Second Helping
The Second Helping Manifesto
For those who’ve battled obesity most of their lives, a second helping was a source of shame and embarrassment. Plates, boxes and bags were smuggled and stashed and hidden in plain sight. You ate, but really the food ate, incessantly and unforgivably, at you. On the other hand, you lost weight but always remain someone who had weight. Your entire life continues to be defined by what you ate and what you didn’t eat. What you weighed or didn’t weigh.
It’s like you’re given a clean plate. But how do you fill it up with anything other than what you’ve known you’re entire life? And “what you’ve known your entire life” was what got you fat to begin with.
And you largely tackle that question alone. For all the past decade’s “success story” hype, none of it prepares you for the existential dilemmas and emotional whammies when you realize you’ve truly changed your body. This might sound high-falutin’ and intellectual, but they boil down to: do you want to keep your weight off? These questions have very real, practical consequences on your body.
There’s realizing that losing weight and keeping it off are different skill sets. Determining how much more weight, if any, you want to lose.
There’s new challenges, like defining your personal style (maybe for the first time), loose skin, staying engaged with your eating and exercise even after you’ve hit goal and are “cured,” speaking your mind without letting your “success story” ego run amok.
And there’s the emotional considerations. Were any of my relationships ever good for me? Do I tolerate the way passerby discuss fat people now that I don’t look the part anymore? Would this Lothario courting me give the time of day before I lose weight?And even more, there’s dealing with relapses and then fighting for lost ground. Or even the very real fear that it might happen.
For the few men and women that successfully maintain weight, most of the diet industry’s advice condenses to: solider on without our help. Few publicly discuss the day-to-day challenges of transforming your body, or how maintenance differs from weight loss. Asking now what? can be emotionally draining, if for no other reason than few are prepared or supported in answering it. You hit goal, everyone wants to celebrate you — until you still need support. Then you’re on your own, weight loss success story, until that is, you’re not a “success” anymore.
Welcome to now what. Answering it can be downright ugly.
Regardless of weight loss method, amount weight lost, gender, race, economic status or sexual identity, the men and women behind Second Helping wound up asking similar questions. How can anyone be expected to keep weight off when no one prepares or helps you deal with the transition into maintenance? Or the steps to building a life that’s only existed as theory? How, exactly, do you make those dreams reality and still keep your weight off? If you do relapse, how to reclaim your ground? What’s it going to take to make maintaining a weight loss more common for those not as stubborn/crazy as we are?
And even after losing X pounds, why is that still so damn hard?
The team behind Second Helping beat the statistics and low expectations, and it was because we created a third option. We came back at life and asked for a Second Helping. But this time, full of the good stuff we missed out the first time. And we keep asking for it — demanding it if need be — and doing it as many times as it takes.
Our Second Helping is one to covet and celebrate–after you’re brave enough to transform your body, you’re daring enough to transform the rest of your life. And in the process, deal with the challenges of post-weight life with honesty without letting them break your spirit.
This kind of second helping requires equal parts creativity, courage, compassion and chutzpah. All working together in a checks and balances system. The Four C’s are potent — they’re a triumph over the past, of others’ expectations of you and especially the expectations you have of yourself. But that inspirational speak means nothing without practical strategies — what you actually do — so we balance the two as we do in our lives.
To that end, Second Helping offer news, support and suggestions for different ways to understand food, loose skin, relationships, personal style and health. Really we’re here to encourage you to determine what you want for YOUR life, not what we think “your life” should be post-weight. And know you’re not alone.
Also, Second Helping seeks to look at the industries most closely involved with weight loss–the medical and fitness industries spring to mind, among others–and look for the missing links to improve the quality of care and life at any point in the weight loss process. Being people who have lived both sides of the obesity “epidemic,” we are a valuable source of knowledge that can bridge the gap between the public and the industries who seek to serve them. We’re not interested in being anyone’s marketing tool; our weight loss and maintenance helped us discover our voice, and we will damn well use it, bless your heart.
No matter what verb tense your weight loss occurs in–future, present or past–or even if you’re a professional seeking to help someone with losing weight, Second Helping is here to champion, illuminate and support those who step up to the plate.
