What you lose when you lose 315 pounds
I watched this rather amazing video showing Ron Lester (Varsity Blues and Popular) and his amazing weight loss from gastric bypass surgery (and subsequent plastic surgeries to remove excess skin) and was struck by the fact that not only does his girlfriend get trotted out like some kind of prize for having lost weight, but that she seems to be engaged in some kind of denial that she’s dating a former fat guy. At one point, she says that she considers the pre-surgery Ron to be an entirely different person, whereas Ron says that he is the same person he was before and has a problem parsing the new guy in the mirror. I suppose this was supposed to be some kind of inspirational story but I’m left feeling really depressed for Ron Lester, whose body language in the video suggests that he absolutely adores his new girlfriend, and also, I kind of wanting to punch his girlfriend right in her smug bitchface.
Posted by Weetabix
Filed under: Media, Weight Loss, WLS
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I’m sure he does feel like the same person inside – the surgery didn’t change his personality, just his body – but to the girlfriend perhaps he was less confident and outgoing (not sure since I haven’t seen the video) when he was overweight and that may have changed now. Or she could just be shallow.
I’m actually not surprised at her reaction and her inability to “get” that he is a former fat guy. It’s actually sort of what he’s going through in reverse. But this does speak to a huge disconnect that we have around body image and identity. Our society sees that fat guy, literally, as a different person from the thin one now. But, as mentioned above, Ron’s personality (a personality which was formed as a big person) is still much the same.
I always loved him on Popular and I loved the show for taking on so many unpopular issues.
He’s such a cutie and seems a little uneasy about his new “sexy” guy status. His girlfriend looks like a Charlotte York uppity bitch clone.
I found that video absolutely disgusting. I want to punch her in the face too!
When I lost a bunch of weight, the hardest thing for me was the reaction I got from everyone else. Many people didn’t know I had been fat and I always felt like that person inside. Not a bad thing but I saw the world through a different lens even if I looked thin on the outside. It was like I could “pass.” When a person who is supposed to love us can’t SEE us for everything we are (including what we used to look like) that’s so dangerous.
Now I want to kick her.
“The positive thing is that I got Kate…”
This makes me so sad. He thinks that losing the weight is what made it possible for him to find a woman to love him. The unfortunately thing is that he can’t really go back and to being “the fat guy” and find out if women respond to his newfound confidence even in the larger body. It would be very unhealthy. What is going to happen some years down the road when he happens to put on some weight after they have kids or they have money issues and he stresses out? Is he going to worry everyday the she will leave him? Personally if I lost half my body weight and met a man that told me that he sees ‘someone different’ than the person I was before, I would be insulted. This is who I AM. Regardless of how the packaging changes, you’re still the same person. *sigh*
I commend him for taking control of his health of course, but I have thought he was adorable since I saw Varsity Blues and I wanted to jump through that movie screen and smooch him, all 500 pounds of him.
I agree with Spins. Having brought this issue up a few times on a messageboard I frequent (which has 10,000 members and counting, and is heavily moderated so isn’t trolly) some people do, quite honestly, equate a fat person with someone who is lazy and has no willpower, and a thinner person with someone who isn’t necessarily lazy, and must obviously have willpower or else they’d be fat. Ugh.
Isn’t it funny how simple surgery can make people see someone differently? It’s an uphill battle we have to fight, true that.
Wow, I think it’s sad that she sees the former fatty as a “different person” altogether. No, that’s still him, and that life makes up a really big part of who he is now. What happens when some (or perhaps all) of the weight creeps back? I guess she’ll have long been gone.
I don’t think it’s that way at all. She met him thin. She only knows him thin. My boyfriend doesn’t know the blonde I used to be, he can’t put the two different looking people together. Maybe I should break up with him!!!!
I also couldn’t find the video. But I found this instead.
I can’t even say anything right now, just yet. But maybe later?
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&vid=9d78a35b-a82d-4c2f-8b8a-cd6adf52b786
Um, wait. That got me the video. Hmm. Sorry. . .
Wow, though…the doctor guy completely convinced me that medicine is a business. He said that potentially with a BMI over 40 are potential patients, then lowered the BMI to 35. Man, does no one look at the BMI project?
Also, bitchface. Awesome. :)
His girlfriend didn’t mean anything mean or offensive with her comment. I think she came across as quite sweet and supportive. Your appearance is a part of how people perceive you, whether you like it or not, and so it is part of your identity. Someone who went from 500 pounds to 200 pounds has changed so much that they are no longer the same person.
Well, I think it’s interesting that she can’t connect with the idea that he not only used to be overweight, but he was INCREDIBLY overweight.
