It looks like Lori lied about details from Wife Swap episode

[lilwriter85]

In today's posting, Lori describes a Wife Swap episode in which a well fit mother switched places with an overweight family. Lori then claims that fit mother helped the obese father lose 12 pounds in one week after eating healthy and working out. That part sounded like BS to me.

lorialexander.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-tale-of-two-families.html

One family consists of a husband and wife with one child. The parents are morbidly obese. The house is a mess. They live on junk food. The son gets up whenever he pleases and then watches television or plays video games all day.

The other family has three children. The whole family gets up early, eats a healthy breakfast, and then works out. The children all do their chores without being asked. In fact, if they see something that needs to be done, they do it such as dusting or vacuuming. Their home was very clean and tidy. They are all in great shape. They all work hard and eat very healthy. In their free time, they are outside playing catch or basketball.

One family is training their child to be lazy and overweight, doing whatever he pleases. The other family is training their children to work hard, stay in shape, and eat healthy. They will grow up to be disciplined adults.

The wives change places. The overweight mother tries to get the three children to "have more fun" so she takes the girls out to get fake nails. The girls take them off soon afterwards since they are both volleyball players. She wants to get them to stop doing so many chores. The children enjoy doing their chores. She is stunned.

The other mother starts getting the obese father and son to work out, eat healthy, and start helping around the home. In one week, the father loses twelve pounds and is starting to feel better.

This Wife Swap show was clear that we have the power to train our children in the way they should go. You can actually train your children to enjoy working, eating healthy, and staying in shape. It is a gift you give them that will keep on giving all of their lives.

On the other hand, you can train them to be lazy, only eat junk food, be messy and disorganized, and not enjoy working. They will suffer their entire lives for their lack of discipline unless they can learn to discipline themselves when they get much older but it is so much easier to learn discipline when one is young.

Take your role as parent seriously and raise productive, hard-working children. Everyone benefits, especially the children.

I did some quick searching around and found another blogger who blogged about a Wife Swap episode to what Lori described and it seems that the son in the overweight family lost 12 pounds over six weeks and there was no mention of father losing 12 pounds in one week. I think this proof that Lori lied about the weight loss part regarding the overweight father.

nowitsmarysturn.blogspot.com/2013/06/learning-balance-lessons-from-wife-swap.html

Learning Balance: Lessons from "Wife Swap"

My daughter likes reality TV. I think she started with John & Kate Plus Eight, and then moved on to Cake Boss, Say Yes to the Dress, then Dance Moms, and Wife Swap. Grace is 14, and she understands that reality TV is not complete reality and without exaggeration & drama the show would not be as entertaining.

The other day she was watching Wife Swap, on-demand, while she did her hula-hoop workout. She came into my office and said, "Mom, you'll want to see this episode." She was already half way through the show so she took a few minutes to fill me in on the story line and she was right. I watched the rest of Wipe Swap with her.

If you're not familiar with the show, it's exactly what the title says. Two wives, very different in multiple ways, swap homes for two weeks. The first week, the visiting wife has to live by the rules of the house. But during the second week, the visiting wife gets to run the house her way and the family must follow her rules.

In this episode, Carol, a wife from San Diego who the show describes as a fitness fanatic & workaholic, swaps homes with Marie, a wife from New Jersey, who is described as an Italian mother. The main story line is that Marie's family is overweight & leads an unhealthy lifestyle, while Carol's family, although living a healthy & active lifestyle, is hungry for quality time with her. They tackled other issues too; rigorous schedules & chore charts, lack of discipline, coddling twenty-somethings, and more. But of course the main topic, and the one interesting to me was obesity.

I watched the show again in order to write this post. There were so many interesting statements made by everyone on the show.

Marie, Italian Mom from New Jersey

"Food is supposed to be a celebration!"

"Food is love."

