"Heavy", etc.

I found a temp job through tax season helping a local CPA, which I'm very grateful for; it will get me off unemployment for a couple of months and possibly allow me to learn Quickbooks. I start next week. It's the only call I've had an interview since November. I would also like to go visit my grandmother for a few days when the job ends.

I was watching the most recent episode of "Heavy" on A&E yesterday and it made me think, mostly for navel-gazing reasons. Bariatric surgery is never, ever mentioned on this show; I am wondering if they are trying to keep it out of the equation altogether because of its controversial nature--there are still so many people who think "it's the easy way out" or "it's not the right way to do things". (These same people don't seem to get that those who have bariatric surgery have to make all the same lifestyle changes and stick to them or they don't lose weight and keep it off, either. Part of me doesn't want to delete this blog just because I get so sick of these and other similar biases.

The two episodes of "Heavy" I've seen have both focused on two subjects per episode--one man and one woman. The woman in the most recent episode started out at about my beginning weight, but our body types were completely different. They cleared her to have the surgery for excess skin removal after she lost 50 pounds. Mr. Salted was watching with me, and I said, "See? It's the same as me!" She looked absolutely awesome afterward. At the end of her six months, she was about fifteen or so pounds more than I am now, but she looked fantastic and planned to join the police academy. I wondered if she looked so much better because of the body type difference (she is more of a pear where I am more of an apple)--or she could have been taller than I am, too. I have to have long shirts to cover my stomach, which always carries the danger of looking sloppy--it makes it really hard to find a decent blazer and look presentable for a job interview, and for any other occasion where I have to dress up in general.

So far, I'm still liking this show. It shows the real struggle: the pain people are in, the trying to relearn how to eat, how those around you can sabotage you, how you can sabotage yourself.

(An aside: during the holiday season this year, it was as though almost everyone we knew completely forgot about my dietary restrictions--we even had people mail us baked goods as gifts. Only two people, both women who have always been supportive, said, "I didn't offer you guys any of my cookies because I know you don't want them in the house," for which I thanked them profusely. For everyone else, it was as though the surgery and the struggle was just over and done with. I was more disappointed than angry. People just don't get it.)