Fat Chance (11 page)
Authors: Julie Haddon
You get the feeling Bob could go on this way for hours, delineating the symptoms faced by an irrational hermit, symptoms that sound strangely like those also faced by obese people trying to work out for the very first time. Thankfully, Bob’s litany is interrupted.
“Bob,” says Dr. Marvin as he scans his bookshelves, “a groundbreaking book has just come out that might help you.” He pulls the book from the shelf and hands the copy to Bob.
“
Baby Steps
?” Bob asks as he takes in the title.
“
Baby Steps
,” confirms Dr. Marvin. “It means setting small, reasonable goals for yourself, one day at a time, one tiny step at a time. For instance, when you leave this office, don’t think about everything you have to do to get out of the building. Just think of what you must do to get out of this room, and when you get to the hall, deal with that hall, and so forth. You see?
Baby
steps.”
“
Baby
steps!” Bob cheers as he rises to leave and takes small shuffles toward the door. “Oh boy!”
S
everal months after I’d been on the show and had made the transition from the madness known as “Jillian Michaels’ workouts” to the madness known as Margie’s, I’d see the baby-steps approach play out in living color.
A new girl named Sharon showed up to be trained one day, and immediately Margie pulled me aside. “Julie,” she asked, “can you please help me look after her? She’s never really worked out.” It was an assessment that would be proven true during our very first hour together.
Partway through the seventy minutes of sprints, races and drills, I looked over to find my newfound, overweight friend barfing for all she was worth. She was exhausted, miserable and obviously physically sick. “Sharon,” I said as I approached her, “you simply cannot quit. I know this is hard, but you have to keep going, just one step at a time.” She nodded as she stood up from her keeled-over position and attempted to pull herself together.
Months ago I posted Sharon’s story on my MySpace page and was in awe over the reception it received. My favorite reply came from a young woman in Mississippi, who wrote,
“I know exactly how Sharon feels. I’d let myself gain so much weight over the last nine years that I was no longer happy in my own skin. I recently started exercising, and six hours after my first cardio workout I could not move. Muscles were hurting that I didn’t even know were there, but three days later, I went at it again. I’m finally sticking to a schedule now, and for the first time in my life, instead of saying, ‘I’m
going
to do it,’ I’m actually
doing
it!”
Amazingly, she persevered through the rest of that workout and despite being sore for the entire week following that debut actually showed up for round two of the torture two days later.
During our second seventy-minute training session together, I checked in on Sharon between drills to make sure she was still alive. As I approached her I noticed that tears were streaming down her cheeks. “What is it?” I asked as gently as possible.
“I don’t know,” she whispered through choked-back tears. “I really don’t know why I’m crying.”
I cupped her hand in my hands, looked her straight in the eyes and said, “I do. I know
exactly
why you’re tearing up.” She met my gaze in anticipation of what I would say. “You’re crying for three reasons,” I continued. “First, you’re crying because you are completely embarrassed about letting yourself get to this point. You can’t believe that
you
of all people are this horribly and uncomfortably fat.
“The second reason you are crying is that this is the hardest thing you have ever done, and physically, it just plain hurts.
“And third, those tears are tears of pride. You’re proud that you’re actually
doing
this.”
Sharon nodded so rapidly that I thought her head might wobble right off her shoulders. “How do you know all of that?” she finally asked.
I told her that on so many occasions on campus, I had shed those very same tears. I too had followed the baby-step progression, from embarrassment to pain to pride, and while I wouldn’t trade the end result for all the money in the world, I vastly underestimated what it would take to walk that path.
I
didn’t fully know how much weight I carried all of my adult life until I tried to run it up a hill. The first time Jillian asked me to jog for five minutes straight—no stopping allowed—I thought I’d literally burst into tears. Sure, she had first prepared my fragile knees by working to build up the muscles that surround them, but when I heard her demand that multiminute run I knew I was a goner for sure. I was writing my obituary in my mind’s eye as I pulled on my socks and shoes. “Julie Hadden—loving wife, mom and friend. Sadly enough, that twenty-foot jog just did her in!” What a pitiful way to go.
Halfway through the run that I was sure I would not survive, I looked at Jillian and wanted to scream, “I’m a fat person! Do I really need to remind you of that? I’m fat, and fat people like couches and French fries and drinks that have fizz, not death-wish jogs in the blazing sun!”
“Welcome to your new world, Jules!” Jillian sneered as if hearing my thoughts. She had been running backward faster than I was running forward, and as she did a one-eighty and raced off into the distance, I heard her cheer, “Keep going! It doesn’t get better than this!”
