"Heavy" thoughts

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.