"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.)

"Heavy"--new show on A&E

I watched this with some trepidation and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I had to watch, wanting to see how the issue was handled.

There are going to be people who watch it and freak out: "How did they let themselves get so big?" and "Oh my God, fat people are just so disgusting." That's par for the course. I thought the show was quite good, better than I expected (the first episode aired last night). Both people were likable--they had their issues and owned them; they were shown struggling but making progress, falling and getting back up again.

I'm sure this show, like "Intervention" (I am a fan of that show as well), will be good sometimes and not as good other times. You simply root for some people more than others. I actually liked the trainers on this show, which was a surprise. They were real, but compassionate. It was nice to see a buffed-out trainer offering his shoulder to a man over 600 pounds who couldn't walk for more than half an hour at a time; to the camera later, buffed-out trainer remarked, "Imagine if you had to walk up a hill with a refrigerator on your back; that's what this guy has to do every day." Not all personal trainers are meant to work with obese people, obviously, and this show found two that are. (The one I had certainly wasn't! I had to laugh; the female subject of this first "Heavy" episode said, "No fat person wants to work with a personal trainer who has never been fat." Preach it, sister!) The trainers were full of praise for a job well done; they knew how to motivate and really took the time to get to know the people as individuals.

The premise of the show is to follow the people for six months. The first thirty days, the folks go to a facility where they are monitored and trained and isolated from everything. The next five months, they go home and take the tools that they use. If they gain weight, they go back to the facility.

A nutritionist went to the store with them and taught them how to shop. They dealt with things in their personal lives; one gal asked her mother to move out of her house, and how to deal with unsupportive people was addressed.

I will be interested to see how this show progresses and is received.