The Weight Loss Journey Comes To A Close, A New Chapter Begins

The Weight Loss Journey Comes To A Close A New Chapter Begins

I have traveled over half the country in search of losing weight. Had the chance to meet over three hundred experts and celebrities during shooting the upcoming film ‘Finding Thin’. I started at one weight and ended up gaining more while trying some of the new diets that might have that magic bullet. This was not what was supposed to happen. Yet my mission was to set out to save the world. That was until I found out that I needed to save myself first, then I could figure out the rest. The funny thing is that it took until that last few miles when I moved out to L.A. to really have it kick in. This was my last destination on the journey and a place that I was to call home.
The last year had many changes in my life. I had lost two of my beloved pets, a very close friend who turned out to be a wolf in a sheep cloths and most importantly… myself.
Then it began to change. I suddenly began to find myself. No longer did I find the need for emotional eating. Of course that brought many challenges. Yet I never stopped and was able to continue on and grow the movie to the finest state it has ever been in as well as myself personally.
We have some of the finest names and I don’t know where to begin thanking people.
Do I start with Jillian Michaels who really opened the door for us and showed me that we don’t always have to be victims. Or was it Dr. Michael Roizen over at The ‘Cleveland Clinic’ who showed me that I don’t need to feel so old and can reverse the process. He also introduced me to the mighty ‘Health Corps’ created by the efforts of Dr. Oz and ran by the lovely Michelle Bouchard. Then of course there was Bob Harper of ‘The Biggest Loser’ who was so real and made me laugh so hard. Then there was Tony Horton of ‘P90X’, not only the strongest guy for his young age but I am not sure he ever takes a breath. He is that good.. Then I begin to think of David Wallace of ‘Weight Watchers’ who helped get me back on track’. Of course I cant forget the king of comedy George Wallace or the wit and heart of actress Carlease Burke. There are just so many great people that have changed my life and contributed to making this movie that that much more. I have enough material to make three films. There are just so many names to thank. I just hope they help to bring the change and hope to your life as they have to mine. This has been the greatest honer and chance that I could have ever been given. Far from what I ever had hoped for. Beating my wildest dreams.
As I settle in now for the final phase of the movie and make my new home in L.A., I will be writing more frequently. Not to push the film, which I hope you will see, but to be there for you with new thoughts and stories form the battles lines each and every day. Have hope for this is a journey we take together.

Be Well

Barry Roskin Blake
Producer/Director
Finding Thin

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.

My Visit With Ruby

I traveled almost eighteen hours each way for this interview;  this was officially the longest trip I had taken by car for ‘Finding Thin’. After three years of researching the secret for what it was to truly “find thin”, it was coming to an end.

At first I had only seen Ruby on The Style Network a few times during  my fifteen hour work days on the film. But through Facebook, iTunes, Hulu, and YouTube, I was able to find hours of footage to look at and really get a feel for what Ruby was all about.

Originally I was going to simply interview her by phone but after watching her story….there was no way I was not going see this amazing woman in person. I felt like she was someone who I would immediately bond with; and I was exactly right.

With all my pain from the aftermath of my previous accident, every minute in the car felt incredibly daunting. But I refused to give in; this was going to be my final interview for the film, and Ruby was going to be the perfect finish.

When I first arrived, she looked different. Ruby had lost a great deal of weight and looked terrific. She was beautiful on both the inside and outside.  I ended up sitting with her on the couch and kitchen table with her family and friends, and I immediately felt at home.

Of course after losing my most beloved dog the other week, I had been in a very depressed state…probably the saddest I had ever been in a long time. Then I met Ruby’s beautiful dog. She sat between us during our first hour on the couch and fell asleep against my leg. It was one of the few interviews that I wanted to cry in. It was ironic that Ruby not only helped me as a person, but her dog got in on the action as well. I even offered her a thousand dollars for the dog; but like me, there wasn’t a price tag big enough for Ruby to let go of her “wo-man’s” best friend.

We shared so much in common and it was comforting. Some might ask, how could a woman who is heavy herself, help me? Well the answer is simple. We both could relate in a way that most thin people could not. We had gone through many of the same experiences and felt the same way about many issues.

Ruby has lost weight and is gaining happiness and hope along the way.  I wish I could tell you more about this inspirational woman, but you’ll have to wait until you see the movie.

In the meantime, check out Ruby Gettinger’s show because this is one beautiful, intelligent, and purely sweet person for which I am a better person for knowing.

When Food Doesn’t Take The Pain Away Anymore

Almost three years ago I began the quest for “Finding Thin.”

During my quest to find thin, I started to gain even more weight.
Traveling all around the country interviewing Jillian Michaels, Bob
Harper, Tony Horton and more, was extremely stressful and offered very
few healthy eating opportunities throughout the way.

In truth, I used the stress as an excuse that in turn failed my body,
my health, and overall, myself. Emotional eating has interrupted any
successful weight loss for as long as I’ve ever known.

