The Big Fat Truth: The Behind-the-scenes Secret to Weight Loss (12 page)

—Tiffany,
Extreme Weight Loss
cast member, via email

What are you looking at? Not just your body. How about the way you live? Truthfully, how much are you eating? How little are you moving? What triggers your biggest binges? What issues in your life are you not dealing with? Write it all down. I want a report. And, yes, literally look in the mirror and assess your body, too, turning up the lights as bright as they will go. That might seem like a waste of time—
I know I’m fat, JD, I’m reading your book
—but you’d be surprised at how many times people come on our shows and, even though they obviously want to lose weight, they don’t even realize how much they’ve let themselves go. Remember how I said that we make all our cast members strip down to skimpy workout wear so that they (and everyone else) can see the reality of the situation—and that some of them kind of thought things weren’t so bad? It’s the moment of truth; there’s no hiding the bulges and rolls.

So here’s what I want you to do. Look at yourself naked in the mirror and get a snapshot in your mind. Better yet, take an actual “before” photograph of you without your shirt on if you’re a man and in a sports bra if you’re a woman. Make an honest assessment of what you’re really dealing with. Then use that picture to inspire you—not to beat yourself up. That’s not the point of all this. Yes, you want to face up to what you’ve been doing wrong. But it’s more important to use what you see to help you get excited about what you’re now going to do right! The truth is, you probably know deep down that you’ve been eating to bury your feelings, and sweeping all the issues you need to deal with under the rug. You’re unhappy. But just for now. You’re going to find happiness—I know it.

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to hold a mirror up to your inner life as it is to your exterior. I’ve found, though, that one reliable clue to inner turmoil is the state of a person’s bedroom. Sounds totally unrelated, I know, but hear me out. You could be perfectly disciplined in most areas of your life. You’re, for instance, never late for work and never miss a deadline. You dress nicely, always bring the perfect gift when invited to a friend’s house for dinner, and never miss the follow-up thank-you call. But in other areas of your life, you lack discipline—and you can see it plain as day in your bedroom, that most private of rooms. I have gone into cast members’ bedrooms and seen more crap piled up than you can imagine. Boxes to the ceiling, a years’ worth of unopened mail, dirty clothes, shoes, books, papers, dishes, cups, and fast-food wrappers scattered so thick, there’s barely room to move. Sure, it’s not the same for everyone. Some people, skinny or fat, are just sloppy at home. No big deal. But clutter in a private space can also be a symptom of a mind too cluttered to contend with doing stuff like eating healthfully and exercising like you’re supposed to. Your bedroom should be a meditative place of calm and organization. When it’s not, the first thing you see when you open your eyes in the morning is a life out of control. As soon as you start your day, your subconscious has taken over, and you’re defeated.

So what’s your bedroom looking like these days? Take a peek, and you’ll get a good idea of who you are at this very moment. Go ahead: put this book down and spend ten minutes in silence just looking around. What is your bedroom telling you? That it’s time to change?

The process of holding up a mirror to yourself also involves calling yourself out on lies. Not only lies that you tell other people but also, and most important, lies that you tell yourself. “I only ate a little bit of the ice cream.” “There aren’t that many calories in a cheesy Caesar salad—it’s lettuce!” “I worked out for a full hour.” “My ankle feels a little shaky so I better not go for a walk.”
I’m
not going to lie: A large percentage of our cast members constantly deceive themselves. We hear things like, “I’m not losing weight because I don’t think I’m eating enough calories.” Technically, it’s possible—if you cut way, way back on calories, your metabolism, in order to protect your body, can slow to a near standstill. But how often is that the case? Practically never. We also hear a lot of “I’m eating too much healthy food.” Do you know what it would take to eat 2,500 calories in lettuce and carrots?

Occasionally, they tell blatant lies not only to themselves but also to us.