She made these comments in response to criticism of her way of feeding her family. What do you think about her comments? As a Weight Loss Surgery patient, and it may depend on where you are in your journey, how do you feel about food? Can food still be a celebration or an important part of a celebration, even when you're serving healthy food in small portions? Can food still be a way of showing your love? For me, Yes & Yes. And I believe answers will vary among WLS patients, based on time along the post-op journey. It takes time to view food differently. It's a dramatic change for you as the patient, and for your family and friends. Some family members and friends will join you on the journey and adopt your healthy lifestyle changes, others will take longer or may never make adjustments, and that is the journey. But certainly you can celebrate with food and you can show love with the food you share with your family. Isn't it a sign of love when you provide healthy food to your kids, knowing that they're consuming a balanced meal with low-fat protein, nutrient-rich vegetables, and whole grains? Yes, that is definitely a demonstration of love. And can you celebrate with healthy food? A family BBQ with chicken & veggie kabobs on the grill, garlicky greens, and fresh fruit salad? Sounds like a party to me!

Marie's son announced during the show, "We're Italian so we all like to eat a lot." Her sister-in-law said to Carol, the visiting wife, as the family sat down to a very large meal, "You don't eat all this good food? Well this is a nice good Italian dinner. This is very good and very healthy for us." And later, Marie's teenage son added, "For us pasta is healthy, this is healthy food." The lifestyle is embedded in the family.

More from Marie

"I did not grow up fat, so in my mind I still think I'm thin." (my guesstimate is that Marie's BMI is about 47-48)

"In my house we count our blessings, we count our love, we don't count pretzels." (in response to carol's strict rules on portion control)

"You want to teach your children to have a healthy lifestyle but not so much that they're losing their self esteem. You just want your children to be happy. I mean these are kids, if you give them the love and support there shouldn't be any problem."(during conversation with Carol's husband about the possibility of their daughters growing up with eating disorders because Carol is so strict)

But Marie does give her children plenty of love, but one is morbidly obese and second son is obese.

Now I am definitely not saying Carol's way is the way to go, although I'm sure there was plenty of extra drama scripted to make her look more like a drill sergeant. Her family needed more time with her, something Marie's family had plenty of. However, Carol made some excellent points.

Carol's comments

"You don't get this size (motioning to Marie and her husband) by eating healthy." (This was in response to Marie telling Carol that they are Italian and follow a Mediterranean way of eating. As hard as it must have been for Marie to hear, Carol was right.)

At the family dinner Carol says, "If I ate like this all the time I would weigh 400 pounds." Marie's son responds with, "But we eat like this all the time and we don't weigh 400 pounds. Why can't we just eat? You don't have to feel so guilty about it. She always thinks she's doing it better or doing right." (later in the show this son gets on the scale and learns he weighs 348 pounds)

Carol explains, "I grew up as a fat kid. I was picked on in school, and I will not have that for my children - period. Portion control is really important, I want to teach the girls that." She says that she grew up overweight and after she was married lost 80 pounds through diet and exercise. However, Carol appears to be extremely rigorous with her family's healthy lifestyle. At one point her youngest daughter says, "Sometimes I get like, I do want to have a cookie right now." Carol adds, "I have changed everything about my life. I don't even recognize who that person used to be. And I want to show others that they can get here, that they can be all that if they want to. I run a very tight ship."

As a WLS patient, do you see a little or maybe a lot of yourself in Carol? She has lost almost as much weight as I have and she did it without surgery. She knows, as we all know, that the daily work must continue or the weight will come back. So Carol becomes almost militant with her family's health. Have you done that? Are you doing that? I know some of you are because you've told me, or I've read your stories. Are you making your family crazy? Are you making yourself crazy?

There has to be balance.

I understand Carol's burning passion for health. She experienced the pain of obesity and does not want that for her daughters. I get that too. However, is it okay for her daughters to have a cookie once in a while? Yes.

And what about Marie? I love that her passion is keeping her family close and spending time with her children and husband. However, can they make healthier family meals and enjoy just as much time around the table together? Yes.

I loved the happy endings for each family.

Marie's husband and sons learned after weighing themselves that they were obese or morbidly obese. They honestly said they had no idea it was that bad. Carol took them to a healthy cooking class and they learned there are other ways to make Italian food without so much butter, heavy cream and cheese. The 6 Weeks Later report said that the family was still eating healthier and one son had already lost 12 pounds!

