Aaaand, the headline shouts...

FORMER "BIGGEST LOSER" CONTESTANT BEING SUED OVER WEIGHT GAIN

All right, I shouted the headline with all caps too. Bad writer, bad, bad writer (slap). I've never been a fan of "reality" television shows since they have been gained a stronghold in American pop culture by exploiting what is inherent in every single one of us who is a member of the genus and subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens: character defects. None of us have been spared from having these, in fact, I say that it our journey in life to discover what they are and, over a lifetime, dispell them by any means necessary. It's hubris for some people to think that they are the fortunate ones who are inhumanly perfect, and have the indisputable right to judge, ridicule and cast aspersions on the hapless lots baring their personality warts before millions of people. Yes, it's so easy to do from the comfort of one's living room couch. I haven't been a fan since the first season of MTV's "The Real World" aired, which I watched with my then teenaged children. After two seasons, I started going back to my bedroom for my beloved reading time, which my children interrupted with "Real World" updates during commercials. But that was enough for me. Little did I know that the barometer of "reality" shows was about to dip far below what I consider the lowest point on the debauchery scale. And even worse, people would eagerly sign up to be humilitated in front of their peers on a weekly basis. I'm sure money has a lot to do with it. During an economic downturn, people become willing to do anything, a point that I feel was very aptly made in the Sydney Pollack disturbing 1969 movie, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Altough it is not a reality show, it demonstrates how hopeless people can be easily manipulated into debasing themselves for the entertainment of others.

Now, I don't know if "Biggest Loser" star Tara Costa was hopeless when she joined the reality show cast.  Moreover, I don't know if the producers consider their show to be debasing. I wouldn't know; I've never watched it and I never will. However several media sources have been reporting that Ms. Costa apparently lost a lot of weight and, as that infamous web site TMZ  has declared, "...if re-gaining a bunch of weight wasn't bad enough, former "Biggest Loser" star Tara Costa is now being SUED for porking up again." Porking up, huh? Yeah, that's really clever "journalism", folks. (Don't get me started on the current state of my once beloved profession; that's a topic for a different blog.)  However, if Ms. Costa is a person like me, a food addict, then it was only a matter of time before the pounds would start coming back on. In fact, it won't matter how many Iron Man triathalons she runs, how many laps she swims or miles she cycles--it will never be enough to stop IF she has what I call "The Beast" pounding away at the sensible parts of her brain like I do. Furthermore, I don't know her and I can't rightfully refer to her as a food addict like me. Now, for the logical question: what is a food addict? I can waste a lot of time describing what it is, but Dr. William D. Silkworth, author of the article "The Doctor's Opinion" that is included in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous", does a much better job of describing the addiction process than I can:  

We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.

 Now, if you substitute the words "flour, sugar and excess portions of food"  for "alcohol", and "food addicts" for "alcoholics", the meaning and implication of the above quotation will make more sense. Hence: "...the action of flour, sugar and excess portions of food on these chronic food addicts is a manifestation of an allergy: that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate eater."

What does that mean? For the food addict, eating flour, sugar, and excess portions of food creates this disturbance in the brain in which the addict keeps eating, and eating, and eating, even when the actual physical hunger has long ceased, and the stomach is so packed with food that it becomes painfully distended. Now, normal eaters do this from time to time during special occasions such as holidays, birthday, wedding and retirement parties, travel cruises...many people do "I can't believe I ate the WHOLE THING" scenario at different times in life. Dr. Silkworth would call those people "temperate eaters". But chronic food addicts do this kind of eating on a daily basis, even when they are watching themselves go back for more, and a part of their conscious minds screams out, "NO! What are you doing? You're going to eat yourself to death; you can't possibly fit anymore food in your stomach!" Yet, to their own horror, he or she fills up another plate, or stands at the refrigerator or stove eating out of cartons, containers or pots and pans until passing out, much like an alcoholic does. This uncontrollable behavior is the result of what Dr. Silkworth describes as "the phenomenon of craving":

I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. I have had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date, favorably to them. They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the important appointment was not met. These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.
There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight. (From the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, "The Doctor's Opinion")

How many times has a person who is fat/obese or morbidly obese been told to "have some will power" or "self discipline"? Or, "I know the PERFECT diet for you; my cousin/best friend/coworker lost 85 pounds in three months!" And the overweight person tries these methods, and sometimes they work--for a short period of time. They lose 85 pounds, then to their dismay, gain 100 pounds back within six months or a year. What happened? Didn't they follow the dieting instructions and use all kinds of mental discipline to prevent that weight gain? Do they like being fat? All it takes is some will power; what kind of weak-willed "loser" goes through all that trouble to take off the weight, then gains it all back? What's going on here? Why can't they lose the weight and KEEP it off?

