A Discussion of Oprah’s TV Special “Shame, Blame, and the Weight Loss Revolution”

(And more information about my online course coming up!)

Okay, Revolution is in the title so I HAVE to go there, as my company is called Revolution Within.

Why did I name it that? My mission is to guide every one of my clients to develop a better relationship with her/himself/themselves, thereby creating an internal revolution.

So…on to the show.

Well. I have many thoughts.

Disclaimer: I personally don’t take a weight loss medication, and I don’t plan on it. However, I have zero issue with people taking weight loss medication. That is a personal decision, and everyone else on the planet needs to butt out of other people’s personal decisions. 

If you took offense to that then read it again and really let that marinate.

Second disclaimer: I will do my best to stay unbiased here, but I’m admittedly a big fan of Oprah. I know, I know…she unleashed Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz on to the world. But she is, first and foremost, a business woman. She takes risks and most of hers have paid off very well. 

I also have mad respect for how gracefully she’s handled all of the ridicule she has endured over the years about her weight (and her skin color and her marital status and and and…)

And can you honestly tell me that you wouldn’t want Oprah-level wealth and success? 

Sure you wouldn’t. (Big side eye.)

Oprah used this platform to speak of her lifelong weight struggle and the decades of public ridicule she has endured to a studio audience populated with people who struggle with their weight and have endured not-so-public ridicule about it. 

Believe me…every single one of us who has struggled with our weight at some point has experienced being shamed, judged, and/or ridiculed for it. Millions of people have.

But Oprah has taken it in the teeth about her weight on every public forum for decades, and she has handled it with incredible class.

It’s no wonder these weight loss medications are such a hot topic, are in such short supply, and are (reportedly) soooo expensive.

This program is a 42 minute long, very brief glimpse into the benefits and downsides of taking weight loss medication.

Oprah interviews a few women who’ve had success with taking medication as well as a teenage girl, whose mother was told by her pediatrician that she was on track to weigh 500 pounds by age 16 and will end up dying young.

WTAF?!? What a way to gently approach a health issue with this child’s mom.

This now-16-year-old girl has lost over 100 pounds with a combination of bariatric surgery and taking a weight loss drug that’s been approved for children.

The show also features two doctors who are funded by weight loss drug companies. (That feels…biased to me.)

Oprah also explains her break from Weight Watchers, which was another thing I had been very curious about. She stepped down from the board so as not to appear biased in her reporting about the “weight loss revolution” and donated all of her WW stock to an amazing charity, so more kudos to her.

And in doing so she invited the Captain or Grand PooBah or what have you from WW to speak on this show. And that woman talked about how WW is the most scientifically something something behavior change program out th—

To which I heard a very LOUD RECORD SCRATCH and actually yelled out loud, “Um, WHAT?!?!?”

Nope. No. I don’t accept that.

It’s the most WELL KNOWN one. Counting points is not scientifically - fucking - based proven to work. 

Evidence based? I know ONE woman who lost weight on WW and didn’t gain it back in the past 30+ years. ONE. (I’ve talked to thousands of people on this topic.)

Counting points?!! 

COUNTING. POINTS.

So here’s what was actually said:

Queen Oprah: “WW has changed its philosophy and has purchased a company that is in the weight loss medications, can you tell us why that philosophy changed?”

C/GPB of WW: “We are the most clinically tested, evidence based, science backed--

[which tran$late$ to the mo$t well-funded of the weight lo$$ program$ in exi$tence…funded by it$ con$tantly repeating cu$tomer$] 

—behavior change program. But we were missing the third prong, which was biology.” 

(Third prong = The enormous, loudly mooing cash cow that is weight loss medication)

Okay, she said science-backed, not scientifically proven.

But…

She goes on to explain that WW is here to help people provide the necessary care and release the shame; that people come on to WW and complete the behavior change without the success.

Um…YEAH. You’re teaching people to eat as much quantity of zero point foods as they want!! That’s not CHANGING behavior. That’s swapping one unhelpful behavior for a new one.

You change the behavior by paying attention to WHEN you’re hungry and WHY you want to eat. Then you modify behavior from there by journaling, by practicing, by being kind to yourself, by acknowledging every single bit of progress you’re making…

…in other words, by taking my course.