The 6 Weeks Later report for Carol's family was great too. The family eats dinner together every evening instead of Carol being locked in her home office until late at night, and Carol says she is spending more time with her family.

Thank you, Grace!

The best of life to you,

-Mary

[kpmom]

So basically the show taught each family, including super fit mom, about balance, but all Lori got out of it was "training" your kids to eat right and exercise. She's got a hard on about "training" doesn't she?

[polecat]

Apart from the stupid lie, it's nice that she's perpetuating the idea that fat people are all slovenly, lazy and undisciplined. That's awesome.

tic

[Mama Mia]

Not to defend Lori, or The families on Wife Swap.......but I don't think you can take the statement from one persons blog to prove that someone on another blog is lying. They are both just giving their own synopsis and view of the show, so who knows which of them was correct about the amount of weight lost ?

[Cora Persephona]

Can I just say how much I hate the phrase "training children"? I guess training is easier than parenting for fundies...

[2xx1xy1JD]

Not to defend Lori, or The families on Wife Swap.......but I don't think you can take the statement from one persons blog to prove that someone on another blog is lying. They are both just giving their own synopsis and view of the show, so who knows which of them was correct about the amount of weight lost ?

Losing 12 lbs is 6 weeks = 2 lbs per week, which is quite possible.

Losing 12 lbs in ONE week simply cannot be done in a healthy way, unless you give birth, get over massive constipation or correct massive water retention.

[O Latin]

Wife Swap is one of my guilty pleasures, and I don't think those two blog posts are about the same episode. Lori describes the "lazy" family as having only one child, while the second blog is about a fairly recent episode in which both families had multiple children. "Exercise fanatic swaps with overweight junk-food-aholic" describes quite a few Wife Swap episodes.

ETA: Not that Lori (I have no idea who Lori is) couldn't still be lying. Either way, Wife Swap probably isn't the best place to be looking for role model families.

[lilwriter85]

Losing 12 lbs is 6 weeks = 2 lbs per week, which is quite possible.

Losing 12 lbs in ONE week simply cannot be done in a healthy way, unless you give birth, get over massive constipation or correct massive water retention.

The loss 12 lbs in one week thing as I mentioned in my first post really sounded like BS and you summed up how losing 12 lbs in one week can't be done in a healthy way. I read O Latin's post and I do see that it is possible that the other blogger blogged about a different episode.

[loulou]

I saw this episode.

The health nut mom "ran a tight ship" to the point where she was obsessive.

One thing that disturbed me -- which Lori didn't mention -- was that the youngest daughter was considered "chubby" (though she looked normal sized to me). Thin mom said this girl was "born with cellulite." Dad and mom were constantly watching this daughter's food intake, down to the number of grapes and pretzels she could have and how much ranch dressing she put on her salad. It was sad.

I don't remember weight amounts the other family lost, but I don't remember 12 lbs in 1 week!

[ADoyle90815]

I saw this episode.

The health nut mom "ran a tight ship" to the point where she was obsessive.

One thing that disturbed me -- which Lori didn't mention -- was that the youngest daughter was considered "chubby" (though she looked normal sized to me). Thin mom said this girl was "born with cellulite." Dad and mom were constantly watching this daughter's food intake, down to the number of grapes and pretzels she could have and how much ranch dressing she put on her salad. It was sad.

I don't remember weight amounts the other family lost, but I don't remember 12 lbs in 1 week!

I remember that episode, and it was disturbing how the health nut parents were watching their daughter's food intake, as they were setting her up for developing an eating disorder, or when she gets out of the house, doing what we've seen Smuggar do when it comes to food. To me, she looked like she was at a normal size and if her parents left her alone, she would be just fine.

[Mama Mia]

Losing 12 lbs is 6 weeks = 2 lbs per week, which is quite possible.

Losing 12 lbs in ONE week simply cannot be done in a healthy way, unless you give birth, get over massive constipation or correct massive water retention.

I know it isn't usual, but I've noticed in several of these shows with people who a extremely obese, they seem to lose very large amounts of weight in the beginning. Maybe it's water weight? It seems to be the people who are extremely large, especially men. ( note to self: stop watching so much crappy television )