I watched the first episode of A&E's "Heavy" two weeks ago, and I am only just now getting around to writing up my thoughts on it. Each episode features two people through a 6-month weight loss course. For the first month, they stay in a controlled environment with the show's trainers. For the next five months they return home, though they are still provided with personal trainers. If they stop losing weight, they have to return to the facility.
What I like about this show is that it's not a competition. As much as I love "The Biggest Loser," it starts to get annoying as the show goes on and they start voting people off based on who's a bigger threat and who isn't. In my opinion, whoever loses the least amount of weight should be kicked out, and everyone who's still working hard should get to stay. But that's not the point right now...
I watched and enjoyed episode two of "Heavy," but the first episode really had a lot of moments where I could completely identify with what the characters said. I identified with Jodi the most, especially when she said this: "What if losing all this weight doesn't change how I feel inside?"
I've lost weight before. I got down to 197 pounds in nineth grade, which was still overweight but was the closest to my goal weight that I've been since I can remember. I gained it all back and then some. When I was at the University of Minnesota, I had free access to a gym. I went with my friend for a few months, but once she stopped going, I stopped going. Why did I do that?
I think a lot of my problems stem from that fear of success that Jodi was talking about. I have always been overweight, and I have always dreamt about how awesome it would be to be thin: to be able to go shopping with friends and actually be able to look for clothes instead of standing awkwardly behind everyone else; to be able to dress up and not feel miserable the entire time because my clothes don't fit properly; to be able to look at myself in pictures and not cringe.
And yet I keep eating. I don't have one or two pieces of pizza; I have four or five. I don't have a scoop of ice cream; I have three. I don't have a bowl of macaroni and cheese; I eat the whole box. And I do this because a part of me is afraid of change. I am extremely shy person. I ate lunch alone for half of nineth grade because I was afraid of going up to people I kind of knew and asking them if I could eat with them. I didn't have a boyfriend until the month before I turned 20 because I could never bring myself to talk to guys I liked.
And whenever I was home alone, wishing I had a lot of friends or a boyfriend, I could blame my weight. I could say that guys are shallow and only care about looks, so it was beyond my control when no guy asked me out. If only they could look past my weight, they would realize I was an awesome person. If only I were thin, people would want to hang out with me. There was nothing I could do about it: after all, you can't change other people.
So what if I were to lose weight and was still all alone? Then I would have no one to blame but myself, and who wants that? I would much rather be fat and be able to blame all my problems on the shallowness of others.
But that's not the case anymore. I have a wonderful boyfriend, and I made decent friends in college. If I ever get a job, I'm sure I could make a friend or two again. I don't need a ton of friends, just a few. If nothing else, I have the support of the people on the BCB forums that I can turn to for help. I can't lose weight if I'm going to pin all my hopes and dreams on it.
Losing weight won't fix all of my problems, but it will fix some of them. And that's good enough for me.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A single step
Some look at obese people and wonder how they could have let their weight get so out of control. They look at the five-hundred-pound woman and think, Couldn't she have done something before she reached that point?
What those people don't undersand is that there isn't any one point when a person goes from being a healthy weight to being obese. It's a gradual change. In the six months after I graduated from college, I went from a size 18 to a size 22 without realizing it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experienced weight gain like that and not realized it. Some might not understand how a person could gain 50 pounds and not realize it, but it's actually rather simple.
Because the weight gain is gradual, the close you already own grow with you to some extent. Shirts you've worn for years still fit because as your waist grew, it stretched out the fabric. Shirts you've purchased in the last year don't fit nearly as well. You tell yourself that you're still an XL because, after all, all your other XL shirts fit. These newer shirts must have been made differently, is all. You must not have broken them in yet. After all, you aren't really a 2X, you tell yourself. You just wear them because they're more comfortable, because you can wear them without having to worry about your stomach sticking out.
It's the same with pants. You get used to your pants not fitting properly, so you continue to squeeze into them and don't register that you're actually getting bigger. You tell yourself that they're tighter because they were just washed and haven't loosened yet. If you're a woman, you're used to pant sizes' being different depending on which cut and brand it is, so the fact that the 18 you grabbed to try on is too small doesn't really tell you anything. You tell yourself that a different brand's 18 would fit. It's just that one cut that you have to buy in a size 20.
Then you get used to those pants, and you forget that they're not the same size as all your other ones. You just think of them as the comfier pants. It's not until months later that you finally have to face the fact that not only do you not fit in any 18s but you also do not fit in any 20s. It's only then that you accept that you're not wearing bigger clothes because they're more comfortable; you're wearing them because they're the only clothes that fit.
I'm not 500 pounds, but I can understand how someone could get that heavy and not realize it. I'm just glad I noticed in time to stop it from getting worse. I started Weight Watchers the week of Christmas, and I've lost seven pounds so far. The goal is to reach my goal weight of 160 by the end of 2012. I'm hoping to be down to a size 14. Smaller would be nice, but I'd be happy with 14. That would be smaller than I have ever been in recent memory. Even after a semester of PE in ninth grade, when I lost 20 pounds and was looking better than ever, I was still a size 16 and weighed almost 200 pounds.
They say that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I have 127 pounds to lose. Other people have done it. So can I. Let's go.
What those people don't undersand is that there isn't any one point when a person goes from being a healthy weight to being obese. It's a gradual change. In the six months after I graduated from college, I went from a size 18 to a size 22 without realizing it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experienced weight gain like that and not realized it. Some might not understand how a person could gain 50 pounds and not realize it, but it's actually rather simple.
Because the weight gain is gradual, the close you already own grow with you to some extent. Shirts you've worn for years still fit because as your waist grew, it stretched out the fabric. Shirts you've purchased in the last year don't fit nearly as well. You tell yourself that you're still an XL because, after all, all your other XL shirts fit. These newer shirts must have been made differently, is all. You must not have broken them in yet. After all, you aren't really a 2X, you tell yourself. You just wear them because they're more comfortable, because you can wear them without having to worry about your stomach sticking out.
It's the same with pants. You get used to your pants not fitting properly, so you continue to squeeze into them and don't register that you're actually getting bigger. You tell yourself that they're tighter because they were just washed and haven't loosened yet. If you're a woman, you're used to pant sizes' being different depending on which cut and brand it is, so the fact that the 18 you grabbed to try on is too small doesn't really tell you anything. You tell yourself that a different brand's 18 would fit. It's just that one cut that you have to buy in a size 20.
Then you get used to those pants, and you forget that they're not the same size as all your other ones. You just think of them as the comfier pants. It's not until months later that you finally have to face the fact that not only do you not fit in any 18s but you also do not fit in any 20s. It's only then that you accept that you're not wearing bigger clothes because they're more comfortable; you're wearing them because they're the only clothes that fit.
I'm not 500 pounds, but I can understand how someone could get that heavy and not realize it. I'm just glad I noticed in time to stop it from getting worse. I started Weight Watchers the week of Christmas, and I've lost seven pounds so far. The goal is to reach my goal weight of 160 by the end of 2012. I'm hoping to be down to a size 14. Smaller would be nice, but I'd be happy with 14. That would be smaller than I have ever been in recent memory. Even after a semester of PE in ninth grade, when I lost 20 pounds and was looking better than ever, I was still a size 16 and weighed almost 200 pounds.
They say that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I have 127 pounds to lose. Other people have done it. So can I. Let's go.
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