dahling

I sympathize and empathize with her struggle. It’s real and the finish line is never. However— I cannot take seriously a motivational speaker who cries this much.

Blue Hair: "I'm going to make Hummingbird Cake because it has the same spices as pecan pie." Me: "Pecan pie doesn't have spices. You're going home." Judges: "We love it!" Whatever.

It's not that sad.

Marissa must be 8 feet tall and built like a brick outhouse. I almost fell over at her initial weight-in of 500+ lbs. I was thinking in the neighborhood of 300.

Marissa called it "taco boats". And I don't think those were steaks, I think they were ground beef patties. Poor Jennifer has apparently lived her entire age at a developmental age of 5. Who cooked for her kids when they were little? It makes me sad. Her life is like a how-to manual for What Not To Do. I'm betting that shithole apartment in Houston was beyond anything she'd ever seen in Bend, Oregon. I would have cried, too.

We need to come to some kind of forum consensus on the correct spelling of intelligement. Intelligment? Intellijment? Also, proper usage of our new words. I think it's that knowledged is something you ARE while intelligement is something you HAVE. These are the things I'm left contemplating.

It was clearly, to my viewing, because they were having a hard time finding Section 8. I don't understand why they kept moving from motel to motel during the wait for an apartment. Let's not even get into the brilliant non-plan of "moving" to Houston without a place to live, AND knowing she hadn't done a damn thing to lose weight and had no intention of changing her eating habit. Maybe that's too much knowledge and intelligement for my limited intellect.

I'm still trying to figure out what Freddy does for two hours in the shower. Come to think of it, he's probably just hiding in the only place she can't come after him.

"I don't know how you're going to do it, momma, you just love your fruit." Right then I knew the daughter was in as much denial as the mother. Because that's how you eat yourself to 700 lbs: strawberries, watermelon and grapes. Or else they edited out her saying "loops". The nutritionist took away their vegetable oil. This just makes the whole profession look bad. No one ever used too much vegetable oil in their cooking to become 700 lbs either. Possibly the worst episode of this show, ever.

Well that was the weakest "uplifting" ending I've ever seen. Some people go on a date, some people go on an outdoor excursion, some people have a heart-to-heart with an overdramatic niece. And Karina doesn't have to sleep in the living room any more. God that sister was loathsome. If she was going to act like that, she should have just opted out of participating. Bitter, judgmental, obese, selfish, immature, hypocritical, hypercritical, and probably some more that's not rolling off my fingers right now. "But it was the LAST game." Oh hell, my parents live out of state and rarely if ever get to see my kids' events. It sounded like these grandparents were pretty involved in general, and she was pissed about them missing THE LAST GAME as though that means something. What was with the row of partially empty soda/alcohol bottles that seemed like a permanent fixture on the pony wall between the kitchen and living room?

HEB, a huge and amazing Texas grocery chain, has them. I even did a metabolic test with one of them for $35.

So that totally could have been (probably was) their mayonnaise. Alicia never looked or acted like she weighed 620 lbs. She took care of herself, walked, drove, shopped, etc. I thought maybe she was tall and that's why she didn't look that heavy, but then no, she's only 5'3? I am 5'6" and was on the verge of being disabled at 380 lbs. I don't know how she was doing it. Then she lost 150 lbs and still looked the same to me. Weird. No emotional payoff. It was a very flat episode.

A few things on rewatch: I still feel sorry for her during both plane episodes. The struggle, the pain, the panic, the public embarrassment, all of it. It took superhuman resolve for her to even attempt it once, let alone twice. How the hell is her blood pressure 140/88? A lot of healthy-sized people would give an eyetooth for that. Ok, the scene in the hospital where she can't stand up for the scale, then collapses back on the bed and thinks she's going to fall off, so she lays backwards, with her legs still dangling over the side. And Dr. Now just calmly continues the conversation while she lays there like a peeled banana. I guess he's seen everything because nothing phases him. He doesn't miss a beat.

It was Melissa. https://www.facebook.com/melissadawnmorris?fref=search

Speaking of all the people responsible for pushing her on/dragging her off the planes, I thought they were all remarkably kind to her. The worst she was treated during the whole show was the guy who yelled at her in SeaTac when she almost ran him over.

