My 600 Pound Life?
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tat2cookie wrote: »Awe it's gone
Pauline's video reaction? No it's still there, they just won't let it play embedded from MFP so you have to click the link
Oh nooz they won't give her the additional 18 lb loss! A 500 lb woman who's had gastric bypass quibbling over 18 lbs. talk to me when they won't credit you for 180! Talking about she wanted her son to get paid to be her caretaker so long as he's doing it, anyway. WHAT! He's a young man. Her only freakin goal should be letting him go find what to do with his life and her to become independent of him. She said physical therapy was only mentioned once or some such. Why even wait for their phone call. If I need a diagnosis or otherwise something to do with my health and I haven't heard from the people supposed to call me, I'd be tracking *them* down! I could only watch four minutes of this drivel. Don't know how TLC twisted the show to make things juicier but the proof is in her own current weight and in her words and the way she still chooses to live her life
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I watched Pauline's episode last night. I feel like Dr Now basically screwed her son over - he should have let her be to die sooner and set the poor kid free. He hardly speaks, poor kid.0
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I see these people as psychologically, "Big Babies", stuck in a perpetual desire to have immediate gratification in terms of food, and to stay home, in bed, and be tended. They need someone to do everything for them, bathe, wipe their butt, they don't work, leave the house..only one worked, she was a dispatcher from home. The others just sat. And ate.
There is a complete lack of motivation to do anything, unless it is food driven. And I have noticed many of these super size people are delayed in social skills.0 -
softblondechick wrote: »I see these people as psychologically, "Big Babies", stuck in a perpetual desire to have immediate gratification in terms of food, and to stay home, in bed, and be tended. They need someone to do everything for them, bathe, wipe their butt, they don't work, leave the house..only one worked, she was a dispatcher from home. The others just sat. And ate.
There is a complete lack of motivation to do anything, unless it is food driven. And I have noticed many of these super size people are delayed in social skills.
I agree that most of them are 'stunted' and because of their enablers are basically acting like and being treated as small children.
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I am half way through the Betty Jo episode, and I have to just say it amazes me how many of these people walk around bare foot outside
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tracyannk28 wrote: »Kinda OT but I didn't know where else to post this...
Have any of you seen this show on TLC? I'm just curious of your thoughts...knowing what we've all learned here about eating at a deficit to lose weight and watching these people struggle and have such a hard time giving up fast food, etc. even when it's threatening their lives and costing them their families.
some guy on there weighed 50 lbs more then me at my heaviest (562) lost it all and went down to like 230...and then gained it back in 3 years....i think about that all the time and wonder if the same will happen to me0 -
tracyannk28 wrote: »Kinda OT but I didn't know where else to post this...
Have any of you seen this show on TLC? I'm just curious of your thoughts...knowing what we've all learned here about eating at a deficit to lose weight and watching these people struggle and have such a hard time giving up fast food, etc. even when it's threatening their lives and costing them their families.
some guy on there weighed 50 lbs more then me at my heaviest (562) lost it all and went down to like 230...and then gained it back in 3 years....i think about that all the time and wonder if the same will happen to me
I must have missed that one. Do you remember his name?
I wonder if Bettie Jo didn't wear shoes because it was difficult to find shoes that fit? Her shoelessness struck me as strange, too, and i tend to walk outside barefoot more often than most people I know do.
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I watched one episode for the first time yesterday. It was...weird. Felt extremely scripted, like everything the people said was being read out of a book. Probably because - most likely it was. But I'm used to more candid stuff I guess. These people probably have amazing things to say and talk about, but they seem to just get very dry blurbs here and there. Meh.0
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tracyannk28 wrote: »Most of the people succeed. Except for Penny. Everyone should watch her story - part one and two - to see what denial really looks like.
Oh yeah - Penny. Penny who was so proud of herself for taking her son Trick-or-Treating even though she didn't leave her scooter. She's awful. I felt bad for Dr. Now to have to deal with her as a patient.
Last weeks episode was just as sad...
http://www.examiner.com/article/my-600-lb-life-takes-viewers-on-pauline-s-story-on-tlc
Try as he might, the surgeon did everything to help Pauline but eventually just had to let her be
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tracyannk28 wrote: »Lourdesong wrote: »tracyannk28 wrote: »Lourdesong wrote: »Yeah, I watch, because I find it motivating in a "Scared Straight" kind of way.