Not “I can eat these cucumbers and greek yogurt dip which I don’t actually enjoy eating until I feel sick because yay, zero points!”

Okay, rant over.

That’s not entirely fair. I’ve joined Weight Watchers twice myself and only lasted a few months both times. But it’s been at least seven years since the last time I attended a meeting. So maybe the points thing isn’t still active.

All I know is that when I finally learned from my mentors Corrine Crabtree and her bestie Jane Pilger how to actually listen to my own body’s hunger cues and to stop fucking JUDGING AND SHAMING myself constantly for not knowing how to do that in the first place, I managed to get control of my eating disorder.

No one at WW ever talked about that. It was mostly about recipes and food swaps and how to make smart decisions at restaurants. 

And it was always about buying WW bars and drinks and books. Which is called capitalism, so yeah. That’s what WW is about. Repeat customers.

I get it! It’s a business, and businesses are in it to make money.

But those large-scale organizations don’t have your personal weight loss success on their quarterly revenue reports, beauties and cuties.

And while food swaps and recipes are really great information to have, that doesn’t cover the lasting behavior change we really need: 

• Self-kindness

• Self-acknowledgement

• Losing the judgment and shame

• Ditching the comparison and perfectionism

Well…I’m a small business, and I’m here to pitch my course to you because IT WORKS.

I’m 51 years old and have been maintaining my 50+ pound weight loss with relative ease for the first time in my life. 

Why?

My course is why. It’s why I’m better able to manage and process my emotions without turning to cookies; it’s also why stress doesn’t eat me alive and keep me up all night every night anymore.

I wrote this course because I NEVER, EVER believed that I’d get to this frame of mind. And yet here I am, because I practice everything I teach and preach.

WHERE CAN YOU GET THE COURSE?

Email me to get on the waitlist ----> dana@revolution-within.com

But back to the drugs.

The most exciting thing that this medication does, or so I’ve been told, is that it quiets the “food noise” - that’s the voice in our heads that drives us to eat when we’re not hungry - along with suppressing appetite.

Which WOW, that’s fantastic. 

But…when you stop taking it? Guess what may come back even stronger than before?

I teach how to manage that “food noise” in my course, by the way. That noise is almost always your suppressed emotions begging to surface. And when it’s not, it’s either actual hunger or your yearning for more joy in your life.

If food is your only pleasure? Then we’ve got some work to do, my friend, because I guarantee you that you deserve so much better than that.

Through my education and certification as well as my own experiences and experiments, I was able to create a course that teaches exactly how to practice quieting the food noise without medication. 

Imagine that.

That’s not a judgment of anyone choosing to take the medication. You should try anything that can help, and I sincerely hope it works well for you. I take an antidepressant because I still need one, and I feel no shame about it.

What was also sort of glossed over was the fact that the meds aren’t enough on their own. You CAN’T just “pop a pill” and have your weight issue dissolve. It requires actual lifestyle changes. Major ones. (Same with depression.)

But none that can’t or shouldn’t be done gradually, over time, which is so much easier to figure out with the guidance of someone who’s already doing it successfully. (Like me.)

It requires an entire mindset shift, and no one mentioned that AT ALL.

Now that I’ve self-promoted my way through this post, I’ll conclude with this: I’ve written before about how, with how incredibly doctored our food supply has become, no wonder we’re in an obesity epidemic. The first doctor on Oprah’s show even specifically talked about the microbiome changing in our food. 

Most of our food has PLASTIC in it, for fucks sake.

I’m not saying that to be pessimistic or to say that we should abandon our health goals. We’re doing the best we can with the information and the resources we have. 

That’s all we can do. 

So now that we’re learning more about how to become healthier, we can start figuring out what tiny tweaks we can make that we can KEEP DOING FOREVER. 

When we change too much at one time, our brains freak out. 

Brains are processors, not storage. So when you give them too much information to process at one time, they abort the mission and direct you to the nearest pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Anyway, that’s my pitch. I’m riding Oprah’s fabulous coattails to promote my as-yet-to-be-named-and-needs-to-be-edited course.  It’ll be ready to land in your inbox soon…email me to get on the waitlist: dana@revolution-within.com

Love & Hugs,

Dana