But, more than that….I loved them showing the food he ‘ate before 1 o’clock’ and it only perpetuates the stereotype about what fat people eat and how they got fat.
I just hate that, even if in his case it’s true.
Did you notice that they just had to get in that he over-ate all the time? They just had to show that table with all the food he ate before noon every day. Talk about stereotyping fat people as stuffing their faces all the time.
I truly do hope this works for him and he doesn’t end up gaining any of his lost weight back, but the odds are not on his side, sad to say. And his girlfriend, she probably wouldn’t have even looked at him as boyfriend material before he lost weight (and may be gone if he regains any of it) even though the only thing that has changed about him is his weight (and maybe his confidence in himself). This is just really sad, that people think they have to mutilate their bodies to be accepted.
I don’t know if she meant more than she said, but all she said was that although Ron still saw himself as the big guy he used to be, she didn’t know him then and hadn’t seen his work, so she didn’t think of him as that person. The whole “the positive is that I got Kate” thing is disturbing, but I’m not sure whether it’s fair to attribute that to *her*. Sure, we’ve had a lot of conversations with loons who won’t date fat people around here, but that’s not a reason to assume she’s one of them.
She didn’t seem very smug to me, and the only Charlotte York qualities I saw were the long brown hair and hairband. Heck, she’s round-faced and nervous, which are qualities counter to the beauty standard. (And qualities I want to give her points for, because I am also round-faced and nervous.)
I wanted to smack the doctor. The question posed was “what about people for whom this isn’t a good option?” and he answered “who qualifies for this surgery?” Asshat
Also, what was with that table full of crappy food that he “ate every day before noon?” They, of course, had to go down the “only people who eat vast quantities of fast food all the time are fat” road. (As if all people who eat vast quantities of fast food all the time are fat…) If I’d been at home instead of at work I would have been yelling at the screen.
Thanks Trish and Kate for pointing out that asshole doctor! He is what really pissed me off about this story… you know if we were to write to NBC about the libel problems with telling people that “if you have a BMI of over 35 you should have this surgery”
For instance I am 5’2″ and weigh 234 which gives me a BMI of 43 but I know that I can only lose 20-30 lbs which would still land me in the obese catagory, but sickeningly thin for me. The doctor should have stressed that Gastric Bipass Surgery is a last resort for people who’s health is in dire straits.
I think my biggest problem was the way his girlfriend kept saying “it’s really funny”
“yeah, it’s really funny”
“it was really funny”
“it’s funny that…”
Honey, it’s not really funny. Either you and your boyfriend are on different pages or you just have a very poor vocabulary.
Rebecca, I’m going to go with a poor vocabulary and a little insensitivity. Let’s hope it was just because she was nervous and cannot relate to heavy people being that she is a tri-athlete and all.
If anything I think his girlfriend was just nervous being on television. She looked as if she was proud of him for having taken the steps (while some people equate surgery to being a vanity issue, whereas sometimes it’s a health issue) necessary to better his health. She knows him as he is now. He met her after he had the surgery so she does not know him as “the fat funny guy” she knows him as he is now. I honestly found nothing wrong with her. The doctor is another issue though, but I find most doctors to be complete clowns which makes me biased.
I didn’t think the girlfriend seemed mean at all. I think she was saying that she didn’t know about his past as a fat man and can’t understand his distorted body image.
And I have to point out that, on “Popular,” his character, Sugar, was paired with a completely hot Asian woman.
A fat female character wouldn’t have had a hot boyfriend.
Inside Edition also did a story on him and showed his girlfriend too, but she wasn’t interviewed. Their story seemed to indicate the surgery was done more to jumpstart his acting career, which he is trying to do.
There is a huge push for WLS, but it is something that I will never do. I have heard too many horror stories and I think eating should not be a stressful experience, for people of any size.
IndoorCat: “Someone who went from 500 pounds to 200 pounds has changed so much that they are no longer the same person.”
I really have to call BS on that. I’ve doubled my weight, yet the changes that have occurred in me have been due to life circumstances entirely unrelated to weight. I AM still the same person – that’s why my husband loved me thin, loved me chubby, and loves me fat. He’d love me if I were cancer-ridden and wasted down to 65 pounds or if I got ill and somehow went to 700 because I’m *still ME.*
I do, however, relate to what he said about not being able to reconcile what you see in the mirror now with what you always knew yourself as – I have been fat for a long time now (thin or normal prior to that) and yet I’m still kind of surprised when I see myself in a picture or in the mirror – where did I go? I *know* it’s still me in here, but I look like a complete stranger. So long as I’m not looking at myself, I feel the same, I relate the same way, it’s just me…but when I look, it’s like culture shock or something. This is another reason why it sometimes blindsides me when I get discriminated against or mocked, or have things thrown at me (lol I know I always mention that but it was so horrible) – because I don’t *feel* any different. And in the end, why the hell should I have to? I’m the same person, except more mature and knowledgeable, even more skilled – I’m just fat. What in heck should that have to do with anything? Ok that’s a whole different rant – point is, I know what he means about looking in the mirror. Even if it’s sorta in reverse.
