CarolMK

Lawson seems to be a nice, hard-working guy, bur in my opinion, he's not going to make it as a singer. I'm not an expert on country music, but I would have to say that I think Amy Duggar did a better job with her singing than Lawson did. When that female singer joined him, there was no comparison, she was head and shoulders much better than he was. I liked the garden idea. The only thing I'm wondering is if they started this in the fall, will they have enough time to grow all those vegetables before winter? Tennessee gets pretty cold and the growing season is probably over by mid-November.

Like others have said upthread, most of them should probably be getting therapy to find out why they ate themselves up into the 600 lb range. Most of them probably have either depression or are a victim of some type of trauma. It's probably safe to say that most of them are food addicts. One lady, I think Zsalynn, was shown going to a therapist but I don't think anyone else has on the show.

I'm happy to see here that many have had success using a Fitbit. I got one for Christmas from my hubby, set it up 3 weeks ago, and am loving it. I found it pretty easy to get to 10,000 steps a day so my goal is to be between 12,000- 15,000. I was actually surprised to find out that I'm burning about 2600 calories a day, and since I started to monitor all of my calorie intake, I've had only one day in the 2200 range..usualy I'm around 1850-2000. That said, I originally lost a lot of weight on Weight Watchers during 2008-2009...from 228 down to 145. I'm 5'5, age 51 and felt great..but I got tired of counting points, and paying for meetings every time I gained 2 lbs. so I just stopped that program. Now I find the Fitbit to be much easier than tracking Points, which I'm sure wasn't very accurate anyway. I have a Weight Watchers scale too which really comes in handy. So far I think I'm down about 3 lbs and need to lose about 50 more, but I'm trying to focus more on activity this time around than the numbers on the scale. If it takes me a year or more, I can live with that, it took me 2 full years to lose the 83 lbs before when I was in my 40's.

Wow. His first wife murdered by her daughter? I have no words. Was she Chuck's daughter as well and is she currently in jail? I read the link but I'm still confused about the ages..his first wife was 53 back in 2006, and the daughter was 34. Chuck was 45 in his original episode, making him 46-47 now? So he was originally married to a woman approximately 15 years older than himself? In regards to Nissa, she wasn't in the episode and I was surprised to see that she had filed for divorce almost immediately following the one year anniversary of his weight loss surgery. In Chuck's original episode, I believe Nissa had her weight loss surgery about 4-6 months after he did and she had lost 90 lbs. putting her at around 218 at the end of the episode. I hope Chuck's third marriage goes well, but I have a feeling Erica is taking on a lot with him. I hope she can handle him

I don't think it was mentioned on the show, but on Whitney's blog she had mentioned that she used to be bulimic. This could explain why she was a relatively normal weight until college. I'm assuming she stopped the bulimia but she continued to overeat. She blames the PCOS, but as many have confirmed here, that alone is not the reason she gained weight until she reached 380 lbs. Anybody in that weight range has some type of food addiction whether it's bingeing, chronic overeating or bulimia. Even with her dance classes, she must be eating twice the amount of food that a normal person eats (4000 calories per day vs. 2000) to stay at that weight.

I re-watched Chuck's original show last night, and one thing they didn't address is how/why his first wife was murdered. No follow up, if they found out who did it, why? He just said after she died he went from 300 to 700 lbs...apparently shed was murdered in Nov 2006. Not sure how long after that when he married Nissa, but the show stated she had filed for divorce halfway through the year after 3 years. She came back towards the end, said she was proud of him, but yet a month later she left him again and was finalizing the divorce? I wonder what happened there. Maybe Chuck lost all custody because he was either deemed to be an unfit parent, or she had filed charges of abuse against him (I know we only saw him yelling at her, but I wonder if it was possible at some point that he got angry and hit her). Also, he wasn't working in his business intitially so maybe he withdrew his parental rights in order to remove his obligation to pay child support. Too much after Chuck was left unsaid, I thought Paula looked great at the end. She didn't appear to address her issues with her mother, at least on camera, so I'm glad they did seem to have a nice visit. I'm rooting for her to continue to do well.

I think both Babs and her husband are in their 60's. She does sound "older" than most women her age, imo. I did crack up when she was telling Whitney how much she liked Buddy. It's also amusing to see Penny calling her "Mommy" , I was reduced to "Mom" by the time my kids were 7 and 10 years old.

You can follow Whitney Way Thore on Facebook if you like and you can comment on her page. I decided to follow her but I didn't want to add her as a friend. I'm not a super fan so I doubt that I'll comment on her page.

