Extreme Makover: Weight Loss Edition. New Series Premiere Inspires

Last Monday the series premiere of Extreme Makeover: Weight-Loss Edition really caught my eye. There's something I have always liked about catching the first episode of a new series. Even if it sucks, it seems historical to me. Plus, the topic of the show really caught my eye. The premise behind the show is a trainer, Chris Powell, follows an obese person throughout a year as they lose major weight. Although the time period is over a year, the show is compacted into an hour.

Compared to Biggest Loser, I really like to see the difference in the person within the same episode because I am not going to follow a show like Biggest Loser religiously. The first contestant was a 21-year-old woman named Rachel. Suprisingly, she is a grade school PE teacher. That has got to be embarrasing. She was trying to instruct her students how to do jumping jacks but all she could do was raise her arms most the way. If I was a kid, I wouldn't really listen to a PE instructor that was that obese. But if I look back on it, most of my PE teachers were definitely overweight - actually all of them.

So, once the Powell surprises Rachel at her job, they head off to the California Health & Longevity Institute. The facility shows you how to cook, exercise, and become healthier essentially. The first weigh-in they don't even have a scale for it. So, powell makes her step on a freight scale. Rachel was holding some emotions back when they told her that. It was interesting to hear her reaction after the weigh-in. She made a comment about being too big for The Biggest Loser.

What Powell  does it breaks it up into three different goals for each of the weigh-ins. She intially told her 55 pounds by the first 3 month weigh-in, and then 35. She meets the first weigh-in goal at exactly 55 pounds. Each goal she meets she is given a prize. The second weigh-in she misses the 35 pounds and only loses 3! I was shocked 3 pounds in 3 months?! I didn't even see it coming. It was almost comforting in a way though because it seems like these weight loss shows live on some magical plane where no one has failures - ie everyone loses a lot of weight quickly. The goal was that she would get skin loss surgery but she got it anyway even though she missed her goal.

I love the format of following someone for an entire year. I also love that the person is expected to lose the weight in their own environment. Powell says that you need to learn to be healthy in the same environment that you learned to become overweight.

Rachel by the end of the show has everyone there for her final weight in. She loses hundreds of pounds from 365 to 161. It really was an awesome moment.

This is an extreme makeover and I wouldn't be able to afford skin reduction surgery. I still would rather lose it slow and steady. That way I may not need any surgery allowing my body to adjust to its new weight gradually, and so I can learn the habits over a long period of time. Nothing was more disappointing to see the chapmpion of the Biggest Loser regain ALL of his weight the year after.

So, here's to slow and steady.

Watch the episode here.

Self Image - The source of a lot of emotional eating.

Anyone who has every been overweight has let themselves become a victim of the emotional eating circle. It starts off with a large meal because you don't like what you see in the mirror. Then you feel more intense emotions for letting yourself eat the fatty meal. Some of those emotions include guilt, self-loathing, and hopelessness. These emotions then take you back to step one and you keep eating even worse meals for you. 


The idea of self image is really one of self esteem. How to see yourself in a positive light is the idea behind high self esteem. Jack Canfield, author of "Chicken Soup for the Soul", describes self esteem boiling down to two basic ideas. One is the idea of being capable and the other is being lovable? If you can see the all ideas with self esteem being from these miscommunication with yourself, it can be easier to rectify the situation.


As an overweight person, I know from experience that it is very had to consider myself lovable and capable. The evidence is all around me. I noticed that girls almost cringe when they think about me. I feel out of place when I am with my family because it seems there are no reasons to love me. I have been struggling so long to find work that will pay all of my bills, it has made me feel from being capable of even providing for myself.


I don't really have any awesome solutions for the idea, but at least I have a good idea where to start.


"Work harder on yourself than you do on your job"
Jim Rohn