I Refuse To Die From Obesity

 

 

Recently I faced my own mortality after a long ten day stay in the hospital for emergency back surgery.

Prior to this, I had gone through the worst pain I ever felt in a lifetime since being in a terrible auto accident.

That particular incident changed me and began my quest for the magic bullet to weight loss.

I had gained a ton of weight since my journey began and my life was not my own anymore. My life had been in a tale spin of pain and loss since. My aunt, uncle and two cousins died as they succumbed to the effects from obesity. Being obese made my surgery and ambulance trip to the hospital a very dangerous and arduous one.

Luckily, this has given me the chance to finally understand being overweight was the most debilitating thing in my life.

Something that had to be changed.

There are groups out there that push for fat acceptance. After all the massive pain, infection and long recovery… I will not accept or allow obesity to rule my life anymore.

Surgery at my weight was so much more of a risk. My recovery time is at least three times longer as it is hampered by my larger weight.

Now I have been given the chance to finally see clearer. I have developed the new ability to rationalize between my hunger and what bad food choices will lead to further pain.

I want to live a life free of the debilitating effects that obesity brings. It has renewed my dedication to fighting it.

Don’t give into the life that does not have to be. Take today and this moment to join myself and others as we refuse to settle for obesity.

 

White House Doctor Fears Governor Christie Will Die In Office

White House Doctor Feels Chris Christie Would Die In Office

 

Connie Marino, former White House M.D. and want to be television personality feels that Governor Chris Christie could die in office. Especially if he was to one day become president. So how could he be deemed fit to run the state of New Jersey. It is widely perceived by some that anyone who was obese in this country should never be allowed to hold a position of any importance. They are not only a physical threat but also less intelligent and not equal in any way. Yet millions of Americans do so every day. 

From doctors to lawyers to the people flying your planes… People hold these positions of importance and power and nothing seems to go wrong. 

Politics aside, this is a issue of common sense and dignity. One that a certain doctor is trying to strip away from Governor Christie for her own publicity.

Heavy people for years have been looked at with false stigmas. They are never been held in the same regards as their counter parts.

There are very few state laws that protect the obese from being discriminated against or even terminated in the work place.

In Texas, one hospital will not hire people they consider to be overweight. According to their rules, if a five foot ten inch man who weighs 245 pounds wants employment, no job is offered. That is not that big for a man that tall. If a five foot two inch woman weighs over 195 pounds, she is history as well.

Only one state and six cities will protect the obese from discrimination in the work place.

Ironically, New Jersey is not one of them. 

Yet this Governor is beloved by not only most of his state but much of this country. So much so that he is now considered a very big 2016 contender for the White House. 

So Chris Christie goes to show that the protections are needed for the obese.

Especially if he is to be rewarded the same protections he well deserves.

If there was anyone that I would want to represent the overweight population of this great country, it is Governor Christie. A family man who tries his best and has just as much intelligence as anyone else. This man is just part of a group of overweight Americans who now make up the majority.

I know plenty of thin people who suffer from illnesses every day and may be in the same risk group in similar ways. 

Is Governor Christie in need of losing weight? Certainly… Just as the majority of Americans need to do so. Though this has to be his decision and in no way impacts his job  performance in New Jersey or the White House. Take a look at former Governor and one time presidential presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

He took off a great amount of weight and helped lead his state on to the road to battling obesity with several new initiatives. Years later he put back on some of the weight but it made him no less healthy or fit to run a state or even the country.

So the next time a doctor or someone of importance tries to make you feel inferior or at risk, ask them to take a physical themselves.

After all, these people may be in a position of great importance in you life and should show you the same respect.

 

Weight Watchers Takes A New Turn

The 360 Plan

Has Weight Watchers Taken A New Turn

For many years I was a on and off member of Weight Watchers.

While I thought the program made sense, I was not a very big fan of it’s maintenance program. I had lost well over two hundred pounds with Weight Watchers and was never happier.

As I finally met my goal weight though, I felt that like there was not a substantial enough plan in place to keep it off. I had not learned to change my life and I was not happy.

So I quit going. My immediate thoughts were to blame the company and go it alone.

Then even more pounds came back and I went in search of another magic cure. Some time later now, I heard all about Weight Watchers new 360 program.

My first thought was here we go again. Just another company playing another profit game.  After all, they just changed their program a year or so ago.

Yet to my total shock, there really were extensive changes. Many of them concentrating on more then just food and weight loss. Instead it was fantastic and easy techniques to give me a better chance at succeeding. All this without having to resort to my old school thoughts about dieting and the constant obsession with taking off the pounds regardless of my health. Could there actually be ways to deal with our horrifying food environment we are surrounded by every day?