The surgery/bypass stuff is the least interesting aspect of the show, I watch because of the head games and manipulation these people are capable of, the denial, how they keep clean (or don't), how they get their food and how they react to not getting it or having to eat small quantities, their overcoming hurdles and their backsliding and immediately slipping back into lying and justifying themselves, and so on.
The patients who do overcome (which is most of them) are pretty inspiring, how much their personality changes along with their bodies is really fascinating to me.
Penny is like my ultimate nightmare of a woman. After I saw her episode, I almost felt like I owed my husband an apology for my own weight problem. I can picture her looking right at me and being like "This could be you, heheheheh" *shudder*
The new episode that aired with Amber last night was kind of depressing, mainly the part showing her having to travel by plane to Houston. Extra-wide wheelchair breaking beneath her and having to be wheeled across the airport on a luggage cart as if she was cargo.
I don't know if this show is staged or not, but it doesn't feel like it, unlike My Big Fat Fabulous Life. I'm still trying to figure out what that show is supposed to be about (I know, she made a viral dance video and has PCOS, and...???), it seems like they don't have much content or story, and are struggling to make it interesting.
I'm trying to figure that out myself...I know she had to move back home with her parents at 30 years old...so there's that storyline of a grown woman living like a teenager (her mom yelling at her to clean her room). But I had no clue what Honey Boo Boo was about and that was on air for a while!
I noticed that Whitney claims to the camera in her best social justice warrior tone that she hates that people think that fat people are lazy, and then a good part of her reality show is her parents scolding her about moldy (!) dishes piling up in her room, and her dirty laundry piling up and her filthy car and her uncompleted tasks and so on. This while she doesn't have a job or responsibilities, really. I get it's supposed to be like funny-ha-ha parents on her case like she's a teenager, kind-of-thing, but jeez.
Similar to the participants on "My 600 Pound Life" - where the majority of them almost revert to spoiled child-like behavior in order to manipulate their significant others or parents...and in some cases their children.
I just realized that many of them are adults who still live with their parents. I wonder if there's a psychological reason for it?
I found Whitney to be quite annoying so I didn't spend too much time on that show.
Someone of her age w/ a degree, resorting to moving back in w/ her aged parents who doesn't bother herself to clean, whether it be her room or car AND having to be reprimanded for it...sheesh!
Even her brother had to intervene and tell her to get out of their parents home, how sad!
I also watched a little bit of TLC's Big Women Big Love and found them as equally annoying as Whitney.
The show that Ive found to be actually entertaining is Trailer Park, Welcome to Myrtle Manor
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tracyannk28 wrote: »Kinda OT but I didn't know where else to post this...
Have any of you seen this show on TLC? I'm just curious of your thoughts...knowing what we've all learned here about eating at a deficit to lose weight and watching these people struggle and have such a hard time giving up fast food, etc. even when it's threatening their lives and costing them their families.
Was watching it tonight.
Just realized that the people on it are always so ridiculously dramatic over everything and nothing.0 -
Italian_Buju wrote: »I am half way through the Betty Jo episode, and I have to just say it amazes me how many of these people walk around bare foot outside
Yes, I have noticed that. They don't walk much or go anywhere, maybe they don't have shoes, or can't find any that fit.
Betty Jo, wow! I like how she blamed her spouse for her eating problems. And basically expected him to diet because she was dieting. No one can diet for you. I did not finish her program.0 -
tracyannk28 wrote: »TLC has kind of turned into a freak show over the past decade. It used to be The Learning Channel and showed documentry type things similar to Discovery Channel. Now it's all reality shows and things like "My Strange Addiction"
That show "My strange addiction" creeps me out. Especially the one where the woman was eating her dead husband's ashes! WHAT?????????? GROSS!
I was flipping through the channels 1 evening and caught sight of that.
At 1st I was like "no she didn't", then I found myself gagging while watching her!
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tracyannk28 wrote: »0
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I enjoy watching the transformations, as well as the processes and challenges they go through to reach their goals. Overall, with very few exceptions, I think the show sends a positive message. Not depressing to me at all.0
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It motivates me. I look at these women that are so much larger than me, and I see how miserable they are. I also think of my grandma, how she was so big and had so many problems. I don't want to end up that way. I honestly don't think I would ever let myself go that far, but I have let myself go, and that is the point. If the severely obese can do it, then I sure as hell can lose the little bit that I need to.
Wizzybeth--I don't know about the food enabling thing. It's horrible within my family. One grandmother was the worst about trying to force feed you. Even now at my mother's house there is enough people to feed an army, and only 4 people live there. Two refrigerators and the pantry are full, with extra stuff sitting in bags and racks under the bar. Don't get me started on how my sister's influence is bad for my severely obese mother.
