Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition

I turned this program on today because I was cleaning and wanted something on that I could listen to and mostly ignore. This show is just reinforcing toxic diet culture ideas. It might be helping 20 people a season--at least in the short term--quite a bit. But look at the cost for millions of viewers. They come into this desperate, morbidly obese person's life, take away all their junk food and put them through a harrowing workout. Then over the course of a year, they give them weight goals to hit with the promise of some non-food reward to motivate them. Invariably the person fails at one of the weigh ins (which proves that even after educating them and giving them the promise of free skin surgery and amazing non-food rewards, it's still not enough to "fix" them), at which point they're berated for not trying harder. Generally, they do lose a staggering amount of weight (at least the contestants that they show. Who knows if there are others who give up altogether). Then they get skin surgery and a final reveal party. Everyone is happy, the end.

Even though I'm so so happy for the people who lost weight, I got so mad at some parts of the show:

• reinforcing the idea that all a person needs to lose weight is to be educated on how to eat healthy and how to workout. No mention that the mental part of weight loss is the most important part. A LOT of overweight and obese people have been dieting for most of their lives, know exactly how to eat healthy and workout, and have still never succeeded in the long run. Why do you think this is? Because of this very toxic diet culture which this show is perpetuating!

• reinforcing the idea there's "bad" food these people just shouldn't eat.

• reinforcing the idea that weight loss has to feel like a punishment. In the third episode I watched, the young obese man was doing water aerobics at the beginning of the show. The trainer berated his workout, saying it wouldn't get him any closer to his weight goal. I hated it.

• blaming the contestants for lack of willpower when they invariably fail at some point during the year. Yeah of course they failed! You've done nothing to address the issues in their lives that they struggle with. You haven't taught them any substitute methods to deal with stress. All you've done is take away their favorite foods and given them hard, punishing workouts. How do you expect them to cope on bad days. Eating and working out are only a small part of weight loss. The big part is the mental work.

Even without changing the format of the show, they could make simple changes to the script to make the show less toxic.

• Change the script when throwing out the junk food. Instead of making it sound like "bad" food, they could focus on all the healthy foods they're bringing into the house and show the obese person choosing to throw away the food they don't care for, perhaps saving some of their favorite foods to eat in moderation.

• instead of the trainer berating the man for doing water aerobics, he should praise him for taking steps toward his health, and offer to show him some strength training exercises to incorporate

• instead of making the first workout look like a punishment, they could have the same workout but show the contestant really enjoying pushing themself

• when the person starts struggling with their eating or workouts, the trainer could show more empathy and not telling them they failed because they lost willpower. They could show them some tricks to get into the gym even when a person doesn't want to. They could show them going to therapy to help deal with their issues. The can teach the person meditation. They can show the person how to go out and indulge, but moderate it so they don't fall into "fuck it" mode

I worry that all these contestants will regain their weight since they were never taught the mental part of weight loss. Furthermore, I think this show perpetuating harmful ideas about weight loss will keep millions of viewers from learning how to lose weight and keep it off for good.

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Eating “as many” green type vegetables as a snack?

Hey,

I have been wondering, how would affect my weight loss if I ate many vegetables as a snack?

I am on a calorie deficit for the last 2.5 month and transformed from 86kg to 72.5kg (1.74 of Height) (Yes I know it means my diet is bad and not correct and should be slower but let’s not discuss it on this specific topic please)

But lately I began to get more hungry for snacks, so I often take take here and there around the day instead of just waiting for the next meal.

Now, I do love the “healthy” green vegetables, and if we look at their calories, that’s over 20-30 per 100g, so if I wanted to really enjoy now, I’ll gladly want to eat over 1kg of those only as a snake(total of 300 calories) that’s not include the normal meals)

Can I really allow myself that? Because I know calorie deficit is needed, but how will I keep lose weight if my body receives so much of “weight” of those food per day, I mean that’s 1KG only from snacks.

Do we speak here about only temporarily water that will be easily lost with body fluids, or those veggies can actually make me gain weight?