I noticed that, but I really think it was just the paint was worn off the edge of the toilet seat. The whole thing looked pretty abused: standard toilets aren't meant to bear 600+ lbs of weight. SIL did indeed seem very warm, caring, competent, and low drama. It's not her circus, not her monkeys, but I hope she was/is able to visit more often.

Who the hell is making her travel plans? There has to be a direct flight or 10 between Houston and Seattle. The niece is ready for her closeup now, Mr. DeMille. But seriously, way to make it all about you, girlie. This was depressing. Bah. It's really hard to maintain that position in that cramped space when you're that size. Those plane seats were more like a narrow ledge for her. She was probably straining the whole time not to fall off. I get it.

I'm not speaking medically, but as a former obese person (380 lbs). The body has to work very hard to supply a body that large with the oxygen it needs. I look back with embarrassment on videos I took at my highest weight because I can clearly hear myself panting from the exertion of standing up, and any of my spoken words are clipped due to the effort of breathing (silly me, I thought my fat was a secret when I was behind the camera because no one could see me). Being that heavy is hard on the body in every way, and breathing is no exception.

I guess Rena finally stopped whatever behavior that was driving him to hit her. Good for Rena. [/sarcasm]

Oh yes! Seriously, what was that? "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, EXCUSE ME!" I'm thinking she's going to say, "I'm reporting this to the police, Rena, you are coming with me to a shelter." Or something of life-changing import. But no, she busts out the total non-sequitur of people dying of family violence while they've been arguing. Um, what? I usually fast forward through the therapy sessions, because I have a cold, cold heart and I just don't care "why" they eat, but this story was engrossing enough that I decided to watch. Big mistake. Terrible therapist.

Even if Brittani never loses another pound, it doesn't matter: she has her life back. Good for her, she was a sweetie. I do think that her fat distribution is a little unfortunate, and nothing that can be done about it. Her face is looking skeletal and makes me sad and want to feed her a sandwich (as we used to say in the olden days).

First of all, I thought this was going to be a show about a lesbian couple, and it was hard to shake the misconception because Lee looked more like a woman than a man. I couldn't figure out why TLC wasn't blurring out her naked breasts until later I realized they were moobs not boobs. So, the positive, to me, was that this was actually a different story than one we've seen before, that actually required two hours to tell. The negative is that it's like one second we were driving down the interstate of "I'll show Dr. Now that I'm making good progress but I've had a few slips" and then we missed a turn and ended up in the brambly ditch of "and by the way now he is a foul-mouthed verbal abuser and by the way, he hits me too". Imagine being stuck in that craphole of an apartment, taking care of that vile beast day in and day out, only to find out YOU can't have the surgery YOU need because HE isn't playing by the rules. Fuck Dr. Now right in the ass for that bit of tomfuckery. How dare he? Was this for TV drama? What the actual hell? Much like Steven Assanti, I fear the day that Lee is fully mobile. If he'll hit her when he's immobile, he'll kill her when he can walk. I hope her decidedly underwhelmed reactions to a bunch of shitty carnations and a stuffed animal indicated where her mindset is. She's very pretty, and I hope she can continue to lose weight, and maybe TLC will chip in to get her front tooth fixed like they did for Pauline.

I watched the update show against my better judgment. No way I'm clicking any of those links. Just no.

Yes. Food addiction is not "craving". It's an addiction as serious as any drug. Many recipients of weight loss surgery, when physically forced to give up their food addiction, pick up a new, secondary addiction. The new addiction can be in various forms: exercise/fitness, sex, or drugs or alcohol. They are addicts and they need something to fill the void that food left. It goes both ways. Edit: WebMD article

Haven't seen mentioned yet, when Steven was Skyping with his mom pre-surgery, Justin was stage-muttering things like, "if you loved your son you'd have come to be with him for his surgery" and "tell her f** off from me". These people are broken and probably irredeemable, every one of them, but there is also a serious amount of pain being medicated with food. I also kept hoping Steven would not survive his surgery. What a waste of resources. And it detracts from Dr. Now's credibility when he demands that all other people lose XX amount before he will perform the surgery, but the least compliant shithead of all gets it no matter what he does. The hell? Other notable moment: Justin clearly being repulsed by the idea of physical contact with Steven, having to be coerced into the world's most lackluster handshake upon leaving Houston. Dr. Now to Steven, paraphrased: "Take a shower, the smell hasn't gotten any better."