Syreeta clearly knows that she has a problem with her overeating and it has reached a
dangerous point. The question is whether or not she's willing to do all she needs to
change that or she's looking for a quick fix and a magical solution to fix it for her.
I don't sleep well at night.
I'm a night owl.
I'm up constantly all night.
I'm scared to sleep. If I could be honest about it.
I'm scared that I'm not going to wake up because of my weight.
I don't have some health scares and.
I got doctors tell me I'm too big.
So, yeah.
My way. It scares me now.
In front of the bed.
And then on top of that, I wake up in a lot of pain.
I want to tell you. I'll be in pain.
I'll be in pain a lot.
Wait a minute. I live with the love of my life, my husband Lawrence, and my stepson.
I'm thankful for my current living situation because not everybody got a roof over their
head. But at the same time is.
It's challenging.
But even though my life was miserable, I get an excitement when I know it's time to eat
again. What are we eating?
Huh? Hello.
What's for breakfast?
Oh, that's how you are.
Oh.
Sweden. I've been married for about a year.
I've been with girls.
That was big, but she's the biggest girl I've been with.
And at first it was kind of hard to get used to.
I never seen it from the lens of somebody bigger.
You never know what they really go through.
That's fine. Eating makes you sometimes her mood better.
If she's stressed out, she eats.
If she's unhappy, she'll eat.
I mean, I guess it's a coping mechanism for her.
I'm hungry. Are you ready for breakfast?
I am.
What you need me to get?
I want to.
Do a bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches.
What's a piece of rose?
Okay, you go grab that and I get stuff set up up here.
Okay. All right.
Thank you. You're welcome.
But I can't really judge because I am an enabler.
Sometime woman.
I'm like, No, you shouldn't.
Then I'm like, Here, go here.
Here you go. What, you want it?
It's like peace and war.
Do I want war or do I want peace?
If I give in, I'll have peace.
If I don't, it'll be a constant nagging about it.
Full fulfills me.
If it feels empty voids that that humans can't fulfill.
It's like a kid in a candy store.
When you go in the candy store and your eyes light up because you got a multitude of stuff
and you got all types of different variety and stuff.
That's the same thing when it comes to looking at my refrigerator like, Oh, I'm
eating out of every one of those snacks.
Hello. How are you all doing?
Hi, how are you?
I'm doing well, thank you.
That's good. Well, you must be a writer.
Yes. You are from Columbus, Ohio.
Yes. So what brought you down to Houston?
That need help with getting the weight off.
Came for surgery, trying to get that extra push support that I need to help with losing
the weight.
And so you're 31 years old and you're just over 600, huh?
Yes. So at your height, that puts you BMI over 100, which is very dangerous.
So what do you have done so far to get your weight down?
I've tried dieting, intermittent fasting and lower carb options.
Okay. When you eat food, do you feel comfort?
I do. But do you feel guilty afterward?
Yes, I.
Do. So you have a cycle of going to food for comfort and eating what you know you
shouldn't and regretting it, but still not changing any of your habits.
So why haven't you made any changes to that cycle?
It's so.
Hard. Sometimes it can't.
It's a challenge for me sometimes.
Well, it is not going to be easy, so you have to be willing to work hard and change it if
you want a better weight and better health overall.
Does anybody in the household encourage you to eat more?
Yes, I have enablers, people that don't know how to tell me.
Who's your enabler?
Well, my husband is one of my biggest enablers.
So he doesn't want to argue with you to the to eat or that's not being enablement.
That's enablement.
You're bullying him to feed you, and you call that the enabler?
I do not bully him.
So what does he have to say about that?
Am I right?
That's a good that's a good one.
That's a good.
One. Pretty much.
He don't want to argue with you, right?
Absolutely.
And so, Sarita, how would you with your activity and exercise?
Um.
It could be challenging.
I think I could be better if I have pain in my knees really bad sometimes.
So I just.
I sit a lot.
So you have a lot of unhealthy habits that aren't good for you.
In particular, you're eating unhealthy food from sort of today till the end of today, and
you need to start making better choices with your eating, discipline yourself about
eating. And once you do that and you get control of that, then weight loss surgery may
be an option for you.
Okay. Okay. So until then, you're going to have to develop an understanding and
knowledge of how to eat and how not to eat.
Okay. And you're going to be supporting her to follow the diet and do exercise and all
that? Yes.
It's been a couple of weeks since we saw Doctor Now and me and Lawrence have been
working mostly on our diet.
Now, today we're going to add some exercise into the mix.
That was good. Here you go.