I looked at Penny's FB page too. I don't know how old she is, but they celebrated Edgar's 50th birthday last fall. I wonder if this poor man will be able to take care of bedridden Penny for another 10 years or if he'll pass away before she does. Their poor son could very well lose both his parents before he turns 18.

Whitney should be seeing a doctor as well as a personal trainer. If she continues to gain, she'll easily end up around 500 lbs and at that weight her mobility will start to be limited. She will likely have trouble keeping up with her dance classes and as shown last night, she might not fit into her car. She really needs a plan to lose 100 lbs if that's what she wants to do. Maybe getting a Fitbit or some other tracking device would be helpful to show how many steps she taking, calories burned, and if she follows the online menu input for the day, she'll see in real numbers how much she's eating and how many calories she's burning. I think she's blaming the PCOS for her weight gain without assuming responsibility for her diet. Even the personal trainer mentioned the "knife, fork and spoon" contributed to her weight gain. In addition to a personal trainer and doctor/nutritionist, I wonder if maybe a therapist is also in order. I've read she's had bulimia in the past. How did she get over it, and is she still eating the same amount of food as before, and it showed up in her tremendous weight gain because she's still eating a huge amount of food but no longer purging?

I loved Kelly's mom and sisters (and the fabulous house!). Her mom mentioned she has a total of 33 grandchildren, but her adopted sister has just the one...does Kelly have any other siblings or does her one sister that looks and sounds just like her have 13 kids? Happy for Erin and Chad. It's what they really wanted so I'm glad it worked out. It was nice to see Michaela at her job with the little kids. I notice that she can't wait for her wedding so I think an engagement will be announced very soon. The middle kids are funny in terms of showing their personalities. I enjoy watching them. And the little ones..are you well behaved? What;s that? ROFL!

If something happened to Edgar where he could no longer take care of Penny, what are her options other than being placed in a nursing home? If she stays alive, at some point he won't be able to do the physical task of caretaking, and hopefully Liam will grow up and leave that disaster of a home so he won't be stuck in that role of caregiver. I'd like to see Penny try to order around a nursing staff the way she does Edgar. The staff has other patients to care fo and they would not be able to cater to all of her whims the minute she wants something.

I'm guessing that to be a surgeon willing to take on the risks involved, he's not doing it strictly for the money. He really seems to genuinely care about his patients. He knows that some of these people have a high risk of dying either during surgery or shortly thereafter (one show on either TLC or Discovery channel showed a 900 lb mom who had weight loss surgery but died of complications a month later). Insurance aside, he is being paid by the show to complete these surgeries. Some of his patients appear to be low income and likely on Medicaid. The Medicaid reimbursement rates aren't very high.

I'm wondering now if the possible threat of Liam being removed from the home would be enough of a wake up call for Penny to change her ways.

The real loser in the Penny story is going to be Liam. Unless she manages to live for another 10 years or so, he'll still be a minor when she passes away. Isn't he 7 years old now? And her husband will have been unemployed for who knows how many years by that time...maybe he could get a job as a caretaker for somebody else, but I wonder if he's actually had medical training to do so. Judging by how dirty their condo and her bed is, I think he hasn't. I wonder if somehow Liam's school could get involved, since this is not at all a healthy situation for a growing child. I've seen hoarders lose custody of their kids, how is this any different?

It is interesting to me that the Duggar family has now tried many things that the Bates family did first. The Bates were the first to have their kids be first responders, so the Duggars followed. Then the Bates enrolled some of their kids in Crown college, so now the Duggars have decided it's okay for them as well. I wonder if the Duggars are ever going to admit that they allow "dating with a purpose" rather than courting and if their kids will be allowed to "follow their own rules in their own house" once they marry and leave. One other cue they the Duggars could take from the Bates is that some of their kids do indeed have outside jobs (Michaela is a nanny, Lawson works at landscaping) and it won't kill them to have a boss who does not hold the exact same beliefs as them. I'm sure Erin's husband Chad has a boss at the metal factory who very well might not be a practicing Gothardite.

Something I'm not quite sure of yet....what will the focus of this show be? Whitney's life and how it involves dance? Her desire to lose weight and what she plans to do about it? A thorough explanation of PCOS and how it's treated/managed? She does seem to say over and over again, that "if I'm not actively losing, then I'm pretty much just gaining because of the PCOS"....there must be something more to the story than that. Also, what about her plans for the future and becoming independant again?