During a recent show, we did surveillance on a father, Jeff, and his daughter, Juliana, to see how they were doing when no one was around (remember, this is reality TV—we want to see what’s real). What Chris and Heidi, a married couple and the trainers that host
Extreme Weight Loss,
witnessed was so at odds with what the father and daughter were telling them that it was shocking. For instance, Juliana, a teenager, told us on camera that she walked home from school when, in fact, she covered the distance by taking two buses, then getting a ride in a car. It took her more energy to cheat than it would have to have actually walked home! We also got photos of her carrying one of those crazy-high-calorie drinks out of Starbucks—yet she told us that she’d been perfect when it came to following her calorie limitations. Jeff said he was going to the gym when he was really going to a bakery. And these are just a few of the lies they told. They were so good at lying that they convinced themselves they were sticking with the program.

The worst part of it all was that Juliana had to witness her dad lie to the very people who were trying to help him. The behavior he modeled for his daughter made it okay for her to do the very same thing. These are not bad people, but they were doing something bad to themselves and didn’t want to face up to it. When we confronted them with the evidence, they were mortified, but, to their credit, they said they weren’t quitting. They had already lost quite a bit of weight, so they’d proven they were capable of doing the work; they just had to get back to it. Later on, Jeff sent me an email telling me that getting caught in a lie was his “aha moment.” Better yet, knowing that he couldn’t trust himself completely, he made a plan to hold himself accountable. Here’s what he wrote to me:

To make sure this never happens again, any time in the future that I don’t work out for at least three hours or don’t eat the proper nutrition, I will confess it to my wife and daughter first, and then to you, Chris and Heidi, as well. I am going to record each day what I do and what I eat so that if at any time any of you want to know what I have been doing, I will have it readily available to show you. This will also allow me to track my weight loss better, and if I have a good or bad week, I can see what I did to cause the results.

Jeff got back to business and ended up losing a lot of weight (so did his daughter Juliana), improving his family relationships and feeling great.

Jeff:
Before

Jeff:
After

When you opt to look in the mirror, you’re going to see the weight. And I’m not just talking about the weight you’re carrying on your body. You’ll see the emotional weight you carry in your head that makes you eat way beyond what you know is acceptable. And the weight of responsibilities that make you choose others over yourself. Then there’s the weight of your family and friends and the pressure you feel (real or not) to take care of everyone, plus the weight of the tears you’ve been holding back for years because you have to be strong. There’s the weight, too, of shaming thoughts that make you punish yourself with food.

Juliana:
Before

Juliana:
After

“Weight” has so many meanings. I want you to turn the word “weight” into “wait.” “Wait” before you beat yourself up for overeating. “Wait” before you choose someone else over yourself. But
don’t
“wait” any longer to change. Do it now.
That
waiting is over.

What Happens When You Come Face-to-Face with Yourself in the Mirror?

JD,

It amazes me every day how great I feel. The things I am doing now I haven’t done in decades. I enjoy cooking with my wife, stairs are not my enemy anymore, and I have to find things to do and not just sit and watch TV. I love working in the yard and finding ways to stay active. Just next Sunday, I am running a Super-Bowl 5K with both my daughters and my wife. My oldest daughter has finally caught the workout bug, and she is working on her own transformation. She is reading labels, eating healthy, and working out every day. I remember how hard it was for me running the first 5K during Boot Camp. Now, I am doing it for fun and to have some family time. Now after a workout, I feel great the rest of the day, and my energy is through the roof. Even though my knees sometimes get tender, I now feel that if they don’t hurt at least a little, I haven’t worked out hard enough.

—Jeff,
Extreme Weight Loss
cast member, via email

Why are you fat? As I described earlier, when I asked that question of our former contestant Stacey, she gave me the stock answer: “I love food.” I get that answer nine times out of ten, and it’s never the truth. The tenth answer is usually not true either. “I love to cook.” “I don’t know how to cook.” “I can only afford fast food.” “I have the fat gene.” These are excuses, not reasons, as I mentioned in the introduction. In fact, unless someone starts their answer with “My whole family was killed by a drunk driver” (which someone actually did), I assume they’re not telling me the real reason.