What shocked me the most though was that I was greeted at the door by the group leader named Matt Karres. This is a man that was so similar to myself in his old weight that I could immediately relate.  He had once been over five hundred pounds and lost all the weight he needed to.

He showed me the the utmost compassion and interest. I had even brought my mother with and he treated her like she was his own. Bravo!

As I sat through the meeting, one thing struck me. Matt did not hawk any Weight Watchers products or make me feel obligated to buy anything. Later on I curiously asked Matt how he could even earn a salary doing this. The theory always was is if you push they will buy. Well that theory needs new thinking. Curiously, Matt has the highest sales of anyone in his center.

So what could be his trick. Does Weight Watchers have a secret plan. Do they own some unknown candy or cookie company like many other so called weight loss centers? Are they putting diet pills in the water? Absolutely not. There was no ulterior motive. Just the task and desire to help people help themselves.

It was just a admirable company with a goal and compassion towards helping others.

I will admit that the fees for this group can sometimes be scary at first and that bothered me.

Why should I pay out another weight loss company. These are difficult times. What do I have to gain.

Well ironically, other then a new much happier way of life, the amount of money I saved in eating out more then payed for the group fees. It actually tripled my savings.

I just needed to look at the bigger picture.

When I left that day, I was so inspired and more then relieved.

I knew that the company had made great changes with C.E.O. David Kirchoff.

There was a new level of hope from a company that I could have easily tried to bundle into a group with many others.

This was the first time that I knew that I was making a investment in myself.

Great work Weight Watchers and Mr. Krichoff as you have brought me along for the greatest 360 in my life. There is new hope after all.

Seekers Looking For Weight Loss Doomed To Put Back Pounds On Forever

I have been trying to lose weight for years. Up and down hundreds of pounds. There have been many tries and never any long term success.

At first, the thrill is like no other and I am everyones hero.

Then the weight starts to creep back on along with all the excuses that come with it.  I begin the ritual of self blame and feelings of no self worth.

I have been though this a dozen times. Up and down hundreds of pounds but who’s counting.

Now it’s January and a new year. The typical big business season for diet and weight loss groups. and products. There is always the new diet we have been waiting for or the different variation on whats already out. All offering that great new approach to take those unwanted pounds off.

I am just curious as to what happened to last years new and improved plans.

Yet even with the all these great new introductions, the only loss that I maintain is from my wallet.

There is no medical cure known to date and the country is getting heavier ever day. In fact, it is spreading to other nations faster then any war in history.

So is it my fault? Am I just weak and worthless. Where is that cure I was promised. These weight loss companies are supposedly there to help me. I know that I visit them all many times. Yet each costing me more and more.  It’s like that bad friend or relative that you know is going to have their hand out each time you see them.  Almost every person struggling with taking off the pounds usually returns to those same companies year after year. With record profits and a unbelievable number of newly minted obese, what is going on.

Could obesity be the great new business. The one in which long term weight loss equals a massive business failure.

Take a look at the owner of the famous ‘Heart Attack Grill’ restaurant in Las Vegas. He actually used to own part of a weight loss franchise. He is not a bad guy but woke up one morning and made a very different decision in his approach to the battle of the bulge.

While shooting ‘Finding Thin’, I was lucky enough to have met him and and many other fine scholars and celebrities. I was hoping they would have the answers and I did find some. Many in places you would not expect.

So if spending thousands on weight loss, there must be a group of people out there not seeking profits. It can’t only about be about the books, games shows, and weight loss products?

There is still hope out there. I just no longer agree to pay for it. There is a way to perceiver.

I know we all can.

So I suggest the goal for this year should be to profit on our own weight loss and successes whatever they may be.

Lets take off those pounds in a way that makes sense and does not take us for anymore money.

Surely there must be weight loss methods that don’t cost a fortune. If it doesn’t cost much to gain weight, then there must be a way to take take it off for just as little.

 

The End of Weight Loss And Diet As We Know It

By Barry Roskin Blake

With the frightening statistics just announced that we are only just a little bit away from the majority of the country being overweight and over forty percent obese, it seems like the end is near.

Just a decade ago we really started to wake up and push films and initiatives in school and at home to change things. Michelle Obama even started that garden in her back yard in Washington. So what the heck happened? Is it some sort of conspiracy, a way to make more jobs or just plain bad luck? I mean there has to be somebody to blame doesn’t there? In every good story you have the hero and his nemesis. Yet people are dying every day. I just lost my youngest cousin who was a year younger then me at age forty or so. She had become very large, had a diabetic stroke and died a day later.