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I watch it as a what not to do....I've gain a lot of weight over the pass 5 years being in a relationship with a chef and since its at its end I've taken back my health and my body. And watching this show is what made me take a hard look at myself and realize that thiscould be me if I do not get control over my health and my life. It motivates my behind to not live to eat but eat to live.
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Lourdesong wrote: »
600 lb Life doesn't annoy me as much, it keeps its focus on the actual problem at hand, which is overeating and not moving enough. Not rationalizations and post hoc reflections that sound logical but which don't actually follow.
edited mistake
Oh man, really love this "post hoc reflections" exactly a term I needed but didn't know I needed!
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I watch it on my lazy days, and cannot help but do calisthenics during commercials. I have thoroughly convinced myself that if I keep going (up and out!) I'll look like that before I'm
Now, from a psychological perspective, I find the show fascinating, and a bit heartbreaking. I'm in grad school for counseling, so I like shows that I find interesting from a psychoanalytical perspective. I think there's a lot of enabling and bad habits going on there-- these people would benefit more from therapy then just a doctor.0 -
There's so much help out there for people today, some of it valid, some of it not. There are a lot of reactive "solutions" (surgery, diet pills, diet food, crazy fad diets), but nothing PROactive. How about teaching nutrition in school as part of the curriculum, etc? Education is power. Generally, people just don't have the tools they need to have control over their health. If people understood how to keep their weight under control, we could eliminate so much of the burden on the healthcare system (free here in Canada), and the emotional and physical toll it takes on people.
We used to (in the US at least). For decades we had substantive Home Economics classes teaching not just food preparation (and safety) but science based nutrition in junior highs and high schools. 20 years after WWII the huge societal changes made the perceived value of those programs diminish. All too many of those programs dumbed themselves down in response instead of fighting back and proving their value. By the 80s they were being taken out of many schools.
In the past decade or so there has been a huge push from other organizations to pick up where the schools dropped the ball. Much of this is coming from colleges with medical and/or nutrition programs but not all. Most seem to be going into pre-school and primary grades. There needs to be more of this and a more organized effort. Since we've got several generations of parents who skipped any sort of nutrition education the parents really need to be involved too. Way, way too many people get all of their nutrition "education" from the internet, something made worse by the fact that we fail to teach people how to evaluate what they read so they can separate the junk from the real; and we fail to teach people how to evaluate how the real science is reported (spun) so they can make informed and reasoned choices.
Society caused the enormity of the problem by devaluing education. Society can fix it by addressing that. If you care - go to your local school district and ask them what they are doing. Go to your county Cooperative Extension offices and ask them what they are doing. Educate yourself, there are some great MOOCs out there being taught by universities which are geared towards consumers not nutrition students.
Putting my soap box away now....because I could go on, and on....0 -
Bookworm1860 wrote: »There's so much help out there for people today, some of it valid, some of it not. There are a lot of reactive "solutions" (surgery, diet pills, diet food, crazy fad diets), but nothing PROactive. How about teaching nutrition in school as part of the curriculum, etc? Education is power. Generally, people just don't have the tools they need to have control over their health. If people understood how to keep their weight under control, we could eliminate so much of the burden on the healthcare system (free here in Canada), and the emotional and physical toll it takes on people.
We used to (in the US at least). For decades we had substantive Home Economics classes teaching not just food preparation (and safety) but science based nutrition in junior highs and high schools. 20 years after WWII the huge societal changes made the perceived value of those programs diminish. All too many of those programs dumbed themselves down in response instead of fighting back and proving their value. By the 80s they were being taken out of many schools.
In the past decade or so there has been a huge push from other organizations to pick up where the schools dropped the ball. Much of this is coming from colleges with medical and/or nutrition programs but not all. Most seem to be going into pre-school and primary grades. There needs to be more of this and a more organized effort. Since we've got several generations of parents who skipped any sort of nutrition education the parents really need to be involved too. Way, way too many people get all of their nutrition "education" from the internet, something made worse by the fact that we fail to teach people how to evaluate what they read so they can separate the junk from the real; and we fail to teach people how to evaluate how the real science is reported (spun) so they can make informed and reasoned choices.
Society caused the enormity of the problem by devaluing education. Society can fix it by addressing that. If you care - go to your local school district and ask them what they are doing. Go to your county Cooperative Extension offices and ask them what they are doing. Educate yourself, there are some great MOOCs out there being taught by universities which are geared towards consumers not nutrition students.
