The Biggest Loser

I read an interesting news article today about Biggest Loser, third place winner, Suzy Preston. One of the distirbing things the article talked about was how obssessed Suzy was with her weight.

Snapshot: Months later. Preston with a couple girlfriends on New Year's Eve. She's glamorous in big red beads, flirty mascara. She's gained just a few pounds since the finale but still looks like a starlet to everyone but herself. "I remember that I hated how I looked," she says. "It was such a bummer. It makes me sad for myself. I wish I had been able to be as mentally clear and confident as I am now."

Even now, though she exercises 3-4 hours a day and is constantly comparing herself to others. She compares in detailed ways, by gesturing at someone then asking her mom in whispered tones, "Is that the size of my butt?"

This is admittedly, one of the hard things of losing a significant amount of weight: dealing with the inner demons and finding peace with your body.

Suzy's life does not sound enjoyable to me. She wants to eat "forbidden" foods and exercise dominates her free time. She also avoids social situations, parties with her girlfriends and the like, because she doesn't want to succumb to temptation. This is true even with her own family.

The other night, when she stopped by her parents' house to pick up her dog, she had to run back to her car without saying hello because the aroma of chocolate cupcakes was too tempting.

Truth be told, I want to eat cupcakes still. Just one. I want to learn "moderation in all things" so that I can go to social functions and not be a Suzy and avoid people and obessess over my body.

At one point, I had lost 71 lbs. I was 4 lbs away from goal. I'll tell you the story sometime, but suffice it to say, I lost my grip and started gaining. I understand when the author said that it is harder to keep the weight off than it is to lose it.

"People think losing weight is hard," says Suzanne Pelican, food and nutrition specialist at the University of Wyoming. "It isn't anywhere near the challenge of keeping it off." Not to mention reconciling the old inner you with your drastically morphed outer self.

I think the best way to battle this is with a reasonable goal. This is one of the reasons I'm so impressed with Jimmy Moore. At 410 lbs, he was morbidly obese. He set a goal to lose weight and lost 180 lbs bringing him to 230 lbs. At that point, he decided to maintain his weight. He did that successfully for 2 years only gaining 10 lbs. After maintaining for this long, he decided to lose 30 more lbs bringing him to 210.


My favorite thing about all this is that he set REASONABLE GOALS.