S04.E11: Kenny and Christy

[Ketzel]

From TV Guide: A 410 lb. thirty-five-year old former Marine and a 380 lb. thirty-six-year-old caretaker attempt to lose weight.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Ketzel

[k2p2]

No 90-day makeovers? I was curious to see what they would do with Blondie.

[smashling]

Did anyone notice when Heidi was "helping Christy pack to return to Colorado" that they weren't actually in the same room and it was filmed a different times.  Christy was arguing with the production team not Heidi.

 

Also really shady of them to use footage of the other guy on the marine thing collapsing to make it seem like it was Kenny.

Edited August 20, 2014 by smashling

[CaughtOnTape]

I cannot deal with people who get on this show and take the opportunity away from someone else only to end up quitting.  

[jonesingjay]

I cannot deal with people who get on this show and take the opportunity away from someone else only to end up quitting.  

 

I guess she thought it wasn't going to be as hard as it was and she threw in the towel. She said as much, but what a waste of an opportunity. When someone else would've jumped at the opportunity. Kenny being a perfect example of that. He looked really great at the final weigh-in. Good for him.

[Whimsy]

Did anyone notice when Heidi was "helping Christy pack to return to Colorado" that they weren't actually in the same room and it was filmed a different times.  Christy was arguing with the production team not Heidi.

 

Also really shady of them to use footage of the other guy on the marine thing collapsing to make it seem like it was Kenny.

 

I admit, I wasn't paying undivided attention to this, but I always thought it was Skype but they just showed us both filmed sides.  I never assumed they were in the same room.  If that wasn't the intention, they did a poor job making it seem like they were in the same room.

 

I know you can't force people to change if they really don't want to.  I'm ok if Christy isn't ready, but it just makes me mad that she wasted Chris' time, the production team, the employees of the center and OUR time with this.  I didn't find it compelling TV. 

 

I did feel bad for her that her moment of openness with her mom resulted in a hand-shake.  I was like WTF? even before Chris said anything.  That was weird.  I don't doubt that Christy was bullied.  Kids are cruel.  I can't understand how the entire school (class?) signed a petition, essentially, to get her to leave because her clothes, etc, weren't the same.  If my kids brought that home I would've gone ballistic.  I was teased about my clothes (we were poor, so I couldn't get the designer clothes and this was the height of the 80's) and ostracized because we moved around a lot so I wasn't part of any cliques, so I did understand the feelings- but I can't believe that she's STILL getting those comments.  Do adults still behave like that?  Also, just because someone is pushing you to do something (especially someone who is PAID to do that for you) does not mean that they are bullying you, Christy!  Sometimes people get SO sensitized to it because of their past that everything that someone does to you that you don't like turns into bullying. 

 

I could relate to Kenny.  I went through bootcamp too.  That sticks with you for a really long time- the memory of how strong you were at that time and the feeling like you should STILL be able to do all of the same exercises at the same level.  It's hard to put into words, but I could see it when he started his push-ups.  He got right into the correct position and I could tell he was surprised/disappointed at how quickly he had to modify them.  I hate that macho, get into people's personal space and scream thing that some guys do, though.  I hope that Kenny went through counseling. I think that is part of the program now.  Maybe that's why Christy failed.  She didn't get to stay in Colorado and do the program the same way. 

[BeaVee]

Do adults still behave like that?

 

Sadly, GenL they do.  In fact Monday at my son's school (!) another mom asked me how I can function every day being the weight I am (I'm very fluffy).  By the way, we were at a parent meeting to discuss the new anti-bullying program on campus.  Some women never grow beyond high school.  Of course I say that as I'm about to snark about people on TV. 

 

Anyhoo.  I wasn't sure about Kenny to start with but he grew on me.  He started off looking like his wife's dad and ended up looking like her much younger boy toy.  I also thought his brother was his dad or uncle.  Why was he waiting for Kenny to "finish" his weight loss program to start his?  For the "scholarship"?  I don't know if Kenny's wife is as pleased as she says she is with his new look and outlook - just a feeling.

 

Christy.  I want to be mean and snark on her because she did screw someone else out of a great opportunity but she doesn't seem to lack motivation to lose weight, she seems to lack motivation to live period and Chris and Heidi should have been talking to her about therapy instead of making her feel worse by handing her a plane ticket.  It seems that she has some deep issues that are not going away with the extra 200 pounds and I was angry at her for wasting the opportunity and sad for her because she seemed so broken (I'll take my 5 cents now and go). 

