Monday, February 20, 2012

Judgment nation

I've had a pretty crazy week, so I'm just going to get right to it and talk about a few things out in the news last week, things I have definite opinions on and feel need to be addressed.

The British singer Adele appears on the cover of current issue of "Vogue" magazine. The article is wonderful and makes no mention of her figure. Adele herself has been quoted as saying she "makes music for ears, not eyes." Well, let your eyes get a load of this (click to enlarge):



Obviously, this has created a lot of controversy. Why would they so obviously Photoshop her body in that way? I don't have an issue with them perfecting her skin or whatever, but making her body look like Jessica Rabbit is not cool. She's gorgeous just the way she is. What kind of message does this send to young girls? You can have the voice of an angel, be beautiful to look at, honored for your outstanding work by your peers but....but really, we still want you to look like a Barbie doll. Crazy, crazy stuff. Totally wrong and dangerous.

The other story that caught my attention last week was an interview Star Jones did with Matt Lauer on the Today Show. I believe this is the first time Star has really opened up about her gastric bypass surgery and resulting 160-pound weight loss.



Star begins the interview by declaring "“I was definitely a food addict. My entire adult life I had been overweight. I wasn’t fluffy. I wasn’t full figured. I wasn’t plus-sized. I was morbidly obese.” She goes on to explain her decision to keep the surgery a secret - she had made so much of her life public, some fans were understandably upset when learning how she launched her weight-loss success story. And she gets that. She basically just said she wasn't ready.

Honestly, I totally understand why so many people choose to hide it. There's a large stigma, even today but even more so in 2003, attached to having this surgery. I'm not sure what the difference would be between someone who uses surgery to help them lose weight and someone who uses a nicotine patch to help them quit smoking. Would you tell the reformed smoker that they "took the easy way out" or didn't "do it on their own" simply because they didn't go cold turkey? Whatever works, people. This is a matter of life and death. The stigma really has to stop.

Star says she attributes about 100 pounds of loss directly to the surgery; the rest was just hard work. She's so right about that. You will lose weight at first but it's up to you to eat right and get your ass to the gym to go the distance and lose all you need to then keep it off.

Then we had the sad and tragic news of Whitney Houston's death. I learned this from a dear friend while at a dinner party in Nashville (more on that later!) and needless to say, I was stunned. She was a big part of my teenage years and beyond, her beautiful voice weaving its way into precious memories of my youth. We still don't know for sure what killed her but boy, the opinions are pretty narrow. It had to be a drug overdose, right? And should we be honoring her (with either half-mast flags or non-stop press coverage) when she was just a drug addict anyway?

How sad. How sad that we can't just remember her for the wonderful memories she brought to our lives. Even if you have never bought a Whitney Houston CD in your life, surely (especially if you're American) you remember her unparalleled rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl. Do you remember who was playing? Who won? Probably not. But you remember this:



For the record, I don't think the flags in New Jersey should be at half mast. But not because she was "just a drug addict singer". I don't think it should've been done for Frank Sinatra, either - but it was. That honor should be reserved for fallen soldiers, presidents, etc.

The sad parallel between these three seemingly unrelated stories? Our expectations of other people and the way we so harshly judge them when we know nothing about them or the struggles they go through. Adele is judged for her body, not her voice. Star for her obesity and the method she chose to save her own life, and not her intellect. Whitney for her illness of addiction and not her fantastic talent. Society places such unrealistic expectations of perfection on people, especially women.

I propose that we all give each other a break. Just a thought.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

A tale of two dresses

Well one, really. One dress, two bodies.

Most women I know long for the days when they were thin enough to fit into their wedding gowns. I am not one of those women.

Oftentimes, that's when we look our absolute best. We diet and kill ourselves to fit into this tiny, white dress so we look perfect for 24 hours and have the photographs to prove it. Then the business of actually being married sets in (kids, frantic schedules, bills, stress) and the weight is gained back and then some. This is the normal routine in most women's lives.

I started thinking about my own wedding gown a while back, as our 10th anniversary approached. We talked about possibly renewing our vows and joked about altering my gown so I could wear it on my new body.

Recently I was reading Redbook, one of my favorite magazines, and it seems they are featuring an ongoing story about women who want to fit back into their wedding gowns. It's called the Wedding Dress Challenge. The piece will follow 13 women on their quest to squeeze back into that frilly white dress. By the way, there are some great diet and exercise tips in that link - I urge you to check it out. So reading that got me to thinking: I hope I never fit into my wedding dress again!

There's a show on TLC called Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss which features plus-sized brides looking for the perfect dress. I watched several episodes of it last weekend and again found myself thinking about my own quest for the dress as what's termed a "supersize" plus-sized bride-to-be and how my gown would fit me today.

You know what happened next. I dragged it out of the closet and handed Erich a camera.

Holy shit.

So this is Erich, my brother-in-law and me 10 years ago at my wedding. We don't have very good photographs from that day, I'm sorry to say. No photographer or anything, just family snapping pics. It's my biggest regret from that day. Always, always hire a photographer. Borrow the money if you have to (click to enlarge).