Last week I lost my beloved Pug and it was devastating. This was the
last of my dogs and the loss of two in a month or so time.

My world was completely torn apart. Life didn’t feel right, even in my
own bed where I’ve been barely fighting off sleepless nights. Any
mention of my dog broke me into a million little pieces.

In the past, I’d usually turn to food to ease my pain, but this time
it just didn’t feel right.
It was as if someone put some sort of mind trap in me and I could not
reach for the food.
Suddenly there were just a few poor food choices…but I didn’t even
care. I believe that I even lost weight.

Whether or not this is because I feel so empty inside or not, I am not
sure. Though the one thing I know is that over the last couple of
months, I have felt very different when it came to emotions and
eating. I wasn’t even trying for weight loss and yet it seemed to be
coming naturally.

There is still internal pain that I have to get through, but there is
also that feeling of success for being able to deal with something as
devastating as this in such a different way.

I guess the point that I am trying to make is that even in the darkest
hours, there is still hope out there.

Healthy Kitchen to Healthy Living

This is a guest post by Chris Steurer

How many times have you walked to fridge and looked inside to see it loaded with a variety of food options and still thought to yourself; “There is nothing to eat”? Generally after that we move on to the cupboards or the pantry and think the same thing. After all of the food frustration many tend to give up and grab an unhealthy snack from the vending machine, nearest corner store, or even the secret stash laying in that tiny little cupboard.

Staying home and eating in is one of the easiest and best ways to ensure that we are eating healthy and staying on track with our diet because we are in control of what we eat. However, it is so easy to fall victim to the cycle of eating unhealthy because of the way we often keep unnecessary and unhealthy food items at the forefront in our homes.

How organized do you keep your kitchen?

We can help correct this by reorganizing our kitchens for healthier choices. To do this, we need to reorganize two main categories of our kitchens; the food and the eating utensils.

Food

Take a look at what your daily eating habits consist of and compare it to how accessible those food items are in your kitchen. Do you eat a lot of candy when you come home from work? Is that because you keep a candy dish sitting out? Candy is an easy choice when it is sitting in an inviting bowl on the counter right when you walk in the door. The proximity, location, and ease of access of the food in our homes can drastically effect what we eat, but it can also help us create new, smarter eating habits. If you try placing a bowl of fresh fruits on your counter where that candy bowl used to b, I bet you would be eating healthier right now.

How easy is it to find the junk food inside of your kitchen?

Take into consideration where your other food items are placed in your kitchen. What food do you have sitting in your fridge door? What is right in front on the main shelf of your cabinet or pantry? These items are often the ones we choose the most because they are simply right in front us and seem to be an easy choice to make. This is why you should make sure that you strategically place the healthy foods in prime locations like this; more often then not you will naturally make the healthier food choice when you check your food stash. Make sure these food items are always in your sight and that they are easy to reach for when you want a quick snack or a healthy, tasty meal. Move all of the unhealthy snack items to the back of the shelf where they can hide behind your good food choices, or get rid of them entirely!

Kitchen Utensils

Do you use different kitchen utensils and cooking items when you eat healthy versus when you eat unhealthy? Generally when I’m eating unhealthy I only use the toaster or the microwave and some dishes. When I eat healthy food items, I am much more likely to use all of my other cooking accessories like the oven/stove, pots and pans, spatulas, strainers, and so on. Knowing this, I can create a more inspiring environment in my kitchen by placing these cooking utensils out so that they are more dominant in my kitchen then even the microwave or toaster.

Organize for Success

Reorganizing your kitchen can truly create a more healthy eating environment. Keep those unhealthy food items out of sight and they will stay out of your mind. Place the healthy food choices up front so that they become the obvious choice for food and sticking to your health and eating goals can become a lot simpler.

Do you have any tips on how you organize your kitchen or food for healthier habits? Post a comment below and let us know!

Emotional Eating

This is a guest post by Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., author of “The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person” and President of Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research.

Chronic dieters often have beliefs about emotional distress and eating that interfere with losing weight or keeping it off. They express the ideas in the following ways: “If I’m upset, the only way I can calm down is by eating.” “If I’m upset, I deserve to eat.”

Are you an emotional eater?

To address the first idea, I ask dieters about people they know who don’t have a weight problem. What do they do when they’re upset? Dieters frequently feel stymied–they simply don’t know. After polling hundreds of people, I’ve found that people who don’t struggle with their weight do lots of things when they’re upset: they try to solve the problem that is leading to distress, call a friend, take a walk, tolerate the feeling and return to whatever they were doing, practice relaxation or mindfulness exercises–or they distract themselves (surf the web, write emails, play a video game, do a puzzle, listen to soothing music). This group has a different idea about emotional distress: that it is temporary, normal, tolerable, and will diminish.