[WhineandCheez]

Maybe that's why Christy failed.  She didn't get to stay in Colorado and do the program the same way.

 

No Shit Sherlock (no offense, GenL) Chris should not take  someone for this program if they have conflicts that make them unable to do the 90 days at Anschutz. That 90 days gives them a strong base and habit re-education that can take them through to success.  She got 9 days, probably 4 days of that was taken up by testing.  Chris should have never taken her on.

 

Also, maybe someone can help me here--aren't the majority of contestants people who gained weight later, not fat since childhood?  Because I am thinking that if you have been fat since you were a baby, there is alot more complicated shit going on in your head and also hormonal issues possibly.  Can anyone remember if most of these people were one or the other?

 

Dayum, did she have some fugly 80s clothes as a child! IT would have been awesome if she was in the audience  and Kenny gave the scholarship to her!

Edited August 20, 2014 by WhineandCheez

[smashling]

I admit, I wasn't paying undivided attention to this, but I always thought it was Skype but they just showed us both filmed sides.  I never assumed they were in the same room.  If that wasn't the intention, they did a poor job making it seem like they were in the same room.

 

 

Chris definitely said that Heidi was going to help Christie pack and to talk to her to figure out what was going on - that surprised me at the time as she didn't appear to be with him, but they pretended that she was in the bedroom talking to Christie, when she was somewhere else.

[Ketzel]

I have never been less impressed (and that's saying a lot, as I have never been impressed at all) with Chris and Heidi's abilities as trainers as I was in this episode. I was completely horrified by Chris's "test" to Christy. Who tells a morbidly obese, out-of-shape woman that she has to walk a mile and then climb 112 flights of stairs by a deadline in order to get on the show? What did they know about the condition of her heart? Her joints? What, if anything, did the producers do to make sure she wasn't going to seriously injure herself or die in the process? Were the cameras following her being operated by a team of orthopedists with cardiac resuscitators? 

 

I have no words to say about that duo's abilities as psychologists. Abysmal doesn't quite capture it. And yet, week after week, they keep instantly solving deep-seated, lifelong emotional traumas with a few well chosen words, delivered at precisely the correct moment of intervention! Baffling! Even with Christy, they may have thrown her out of the program, but at least they fixed the relationship with her mother, sort of.

 

And I hated that neither of them took any responsibility for her failure at all. They picked her, they modified the program to allow her to work at home, and imo, they didn't deliver on the necessary support. She met her first goal,  so she had some commitment and motivation, but she clearly had real issues around making dramatic change in her life. They didn't spot them in time and they didn't intervene appropriately. I put her failure more on them than on her. We wanted it more than she did? Isn't it a big part of your job to motivate her?

[Whimsy]

I have no words to say about that duo's abilities as psychologists. Abysmal doesn't quite capture it. And yet, week after week, they keep instantly solving deep-seated, lifelong emotional traumas with a few well chosen words, delivered at precisely the correct moment of intervention! Baffling! Even with Christy, they may have thrown her out of the program, but at least they fixed the relationship with her mother, sort of.

 

 

I generally agree with your entire post, but I will say that THIS show (vs The Biggest Loser) does mention the availability and use of counseling.  Not every single episode, but enough for me to believe that it's pretty consistent among the contestants.  I don't think Christy got this as she had to go back home.  MAYBE the arranged counseling at home, but the way Christy behaved I doubt it.

 

I do agree that it was on them to motivate these people, but if the person REALLY doesn't want to do it and is actively sabotaging themselves (which Christy admitted to a producer) then there's nothing anyone can do. 

[Guest]

These people are medically screened before any footage is ever shot, so they knew Christy could climb that building.  

 

And this is the first season with 90 day boot camps, before it was one week, so her not getting that isn't an excuse.  She probably didn't go to it because she refused, anyway.  Her mother could've had another caretaker.  Her whole thing sounded like one excuse after another.  Bullying, mean mom, sick mom, etc.  I even suspect the car accident was an accident, like the mother implied.  People who want to die don't generally try to get hit by a car, for obvious reasons.  But these people need a 'hook' to get the show to take them on.   Something that makes for extra tv drama, like Kenny's "I quit the Marines" story.  