I really love those veggies! I’m able to make them sweat by zero calories types of sauces, sweeteners(no oil at all) so it can help me a lot, especially evading those once in a while random “eating disorders” attacks that I am depressed and eat everything I want and then instantly regret it.

Thank you

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weight loss/fat roll question.

Please delete if this isn't on theme for this sub. Im just unsure where else to ask

I had a c/s 20 years ago which left a scar. My weight gain meant i had a large muffin top roll over the scar. Now that i am losing weight (10kg down) and the muffin top is shrinking, (and it is mid summer here) im finding im sweating alot and the area where the scar is has become quite irritated. The scar itself is badly chaffed and quite sore. Ive never had this kind of thing happen before. Im asking advice from others who may have experienced this. How do I stop the irritation. It sweats or at minimum gets hot, all the time. Currently im folding a clean handkerchief daily and shoving it in there. Which seems to help keep it drier. But its not really an ideal solution as it can shift or fall out. I keep the area clean. Its not infected, luckily i noticed before it got incredibly bad. I have s GP appointment on the 5th and i will discuss. But until then, any suggestions? Thank you for taking the time to read this. Im trying so hard in the weightloss. Just a wee bump in the road so to speak

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Starting this weight loss rodeo again

First time posting in this sub but I think it’s long overdue.

I’ve been many shapes and sizes my whole life but for the majority of my 30 years in this world, I’ve been overweight, now fully obese at just about 300 pounds.

I’m a father of two young children and have a stressful job but I know those are simply excuses to delay the inevitable act of getting in shape.

This isn’t to say I haven’t lost weight before. About 12 years ago, I lost about 120 pounds (going from 255 to 135) over about 2 years, primarily due to intermittent fasting and running. But I gained all of that weight back after starting my career (I was only a college student when I lost the weight) and it’s only gotten worse from there.

I think the tipping point was from a few days ago when I lost my breath keeping up with my toddler, running around the house. It reminded me of my dad - also obese - losing his breath running around with me when I was a child.

Anyways - not sure about the decorum of posting these long-winded updates in this sub but I’m looking forward to starting this journey and catching my breath once more 📉

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[Progress] Found this pic from my mom's old hard drive

[F20, 5'11, sw96 kg, cw74 kg]

Before/after pic

This is the one. I think I actually dug up the picture I have when I was at my heaviest.

I rarely take or post pictures of myself, but Imma do it today. Been about 3 years. Not much and it's a slow change, but I am actually pretty proud of how far I've come. To be honest, I won't say I feel like a completely better person after weight loss like I have imagined; well, maybe a bit better physically, but mentally I am still that same girl: self-conscious, insecure, camera shy, stresses herself out all the time, panic about food, scared of loneliness but at the same time afraid of companies... I know self-love is a long journey, and I'm nowhere close to that goal. But hey, looking at these pictures, I think my hard work kinda paid off! Compared to some of you amazing people on this sub, this may not be that many pounds loss at all, but I hope through this post I can kindly remind everybody: don't forget to catch a breath, and look at how far you've come. I know I'm slow, but I will never stop until I've reached my goal, even if that takes months or even years.

That's all, thanks for reading. Merry Christmas dear stranger, I love you.

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just wanted to vent, remove if not allowed