And this is that same dress on me, last night:





The first thing that struck me was how long it was. I felt like a little girl playing dress-up. So yeah. I hope I never, ever fit into that dress again. It must also be said that I had it custom made, so it fit me well at the time. I mean, there was no way I could go into a bridal salon and pick out a dress; it just wasn't going to happen. When I was watching Big Bliss, there was one bride who was bigger than a size 32 and they just didn't know what the hell to do because that's where the sizes stopped. I would've been screwed as well and I knew it. I never set foot inside a dress shop, I had one made for me. Crazy, huh?

Seriously, if I can do this you can, too. You can. You are stronger than you think you are!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

My 600-lb Life on TLC

I am inspired by others' weight-loss success stories, so I often watch television shows featuring diet, exercise and healthy living. I've written extensively about my personal need for broadcast motivation. I see others succeeding and it makes me think I can do it, too.

So I was very anxious to watch a new short-run series on TLC called "My 600-lb Life". It's a four-episode series that follows a different person each night on his or her weight-loss journey via gastric bypass. Each patient begins weighing at least 600 pounds. It premiered Wednesday night and featured Melissa, a woman from Ohio, living in Texas, who started out weighing in at 653 pounds.

In one of my first blog entries, before my surgery, I said "...before it gets to the point where I need assistance in walking across the floor, I have to do THIS so I never find TLC knocking at my door wanting to do a special on the shut-in. No, never, not me." It was a serious fear of mine. I could feel myself falling down the rabbit hole and knew something drastic had to be done. At my highest weight, I was hovering around 500 pounds.

Melissa can still walk but it's not easy. She requires assistance to do the most basic of things, intimate tasks which she embarrassingly talks briefly about later in the broadcast. Her husband is her lifeline. He is more caretaker and nursemaid than lover or partner. This was also a big fear of mine...I did not want to put Erich in this situation. Ever. I could see it coming like the light on a locomotive still far away but barreling down on me, fast. And me, standing in the darkness in the middle of the tracks, terrified but knowing I needed to swerve or die.

In one of the first scenes, Melissa is on a scooter in a grocery store - because she cannot walk around long enough to shop - and people are staring; one man makes a smart remark and she cries. Again...I could see this coming at me. I could see this being my life. I resisted the scooter in stores and walked through the pain, in agony and red-faced, sweating in January, because I didn't want the scrutiny. There are so many things that resonated with me in the two hours of this show that I can't write about all of them or we'd be here all day long.

It seems she got much the same after-care advice I did: Protein, protein, protein. Limit refined carbs and sugar, especially at first. They follow her through seven years of ups and downs. It's quite a journey.

She had two skin-removal surgeries, one of which removed 60 pounds and another that took off 30. And she still had some loose skin issues. Kind of makes mine seem trivial in comparison. It seems she didn't experience many complications from the gastric bypass beyond initial nausea (same with me). However, complications arose after the second surgery but mainly because she wasn't eating properly and became malnourished. I've said it over and over...patient compliance is KEY to success with any surgery, including gastric bypass.

Two major things I want to say about the show: A big plus: The relationship with her husband is explored quite a bit and I was glad to see that. Her husband had problems adjusting to this new woman who wanted to do things for herself now, who wanted to get out and enjoy her new life. I've also written about the minefield that can be a post-weight-loss marriage/partnership. People get accustomed to living a certain way and when that gets turned upside down, it can be a lot to handle. Your partner MUST get on board with it or be pushed overboard. It's that simple. Please, please, please do not hold yourself back. Have some sympathy for the fact they will also need time to adjust, but not at the expense of yourself and your success. I question Melissa's decision to have a child with her husband and stay with him through his treatment of her. When she discovers his infidelity, her response is "well, at 600 pounds what do you expect?" You expect RESPECT. Kindness and loyalty. It's so sad how a person's self-esteem will make them react to pain inflicted upon them. They think they deserve it. Very sad. It's not about the 600 pounds. It's about his character, which he proves to her again and again. Yet she still stays.

A big minus: In the whole two-hour episode - which, as I said, follows her over the course of seven years - we never see Melissa at a gym. Not working out to an exercise DVD, nothing. I fear this will perpetuate the myth that she simply hopped onto an operating table and lost nearly 500 pounds. She alludes to this way of thinking and debunks it, but still. I kept waiting for the sweat and never saw any. HUGE fail, in my opinion. You have to work at weight loss, no matter what the method is. Yes, you will lose weight with gastric bypass no matter what you do in the first few months. But you won't continue that loss or maintain it without either hard work the healthy way or transferring your food addiction to other damaging behaviors like anorexia.

After her weight loss, Melissa found work as a patient liaison at the bariatric clinic at which she had her surgery. It was her job to talk to patients pre-op and get them ready for the journey ahead. She led group discussions and private meetings; they even showed her going into peoples' homes and guiding them on what foods to eat. THIS is what I want to do. I've known it for a long time. To help people on their way to a new life would be the ultimate dream job. I'd said to myself this was one of my new year's resolutions - to find work like this. There's a clinic about 30 minutes away from me and that's where I'll start. Somehow! I don't know the first thing about the place - never even been there - but I need to take some baby steps towards this new goal and make it happen.

The show re-airs on Monday at 9 (EST) and a new episode, with a new patient, airs Wednesday night. I have so much more to say about the show but this blog is long enough. Besides, I'm sure I'll be writing more about the new episode and each one after that.