Is this the future that we all have to look forward too? This disease has taken the majority of the family I love. Most of my friends who are overweight suffer from illnesses that are all either caused or contributed to by obesity. There are resources out there and that do present hope. I just think we are letting time pass us by and not getting down to the root of why we are all having this happen to us.  The thing I am tired of is hearing everyday is that someone who has taken off two hundred pounds in six months and has the answer. I hate to say it, but you’re part of the problem. Chances are in another year or less you will have put the weight back on and more. It is not that I am jealous, it is the sad fact that 98 percent of people who go on these type of diets will fail. Those are undeniable facts.

We as a people have to look at the situation very differently.  Our responsibility has to be to our own health first. Then we can focus on the ones we love or who will look out after them. It is time for a change and I am not sure that there is one particular answer. Yet, if we do not try, just imagine what the next twenty years can bring back. Maybe a]we’re heading back to a time when the average lifespan was fifty. We are a great body of people and together, I’m sure we can find our way.  It may be time to stop depending on the experts alone and start depending on each other.  I welcome everyone’s thought and feedback at such a crucial time.

Thanks for checking in,

Barry

New Diet Pills: Our Friend or Enemy?

Well here we go again. It’s been a decade or so since the last medical fiasco with diet pills. One went off the market and one is still around. Yet people in our country are getting heavier with each passing second. I should know.  I’m one of those people.

Now comes the FDA’s probable approval of another new diet pill. This new one is a mix of two older drugs put together to give you a nice kick-start. Yet what happens after the first few months? Will all my temptations be gone? Will they stop all those yummy looking food commercials and take away all the cookies and ice cream from the end of the store isles?  The answer is, no way! So then what is going to be different this time?

If I am no longer hungry, will I never want another pizza or piece of cake for dessert?  Will I stop eating out of emotion or stalking the kitchen at night? I really don’t see any indications that this is going to help me think any differently. Just because you tie my mouth closed, staple my stomach, or make me very feel ill if I eat too much, does not mean that I will start feeling differently towards those foods. Its almost as bad as sending someone for aversion therapy. It has never been shown to be effective and it is just cruel torture. Our country has to stop looking at ways to control our hunger and instead control the much bigger problem. Obesity is crawling up the front lawns of almost half our country.

Think about all your friends and family. Is there anyone in that group who could stand to lose some weight?  Is it more then one person?  It’s time to find a cure. So I encourage anyone considering diet pills to think long term about how you will feel if it does not work out. All of the money you will have spent and the many side effects to probably experience for nothing, just makes me wonder if it’s even worth going through.

Lets not rely on a magical cure and instead stick together to help each other. That’s where hope begins and the cure starts to arise.

-Barry

When Emotional Eating Changes Form

Since I moved out to L.A. to finish the film and start a new life, I have found it a bit stressful.  You are hit with so many things at once. New friends you need to make. So much stuff to buy and learn about.  I began to wonder if I could take this personally or professionally.

Luckily, I am very good at what I do and will let nothing deter me from my true mission of making this film.

Fortunately during this trying time I have not turned to food for comfort.  This new dieting strategy has brought about major weight loss and resulted in a much better state of personal health.

I was very happy with this result.   Made me wonder if I had finally beaten those demons that had been pestering me my whole life?  Well the answer actually is yes and no.

Even though I had put away my anger and emotions towards past issues in my life, there were still stressors.  With emotional eating gone, I really had no way to deal with them now.

Suddenly though, I found myself in a very new situation.  I was actually not hungry anymore.  I wasn’t even eating during most of the day. There were times that I would eat less than a thousand calories a day.

I have always known emotional eating is about using food as a tool to deal with your emotions. What I did not realize is that by not eating when I am stressed or emotional, this was also using food as a tool.

Emotional eating could be both the consumption and lack of consumption of food.

I was blown away. There were truly two sides to this coin.

Well, as with everything in life and especially this documentary… I have more to learn and more to share.

If anyone else has gone down this road, I would really like to hear your stories or thoughts. So feel free to post in the comments section, facebook.com/findingthin, or anywhere I can read/watch it!

Sharing is the best part of getting through this and helping others.

I will report back more often now that I am settled out here in California.

Thank you for reading.