 

I actually like the "who fails" episodes.  And Christy hitchhiking a half mile back, right after Chris gave her a 30-minute pep talk?  Hilarious.  (Though I do wonder if that was a production member who picked her up, not a stranger, not to set her up but because she honestly asked for a lift and he didn't know she was supposed to walk.)

[jonesingjay]

 Who tells a morbidly obese, out-of-shape woman that she has to walk a mile and then climb 112 flights of stairs by a deadline in order to get on the show?

 

I wondered why she had to perform such an outrageous task, while Kenny on the other hand, didn't have to do anything. Sure, he was in a dance lesson when Chris strolled in, but he should've had to do something to prove he wanted to be part of the program as well. I guess his weak story about regretting not being able to maintain a healthy weight was enough?

[AV8n]

I feel bad for the dance instructor.  She had barely got started with Kenny, and Chris comes busting in to whisk him away.  I hope she charged him for the full time!

 

The editing mischief was very strong tonight.  First we get the "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" edit at the ruck march - only to find out it wasn't him at all but some other guy.  Not to mention the implication that he was the one who got kicked out.  Plus, it seemed to me like they were saying his home got destroyed in the tornado, but later it seemed like he had already moved a few miles away and had long since moved from the home that was leveled.

 

With Christy, I don't even know where to begin.  The woman didn't just have issues, she had a full subscription.  It probably didn't help that when she got kicked off, Team Powell handed her a sheet of paper.  Turns out it was her flight info, but you had to wonder if they had started their own petition to ask her to leave.  The hitchhike was totally a setup, complete with spy cam.

[Suzysite]

Every time they showed Kenny's wife all I could think of was how much she looks like Angela from The Office.  

 

I started out feeling like I really wanted Christy to succeed, but as time wore on it just seemed like she was a master manipulator and feeds on drama and self pity.  No way was she going to do what it takes to lose her "poor me" ticket. 

[Morgalisa]

I thought I was going to hate Kenny.  He was so damn weepy in the beginning.  He seemed a little  weak and very vulnerable.  Then, when he started the program, he seemed very aggressive and angry.  He seemed more confident in the end, but something still seems off to me.  After the program when they are no longer exercising 5 hours a day they usually gain about 20-25 pounds back, I wonder how he is going to handle that.

 

 I swear, one day one of those aggressive obese guys is going to damage Chris' back when they slam that 450 pound body into him and pick him up in a bear hug Scares me every time.  

 

I don't have much to say about Christy.  Some people are going to fail.  Does Chris want us to think he has 100 percent success rate.

 

As a military spouse (retired), I am surprised when some of these people can't be away from their families for 90 days, or the spouse at home can't manage alone. There are young military wives who manage multiple deployments with 3 or 4 children.

[kassa]

Kudos to Kenny, because he did the work and got the results.

 

 But I have to admit... I must not have been paying attention because I was thinking for the first hour that he blew a 20 year Marine career because he couldn't meet his weight and chose to quit instead of deal with a progressive problem.  And that was his regret.  And then at some point midway through the show, they said he got his discharge at 19 years old.  So basically he was a Marine for 5 minutes 20 years ago.  I mean, of course he might regret it, but we saw the pictures of him in his Marine Corps days.  If he gained sufficient weight in a year (after those pictures were taken)  that the Marines said "oh, well, never mind, then," then that would be quite remarkable.

 

Or there were issues completely unrelated to weight that they simply chose not to discuss?  (Or maybe I missed that part, also).  

 

I'm not judging the guy -- I put 40 lbs on my senior year in college.  But I wasn't in the Marines at the time, which I assume takes up a lot of your spare eating pizza and watching tv time.  

[AV8n]

Interesting background info from Skeletor's daughter about last night's ep:

 

http://heidipowell.net/8699/extreme-weight-loss/

 

Makes sense now that Kenny didn't have to climb stairs or whatever to prove he wanted it.

[CaughtOnTape]

I did not like the way Chris and Heidi treated her at all. They should have been more understanding of how much harder it was for her to get motivated than it was for Kenny. Unlike him, she's always been overweight--probably can't even picture herself slender--and she has more sources of stress than Kenny has.