Grab my blanket and the volleyball.
Coach. My goal is to make the workouts fun.
So I like playing games with Lawrence or just having a good time.
Going for a walk.
One thing at a time. When I was active, active, I was on a volleyball team.
So I recreate and stuff that I used to do when I was in my teens.
I have anxiety of people like kids looking at me and, you know, I'm scared as hell.
But at the end of the day, I'm doing this for myself.
So, you know, ask them.
You ready?
Thank you.
Oh.
All right. So it's been two months.
I expected that you're going to lose at least £60.
But in return, you have only lost £12, which is a £6 a month, which is not very much.
So what happened to the dieting session we gave you?
Did you read those paper?
I did. I did.
How many times you read it?
I read it actually.
I read it a couple of times because I was showing a couple of.
Times the deal was you read it every night.
I was doing.
Good. I'm eating more healthier than I am than I was.
I did good.
It's just the consistency that I think that I struggle with, man.
You know, the normal weight for your height is £140, is it?
Yes, £140.
You're not double of that.
You're almost four and a half times that.
So how are you going to lose that weight to get down to under 200?
If you think losing £6 a month is good progress?
Yes. If you're going to do that, it's going to take you 6 to 7 years to do that weight.
And that is assuming you stick with it.
That's true. What do you think will be the solution for your problem?
You know, instead of being 140, you're not two 4340 and 440 you're not 540 you're 591.
So how long your body is going to tolerate all that extra weight that you're putting on
there? And this is your life.
And you know you're not going to live longer like that if you keep all that weight on you.
But right now you're killing yourself with food and you don't seem to get that.
And I'm not sure your family is getting that, too.
So let's give you another two months.
Lose £60 again.
See how we do.
Okay. Feeling it.
Yeah. All right.
So we're going to go all the way down over there, but we're going to use this distance,
right? So I want you just to swim.
A couple of weeks ago, I started coming to the pool on my own to do more exercising.
That was really good.
When I first saw Sarita.
Huge potential.
A lot of weight to lose, but it's very possible.
Point your toe out.
Just pick one. Lift up.
Touch down. Lift up.
Touch down. We're doing squats now.
Right here. Squat down.
You already started it.
There you go. Yeah.
Clueless now, but I'll be feeling when I get out.
All right. Get down in that water.
You're gonna punch right here.
Yeah.
I've had some days where I struggle more than others, but I'm always dedicated to getting
back on track if I ever slip up.
All right. So what's going on with.
You, Doctor? Now, go ahead.
Lay it on me. Go ahead, cuss me out, because I know you want to.
Why should I cuss you out?
Because I didn't meet my goal again this time.
You're right about that.
This is four months later.
You could have lost another £200, but you gained.
So why is that?
Well, you know, I had a lot going on back at home.
I was still eating, you know, as far as on the healthy wise.
But it was just so much stuff going on at that time.
So I wasn't being mobile enough as I should have been.
And hold on.
Your activity has very little to do with your weight.
Well, that's what you said.
Okay. And let's let's back up a little bit.
Okay. You think you weight isn't mostly about your eating habit?
I feel.
Like I've been doing good.
With my eating habits. That's not the question.
Just stick with the question.
Don't. Don't go off.
Okay. So you think your weight has to do with your eating habit, correct?
Correct. If you're £5 overweight and you want to burn extra calories, working out will
help with that. But if you are 5 to £600, the only thing it does will improve your
stamina. It's not a significant factor at your weight loss.
So the only thing that makes a difference if you eat less, do you get that right?
Let me give you an example.
Okay. You assume you're going to the bank and depositing $100.
You put in the $100 bill each month.
But now this time you go into a bank, you go deposit $100, nickel and dime, $1 bill.
You still deposit the same amount, but it's broken to a small portion, but you still have
the same total. Would that make any difference?
No. You're telling me that you're eating the smaller meals now and you're eating less at
one time, so you're doing great, but you're still eating the same total in a day.
If you're changing some product and you're eating habit, but you're getting the same
amount of calories, they're not going to matter that.
Okay, okay.
Now that you said that, now that now that's a different that's that's okay.
Now you understand what I'm talking about.
Okay? So no matter what you do, you got to see some changes on the scale.
And if you're not, then you still need to reduce the total calorie intake.
The whole idea is not that you're going to eat less in volume, but less in calorie.
That $100 deposit that you make and you need to cut that down.
You need to change your eating habits.
So that's where your focus needs to be.
You understand that, yes, you should be able to lose £5 a week.
