Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition trainer Chris Powell returns this week with a new client, LaRhonda, a young woman weighing in at 433 lbs. LaRhonda can’t eat at the dining room table because of the arms on the chairs, has to lay down to put on her jeans and has named her stomach Bertha. LaRhonda also loves her food, from sausage to corn bread (which, unfortunately, seems to be all pre-packaged and processed rather than homemade). LaRhonda also lives under the shadow of her mother, who died from complications of diabetes from being overweight. All of this seems reason enough for her to be so overweight, but she has another, darker secret — she was molested at the age of 8 and used food for comfort.
This is the second person featured on the show that has had to deal with childhood sexual abuse, and it just hurts my heart to hear these stories. I can’t think of anything worse than hurting a child like that and to see not only the psychological, but physical consequences of those actions is just heartbreaking. LaRhonda never told a soul about her trauma so she let it eat her alive from the inside while she was practically eating herself to death, like Chris said, putting on layers and layers of protection. It’s such an awful thing to deal with.
At the usual freight scale weigh-in this week, Chris explained that most doctor’s office scales only go to 350 lbs. but I had to wonder (and maybe someone from CHLI can explain this in the comments section below): does the Institute really not have a scale that can weigh these people, since this is what they do on a day-to-day basis, or is the freight scale thing just for show on TV and to maybe get into the heads of the clients that this is what it’s come to? Because Chris has that portable scale that looks pretty sturdy, so I’m just wondering.
LaRhonda just barely made her three month goal of 100 lbs and got a new car (although pushing her broken down old car might have been good exercise — I kid!), and then again just barely made her six month goal of 60 more lbs … even though Chris caught her eating chips and dip on his spy cam. An even bigger hurdle for LaRhonda was finally getting rid of her mother’s insulin needles that she had kept as a reminder, but Chris didn’t want that to be the way LaRhonda remembered her mother. It was a very emotional moment as they visited the cemetery and left the needles on the head stone, but I think leaving that particular and painful memory behind (just the mention of it six months earlier caused the family to break down in tears) helped LaRhonda get focused on her goal.
LaRhonda lost another 36 lbs in the next three months and received the skin removal surgery. At the final weigh-in, she admitted that the recovery period was hard because she had to constantly watch her food intake and not fall back into old habits while she couldn’t do her intense workout. By the end, she lost six more pounds for a total of 202 lbs over the course of the year with a final weigh-in at 231 lbs. She looked fabulous and at the end she realized that this was not the goal but still part of her journey, and that is truly the key to remaining successful. Like she pointed out earlier, she has an addiction to food but unlike an alcoholic who doesn’t have to be surrounded by alcohol every day, you really can’t avoid food. With weight loss, you might reach a goal weight, but that journey is never finished. Congrats to LaRhonda and keep up the good work!
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Jun 28, 2011 @ 03:17 EST5EDT
