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For years, 600-pound Donna Simpson was involved in the "feederism" community - that is - a community of people with a fat fetish. People would pay her $19 per month to watch her eat. One person from Germany sent her credit cards with instructions to order take out. Another from California wired her $200 a week to buy groceries with, and then would call to hear what she bought.
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Three years ago, Simpson was thrilled to be so heavy, saying in a British newspaper "I love being fat; I wouldn't even mind weighing 1,000 pounds."
However, this 44 year-old mother of two eventually became fed up with it. "I realized that I was their fantasy," she said to MSNBC. "Here I was getting bigger and bigger, and they had their thin wives, with 2 1/2 kids and a picket fence." She decided to get healthy - she moved back to Akron, where she grew up, and began the journey to get healthy. Her website, www.officialdonnasimpson.com, turned away from prerecorded videos of her, and turned into a record of her journey. "I'm not trying to be a size 4," she said. "I'm not trying to be a thin-mint. I just want to be normal and more active."
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Simpson told MSNBC that she's struggled with losing weight in the past, so much so, that she even turned to crack cocaine to try to shed the pounds, though it didn't work. "All it did was make me clean my house really, really fast," she said.
She's now on track though. Down 85 pounds, she aims to join a gym and begin walking in a pool soon. Ultimately, she said her goal is to drop 300 pounds, and to be there for her kids.
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Some of her viewers are angry that she left, but she said that she has to do what's best for her. "There are plenty of men who will buy you four pizzas and enjoy watching you eat all of them," she wrote on her website, "but what it comes down to is that you become a slave to the food and to your feeder."
She told MSNBC that the people who paid to watch her eat weren't "toothless trolls," but, in fact, often lawyers, accountants or college students who have a specific fetish.
Looking forward, she said that she knows it's a long road ahead, but that she needs to face the challenge. "I have only myself to blame for the position I am currently in, and I must now face the greatest challenge of my life," she said on her website. "In order for the people I love most to have a happy and healthy life, I must regain my emotional and physical well-being."
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