“The doctor should have stressed that Gastric Bipass Surgery is a last resort for people who’s health is in dire straits.”
He didn’t say it because he doesn’t believe it. He believes that only thin = healthy. Even poor Lester doesn’t say he had any pressing health issues – just the vague reference that his body was “shutting down” and he “didn’t even know it” when the real catalyst was not being able to fit behind the wheel of a car.
By his standards I could weigh 190 pounds and qualify for surgery, even though I was *not* all that fat, I certainly wasn’t dying of it, and it’s supposed to be a last resort. He doesn’t believe it’s a last resort for people who are dying any more than the rest of the world does.
I actually didn’t think his girlfriend meant to be snide about it.. or that she was trying to deny who he was. When you see someone looking that drastically different before and after it’s -hard- to think of them as the same person. It’s a really dramatic form of surgery!
-He- was the one who made the claim to not having ever been able to get a girl like that when he was 500+ pounds. I didn’t get the impression she would ever suggest such a thing even if, let’s face it, it probably is true. I think a lot of people may not be willing to date someone who is that heavy because it affects the sexual attraction factor. (I won’t bother with a ramble about what forms the basis of individual attraction.) I don’t think it makes her a bad person if he is right that she wouldn’t have been attracted to him before.
IndoorCat: “Someone who went from 500 pounds to 200 pounds has changed so much that they are no longer the same person.”
Annie McPhee disagrees with IndoorCat but I must agree, at least within my own experience.
I am less than half my former weight and man does that mess with your head!!!! It’s a freaky trip!
If the girlfriend didn’t know him before when he was fat, or while he was losing weight, then why the heck is she on the show with him? I think it was to show fat people that, if they have this surgery, they can fool even triathletes into dating them despite the fact that they were once gluttonous fatties. It can be like you weren’t fat at all! Except, since he was actually getting work as a bigger guy unlike now, there is all this film footage.
Meh. I realize it’s no “half my size” but I’ve weighed 276 pounds and I’ve weighed 169 (I mean, I have dieted down to the lower weights and then regained up to the higher so it’s not like the loss “just happened”) and I was the same person that whole time. I have never even really changed my fat acceptance stance and in fact it pisses me off to be reminded (even though I see it in how they talk to me) that others really do think I’m something like a different person when I am bigger–because *I* know that I am not. I think everyone experiences weight loss/gain differently.
I gotta agree that I’m not sure she was smug, but that doesn’t make this segment any less disturbing. It really highlights the way we characterize people based on their bodies. And this is emphasized and capitialized on by the weight loss industrial complex. Weight loss commercials and weight loss success stories all emphasize that you will be a different person–that there is a thin person (read: worthy person) inside of you waiting to come out, who can then be loved. Biggest Loser really makes a point of narrating an internal transformation that goes along with the physical one. And we can’t deny that physical transformation is compelling, but that doesn’t mean society’s way of thinking about fat people as different from thin people (or able-bodied people as different from “disabled” people) isn’t inherently effed up.
And that doctor, he focused on exactly what he wanted to focus on–creating a bountiful market for himself. He was the smug one, of them all.
huh.
I almost feel stripped of the ability to comment as I havent walked a mile in his shoes.
I just hope he’s as happy as he appears with her.
C.
He didn’t have to lose weight to meet a girl; fat famous guys get propositioned all the time, as I understand it.
Y’know, boots, those fat famous guys – well they probably got money to spare. And in my experience they’re willing to spend it on girls/women (some of them feel there’s no other way to win a girl’s affection, though naturally there ARE and there are plenty of women who quite love their fat men) so I can’t imagine a fat, famous man having much trouble finding dates. The implication that he couldn’t have gotten this hot little number without having lost the weight (through deadly means) is frankly creeping me out. The way he says that the benefit was getting her…well I don’t like it. I really don’t.