And, how many times has someone with a binge/purge disorder ate until they were in extreme pain, then "got rid" of the food through vomiting or laxatives or excess exercise (and in some cases, all three methods) because they KNEW they couldn't stop eating and dieting didn't work for them? They do this in spite of the fact that purging throws the body into extreme disarray, causing a multitude of potential health problems. Not to mention that purging really isn't an effective method of weight loss or maintenance.

IF Ms. Costa is a food addict or has a binge/purge eating disorder, I feel very badly for her. Unlike her, people with serious food issues can recover within the safety of a 12 step program's anonymity, and they don't have to go through the added stress and anxiety of people whose motives were to capitalize on her reality show popularity for their businesses. Sure, sure, she was a willing participant and received a considerable amount of money by signing that contract. However, IF she is addicted to food and had no awareness of that, there was no way she could have predicted her inevitable weight gain and, as many food addicts have experienced, the unraveling of everything she had worked so hard to create for herself in her life. Gaining weight is miserable enough, but to also watch helpless misery as your life spins out of control and all the commitments and promises you have made to yourself and others go unfulfilled? Nightmarish. On top of all that, the various news outlets have been reporting and broadcasting statements made by chief executive officer of FC Online Marketing Michael Parrella, which probably feels like someone pouring a salt and vinegar mixture into a gaping chest wound.  I'm sure Mr. Parrella doesn't understand anything about food addiction or eating disorders. Even if he did, he probably wouldn't care. Just like the manager who fires the alcoholic/coke addict after repeated warnings to "get it together", his concern is the solvency of his business. And that is as it should be.

I can't help but wonder that if Ms. Costa or Mr. Parella had received some information about the devastating physical, mental and emotional effects food addiction and eating disorders can have on a person's life,  that this situation could have turned out differently. Perhaps none of this would have been hashed out in the public; both parties could have met and discussed the issues involved, agreed that Ms. Costa would need some additional support, and resolved everything without the public airing of legal dirty laundry.  But that doesn't satisfy the public's hunger for titillating gossip and scandals, does it? I mean, who needs to shoot horses when the entire world can read about the details of your professional and personal life crashing down around you with impunity?

Angela in OA

PHOTO: I'm at Bosch Baha'i School with the Rancho Cordova Baha'i community, about six months before I entered food addiction recovery. I may have weighed more than 306 pounds, from the way I look in this picture.

I can’t recall the exact month or day that this happened, but I know the season and the year—it was late winter, 1987 that I entered the rooms of Overeater’s Anonymous and stayed for a while. (For those of who are familiar with the traditions of 12 step programs, please be assured that I am not breaking my anonymity by revealing this because I am no longer a member of OA.) I had attempted to attend the meeting a few years before, but I wasn’t ready.

The entire experience seemed completely surreal to me, from the circle in which people sitting to the way they said “My name is Janice (or Susan or Betty) and I’m a compulsive overeater.” Why did they do that? And why the rest of the group keep saying “Hi, Janice (or Susan or Betty)” in response? Then there was what felt to me to be an interminable silence following the short testimony given by Janice (or Susan or Betty), which was quite uncomfortable to me. The silence lasted until another person raised her hand, and I felt like I could breathe again. I was hoping they didn’t want me to say anything because I had no clue what was going on. Besides, nothing I heard seemed to relate to the reasons I came to OA in the first place, which were: a) I wanted to lose weight and, for the first time in my adult life, live in a normal sized body; b) stop my then-husband from sleeping with other women by losing weight, since he told me that was the reason why he did it.