Okay. So over the next two months, I want you to lose at least £40 to show me that
you're back on track and doing what you need.
Okay? Yes.
£5 a week for you.
It shouldn't be any problem if you just eat the appropriate amount and calorie, you're
going to be able to do that.
Welcome. I'm glad you guys are here.
So Lawrence is going to be with us.
And I'm glad to have you together because I want to hear from him, too.
But Sarita, why don't you start and tell me a little bit about yourself?
I'm 31.
I grew up in Peoria, Illinois.
Oh, wow. Illinois.
I grew up in Illinois, too.
I grew up outside of Chicago.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I grew up in foster care.
What was that like?
It was horrible. Um, the typical story is of foster care, the typical horrific things you
normally hear about foster care.
That's. That's the typical.
That's what happened.
I feel bad because we're jumping right into it.
But it sounds like you were abused.
Yeah. What kind of abuse?
Sexual, physical, mental.
All of it. Yeah.
Wow. Okay.
You were literally physically defending yourself from the earliest stage, right?
Yeah. Let's talk about your mom.
What do you think your mom's attitude towards you was like?
I don't know.
Like, I felt like she hated me.
My mom treated me like I was a bitch off the streets.
Like.
Was there any follow up about the abuse and stuff in foster home?
Were there ever charges filed or anybody got in trouble?
No, no, no.
Syreeta your entire life, nobody has ever stuck up for you.
You've been defending yourself so long, I feel like you come into the room like this.
Am I, am I right?
Does she have her have her dukes up?
Yeah.
I think it's because if somebody gave you a piece of gum in the back of your mind, you
think what I got to do because I got this piece of gum and it goes, it goes on and on
and on and goes like that.
Your husband is very smart.
I read you more than what you think.
I read you.
Did you hear what he said?
It's as if you're suspicious of people who are trying to help you.
Even somebody like Dr.
Now. Right. Somebody could even make the argument that the gaining a little bit weight
right before the surgery because you don't even trust the surgery.
Right. You may be worried that that's not going to help.
Yeah, I'm scared.
I'm terrified.
Scared of the surgery.
I'm scared of it at all.
Yeah.
It's normal to be worried about a surgery.
Right. So all of the homework I want to focus on one, letting down your guard a
little bit, being a little less defensive.
And I think one of the ways to do that is to keep track of what you've been eating really
accurately so that when Dr.
Now asks you, you can tell him, right?
Second homework.
If we were doing a trauma journal, what might make it in that journal?
What would you be writing?
I want to write a letter to my mom because I want I want to be able to to let them
feelings go and leave it there on that paper.
Letting go of the weight that's holding you down.
You can do this.
Recently, Dr. Paradise prescribed me to do food journaling therapy.
It's been pretty good.
I'm more aware of my intake and I'm more aware of what's going into my body, so it's
easier for me to keep track.
And I can actually pinpoint, Oh, this is what I ate and how much of it I ate.
Out. Sheep therapy has impacted my diet and a few little ways like it's holding me
accountable. It's making me more aware, I'm more aware of my intake, and then I can be
aware of, like how each meal made me feel in the end.
Like if I'm energized, if I'm sluggish.
Thank you. Today I had shrimp and veggies for dinner, so I literally had to count each
shrimp that I had. So it started out it was supposed to be eight, but my husband put 14
on my plate, so I ended up having 14 shrimp.
And one thing about me, I'm not shy of vegetables.
I love vegetables. So.
Today I wrote a letter to my mom.
I'm writing this letter to her because I feel like it plays a big part in.
My stress and why I eat a lot and why I eat so much.
So it plays a big role in that and I feel like it's going to help me to let it go.
We is the mama.
It's been exactly a year and almost one month since she left this wicked ass world.
I know. Since you left, it definitely hasn't been easy for me at all.
Some days, those grudges that I have for many years creep back up.
And most days I wish you knew how much I really loved you.
Beyond that madness, I never felt the same from you.
I always felt like you hated me.
Like it felt like most times I wasn't your child.
I always carried that grudge that you loved the other children more than you liked me.
You put me back out on the streets.
Why? But with my other siblings.
You didn't do that.
Didn't even bother to ask me what I was going through and why you just put me back
out on the streets like I was just some animal.
How did your letter go?
Uh, it went. It was all right.
That's good.
I think that's a Paradise.
Had me write this letter because like me having to defend myself as a child growing
up, I started out as a young age and the one person who feels like hurting me the most
that let me down needs to hear.
And basically, you know, she's deceased now, so I have to get to a point where I need to
let it go. All right.