If she loves him, what if (as so many of WLS patients do) he gains a lot of weight back, or even has terrible medical problems as a result in the long run? Will she not love him? Doesn’t she love HIM? Does it matter? What if tomorrow he magically got fat again – wouldn’t she love him? I dunno, the whole thing is bugging me. We all age. We might get burned or disfigured. Anything can happen. My husband stood by me and cared for me through extreme body weight change, bedridden status, a brush with death – and if it had come down to having severe facial burns, losing a limb or a breast, he’d have been there too. And vice versa. I know what she means that she sees him as he is because she never knew him otherwise, but I hope she’s considered that *anything* can happen and that she ought to be by his side in any one of those cases.
Naturally, the doctor is the worst villain of all – scumbag would have subjected even someone like me (when I weighed 190 pounds and seriously was just NOT that fat even at 5’2″) to this deadly surgery, based on the BS BMI. The BSI. Shit, that pisses me off worse than any of it. What a crock o’shit.
Annie McPhee, do you completely disregard the existence of physical attraction? Most women are actively repulsed by the body of a 500-pound man. If they have options, they will not date him, unless they are golddiggers and he is rich. I don’t know whether attraction comes from biology, or culture, or a mixture of both (most likely), but it’s a fact.
If you’re married, then that’s different. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health…
Weetabix, I read your commentary and then went to go watch the video expecting to see a huge bitch of a girlfriend. But she did not come across that way at all to me.
Of course she has a hard time reconciling the before and after…she never met the before. People who have only known me thin always look at pictures and go, No way, that doesn’t look like you…that can’t be you! She’s having the same reaction.
Because she said she doesn’t see him in movies where he’s fat you want to punch her in her smug bitch face???
I LOVE this blog so I say this with all due respect…but your response to this video comes across as extremely judgmental and harsh. That really surprised on a blog all about being open minded and accepting of others.
Kyle, when I read your comment, I too rewatched the video to make sure that I wasn’t being too harsh on the girlfriend. As Liz points out above, it’s realistic to be surprised when you see someone who has lost (or gained) a significant amount of weight. You have to adjust your mental perception of them a bit and that’s totally understandable.
It’s the laughter, I think, about the disconnect between what Ron looks like today versus what he looked like pre-surgery that is the source of my irritation. I suspect, as several commenters have suggested, that she’s feeling a bit awkward and nervous, and maybe the laughter is sourced through that, but the impression I took (and admit that I may be projecting) is that she kind of can’t believe that the guy she’s dating is the same fat guy that she saw in Varsity Blues because she totally would never date that fat guy, so “it’s kind of funny” that she’s sitting there at all.
Big Fat Deal is accepting of others and I don’t want to speak for Mopie, as I’m only a contributor and she’s running the show, but if someone’s being a jackass regarding weight, we’re going to call them out on it. The thing about fat prejudice is that it’s usually much more subtle and insidious than someone throwing garbage at a fat person. My read on this video is that she’s not being very accepting of Ron’s pre-surgery body and that, I can’t excuse. Am I judging? Hell yes. Am I wrong about her? God, I totally hope so.
I left a quick comment above before I watched the video and I have to say I feel there is some overthinking going on here.
Consider what we’re looking at: A 5-minute segment on morning television.
My first reaction was to feel that the interview was geared toward what some producer thought an audience would want to see.
As a person who’s had WLS myself, sure I think an interview with Ron Lester should have focused on the changes and improvements in his health. But no, it’s TV! It’s the Today Show! It stands to reason to me that they’d much rather show that the guy drops a ton of weight and wins the pretty girl! Look at the giant pants! OMG they had to cut up a car so he could fit in it! And he does all this work and what does he say is the big payoff? Ron Lester himself says “I got Kate!”
Note to Ron: You know, saying that you’ll live past 40 now would have been good. But sleeping with a triathlete who looks younger than you is probably a pretty good reward too. Sure.
He’s an actor. He did what some producer told him would make for a great segment.
Sure I wish he’d said something about no longer being at risk of dying from sleep apnea or he’s not at risk for diabetes anymore but is that what a morning TV audience wants to see? BORING! The producer probably squealed with delight when he saw those giant pants and found out Ron has a triathlete girlfriend now.
From ugly fat guy to winning the pretty girl. It does not surprise me one bit that that’s what TV wants to show.
You’re absolutely right, Dagny, TV always goes for the most sensationalist, crowd-pleasing angle.
I am most disturbed by the “508 pounds to WOW!!!!!” remark at the beginning. No, not everyone is attracted to large people, but at 220 pounds (at 5 ft 5) I feel pretty damn WOW and don’t appreciate the fact that the entire segment was saying that he was unnatractive and unloveable at his higher weight. That he had to change who he was outside and inside before someone thin could love him.
Because of course the only people worth loving and being loved are thin.