An aside pertaining to the letter “b” in the previous paragraph: I know this is a hot topic with many women, and I promise it will be the subject of another blog when I get enough serenity in my recovery to stop referring to my ex-husband as a “piss-colored bastard” and many other “choice” monikers that I have retained for him over the past 20 years.

Every single word coming out of the mouths of those OA members were incomprehensible abstractions to me. When it was over, I decided to ask a few of them some burning questions: “What is abstinence? Does it mean you just stop eating completely?” (The thought of that kind of abstaining from my best friend and lover, was terrifying to me.) The ladies smiled graciously and told me that the OA program suggested that they eat three moderate meals a day with nothing in between, avoiding white flour and sugar. Since I was well over 350 pounds at the time this made no sense to me. Did that mean that I could eat as four huge slabs of thick crust pizza for lunch and a plate filled with macaroni and cheese for dinner, as long as those items were made whole grain wheat? Yes, they responded. OA does not endorse any food plan, and what you eat is between you and your Higher Power. I liked that concept because it seemed to me that I would get to continue eating the foods I loved and still lose weight. If that program could do that for me, I was all for it. Eating whatever I wanted, even though it was supposed to be in moderation, seemed heavenly to me.

But the skeptic in me wasn’t convinced, so I asked them, “Is that how you all lost weight?” Again, they smiled. “Yes, that is part of it, but the program also promise release from the pain.” Inwardly, I scowled. What pain? What are you chicks TALKING about? But that’s not what I said out loud. “So what you are telling me is that if I eat three moderate meals a day with nothing in between, I will lose weight.” “You will, if you keep coming back. It works.” Well, none of them were particularly large; in fact, one lady looked down right skinny to me. Even more importantly, she told me lost eighty pounds by doing the three-moderate-meals-a-day-with-nothing-in-between deal, and kept it off for five years. That impressed me somewhat. I had reservations about whether I could do the same because I had a lot more than eighty pounds to lose. But for the first time in my life, I had some hope about what to do about the most difficult issue in my life, which was my weight. An idea was planted in my mind about recovery from OBESITY (versus compulsive overeating or food addiction), which was that I could lose the weight and eat whatever I wanted as long as it was limited to three moderate meals a day.

After all, as OA explained to me, my food plan was between me and my Higher Power, who is certainly powerful enough to change my body chemistry so that I would experience miraculous weight loss on that food plan. I was going to slide into home base, free and easy. Since I didn’t hear any objections from the heavenly realm, I proceeded to define moderation as a large dinner platter or bowl heaping with whole grain pastas and/or breads and cereal products with sauces, protein and fats. And I could have dessert, as long as it was made with whole grain flours and natural sweeteners, like honey, raw sugar, agave nectar, brown rice syrup or molasses.

Wow, where was Overeater’s Anonymous when I was suffering through that contemptible Armed Forces Diet! I would have been saved from all that agony! OA was, indeed, a miraculous program. The prospect of being able to lose weight without going through the horrible deprivation, mood swings and stomach growls, not to mention being able to eat food that actually tasted good, was extremely appealing to me.

“I lost weight WITHOUT dieting!” I heard some of the ladies in OA enthusiastically proclaim that, year after year. I believed them; they were living proof. But there was something very faulty about the way I translated those words while applying them to working my program. So I ate my three large feasts a day with nothing in between, avoided all refined white flour and sugar, went to Overeater’s Anonymous meetings faithfully each week, and waited for the miracle to happen.

To my dismay, I gained more weight. My body became overwhelmed with the very serious health consequences of carrying over 200 pounds of excess weight. After while, I could no longer work because walking for more than two feet at a time caused daggers of pain to sear through my lower back and left hip. I became wheelchair bound and mostly dependent of my family to get me around town for shopping and medical appointments. I came to realize that the three meals-a-day-without-anything-in-between and eating unrefined sugar and flour was not working for me. But what else could I do? I had tried everything, Weight Watchers, hypnotherapy, protein diets, liquid fasts, Nutri-System….you name it; I’ve done it. I even had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery in 2002. That did work for a little while. But I began re-gaining the weight after I was one year out of the surgery. At that point, I became severely clinically depressed and placed on very strong anti-depressants under the care of a psychiatrist.

