Dear Magda....GOOD ON YOU.

By ANONYMOUS

Dear Magda,

Hallelujah and it’s about time!

Reading that you have parted ways with Jenny Craig has made my day. Because now you may have a genuine chance at losing the weight that is jeopardising your health.

And we, your fans, can once again remember you for what you’re good at (making us laugh) not what you’re not (losing weight using a diet system destined to fail).

Because Magda, I am someone who has been battling with my weight the past few years. My battle hasn’t been as tough as yours, admittedly. I have not had sleep apnoea or had my weight stop me from doing what I love like walking long distances, exercising, playing sport or enjoying fashion, as you’ve so bravely admitted to struggling with in the past.

But I have been confronted with the alarming fact that if don’t get my sugar levels under control, I am heading towards Type 2 diabetes along with an unflattering barrel belly.

Yes, I’ve really let myself go and if I don’t make some changes to my lifestyle, I could well be faced with the same dread in situations you’ve spoken about; fearing crowded restaurants in case you couldn’t navigate around tables; being unable to climb a flight of stairs and numerous other “indignities” you didn’t go in to detail about in all those interviews you did to promote Jenny Craig. It sounded horrible and I felt so sad for you and all the other overweight people who have to suffer the same humiliation on a daily basis.

I watched those Jenny Craig ads of yours though and I admit that it spurred me to try the program. You said it worked for you. I think you’re great. So I gave it a go. To say I was shocked by what I was faced with is a massive understatement.

To my mind (and taste buds), the food supplied by Jenny Craig was a load of high salt, high fat, unpalatable crap. It

was like plane food in cattle class only frozen. Reading the sides of the packet, I concluded that it was basically the nastiest junk, an alphabet of additives posing as nourishment, and I could barely swallow it without gagging.

I had to buy and cook my own vegetables with most meals, which is just as well cause it sure didn’t look like there was anything natural in most of the gunk I was supposed to eat.

And all those snacks for throughout the day, sweet treats and savoury snacks that anyone with a basic knowledge of healthy eating knows are the very habits one must break to lose weight. I learned nothing about nutrition or portion control. I received no counselling or support. I paid lots of money for meals and was encouraged to keep going.

I never felt satisfied or full. I didn’t lose weight.

Eventually, I realised why weight loss systems like this always win in the commercial sense and fail those who buy the products – it is designed to appeal to junk food eaters.

Mmm, chicken fettuccini. Mmmm, burritos. Mmm cheese snacks…. No wonder those who make bad diet choices in the first place love the food – they are still eating junk food, only in smaller portions and not every meal.

And herein lies where I think Jenny Craig and many other unhealthy diet companies spruiking shakes, fasts, quick fixes, no exercise and eating what you want, is appalling.

They know that people will fail when they stop paying for frozen meals and resume controlling their own portions of empty kilojoules, packaged, processed crap. They know that the weight will pile back on – plus more –  and that they’ll return to the organisation in desperation to begin the vicious cycle once again.

You did. Surely that was a clue?

But here’s the other thing I want to remind you Magda – why you were big in the first place. Yes, you admitted you are a great advocate of therapy and wanted to lose weight as a holistic process but the fact is that message got buried under all that “look how much I have lost” and “I’ve never been so happy” proclamations of yours in the Jenny Craig ads and the interviews you did as part of your contract.

So many other big girls would have seen your ads and thought that their demons would go away too if they signed up to Jenny Craig; that the self loathing would lift, the abuse would be a memory (fact – many obese people, especially women, have suffered sexual abuse) with Jenny’s help.  But it doesn’t, does it Magda? You are back to the size you once were.

Back to Jenny Craig or back to therapy? Perhaps you did both.

I certainly have an opinion on which would be most effective. Any mental heath professional will tell you that obese people have high rates of mental health as well as physical health issues and often struggle with crippling low self esteem, self hatred, self sabotage and devastating depression.

It is a chicken and egg scenario: eat because you are unhappy, stay unhappy because you are fat. Ask most obese people if they are truly happy with their size and the answer is almost always no. Yet, despite this, they remain trapped in a body that suffocates their soul.

If you were to spruik any future weight loss campaign Magda, maybe it could centre around attacking mental health issues before failing again at a diet program. I even have the campaign slogan for you: Obesity, it’s no laughing matter.

And, Jenny Craig and all the other companies making money out of other people’s misery? Shame on you for thinking the joke’s on us.

This author is known to Mamamia but has chosen to remain Anonymous.

Have you ever tried rapid weight loss programs or crash diets? How did it make you feel? Did you enjoy the food?