Putting my soap box away now....because I could go on, and on....
I remember learning about the "4 Basic Food Groups" (later turned into the Food Pyramid)in health class and being shown healthy cooking in Home Economics. Not sure what they teach in health right now...but I think Home Ec has been cut from the budget.
I'm not saying my generations (Gen X) is better than today's, but at least we were given the tools to know how to eat healthy and exercise.
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I absolutely love this show but I missed last night's episode because my monthly bill came and I went to bed at 8:00.
I don't love it because it's a train wreck. In fact, the part I like least about the show is the beginning, with all the sensationalist of showering ("Oh my GOD, how does she even fit in that shower?") or being bathed ("Oh my GOD, how can she stand someone else wiping her folds?"), and being in the store ("Oh my GOD, how can she buy all that crap when she weighs 600 pounds?"), and of the person's back story ("Oh my GOD, she was molested"). It's all pretty much the same thing every time and painful to watch: enablers stuffing the person due to the codependent push-and-pull of guilt and the person making demands and the enabler needing to have a permanent baby; the physical pain; the emotional pain. Often I'll just skip the first 10 or 15 minutes of the episode because I don't need it and I don't want it. That's just me.
What I love about it is the transformations! I have always loved a Cinderella story; any type. The look on the person's face when s/he sees a loss on the scale, the excitement over being able to get up and move around and work out, the joy...I love love love seeing that. I can watch it over and over again, and I do.
Not everyone watches this type of show because they enjoy grinning slack-jawed at someone else's pain. FTR.
I love seeing a person's life turn around; seeing him or her put on that smaller pair of jeans, get a date, go on the swings with a child. It is SUCH a good feeling and I know that feeling, and I look forward to having it again.0 -
^ That's also why Penny's and Pauline's stories frustrated me. I couldn't come to a resolution with them and I was frustrated and a little angry. I'd be angry at myself, too, if that were me. It HAS been me, on a physically smaller scale. When I finished those shows (I don't know how, LOL), afterward, I pretty much wished I hadn't watched them. But oh well...what can ya do.
And I do agree that to an extent they must be scripted. But a person in a size 24 jeans at one point and a size 14 jeans at another point can't possibly be scripted. With reality shows, you do need to realize you're going to have your emotions played with (or attempted to) and gloss over that aspect, or else not watch the show. For me, with the majority of reality shows, it's the latter - why watch? But with this one, I generally hang in to see the person's successes, and just that look on the person's face...that is just a treasure.
Re: Home Ec: we had that in school, and that's what it was called. This was in, hmm...1980, I believe. Middle school. Both boys and girls had to take traditionally "boy" and "girl" things. So IOW, the boys sewed and the girls made bookeneds in wood shop. We thought it was great fun. It was a "throwaway" class, one that you didn't have to study or anything in order to make the grade. Everybody passed everything (the tasks weren't all that hard - sewing was a pillow of your first initial, for instance; cooking was some simple but tasty thing, can't remember). Nutrition wasn't stressed in any way. My favorite among these "skills" classes was Mechanical Drawing (obviously this didn't come under the term "Home Ec" but was grouped in with this set of classes...hmmm) which, oddly, involved a silk-screen T-shirt (I made a Snoopy; he was off-center; I got an A anyway) and a radio (it cost EIGHT dollars for the supplies but my mom let me buy them anyway; I didn't finish the radio; I got an A anyway).
My bookends didn't match. My little wood car was wonderful and I gave it to my brother. I got an A.
Cooking: I burned the butter. The teacher yelled. I remember we ate whatever it was our group cooked anyway. We got an A.0 -
I don't think that this extreme obesity is related to lack of education about correct foods to eat. It is addiction to food. And availability of highly processed carbs, fats, and sugars. Caloric values of foods has increased, not the least of which is due to our "super sized" perception of correct portion size.
I think the real issue is the role of the enablers. Especially for those who are too obese to even leave their beds. The only way they get food is from the enablers.0 -
I watched "Amber" last night and I found her to be so inspiring. I love it when they can admit to Dr. Now that they love to eat and eat too much, instead of being like "I don't know why I'm so fat - I eat Bran Flakes!"
Did anyone watch "Betty Jo"? I missed the last 20 minutes last night. She was the one who had the really skinny husband who felt like if Betty lost weight she'd leave him and was getting really angry at her at the therapists office and stormed out of the session.