P
rior to my
The Biggest Loser
experience, the only form of physical activity I engaged in was the kind that involved walking from the living room to the kitchen for a refill on snacks, or from the car to the house after picking up Noah from school. I guess there were other examples, but they reflected accidental exercise at best. Clearly that had all changed drastically, now that I was on the show.
The worst part of being on campus wasn’t the fact that I was denied my French fries and fizz. Nor was it the fact that Jillian made me complete a near-fatal run. It’s that those things happened not just once but on a sickeningly daily basis. In the spirit of referencing Bill Murray movies, it was like I had been dropped onto the set of
Groundhog Day
, where every twenty-four-hour period mirrored the awful day you thought you’d already lived through.
As a frame of reference, for my entire life leading up to the show, dragging luggage through an airport represented the most rigorous workout I’d known. Well, that, and sweating my way into a swimsuit during those dreaded pageant days.
A typical day on campus involved getting up at seven-thirty, grabbing a bite to eat and hitting the gym before Jillian arrived so that once she was there, our homework assignment was complete. Typically that homework involved an hour of cardio—such as spending twenty minutes on the stair-climbing machine at level eight, followed by twenty minutes on the elliptical machine at 150 revolutions per minute, followed by twenty minutes on the stationary bike or the treadmill. After that, we’d engage in one-on-one workouts with Jillian. And oh, how I hated those.
Some of my teammates actually looked forward to the individual attention, but for the life of me, I don’t know why. I’d refuse to make
eye contact with Jillian each morning when she’d ask our team, “Okay, who’s up first?” Thankfully, my teammate Hollie typically jumped at the chance to get her “Jillian time” over with; from the safety of my treadmill I’d watch every exercise Jillian put her through so that I’d be prepared when I was called on. When it finally was my turn, my ever-present thought was, “Great day, let this be over soon.”
After those excruciating one-on-ones, we’d have to log another hour of independent exercise before we could take a short break for lunch. Our afternoon schedule looked strangely the same: individual training with Jillian, followed by an hour of work on our own. Talk about exhausting! My flabby little self didn’t know what to think, after all I was asking it to do.
The most intense days of all were the ones that involved a challenge in addition to the normal stuff of campus life. We’d be awakened at 3:00
AM
and told to get “camera ready” as quickly as possible, which usually involved a shower, team-colored workout clothes and an attempt to look at least halfway awake.
My teammates and I would plod downstairs to eat an apple and some almonds, even as I offered up a silent prayer—“Seriously, Lord, if you’d deliver me a cinnamon roll, I’d be
far
more pleasant to be around.” We’d then pack a lunch for ourselves and climb into a van that would drive us to the challenge location ninety minutes away. I always thought I’d be able to sleep during those van rides, but my plans were futile at best. Between the chatter of my teammates, the potholes in the road, and the rising sun casting bright beams across my face, it was no use.
Once on-site, we’d spend another hour preparing for the physical part of the challenge. Sports-training staff members would tape our feet and ankles, give us instruction on the nuances of the challenge and then set up cameras and microphones. By the time the challenge actually started, the sun was high in the sky.
The single common denominator uniting a very diverse group of eighteen original contestants for Season 4 was that
nobody
ate breakfast prior to their time on the show. Eat breakfast, people!
Each challenge took thirty to forty-five minutes to complete. If the show’s host, the lovely and talented Alison Sweeney, was asked to redo certain shots because of audio blips or lighting issues, it could take longer, but usually we’d be done in less than one hour’s time. Afterward,
each contestant had to sit for interviews about the challenge itself, answering questions like, “How did you feel when two
blue-team
members outlasted you?” and “Walk us through your initial strategy… why did you think you might win?”
I was incredibly enamored with Alison Sweeney at the beginning of the show because I had seen her for so many years on
Days of Our Lives
. She still starred on that show while she was working with
The Biggest Loser
, and often she’d come to our set immediately after leaving the set of her soap. We all loved to harass her after her flashback scenes on
Days
; she’d arrive at our show with hair that still boasted a 1950s bouffant or 1970s flyaways.
It took more than two hours to run everyone through the interview process, so when it wasn’t our turn, we’d grab a seat and eat our sack lunch. When everyone was finally done, we’d load back into the van and head home. Incredibly, even after a tiresome morning like that, we’d get back to campus and have to unload the van, empty the coolers and put everything back in the appropriate kitchen cabinet or refrigerator drawer. So much for being TV celebrities! Since when do stars do their own chores?
Then, into a fresh set of workout clothes and on to the gym we’d go.
A
fter our painstaking series of workouts, we’d then head back to the house. We would prepare and eat dinner, which seemed always to consist of a small grilled chicken breast, half a cup of veggies, a small side salad and a glass of room-temperature water—
again
. Oh joy.