HEAVY.
Has anyone seen this new reality show on A&E called Heavy??
It is... fantastic. It's sort of like Intervention— from the way it's shot to the interviews with the people involved— but it all centers around 2 morbidly obese people per episode, and their journey into slimming down.
To be fair, I am obsessed with shows about addiction and transformation. Programs like Intervention, Tabatha's Salon Takeover, and Wife Swap have always appealed to me. There's something about watching a person struggle, and then realize something important about themselves that I rather enjoy, and sometimes they FAIL, and that's cool too (as horrible as that makes me sound).
Heavy is no different! It follows two people, who are then paired up and brought to what is, for all intensive purposes, a fat camp. Together they work out with trainers, struggle to eat the vegetables and grilled proteins they're fed, and vent to each other about the perils of weight loss.
A few of my favorite highlights from the show include last week's episode where "Big Kev" broke down and started yelling, "I'm not going to eat the salad! I can't take anymore salad!" That was great.
I was a fat kid, the type where my pediatrician had to sit me down and have talks with me about what a grim future I'd face if I didn't lose weight. Eventually, when I hit puberty and grew and my metabolism sped up, I did slim down. So, in a way I get a bit of what these people go through. Losing weight sucks, no doubt about it, and being fat is just a shitty card in life to be dealt.
And, I feel badly about it, but I watch this show and eat snacks and it feels good. I don't know if I snack because watching them stresses me out, or perhaps I eat while I watch because it makes me feel closer to them?
I have no idea, but it has become a little sick ritual for me that I take great pleasure in.
I dunno, has anyone else had a similar experience watching these reality shows? Perhaps you've taken up heroin after a particularly draining episode of Intervention?
Check out a clips from the show here (I need someone to talk about this with)!