 

I might be with you on this if she hadn't full out challenged Heidi to a fight when she was point blank asked if she was sabotaging herself.  I believe her exact words were "You wanna throw down?" They were trying to help her and this shit is NOT free.  Granted Chris and Heidi aren't paying for it, but someone is and for her to blatantly lie, make it look like they were just bullies who didn't understand and then ABSOLUTELY manipulate the situation....hell yeah she got what she deserved.  Not to mention, she took the opportunity from someone else who may not have squandered it.

It's clear she's a person who wants people to hand her things without working for it.  No one grew up with the exact parents they wanted.  So her mother had issues showing affection?  Grow the eff up lady.  Get some balls, take control of your life and deal with it.

 

No sympathy.

Edited August 22, 2014 by CaughtOnTape

[SmithW6079]

I think Chris is a terrible trainer and "motivational coach," at least in this iteration, but I always believed he genuinely cared for the people he "helped." However, what he did to Christy at Kenny's weigh-in revealed that he's nothing but a full-blown dick.

 

Is there any indication that Kenny and Christy knew each other at all? That they had any interaction? Then why the fuck did Chris feel the need to blast her at Kenny's weigh-in? And sorry, but Kenny's as big a douchebag too for getting on the "judge Christy" train. Whether or not the poor girl was up to the challenge of changing or was looking for a "free ride," she didn't deserve another kick while she was down, courtesy of douchebags Chris and and Heidi and Kenny.

 

And as for transformations, I thought Kenny had one of the worst ones. The guy who was allegedly molested and the chef both looked better -- they had obviously built muscle -- even before the skin removal surgery. Kenny didn't look bad at his office consultation, but there was no muscle tone there.

[Canada]

So annoying... I really wanted Christy to do well.  Her story is so similar to mine (looking after family because brother has a family, bullied, emotionless family), I wanted her to be an inspiration.  She very quickly became a huge annoyance!!!!!  I agree that her 'suicide' attempt was probably BS.  The mom seemed genuinely surprised that it could be a suicide.  Christy seems to be completely delusional and makes up lies about everything.  I can't stand people like her.

[WhineandCheez]

There was no show last night.  Is the series over then?  RATS.

[Eeksquire]

Chris posted on his FB that there is (at least) one more episode, but that they got preempted for whatever Bachelor-horror thing that was last night.  I'd MUCH rather watch Chris, even with a big side of Heidi than that mess.

[satinee777]

I believe Christy was bullied, however I truly believe she lied about the suicide attempt. She is just a liar. I believe more lies were told that we were not privy to. That is why they kicked her off. They would never tell us about all the lies in order to protect themselves from a lawsuit.

Edited September 2, 2014 by satinee777

[editorgrrl]

Interesting background info from Skeletor's daughter about last night's ep:

http://heidipowell.net/8699/extreme-weight-loss/

Makes sense now that Kenny didn't have to climb stairs or whatever to prove he wanted it.

Very interesting blog post by Heidi:

Kenny was originally not chosen by us. He went as far as he could go in the casting process, and was flat out denied…and totally heartbroken. He begged us for the plan…for the roadmap to his success, so we gave it to him. ON HIS OWN, Kenny started the journey. Week after week, we watched from afar as he did this for HIM, not for the show…asking for our guidance occasionally.

As luck would have it, a spot opened up for Kenny. We KNEW he deserved this opportunity more than anyone in the world. Not a day went by after we chose him that he didn’t prove he was deserving of the opportunity.

[zxy556575]

I wonder why he was initially denied? Be interesting to hear more about what goes into the selection process.

[ali59]

As a military spouse (retired), I am surprised when some of these people can't be away from their families for 90 days, or the spouse at home can't manage alone. There are young military wives who manage multiple deployments with 3 or 4 children.

 

Thank you for saying this!  I too am the wife of a retired military member.  I did several deployments with multiple children and one of them was handicapped.  Regarding Kenny's 5 minutes in the Corps, not everyone is cut out to be in the military so he needs to let go of that past venture.  His constant harping about having been a Marine was juvenile.  On the other hand there's a saying: Once a Marine, always a Marine.

 

I can sympathize just a tad with Christy and her relationship with her mother.  I grew up with a similar sort of Mom.  She had no idea the things I did or went through as a child.  I don't even bother to share them with her because I know she'll say the same old things: I didn't know or I did the best I could.  However, Christy's attitude really sucks.  She didn't really embrace the opportunity given to her.

 

I think that one of the great things about this show is how they break the weight loss into smaller goals.  It's very daunting to look at the big picture but smaller goals make it totally doable!