Too Fat To Fly

It started a while back when Southwest and United Airlines implemented new rules in which overweight individuals could be barred from the plane for safety reasons or forced to purchase an extra ticket.

 

I was appalled at the time since they were they were already making the seats so small that average size people could barely fit in them comfortably.

Well watch out all flight attendants, it is

your turn now. Thai Airways International has informed their employees that they could be grounded if they don’t stay within their new weight guidelines.

To add insult to injury, they are also trying to change their image by getting rid of any flight attendants that are over the age of forty-five.

So I guess the new image must be an eighty-pound, twenty one-year-old to work there.

Talk about changes…could the pilots be next on the list?

Yet even as these companies keep implementing weight limits, there is still a certain airline that is giving out warm cookies on all their flights.

Talk about the hypocrisy.

What’s next; start charging ticket prices per pound?

 

To Lose Or Gain: The Real Choice Of Weight Loss.

I am a person who hates making choices in my life. Sometimes I solicit opinions first like I’m living by committee. The hardest part for me is when I’m on my own in the car and deciding whether to eat fast food and milk shakes or to take the turn back home and actually make a healthy choice.

I could always make the excuse of the saying, “my diet starts tomorrow” or a thousand other excuses. Despite the plethora of unhealthy food choices, I have a harder time identifying what I feel like are a limited number of reasons to make better choices.

I could blame it on the environment, others, or just not feeling well. I could even try the excuse of wishing I had someone by my side day in and day out demanding my making the right choices. In reality, it doesn’t always work for celebrities that have the millions of dollars to afford that and even if I did I would end up resenting the person feeling like a prisoner.

So that leaves it to me.  I have to make my own choices and consider all the great results of having good health.  I want to be able to walk with out getting out of breath, I want to be able to fit into the normal clothes I have, which I currently packed away in my attic like I’m already dead and gone.

Sometimes I actually do feel like the Barry I used to be is gone and I just dwell in self-hate and very little self-esteem.

However the other day while interviewing the health expert, Robert Reames, who lost a whole bunch of weight and is trying to help others reminded me that I am actually getting the chance to not only help myself, but tons of others who are with me every day going through the same struggles as me.

It really does show the fact that my film ‘Finding Thin’ really will make a difference. For the first time in a long time, I felt proud and inspired.

So when driving today, instead of finding all the excuses to get that Shamrock shake, I concentrated on all of the reasons not to.

I really think I am breaking through to taking responsibility for making the choices that only I can make and living with the outcome.

Good times are ahead. I can feel it.

Big People on the Big Screen

Growing up in America, I was one of many under the false assumption while watching the various films and movies that always featured larger-sized people as stupid and meaningless stereotyped roles. The heavy are portrayed in sitcoms and movies as either the “funny, lovable big guy” or the “evil lecherous enemy in an action films”…this was, and still is, the way of the world.

There certainly hasn’t been any leading role out there for a specific heavy actor, as evidently they would not embody the real America that we all have come to know.

Yet, slowly but surely I’ve noticed certain celebrities stepping their feet in the spotlight. Oprah is on an untouchable level…and other celebs such as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michael Moore, Elizabeth Taylor and Jennifer Hudson are making a hefty paycheck for numerous roles.

Oh, but that’s right, Ms. Hudson is now thin so she doesn’t count anymore.

 

What does it take for larger-sized people to be considered equal to their counter-parts? Are we not on the same playing field because of our body size and/or shape? Is that not considered a form of prejudice?

Personally, I am finding a secret to “thin-hood” is having societal compassion and acceptance for all, regardless of ones weight. Full-figured actors-especially in today’s society-would depict a true to form reality and story on the big screen.

The big screen is for big people too.

 

 

The Great Excuses

I never like to speak ill of my mother but she did teach me some of the best excuses to use when it came to food.

 

First she claimed that she was too big to walk up the stairs to her bedroom in her home and needed to have an electronic chair to get to the second level. After all, she was sixty-five years. After the chair was put in she stated she had too many aches and pains so she could only use the chair to put food on to bring up and down to her. She couldn’t walk, she couldn’t sit, and the only thing that would be moving was her meals to her.

Next, she insisted on bringing the scooter that she bought for herself into the house so she would not have to walk to the car.

Her latest complaint is that she doesn’t want to go from the electronic chair to the couch or kitchen because it takes too much effort. It’s complete immobility.

When I ask I my mother why she won’t put fourth any effort, the excuses are everything from, a bad arm to a painful back, to a never-ending list of a myriad of other reasons.

The only change I have witnessed from my mother is seeing a woman that walked half of NYC only five years ago, to a person that refuses to walk three feet today.

 

Obesity scores another one.

 

Jillian Michaels’ Diet Revolution

Some people either like “The Biggest Loser” or they hate it. There really doesn’t seem to be many in between. Today, Jillian Michaels announced that she would be leaving the show after her current contract expires.

What most people do not realize is how Jillian revolutionized the diet world and the views on obesity to our society. Until Jillian came around, most people went on and off diets without making a fuss publicly or would participate in a one-page spread on a magazine; no one made a big deal about it, especially when it came to television.

When Jillian hit the air, things began to change. People started to learn about health, and the meaning of the word “diet” being used as a means of lifestyle. Taking off the weight became a popular and a fun thing to do. There were games, DVD’s and many ways to take part at home.

Jillian started to make it exciting to lose weight. It wasn’t about the fast weight loss for her; it was about being healthy and making lifestyle changes.

When Jillian hosted her own show “Losing it with Jillian Michaels” over the summer, it showed her true commitment and compassion to each chosen family and for a betterchange. This show did not offer prized of money and fame; it offered time with Jillian, which I was so lucky myself to have spent while shooting our film this lastsummer in Nashville.