i’m 17F, 5’11, and i weigh 220 lbs. i’ve been overweight for nearly a decade. i was 8 years old when i started to put on weight and even though i was young i still remember the moment people started to treat me differently. i was bullied a lot growing up and my mom has been on crash diets since i was little which did not help my eating habits at all. most of middle school and early high school i hovered at 180-190 lbs but during covid i became extremely depressed and put on (estimating here) about 40 more pounds. my weight loss journey technically began in june 2022 but i then figured out that i was not tracking calories properly and i also went on vacation with my friend’s family for 10 days so it was difficult to accurately track. in august 2022 i started to take counting calories more seriously and i went from sedentary to walking 7-8 miles a day (around 15k-17k steps for me.) i don’t know what my start weight was and there were points where i lost control and binged but now my clothes are too loose for me and i see other small changes (for example, i can comfortably wrap a towel all the way around my body now!) i am very happy about that and it’s all thanks to the advice from this sub. however, i still feel extremely discouraged most days. for one thing my mom is on an extremely restrictive “carnivore” diet where she eats only meat and dairy (basically she took keto to the extreme) and she is very critical of everything i eat. i try to eat a variety of foods with plenty of protein and i still enjoy sweets just in much smaller amounts that fit into my calorie deficit. every time i eat anything it’s endless criticism about how i’m killing my gut and “you’ll be fat forever if you eat carbs” (??????) hearing that kind of stuff from my own mother all the time has made me even more insecure and increases the guilt every time i eat. she also doesn’t “believe” in CICO and thinks it’s specific food that makes you fat so she makes snide comments every time i eat things that she doesn’t approve of. she’s also a huge advocate for fasting multiple days in a row. i know the things she says are not true but being around this commentary 24/7 is hurting me a lot. another thing is that i feel like i’m still eating too much even when i eat in my deficit. i use loseit and i put somewhat active for my activity level so i don’t overestimate my exercise calories but even when i eat below my deficit i feel so guilty and so bad about myself. my current deficit to lose 2 lbs a week is 1,718 calories. i have my step count integrated and it gives me about 300 bonus cals when i do the usual 7-8 miles, i don’t eat back any of those. there are a lot of times when i try to go down to 1200 even though i start to shake and have migraines/brain fog when i restrict that low. it’s a constant cycle of feeling like i’m not good enough and that i will never be successful unless i barely eat. it’s hard to exist in this body and i can’t even look at myself in the mirror anymore. these last two years have been the hardest for me and i feel like in a lot of ways my weight has made high school a miserable time. i want to get this weight off before i start college next fall so i can feel like i finally have a fresh start. if you read this far, thank you, i appreciate this community and i feel like nobody else understands

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Starting for all the right reasons🤍 but could use some advice (issues 1-3)

.. as a step towards getting my life, health and financials in order. And maybe just more balance.

Between 2nd and 8th of January I'm starting, this time for all the right reasons (blood flow, liver, general overweight, risk of diabetes, general balance in life and blood sugar levels - health basically).

Posting here for accountability and I also have some issues to discuss regarding my plan.

I have a history with eating disorders and BED especially. I can go weeks at probably 5000-8000 kcals/day desperately trying to fill a variety of needs (career-, financial-, emotional stress) which I have worked a lot on throughout this year and is currently working on.

Now: 208 lbs at 5'11" Goal: 175 lbs (ambitious) - 182 lbs (preferable) Duration: 6 months

Plan: 2000 kcal for the first 2 months (I'm fairly active), then around 2500 kcal for the next couple months (can train more) and then eventually stop counting and stick to routines and well-thought food choices.

Issue 1: Skip "sugar" completely or attempt moderation? Or just stay clear of the worst (cake, chocolate, shortbread, flapjack, scones, cinnamon rolls)? It's social events and sharing good food experiences with friends and family I find difficult if I'm completely off sugary foods.

("sugar" meaning refined and in abnormal amounts in relation to food type, e.g. sugary cereal v oatmeal with raisins)

Issue 2: Always eat breakfast in the morning or have the choice to wait if I'm not that hungry? I feel like being allowed to wait is a more balanced alternative even though it might increase the chance of overeating later in the day/evening.

Issue 3: Parties, I am going to attend parties and drink alcohol for the social benefit (not because I want to or think it's fun). Should I stick to low-calorie beer and 1 night food meal for instance?

In the end I'm trying to remember the bigger picture, that weight loss is not linear and going over the limit one day or some days does not mean I should go completely off the rails. I have 6 months and it should suffice. If I can somehow manage this and also regulate my emotions in a healthy way, then I think I might have shot at this. I've also signed up for a mindful eating course to prevent overeating.

I just really want this to work, but I'm also scared that my completely insatiable periods will occur again. I'm so ashamed and I've spent so much money on them.

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