As repulsive as it was to watch Penny and her bullshit, I think it's a good idea that the second half of her story was shown...this way, at least people who may be in a situation like hers will see that if you don't put any effort into cooperating, then you won't lose weight and will be no better off than before. I do agree that Penny is mentally ill, possibly her husband is as well. Penny doesn't want to change. she seems to enjoy being sick and bedridden in a way most of us can't understand. I loved Tara. So happy that she met her goals and found a nice man to marry. She was so motivated, I kept cheering for her every time I saw her. In the future, I do wonder if she'll consider some skin removal surgery on her upper arms and thighs, it would help with her movement and with clothes fitting properly. For those who mentioned she looks heavier than she is, probably the excess skin that's still there is to blame for that. But when you compare it to pictures of when she was 606 lbs, she looks so much better that it's amazing.

I re-watched Christina's original episode and I can't quite figure out how she got to around 700 lbs at age 22 either. In the opening, she mentioned that her parents were always "arguing and fighting" and she felt that she had to protect her little brother and sister. Yet the entire family, including Grandma, moved from Mississippi to Houston for Christina to have this surgery. I had thought maybe there was abuse in her background...but honestly I thought her father was very supportive, encouraging her to go for walks, etc. I do think Christina married very young since she had mentioned her mother and husband were taking care of her for 2 years before her surgery. I wonder if it was severe depression on her part that caused her to gain so much weight, and in the beginning, certainly her mom and husband were not helping at all.

I read some of Whitney's blog and also saw her on Facebook and decided to follow her, not friend her. Was she an English teacher over in Korea for a few years and then after the job ended, she came back home to do her radio show and now tv show? Also, it looks like she was engaged to be married when she was 22. I guess that relationship didn't work out.

For a family the size of the Bates, it's much more expensive to eat frozen dinners than it is to make meals from scratch. I don't know if they serve frozen lasagna the way the Duggars seem to do, but even with a large family, making spaghetti and meatballs , roast chickens, or a large pan of either sausage and peppers or kielbasi and cabbage aren't expensive and are easy to cook. Even bagged baby carrots are relatively cheap and whole heads of cabbage and broccoli/cauliflower are really cheap in the fall here in NJ. Kelly is only a couple of years younger than I am, and I don't remember much in the way of frozen dinners except for the Swanson tv dinners, and they were single servings, not much to those. My English grandmother lived with us and she made dinners like chicken and dumplings , beef stew, shepherd's pie and meatballs from scratch...all of which I make for my own family, each recipe takes about 30 minutes of prep time...even doubled to serve 12, it wouldn't require that much more time to prepare.

Whitney actually reminds me a bit of a woman named Ruby who had her own tv show a few years ago, though Ruby was older (mid-40s), had 2 roommates and started off about 500 lbs. She has a similar personality, though Ruby played the southern belle role , being from Savannah. Ruby's whole focus on her show was to lose weight and get fit but when she wasn't successful after about 2 years, her show was cancelled, though she did manage to lose about 150 lbs from what I recall. That show was on the Style network and actually had fairly high ratings the first year.

I'm trying to figure out why Sheila still wants to be married to Frank. Didn't she do it just to adopt those native american kids, which ended up not working out? Maybe Sheila can't handle being alone, which is why she went for Jodi previously. And Sami and her son are just flat out annoying. Very surprised to see all the organ recipients show up. The scene with Mandy, gay friend, and bigoted minister was truly hilarious. Hopefully Fiona's boss has made it clear to her to stop coming on to him. Isn't he twice her age anyway? Wonder how long Carl is going to be in the wheelchair. He does still look pretty young compared to Debbie.

Yes, I too shed a tear when I thought Louis had to leave. Thank goodness he wasn't gone more than a few seconds. Also, I was wondering what did Bertha do to the social worker's house?

I think the reason for dieting prior to the surgery is that Dr. Now wants his patients to get an idea of what life will be like past surgery..they will have to stick to eating 3 times a day without snacking and also, need to resist the temptation to eat junk food. There was an update tonight on Rachel..she is the 39 year old widow who had 4 children and whose husband died at age 33, when he reached 600 lbs and was bedridden. Until Rachel went into therapy , she could not seem to change her habits of getting dinner at the drive through fast food places. Even if she wasn't "eating very much", she also wasn't losing very much either, only about 10-13 lbs a month until she talked to a therapist and got her head around the fact that she was in this for the long haul..she also joined a gym and starting working out with a fitness instructor. I have also seen where doctors want some weight loss before surgery because it loosens their skin to a certain degree and can make the surgery easier for the doctor to do and the recovery is also easier on the patient.