-Barry

How To Start Exercising Again After Weight Gain

How To Start Exercising Again After Putting On Weight

I used to be able to walk two miles in under thirty minutes. This was when I weighed about two hundred pounds.
Now of course I am quite a bit heavier and have not walked any significant distance in over four years. Most of it was spent in a car traveling the country shooting the documentary ‘Finding Thin’. Probably would have been good to get out and do some activity somewhere.
Now when I go out for a walk, I can go a couple blocks but then give out with heavy breathing. If going up hill, I am really in trouble.
There must be a way to make it back.
The weight has finally started to come off over the last few months but as I know so well, there is a major component missing. I have got to get out there and walk.
I think back to the days when I was well over four hundred pounds and just started two houses at a time. I then built up house by house until I was really down in weight and kicking butt.
This time around though, I am out here in the hills of L.A. and that does make it more interesting and a heck of a lot tougher. Though when I get to the easier parts I get to walk past Warner Brothers and I love their studio lot.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to walk for weight loss as much as just the endorphin rush feeling better.
It is just a struggle to do that I am wondering if there are other exercises that I should to until more of the weight comes off first.
Every pound down makes it even easier to walk up.
I am sure that others of you heavy and thin have gone through this. It is so discouraging at times to be starting over but I am the most stubborn person who will not give up. The word no does not exist in my vocabulary. I like to find a way around walls.
So if any of you have been through this and have any suggestions, I really could use the help.

Eating Less Can Cause Weight Gain

When Eating Less Causes Weight Gain

Ever since the last month, I have found my self not eating emotionally anymore. This was one of my biggest problems and I was so glad to get past it. A wish come true. Yet with ever road I pass, there is always a speed bump or two. The latest one came to me while working ten hour days cutting ‘Finding Thin’ and taking meetings. I discovered I was eating far less then I should be. There was just so much to do that I was neglecting to eat enough. It was slowing down my metabolism and causing me to tire easily and for my weight loss to slow. Who would have though that would be even be possible? I would have dreamed for a problem like that. Well… maybe not.
When growing up I was always thought that less was more. If you went lower on the calories, you would lose more weight. That is so not the case. It really is a game of balance. Not too much and not too little. Finding that sense of balance is not easy by any way but imaginable. Yet it is actually enjoyable since I get to eat more of the foods that I enjoy and do now feel stronger. This was one of the things that I liked about the new Weight Watchers program. It did not deprive me. It made it much easer then counting calories and made sense to me.
As a former dieter, I knew how to skip on the calories but that was not the answer.
Now with diabetes. it makes it even the more a bit more difficult sometimes in choices but nowhere near impossible. I am already finding that the diabetes is going down which means I can stay off the insulin. This of course thrills me. After all, who likes sticking themselves with needles. Though there are millions that are forced to every day and I pray we can beat this dreaded disease one day. I am so fortunate enough to be able to now control this through different eating substitutions. You notice I don’t say diet much since I hate the word.
There are some people out there that have ways they recommend to trick your body but that just seems wrong. My body has gone through enough and deserves to be treated better.
So as I make it past emotional eating, I just have to remind myself to eat enough and at the right times during the day.
The next obstacle is learning to start walking again without wanting to fall over.
I would love to hear from anyone who face those same challenges that I do.

Brain Surgery For Weight Loss

Brain Surgery Is New Magic Bullet For Weight Loss

People have been looking for a quick fix to weight loss for years. The quick fix for or holy grail of successful dieting.. Everything from diet pills to starvation methods or even tape worms.
Nothing has ever worked.
Then we finally got into a version of taping the mouth closed through wires. When that did not work, we went to Gastric Bypass Surgery.
After that did not seem to be a hundred percent or totally safe, the medical industry went with a less invasive method called the ‘Lap Band’ surgery.
This did not really work all that much better either and still had possible fatal complications as well.
Now comes the winner of them all. Brain surgery. As barbaric as it sounds, they figure they can mess around with the wiring in your brain to get it right.
What everyone keeps missing is that no one is getting to the real problem. Teaching the person how to explore what or why they are eating.
It is just another method to go around the problem and take away the hunger.
There is no education or studying of the inner cognitive workings of the mind when it relates to food.
Dr. Judith Beck worked on a couple of books based on eating and the cognitive behavioral therapy approach. Usually called CBT for short, it was a valid attempt at trying to figure out why instead of how.
The ironic thing is that when one of the early people who had the surgery known as ‘Deep Brain Stimulation’, he started to put weight back on.
Know one could figure out why.
Well, they actually put a on/off switch on the product and the person was turning the unit off so he or she could eat when hungry.
This is why it still goes back to why we are choosing to eat in the first place. Not just trying to shut of the feeling of hunger.
There is a impulse that has to be dealt with and explored before we can move on to any long lasting and permanent weight loss.
As of now, there is no such thing other then good old fashion therapy and weight groups.