The girlfriend acted as though fat was really horrible. “To his credit, he told me right away, which was good.” I don’t think being fat is something dire. It could have waited until the 3rd date. He didn’t murder someone or abandon a child. He was fat. Why on earth does she need to know that right away? So she can decide NOW that she won’t like him fat and it gives her the opportunity to leave?
And damn it all to hell, I forgot to tell my husband that in 20 years I will get wrinkles. Is that grounds for divorce? He might not like wrinkles, so I should have given him the opportunity to find someone not quite as human as I am.
I felt bad for him that he sees dating a “triathelete” as a great prize. It surprises me that someone who was large puts such importance on thinness. Although her face is pretty round/chubby, and I couldn’t tell much about her body shape, so maybe she isn’t super-thin.
And in her defense, if my thin husband had told me he used to be 300 pounds heavier, it would have been a shock. I’ve seen pictures of my almost-bald husband with thick, thick hair down his back in a ponytail, and I would never be able to think of him that way because I didn’t know him that way. I know who he is now, and I don’t care what happens in the future, but I don’t have to think about the hair issue because I never knew him that way.
Most women are actively repulsed by the body of a 500-pound man.
You’re going to think I’m lying about this, but I’ll say it anyway: I know a 500-pound guy who gets hit on…maybe twice a month. By women and men. The people who are doing it probably don’t know how much he weighs, but still, he has a girlfriend AND gets a lot of interest.
She laughs after everything she says. All it sounds like is a nervous giggle. I just think some people are reading way too much into this. Honestly, assuming things is just silly. A girl smiles and laughs talking about her current boyfriend’s old poundage. Everyone jumps down her throat and assumes she must be some fat-hater. And when she says, he told me right away that he was fat, which was good, he was a little nervous. To me, that implied she was impressed that he had the courage to tell her. I mean not everyone tells their partner of their old scale fluctuations, it’s not necessary. I thought she was just impressed by his honesty more than anything.
I don’t know, again I think assuming is silly. If I have anger towards anyone in this program, it’s the whole Today show for putting plates and plates of McDonald’s and Coke and chips and then saying, he ate all this for breakfast…furthering the stereotype that fat people do nothing but eat and be lazy. But I have absolutely no beef with the nervous girlfriend. Assuming she’s a fat hater is like assuming that I’m racist because I cross the street at night if I see an African American man walking down the street. At first glance you might think I’m racist because I do that, but if you talked to me for five minutes, you’d know I’ve been assaulted twice, which has turned me into a paranoid freak and that I now cross the street when ANYONE comes towards me at night, male, female, Caucasian, Asian, Latino, African American. My fear doesn’t discriminate, I’m terrified of everyone.
We don’t know the girlfriend’s whole story, maybe he treats his former fatness using comedy to lighten up the situation and make himself feel more comfortable and that’s why she laughs. Maybe she’s just a nervous giggler, which is what it sounds like to me. Do we really need to analyze this video and be so harsh with this woman? There are bigger problems out there to worry about.
If someone’s being a jackass about weight, sure call them out. But what’s the proof that she’s being a jack ass about weight? Your proof is all fluff.
I didn’t see the girlfriend come off as a bitch. A little nervous, maybe slightly ditzy, yes. I see it this way – many people are commonly attracted to those with common interests. She is a triathlete. 500 pound men are not likely candidates for triathlons. They don’t go out for 15 mile runs “for fun” on the weekends. They won’t be your training partner. And obviously, they don’t share your zeal for elevated fitness.
I lost a fair amount of weight several years ago through taking up running (not overnight, oh no, in steps, of course). I am a different person in many ways, but still have the same personality quirks. I know that many people see me as a different person. I sometimes still feel self conscious but the rest of the population does not. I completely identify with their differing views.
“You’re going to think I’m lying about this, but I’ll say it anyway: I know a 500-pound guy who gets hit on…maybe twice a month. By women and men. The people who are doing it probably don’t know how much he weighs, but still, he has a girlfriend AND gets a lot of interest.”
I don’t think you’re lying. This is a fictional example, but one I happen to like – in “Butterfly Effect” there was a FAT guy who got more than enough action – considering what they showed he was willing to do for a woman in bed, it’s not surprising ;) Ron Jeremy is a hairy fat SOB now and you bet he gets hit on – not just because he’s got a huge knob, but because he’s willing to do what it takes to please a woman. (Ok so one fictional example and one completely atypical. No matter.) There are plenty of fat men who get girlfriends. Maybe not hot little triathletes all the time, but yes, they get girlfriends. There actually *are* women who are attracted to fat men – some even prefer it. We’re all different, and that’s what makes the world go round.