The Big Fat Truth: The Behind-the-scenes Secret to Weight Loss Read Online Free Page B
Author: J.D. Roth
asked her, “tell us how you got to this point in your life.”
“I have been married to a fantastic man for 20 years,” she began, “I have three kids, and I love food.”
“No, you don’t,” I said.
She laughed nervously. “Yes, I do. I love the taste in my mouth, I love to cook food; I love everything about food.”
“Your weight has nothing to do with food,” I told her. This is usually the moment where people start looking at me sideways, thinking I am trying to trick them. I am actually trying to get them to honestly look inward; that can be very hard.
“Well, of course it does. How do you think I got to over 300 pounds? By eating broccoli?” She let out a huge infectious laugh that got the whole room blessing it with an “Amen.”
----
Something Lost, Something Gained
JD,
There are people in world who do a lot of dreaming and talking. Yet, at the end of the day they do not produce results (I used to be one of them). So-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o many wonderful things have happened to me during this journey: I am liberated from my past demons; I have lost more than 50 pounds (and counting); and I am confidence personified. Yet, the thing that has left the greatest impression for me is that I have the honor to see what truly can happen when a person not only dreams but puts calculated action behind their desires.
—Stacey, The Revolution cast member, via email
----
I was honest with her. “Look, Stacey, you’re a nice, warm person, but I don’t see you going to a real deep emotional place. I need you to tell me something that happened to you that you haven’t even told your husband or mother about. If you really want to have us choose you and help you change your life, you have to reveal something no one has ever heard before. Something so scary to you that you have put it in a place so deep and hidden from view that just thinking about it makes you want to reach for a sheet cake and demolish it in one sitting.”
And just like that, in a matter of seconds, Stacey’s deepest, darkest secret—something that she had held onto for more than 30 years—came pouring out as if it happened yesterday. And once the silence was broken, the pain came rushing out faster then all the lines of BS about how much she loved food.
Stacey admitted, right there in that chair, in front of ten people she barely knew, that as a young girl she was sexually abused. She’d never told her husband or her mother. She kept this secret, living in her own private hell and using food to shove those feelings down as far as they would go. But, of course, there are not enough cookies in the world, not enough BBQ ribs on this planet, to make that kind of devastation and fear go away. The room went silent. Stacey was sobbing uncontrollably. All I wanted to do was hug her but I held back, and after what felt like an hour (though was probably more like 30 seconds) of stillness and listening to her cries of rage, I said in a whisper, “You know what you need to do, right?”
She said nothing. I went on. “You need to go home tonight and tell your husband everything.” The whole room let out a gasp, as if I had just used a racial epithet.
Looking fear in the face and doing what frightens you anyway is living . The very thing that scares you the most might also surprise you the most. I told Stacey that if she wanted to get on the show, she would need to confront the very thing that terrified her most. Telling her husband that she was abused as a child was the start of her journey. The root of transformation is desire. Without the desire to follow through and act on this scary suggestion, the opportunity could vanish in an instant. This was not about TV anymore. It was about something much bigger. It was about healing. No matter what happened from that moment on, her life had to get better simply because she’d no longer be carrying that burden around. The fat on Stacey’s body was not the end product of 10,000 Oreo cookies and 5,000
“I have been married to a fantastic man for 20 years,” she began, “I have three kids, and I love food.”
“No, you don’t,” I said.
She laughed nervously. “Yes, I do. I love the taste in my mouth, I love to cook food; I love everything about food.”
“Your weight has nothing to do with food,” I told her. This is usually the moment where people start looking at me sideways, thinking I am trying to trick them. I am actually trying to get them to honestly look inward; that can be very hard.
“Well, of course it does. How do you think I got to over 300 pounds? By eating broccoli?” She let out a huge infectious laugh that got the whole room blessing it with an “Amen.”
----
Something Lost, Something Gained
JD,
There are people in world who do a lot of dreaming and talking. Yet, at the end of the day they do not produce results (I used to be one of them). So-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o many wonderful things have happened to me during this journey: I am liberated from my past demons; I have lost more than 50 pounds (and counting); and I am confidence personified. Yet, the thing that has left the greatest impression for me is that I have the honor to see what truly can happen when a person not only dreams but puts calculated action behind their desires.
—Stacey, The Revolution cast member, via email
----
I was honest with her. “Look, Stacey, you’re a nice, warm person, but I don’t see you going to a real deep emotional place. I need you to tell me something that happened to you that you haven’t even told your husband or mother about. If you really want to have us choose you and help you change your life, you have to reveal something no one has ever heard before. Something so scary to you that you have put it in a place so deep and hidden from view that just thinking about it makes you want to reach for a sheet cake and demolish it in one sitting.”
And just like that, in a matter of seconds, Stacey’s deepest, darkest secret—something that she had held onto for more than 30 years—came pouring out as if it happened yesterday. And once the silence was broken, the pain came rushing out faster then all the lines of BS about how much she loved food.
Stacey admitted, right there in that chair, in front of ten people she barely knew, that as a young girl she was sexually abused. She’d never told her husband or her mother. She kept this secret, living in her own private hell and using food to shove those feelings down as far as they would go. But, of course, there are not enough cookies in the world, not enough BBQ ribs on this planet, to make that kind of devastation and fear go away. The room went silent. Stacey was sobbing uncontrollably. All I wanted to do was hug her but I held back, and after what felt like an hour (though was probably more like 30 seconds) of stillness and listening to her cries of rage, I said in a whisper, “You know what you need to do, right?”
She said nothing. I went on. “You need to go home tonight and tell your husband everything.” The whole room let out a gasp, as if I had just used a racial epithet.
Looking fear in the face and doing what frightens you anyway is living . The very thing that scares you the most might also surprise you the most. I told Stacey that if she wanted to get on the show, she would need to confront the very thing that terrified her most. Telling her husband that she was abused as a child was the start of her journey. The root of transformation is desire. Without the desire to follow through and act on this scary suggestion, the opportunity could vanish in an instant. This was not about TV anymore. It was about something much bigger. It was about healing. No matter what happened from that moment on, her life had to get better simply because she’d no longer be carrying that burden around. The fat on Stacey’s body was not the end product of 10,000 Oreo cookies and 5,000
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