To address the second idea, “If I’m upset, I deserve to eat,” I get across the message that dieters deserve to feel better but that eating will only give them temporary relief. Once the food is gone, they’ll still have the initial problem that led to distress plus they’ll feel badly about having overeaten. I help them see that they have a choice: They can eat whenever they’re upset (and fail to lose weight or keep it off) or they can tolerate their distress or actively work toward reducing their distress in other ways (which greatly increases the probability that they will lose weight and maintain their weight loss).

I then work with dieters to create a list of compelling activities they can engage in when they’re upset and they quickly find out that they can self soothe in other ways. Many of these activities are described in the newsletters and blogs at www.beckdietsolution.org.

The End of Dieting Has Arrived

New Years Resolution: Stop Dieting Part I

I know that I have said these types of things before like a broken record but this time things feel different. There have been so many ups and downs but now after finishing the first cut of the movie and having time to reflect on the last three years of my life in production on this film, I think I am starting to get it. Forget dieting!
Now I know what you are thinking, we have heard the non dieting approach before, so what else is so new? Well I could make you wait for the release of the film to find out but I will give you some personal hints. After spending time with some of the best authors and personalities like Jillian Michaels, Dr. David Katz, Dr. Michael Roizen and Dr. Judith Beck and that doesn’t even cover almost every top ten university that we visited. I think I  have a good perspective to back up what I am going to tell you. I Personally don’t give a damn if you want to eat peanut butter sandwich sandwiches all day long, though I think you will probably get sick and tired of them very quickly. I also don’t care if you want to eat foods laden with chemicals or just fruit and vegetables. It really doesn’t matter on its own. My new school of thought is really mixing two approaches. The first is trying to make small changes that are geared towards more healthy eating but with only foods that I like. If they are fruits and vegetables that I hate, why bother forcing myself to eat something that I know I can not and will not stick with. Second thing is stop depending on becoming so damn obsessed with calories, carbs and the chemical breakup. If you really want live by reading every food label you come by for minutes at a time you are going to have very hard choices and grow to hate the grocery store. I think it is a certain amount of common sense when you decide between having eggs for breakfast or a box of yummy chocolate pancakes with pecans and syrup. One is not going to turn out very well for you and chances are you already know which one. If you do decide to go the with the route of obsession, its going to be very hard to eat out with friends and your going to basically live like a hermit.. I personally think it is not going to work. Never did for me or the majority of the rest of dieters in this country.
Another major change is you have got to exercise. Now that does not mean spending huge amounts of time and money at your local gym Chance are that if you didn’t go last year, you probably wont go this year. Now don’t give up hope yet. There are some pretty cool solutions that have come out that are relatively inexpensive and totally enjoyable that you can do right out of you home or even possibly your office if are willing to share. So my New Years resolution is going to be practicing what I preach. After all, I have had three years of researching and filming for this film.
Please keep joining me everyday up until the release and I will be honest with you and share what really worked and what did not.
Please stay tuned tomorrow for the second part to this blog where I wrap things up with the truth about most diet book authors and the way to find possible peace and weight loss for this year and many more to come. The odds really don’t have to be against you.

Tales From a Beached Whale

I just got to see the footage of me taking a body fat percentage test. FYI: That’s when you are actually in an X-Ray machine with a full scan. Check out the picture below…

HELP!!

I didn’t realize I looked that big. I literally looked like a beached whale. It’s the first time I am seeing myself laying down… and I don’t like it.

Thank God there is no mirror by my bed and I can’t see without my glasses. Usually I don’t look at myself in the mirror anyway, and I hide my belly with a cover so I don’t see it. Today I really got a good look at myself. Wow… I look so bad.

I feel like I have learned a lot about food and dieting while working on this film, but I am not sure it is enough to make me happy and thin. Sometimes, I just wish I could magically take off the weight. I wonder how long it will take.

Do I need to lose weight to like myself?

31 Days Towards Change – A Progress Report

In all my years on this earth, through all of my ups and downs, 500 lbs days and 150 lbs days, I am at a place I have never been at before. I previously made bad choices that inevitably led to more weight issues. Now I am making  better choices and losing the weight in an appropriate way. I am watching what I eat better and exercising better. I used to just watch every calorie that went into my body and became obsessed with it. Now I am watching how healthy the food is. It is more important to me that food is a healthy choice than just a lean choice.

After 31 days of this, I feel much better. I feel alive for the first time in a long time. I was recently in New York City and what previously seemed like the worst walk ever from 21st street to Time Square was a breeze. Don’t get me wrong, there are days I would love to stay in bed or eat everything in my fridge, but I have a new found strength that keeps me going and feeling healthier than ever.

I also realized that it is not just what I eat or how I work out, it’s about the weight that I carry around with me. I have blamed being heavy for everything in my life — the reason I don’t go to social events, the reason I don’t do physical activity, even the reason I eat most of the time. It’s a shield I hide behind. However, the biggest weight I carry are the layers of unhappiness. I know that being thin doesn’t make me happy, but being happy can help me be thin.

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