Ann Taylor

I should clarify, I agree that Olga looks to be about the same size as she was at the start. I didn't express it well but what I meant is that Olga used to be the smaller twin and now Olivia has lost so much weight, Olga is much larger by comparison. So one might expect there to be some kind of big change in their dynamic, and Olivia might rebel against Olga's authoritative attitude towards her, or Olga might begin to feel anger towards Olivia for surpassing her with the weight loss. Maybe I'm projecting my feelings onto them, but it seems like that would be a huge game-changer in a relationship that was as close as theirs, and seemed like a kind of symbiotic relationship. Olivia needed Olga's protection and Olga's life was about protecting Olivia. Does Olga have her own family outside her family of origin? I had the impression she's single and lived with Olivia and her mother while the mother was alive. So much seemed to be missing from Olivia's segment. Olga was, to me, conspicuously missing during the end of the original episode and the first follow-up. I do remember Olivia mentioning in the original episode when she had lost enough weight that she was smaller than Olga. It took me by surprise that Olivia accepted Olga's advice so readily, when Olga is obviously far from having it together in the healthy eating department. I felt that Dr. Now was really harsh with Olivia. He did do the x-rays but there could have been legitimate reasons for Olivia to be in pain that wouldn't show up on x-ray. I get where he was coming from about the slippery slope to weight gain, and he didn't want Olivia to backslide after doing so well. But he was really dismissive of her pain and what she had to say, I don't blame her for being angry at the time. I also wonder how her pain was resolved, because I don't think it was all about making excuses. And the allusion to her possibly developing an addiction to pills, without any kind of explanation, was frustrating.

I worry for Savannah and to some extent I was thinking that Paula should focus more on her daughter than on her motivational speaking. But I'm not sure that would necessarily be productive. If she's not paying enough attention to her daughter because she's so involved with speaking engagements, that's one thing, but we don't know that this is the case. And it's not so easy to control what your preteen or young teen eats. Paula rightly pointed out that she hasn't been the best role model. It goes against everything we think a mother should do, but she did need to focus on herself before she could hope to really help her daughter. Now that she's come a long way to getting her own house in order, she's in a better position to help Savannah. It is bad that Savannah gained so much weight while her mother was losing. I also don't always watch that closely, and didn't see the large pan of bacon Paula cooked. Since it's only been in the last year that three of her four kids have left home, I wonder if she's still in the pattern of cooking for five. That has to change. It's a hard thing though, to get your obese child to eat healthfully without becoming the nagging parent that gets tuned out. Paula has to tread carefully lest she make Savannah feel ashamed of herself. An overweight child will rebel against parental nagging and at Savannah's age will find a way to get the food she craves. Paula has to make up for the years of modeling all the wrong habits, and she is trying to engage Savannah in a positive way. At the end of the episode she did say that Savannah had lost a little weight--it may not be a lot of progress, but it's something. It's amazing to see how wonderfully Christina has done, notwithstanding all her difficulties. It took a long time for her to turn the corner, but all the resources that were given to her were finally put to excellent use. She made tremendous life changes in a short period of time. I see that her mother looks to have lost quite a bit of weight as well. I'm not surprised that Christina is struggling. She's what, 24 years old and she's lost a staggering 508 lbs. That's three average-sized adult men! Christina's anorexia wasn't mental illness. It was an understandable over-reaction in her efforts to find the path to sustained weight loss. Only somebody who's been there could truly understand what a feat this must be, psychologically. Realistically, she is going to struggle for the rest of her life and I hope she keeps on getting help. Look at Melissa, ten years out and she still says she sees the 600 lb. woman. They all will see that person for the rest of their lives, and they need to see that in order to keep within a reasonable weight. Christina will always have to watch what she eats far more carefully than the average person. It's now known that once you've been obese (never mind super-morbidly obese), your metabolism changes and you need to eat about 10% fewer calories to maintain your weight than somebody who's never been obese. It's hardly fair to think of her as being self-destructive because she hasn't found the right balance yet. She'll always have to watch for that balance or else she'll become obese again. At some point she'll want to have children and that can be a slippery weight slope for any woman, never mind somebody with her history. She needs therapy, but ironically I don't think it's so much because of mental health issues as for support and guidance in how to maintain her weight in a healthy range, in a healthy way, over the long haul. This is going to be a heroic task. At least she has a chance now, though.

Hi, newbie here, but I've been reading off and on for awhile. Zsalynn was one of my favourites and I'm glad to see that she continues to make progress. She was wise to seek out a true plastic surgeon to do her skin surgery. One thing I noticed right away was that when he closed her wound he did subcuticular stitching as any good plastic surgeon would. Dr. Now seems to close his wounds with baseball-type sutures that will not leave as good a scar. I could see both sides of the "numbers" issue. I liked Dr. Now's analogy about the number on the scale being like looking at the balance in your bank account. He's right that Zsalynn has (understandably) major issues about her weight being her identity and the number on the scale being symbolic of that. (Somehow, I think he has some help with these psychological formulations.) But at the same time, somebody like Zsalynn may need to break free of the numbers in order to break that pattern. It's kind of the obverse of anorexics being told that they need to take emphasis off the scale in order to heal. But it is true, eventually Zsalynn is going to have to make peace with the scale in order to continue losing and keeping the weight off, or else she needs to discover another way of checking her weight loss progress, which could be how her jeans fit her. In another vein, dwelling on the numbers issue functioned as an "excuse" for Zsalynn to seek another surgeon for her skin surgery, since they can't very well have her say that she thinks another surgeon just might do a better job than Dr. Now. Olivia is also doing well, but I think there was a lot there that we didn't see. I'd like to see the supersized version of this episode. I think there's some not-so-good dynamic going on with her and her twin sister. It alarms me that the sister is now so much larger than Olivia. I can't help but wonder how she can talk to Olivia about eating the wrong things when she's so heavy. And I can't help but think she must be envious of Olivia's success. I wonder why she doesn't seek help for herself.