Photo by Craig Sjodin/ABC
As we often
hear so many of our physical issues manifest from deep within our souls. Take for
example, severe weight gain. More often than not losing the extra pounds can’t
be achieved without shedding some emotional baggage, too. In a recent exclusive
interview we spoke with Staci Bridwell, a participant on the first season of Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss edition
and she shared her journey, telling us not only how she ended up at 456 pounds
but what she had to examine about herself to shed the weight.
Staci
acknowledged that she’d struggled with her size all of her life. She recalled,
“Even as a child I was always bigger. I remember going to the doctors, to a
dietician, at ten years old having to do food journals because I was already 20
pounds over weight at ten years old. And from about 13 to about 15 I gained
over 200 pounds. I was 350 pounds by the time I was 15 or 16 years old. So my
whole adult life, all my teenage years, I’ve always been obese.”
And being overweight had stopped her from doing some fairly surprising things during the course of her life. Staci revealed, “I even had to go shop around for different schools because the colleges I wanted to go through to the, this was before all the online classes and things, they didn’t have chairs that would hold me. The desks and everything were just too small. I even dropped out of high school because I was too big for the desks and I was too embarrassed to ask for another option. So, yes, it held me back from quite a bit.”
But despite
the major impact her size had on her life, the issue went pretty much not discussed
at home. “I tried to ask my mom a couple of times now since doing this process,
because when you’re that big you shove it all inside. It’s so embarrassing and
humiliating. You don’t like to talk about it. And since I’ve been going through
this process, it’s been like therapy ‘cause I never talked about it and I was
so open during all of this.”
The show
has forced her to confront some issues with her mother. Staci confessed, “I
looked at my mom and I’ve asked her, ‘How could you look at me like that?’ I
have two small daughters of my own. I’m like, ‘How could you look at me and
just be like, ‘Oh, she’s okay? She’s small. She’ll grow a few more inches and
be okay.’ How could you not say anything to me?’”
Staci
described her mother’s reply, “She said, ‘Well I had tried so many diets with
you and nothing ever seemed to work. We just thought there was something wrong
— something genetically wrong that they couldn’t find that you were that big.’
And that was her excuse... I’m like, ‘Why didn’t you just go on a walk with
me?’”
Now Staci realizes that she must take much of the culpability on herself. “You can’t just blame your parents. I had a lot of responsibility in that, too. I was a fast food junkie. That I was all I ate all the time was fast food.”
Discussing
the situation with her mother after all these years, wasn’t easy for Staci. She
admitted, “I was terrified. I was bawling my eyes out when they asked me to do
that because it’s my mom and she’s the one that’s always been there for me. And
I didn’t want to make her look like a jerk on camera or like a bad mom because
she has always been there for me and always supported me in anything else that
I wanted to do.”
Her mother
didn’t react well to the situation either. Staci recounted, “It was really hard
and she thought I was faking it. She was like, ‘Why are you doing this?’ She’s
like, ‘You’re gonna do this right now? On Camera? You’re gonna do this?’”
But the
floodgates opened, “Once it came out it just all started coming out. And it was
really difficult and I felt really horrible.” The fact that it was in such a
public setting made it harder but as Staci said, “It had to come out and I’m
glad it did. And we’ve gotten past it and we have a better understanding of
each other now. And she’s even trying to lose weight and wants to get tips from
me. It’s really great.”
Staci
wishes that a couple other members of her family will be able to gain something
for her experience. She talked about what she wants her daughters to learn from
her journey. “What better example to set for your kids than to be a strong,
healthy mom. I just hope that they learn that it’s not all about appearance and
just because you’re heavy it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. And
I really hope that I’m able to teach them now how to eat right and how to
exercise and maintain their own weight so that they can grow up healthy and not
have to go through everything that I went through as a teenager and as an adult
being that overweight.”
Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition airs on
Monday nights at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. Central on ABC.
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