I wish Jillian good luck in any and all of her future projects, as I am sure they will be fantastic.

She helped turn the name “Biggest Loser” into a profound and inspirational meaning for most…in the healthiest way possible.

 

 

My Sugar Drug Addiction

I was one of the people who until recently believed that Corn Sugar or High Fructose Corn Syrup was addictive. Then finally, after a long while of research and experimentation, I no longer believe that Corn Syrup and regular syrup aren’t really that much different.

What was bothersome to me was that I was still under the belief that since Corn Syrup was disproved then sugar itself must be addictive.

I had read the studies from Princeton and interviewed their experts. The only problem was that they had only experimented on non-humans.

I viewed PET scans of comparing subjects on miscellaneous narcotics and subjects induced with sugar. Amazingly both scans displayed that the subjects were hitting the same receptors in the brain.

This confused

me even further. It’s not like we can ban sugar or any sugar alternative from our foods. And let’s not forget the thousands of American jobs that would disappear with them. Both our health and economy are fighting for their lives.

So, what gives?

Well it turns out that I once again turned to sugar over the weekend. Not anywhere as terribly as I have in the past, but I found myself there… again.

What was different this time was that I tried to figure out what emotion I was feeling while I went back to my unhealthy habits. It was a form of depression again. I was coping again… I was doing something that millions of Americans suffer and deal with every day. Could sugar be an underground drug to cope with life’s trying times, since it hits the same receptors as other drugs?

Is there something else to turn to?  There seem to be a good number of recovering drug addicts in the world, so why is it so difficult for me to stop going to my “Sugar Drug Addiction?”

I welcome your input…

 

My Dog Blog

I really never gave it any thought before until I weighed my beloved Pug at the veterinarian recently.

It was astounding that she was considered to be obese as I was. Looks like my pug was going to join this dieting journey along side me.

To fix this situation, I immediately changed his food. I also found out that exercise would help.

Sound familiar?

My animals were taking my bad habits. Any snacks or meals that I chose to eat, they ate. I made the terrible mistake of feeding them my table scraps. I never realized that if I fed my dogs the same crap that I fed myself, that they would be in a dangerous health situation, similar to my own.

So now, instead of one person on a diet with the ability to either sabotage or take charge of, it is myself plus one. I’m in charge of my pug and myself. I’m standing alone and in charge of saving two lives. It’s a pretty scary perspective especially if I’m already having such problems on my own diet.

I don’t have kids and my animals are basically my children. It really says something that our habits, especially dietary, set the bar for our children-whether human or a bit furrier. They are following our footsteps, whether healthy of not. My “child” is a victim of my bad habit.

It is time to break the chain and start to make changes.

 

Digging My Own Grey-ve With Food

Went to the doctor…

Lost 10 gained 13. Not a good time on the scale for me this week.

I am discovering so many things about myself on this journey. I’m discovering metaphors… and they come in color. There is only black or white for me. No middle ground. I am always going to the extreme when dieting. Eating too little is my black, and eating too many calories is my white.

When I go off the wagon, I make excuses and start bargaining with myself for my physical “grey area”.

I was shocked to find out that I really wasn’t addicted to sugar. When I was feeling good or upbeat, I could actually eat one cookie and not another.

It really is the emotions and the images of the food that gets me. The visual, emotional and physical tastiness seems to be the hardest to bargain against.

My most favorite thing out of all of this is the life lessons that I get to learn.

And I’m ready to use them to get myself out of this middle- grey -ground.

Corn Sugar = The Devil?

I understand the theory that corn sugar –referred as high fructose corn syrup to many- could in fact be considered “The Devil” when it comes to our intake.

The problem with that theory is that chemically, the differences are not that significant to make me care. Corn Syrup is in almost everything we eat and there are still thin people walking the earth.

Is there some secret evil conspiracy among the thin?  Or, is it the idea of moderation coming into play here?

I used to love to single out and blame one type of food or ingredient for my being overweight; but I have come to realize that it is a culmination of many factors that make me in fact, fat.

On the days that I overeat with sugary foods, I gain weight. Yet on the days when I eat lower amounts of sugary based foods, I lose weight.

Perhaps we need to blame the environment or the commercial advertising that is aimed at our children or my adult-self. One could even start to blame vegetables and fruits if they consume a much higher amount then the norm.

If moderation and exercise leads to a calorie deficit and significant weight loss, then how can it be the fault of corn sugar? We point our finger to fault anything or anybody for our dietary choices and inevitably our faults.

So maybe if we all just try to work with what we have and stop looking for that one item to “blame”, we could then take responsibility for ourselves and begin to win the battle of the bulge.

 

Looking for Healthy in a World of Junk

What should I eat?

These days, everything I see or read has something to do with eating healthy. From Michelle Obama to news stations and even at schools, the new message is “be healthy”. My problem: I find it overwhelming and even crushing sometimes.

When I go shopping at my local grocery store, I don’t know what to get anymore. I have discovered that whatever I used to buy is unhealthy. I was told not a long time ago that my favorite yoghurt was very bad for me. I have just realized that most of my diet was full of chemical garbage.

Then, if I try to buy healthier products, the prices are so high that I feel powerless about what to do. Fruits and vegetables have become a luxury item I cannot afford, and the few coupons I get are always for unhealthy foods or things I don’t like.

I  don’t know how to shop healthy and affordable. I don’t like cooking. My fridge is either empty or filled with junk and I often end up ordering in. I was told to get control over what I eat, I find is very hard to do.  I don’t even desire the so-called healthy foods really.

I feel like everybody is telling us to get out there and eat healthy, but nobody is telling us how we can pay for it and switch our lifestyles. I’d like some inputs…