I will say, when the ice cream man pulls up,
it's the best part of my day.
The treats make it worth it for me
to push myself to walk outside.
I'm gonna get three sodas--
Three sodas.
Two bags of hot Funyons--
ICE CREAM MAN: Two bags of hot Funyuns.
THEDERICK: A Nutty Buddy.
All right.
A Strawberry Shortcake, a ice cream sandwich,
two fudge [INAUDIBLE]
All right.
And-- oh, another Nutty Buddy, a plain Nutty Buddy.
ICE CREAM MAN: OK.
All right, give me a minute.
[SIGHS] Ice cream is one of my favorites.
ICE CREAM MAN: All righty.
Make sure your order right, now.
Appreciate you.
All right.
[GRUNTS] So that's how I start my breakfast,
with the ice cream.
And it starts to make my day get better at that point.
But the ice cream and the snacks are just the start.
It's good, but I get hungrier as I eat it.
You know, I need something bigger.
[KNOCKING]
DELIVERY PERSON: Hey, there.
I got your two large meat-lovers,
cheesy bread, wings--
Sheesh.
DELIVERY PERSON: And a soda.
THEDERICK: Appreciate you.
[DOOR SHUTS]
So I can eat two full pizzas with two orders of wings
and an order of cheesy bread.
But after I've finished, you know I'm still hungry
and I start thinking about what I'm having next.
Because food is what's there for me
and always has been there for me to make
me feel better since I was very young.
The last time I got on the scale, I weighed 663 pounds.
I don't feel good at all.
When you this big, sometimes I don't want to--
I don't feel like moving.
I don't feel like getting up.
I just feel like laying down all day because it's
just too hard to do anything.
It just take too much out of me most days.
So how do I change that?
I need to know because I wish I was the normal size.
And the only way for that is is to not
eat what I eat because it's taking all possibility
of living for me.
So I need something to help me before that
happens and my clock runs out.
Because my body give up on me, then I die.
[GRUNTING]
My life is so miserable now because I've
let my weight get so out of control
that I'm barely functioning.
And it's getting harder and worse every single day.
And I know I'm very close to becoming bed-ridden.
So at this point, I wish my life was just a nightmare
that I could wake from.
But I don't.
Instead, I struggle to do what I need to do to survive.
And it's getting harder to get out of bed.
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
Right now, I live by myself in a one-bedroom apartment
on the second floor.
Food is just so good to me.
Food can fill me up and make me feel the most comfort that I've
ever felt. It makes me feel like I'm at home
and that I'm safe, as long as I'm full and happy because food
is a hug from the inside.
And no matter how much I eat, it's never enough.
[COUGHS]
And there are days where I ask myself how I ended up here.
And I know it's because food has always been the most
important thing in my life.
In order to make money, since finding
a job was out of the question at my size,
I chose to start fetish modeling for a website
that catered to people who liked large women.
So I have a set up in my apartment
where I could film myself eating.
And I eat for people.
I just eat what I want and they pay
for it, as long as I film it.
So that's how I make a living and keep going.
And it makes me feel appreciated,
so I'm happy to do it.
Hi, long time no see, everybody.
People ask me all the time, when is
it going to be that cake video?
Well, it's right now.
Thank you for requesting this.
It's making me bigger and bigger.
I can just feel it.
DAUGHTER: My mom's self-image really improved after she
started that modeling job.
It kind of makes her happier because those people
just find her as beautiful.
They find her as a human being, not some huge maniac.
SAMANTHA: We've come to the saddest part of this situation,
and that's the end of this cake.
Parting is such sweet sorrow.
See you later.
Thank you.
[PANTING]
But there's no question that this job has been unhealthy
for me because I found the perfect community
to reinforce my worst habits.
I last weighed in six months ago, legitimately,
and I was at 811 pounds.
[KISS] Beautiful.
And I'm terrified because I don't know
what to do because I'm almost out of time
and I don't want to die.
SHANNON: I hate my life 'cause I'm not even living anymore.
I'm too big to do anything, so my whole world
is just my bed right now.
I can still get up, but just barely
because of how bad it hurts to move all my weight around now.
So I stay in this bed all day and it's miserable.
The only activity I get is when I
have to get up for my husband Simon to clean me,
to go to the bathroom, or to eat.
SIMON: How'd you sleep?
Not very good.
Mm.
Do you want [INAUDIBLE]
SHANNON: All I do is, I lay in bed I
sit and I stare at these walls.
(CRYING) I don't turn TV on anymore, hardly.
I don't color anymore.
I don't do anything that I used to do because it
doesn't bring me joy anymore.
All I do is lay here in pain.
There's no ever getting comfortable because the pain
never goes away.
You know, whether it's my ankles or my knees, or my hips,
something always constantly hurts.
I can't do anything for very long, really.
Even just getting cleaned takes everything out of me.
So Simon always has to be here with me
and I'm completely reliant on him.
My area in the house is my bed and my bedside commode
at the foot of the bed, and that's it.
I have a motorized chair, but that's even gotten hard to use.
So I don't ever go out and do anything.
I hate living like this.
And, you know, it just it sucks not being able to move.
It makes me feel so lonely and isolated.
The vast majority of my friends are people that I online.
Aside from my online friends, the only relationships
in my life I still have are my dad, some of my neighbors
that stop in to see me, and my husband, Simon.
But he has to be my caregiver.
Simon has to help me get up and go to the bathroom.
He has to help get me up, get me dressed.
He cooks.
He cleans.
He does the laundry.
He does everything.
When I was around 29, I met Simon.
I started playing games online and was
meeting new people that way, and that's how I met Simon.
SIMON: I met Shannon on social media.
My first impression-- she was a beautiful woman.
I think first thing, maybe, was her smile, her personality,
the way she looked, obviously.
She's a beautiful woman.
SHANNON: After just a few months,
he asked me to marry him and we got
married a few months after that, and we've
been together ever since.
When I'm eating, I'm happy.
It's pleasure.
It's happiness for me.
I love that it takes the pain away.
It takes the loneliness away.
You don't want to deal with all the garbage
that's going on in your head.
You know, I've actually tried to stop eating.
When my dad had his gastric bypass five years ago,
I tried the liquid diet he had to go on to see if I
could do it, and I couldn't.
I failed at it because food is too important to me.
The last time I was weighed, I was at 670 and I'm almost 40.
So I know I am killing myself with every bite of food I take.
And if I don't get help, my body will definitely give out,
so something has to change.
I have to change.
I have to lose this weight.
And if I don't soon, I'm going to die.