He was making Hamburger Helper and she was asking for greenbeans and he was being a little b*tch about it. It was heartbreaking to watch.0 -
tracyannk28 wrote: »
I remember learning about the "4 Basic Food Groups" (later turned into the Food Pyramid)in health class and being shown healthy cooking in Home Economics. Not sure what they teach in health right now...but I think Home Ec has been cut from the budget.
I'm not saying my generations (Gen X) is better than today's, but at least we were given the tools to know how to eat healthy and exercise.
For us too it was the "Four Basic Food Groups." We also (informally - at home) were constantly drilled to have our "three square meals" a day. A "square" dinner was a protein (about half the dinner plate), a vegetable and "a starch." You ate those, or no dessert. Dessert was small-ish. Three small cookies or two "bigger" cookies (i.e. Chips Ahoy were "bigger" cookies). Or a little dessert dish of ice cream, probably half a cup? Dessert was a garnish; if you felt hungry for a bigger or "more" dessert, you were told you should have had more dinner and were encouraged to get more pot roast or green beans. We really didn't snack; a few kids had snack after school, something SMALL...which is why it was called a snack. Two cookies, or a slice of bread with butter.
Generally, the idea was: if you needed to snack, you didn't eat enough at breakfast/lunch/dinner and being hungry was your lesson to eat more "real" foods during those times. Only infants were expected to need a refill every 2-3 hours.
Today, there's dessert with EVERYTHING (dessert with lunch? WTF?) and if Little Savvanaugh is cruelly forced go more than two hours without something in her face, she might suffer a hypoglycemic episode so QUICK, get a granola bar, a single-serve Goldfish crackers and a giant-size Capri Sun Squeeze into her, STAT. Or let her go to the vending machine (vending machines at schools, double WTF???) with the $20/week allowance she gets for breathing and not having knocked down a liquor store that week.
Ugh, never mind, this sort of thing just makes me mad.
ETA: Oh, as far as "lessons" in the importance of exercise in school: None needed! Just get your *kitten* outside. You're young and full of energy, there is NO excuse for not playing PHYSICALLY outside between after-school (if you didn't have a sport which, go figure, was exercise) and dinner, then going back out after dinner and coming back in for homework. During the summer, we'd be outside with all our friends until the street lights came on our our parents yelled for us. And yes, I am aware that right now I sound very "get offa my lawn" and like I was born in 1910. I was actually born in 1967. When, go figure, kids didn't have Type II diabetes.
By the way. Get offa my lawn. And if your ball lands in here...I'm keeping it and no, your parents aren't taking me to small claims court in support of the injustice I've just done you.
(Insert Dana Carvey's Grumpy Old Man here.)
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Betty Jos story scared me so much because she's only 24 years old. She gained that much weight in such a short time... Whoa. I also find it scary that the disclaimer at the beginning that says hundreds of 600 lb plus folks get surgery to change and only 5 percent succeed. FIVE PERCENT. That's like the stats for heroin addicts. I am dropping this weight and for good, no up and down for me. Don't wanna end up housebound being passed food through the window0
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I watch it every day with my husband (although not at 600 lbs) he has a lot of weight to lose and just won't give up the crap food and I have seen him exercise twice. He has been told by docs that he needs to do it - he's on heart meds. What more motivation should one need than to save their own life? 0
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tracyannk28 wrote: »I watched "Amber" last night and I found her to be so inspiring. I love it when they can admit to Dr. Now that they love to eat and eat too much, instead of being like "I don't know why I'm so fat - I eat Bran Flakes!"
Did anyone watch "Betty Jo"? I missed the last 20 minutes last night. She was the one who had the really skinny husband who felt like if Betty lost weight she'd leave him and was getting really angry at her at the therapists office and stormed out of the session.
He was making Hamburger Helper and she was asking for greenbeans and he was being a little b*tch about it. It was heartbreaking to watch.
I really liked Amber's episode last night. I was happy to see that she was doing well at the end of the episode and helping to take care of their child.
Betty Jo's episode was good, too - I definitely couldn't stand her boyfriend's attitude, but he started to get better at the end. I don't think she lost as much weight as Dr. Now would have liked, but I think she was on her way to a healthier attitude.
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Betty Jos boyfriend was a complete lunatic. They probably emotionally abuse each other because I heard her say a few times that he's her caretaker and she wonders if they have anything beyond him just taking care of her. Meaning she says it to him. So no wonder he's scared she'd leave if she lost weight! That'd make anyone crazy who's really in love.0
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