Another aside: My unofficial pre-gastric bypass weight is 400 lbs, which I can't statistically verify. At the time, I refused to get on a scale, and most bathroom scales didn't register weights over 300 lbs anyway. However, I was massive enough to bust the zipper on a pair of size 54 waist jeans, which I paid big dollars for from Irene's Sport Shop on Arden Way, Sacramento. Irene's is a specialty clothing store for large women that carries up to a size 8x. I wore a size 5x, and I was still attending OA meetings during this time. When I entered Kaiser Permanente's gastric bypass program a year later, I had lost about 30 lbs through CEA-HOW, which was another 12 step for people with food issues. In order to qualify for gastric bypass surgery, I had to lose another 10% of my body weight, so I went a strict vegan diet and lost 30 pounds. I weighed 331 pounds on the morning of my surgery, which July 11, 2002. My lowest post-operative weight was 235. I entered my current recovery program in October, 2007 weighing 306 pounds. I now weigh 183 pounds.

It has been one hell of a journey, but I’m no longer on that road spiraling downward. I'm now working a 12 Step program that addresses my particular brand of total insanity around food. I thank Overeater’s Anonymous for introducing me to the 12 Steps, but I am too far gone to work a loosely structured program like that. It works for some who don’t have the completely bizarre mental twists that seem to justify destructive eating behaviors, like filling up a dinner platter to an overflowing capacity and considering that mountain of food a “moderate” meal. And I thought I would lose weight by eating that way! Only an insane person would hold onto such delusional thoughts.

There are a lot of people like me who live every day of their lives in the same kind of delusions. They are FOOD ADDICTS.

Hi, my name is Angela, and I am a low-bottom, gutter level food addict.

5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won't)

If 80s movies taught us anything, it's that at some point you're going to run into a mysterious relic that lets you switch bodies with other people.Would you use it? Would you choose to switch lives with, say, Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie or Dale DeBone? Most people would.

read more | digg story

The PC thing to say would be (of course) "No, I don't want any of those things. I want world peace and goodwill toward all men (and women). Money doesn't make you happy, it certainly doesn't buy you love; power corrupts; beauty is only skin deep; and geniuses are too weird to tolerate."

And if you really believe that, you are one of the ascended masters of the spiritual realm sent here to demonstrate to the rest of us superficial humans how to tread the narrow path to bliss. Come on now. Kill your denial.

I'm willing to admit that I have felt that money and beauty (more specifically, a beautiful body, muscular and curvy like Tina Turner back in the "What's Love Got to Do With It?" days), would make me extremely happy. And I wasted a lot of time in my life believing that. Well, I can use more money (can't everyone), but I would be considered very rich if I lived in Nigeria, or the Philippines, or Brazil. That's little solace when my light bill is now due, but it is a different way of viewing life on earth.

And about having a Tina Turner circa 1980s body--even Tina doesn't have that body anymore. That was over twenty years ago! Besides, I have gained and lost so much weight over the years that I have folds on top of folds of hanging skin. Just call me "Baggy Saggy Baby". And stretch marks? Five generations of 'em. Only extensive plastic and reconstructive surgery would give me that lean Tina look. And even if I got it, then what? According to the cracked.com article, I would still find no solace in life. I might as well enjoy my every-widening circle of friends, practice altruism, and remain faithful to the tenets of the Baha'i Faith because that is what will truly make me happy. I can live with that.

Oprah's Weight Gain

Food addiction. Plain and simple. It doesn't matter how much money you make, how much you exercise, how many fitness coaches and chefs you have...they aren't there when you put a little bit of this and a little bit of that in your mouth, then wonder why you gain five pounds in a week. The food addicted mind conveniently forgets all those little bits, and eats healthy in front of the world. How do I know? Been there, done that. I don't have Oprah's money, chefs or fitness coaches, but I've had plenty of dieting experience and programs, psycho and hypnotherapy, New-Age healing, the strongest anti-depressant medication prescribed for clinical depression (and one side effect is noticeably decreased appetite, which never took place), AND Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery in 2002. And I still gained weight. I can't openly talk about what HAS worked for me (but I can if you email me at the address listed in my profile), but I can say that I know what Oprah has been going through. And I hope she finds the solution I've found.