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Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition (8/12/12): Surfs Up for 45-year-old Sally w/ Chris & Heidi Powell and Laird Hamilton |
Sally, who was once active and healthy early in her 20′s, is now 45 years old, a wife and a mother. After a serious injury, her life completely changed. Slowly but surely over a period of ten years and the birth of her son, Sally’s Olympic figure ballooned to something that now embarrasses her everytime she goes out for a swim.
Sally’s from Washington D.C. and we get to see some of her kitchen. Her fridge is PACKED with soda. She says that’s what’s probably killing her right now, it’s like a gun pointed at her head. One of the first instances when she first noticed her weight was when she was watching football with her husband and she read the stats of the football players on the offensive line. Here were professional football players who were inchel taller than her, but Sally still weighed more than all of them.
Sally works as a tour guide on a double-decker tour bus. Chris is waiting for her, megaphone in hand, at the Lincoln Memorial reciting parts of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. “I’m going to kick your ass and you’re going to hate me more than half the time,” Chris tells her. “I’ll love you all the time,” she replies. From the footage we’ve seen, I doubt she’ll keep her word.
It’s Day One – time for the first weigh-in. 335 pounds. Then Paulette Lambert shows Sally how to make a healthy and tasty fajita. Finally, Paulette shows Sally how much sugar she is actually taking in with her soda addiction. 5 pounds. That’s how much sugar Sally is actually drinking every week. That’s a lot!
Dr. Schack tells her this is her last chance, and informs her that she has to get over her fear of hurting herself again. In the weights room, Sally breaks down as everyone else has before. Nonetheless, she finishes it all up and heads back to a newly renovated home in Washinton, D.C.
Phase is 3 months, 90 days, 12 weeks and Sally’s Phase One Goal is to lose 85 pounds. If she completes her goal, Chris will give her a prize: a makeover and a shopping spree! But Sally breaks down again during one her workouts with Chris. While doing wall squats, Chris tells her to go slower even as he reassures her that everything (especially her knee) will be okay. Her greatest excuse is her knew that she busted big time years before, and Chris is trying to get Sally to stop using that as an excuse. By Day 51, Sally admits that she’s having a tough time as well with the diet. She says she’s just “wired to eat wrong.” By Day 55, she’s only lost about 40 pounds. Having dinner with her husband, we find out that her husband isn’t supportive at all of Sally’s new lifestyle. In fact, he seems quite absent from it all.
It’s Day 90 and it’s time for another official weigh-in. Her first weign-in topped at 335 pounds , and she needs to weigh 250 pounds or less today. That should be 85 pounds lost. But she’s eight pounds short. So close. Sally weighs 258 pounds. It’s time for Chris to leave, but before he does he tells her Sally’s Phase 2 Goal: 50 pounds. But if she does lose the 50 pounds, Chris has another surprise for Sally. Sally loves surfing so Chris has set up professional surfer, Larry Hamilton, to spend time with her.
Without Chris at home to keep Sally in place, he flies back to Washington D.C. to drop in on her because it’s that bad. From the footage he’s seen of her, Sally is spirallying back down to where she first started. She’s not talking her cardio seriously, and yes, she’s even gotten back to drinking soda by the pitcher. Chris knocks on Sally’s door, and she’s completely shocked. He gives her a surprise weigh and they find out she’s actually 263 pounds. How? Why? Chris raids her kitchen, Sally says all the bad stuff is her husband’s, and that she’s eating clean. Chris then points out exercise regimen and that’s where Sally has completely failed lately.
It’s Day 126 and Sally meets with Robin Mize, a therapist that her and Chris agreed to Sally meeting. They talk about her relationship with food. Because of the emotionally-lacking environment she grew up as a child, Sally has made food her comfort. Dr. Mize tells Sally that when she’s numb to those hurtful emotions, she’s also numb to pleasurable experiences. Chris gets her family together, and in a long time for a long time, Scott (her husband) tells her that he loves her and is there for her. (Scott is not the “crying guy” Sally reveals so she’s totally touched by her husband’s openness.)
It’s Day 120 and it’s time for Sally’s 6-Month weigh-in. She looks much different from Day One but Chris isn’t confident about where she should be today. Sally steps on the scale, and it reads a final weight of 238 pounds. She’s only lost 20 pounds in Phase Two. The numbers don’t lie, Chris says. If she’s doing everything right, then she should’ve lost the 50 pounds. But she hasn’t and all she has for Chris are more excuses. Something is up, and Chris is bent on finding out what it is that’s really keeping Sally from losing weight.
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Laird Hamilton, big-wave surfer, meets up with Chris and Sally. Laird teaches Sally more than just how to surf. Sally is completely inspired especially knowing that Laird has injured himself so many times before surfing 50-foot waves, and yet Laird still gets back up on that board. Sally wants to do the same.
For Phase 3, they have to step it up to get Sally under 300 pounds so she can be eligible for the skin surgery. In “stepping it up”, Chris invites Sally to his home to spend time with Chris and his wife Heidi in Arizona. Chris says if you compared him and his wife to dogs, Heidi would be the pit bull and Chris would be the golden retriever. Looks like Sally is in for a rough(er) ride.
At the Powell home, they’ve got Sally down strapped to the single digit to find out exactly why Sally isn’t losing the weight. It’s Day 195 and they gave Sally a heartrate monitor. Sally keeps saying she’s giving it her all and it turns out she’s not. On the bicycle, Sally thinks her heartrate is at 125 bpm but the heartrate monitor tells her she’s only at 110. Even with both Powells at her side urging her onwards, Sally breaks down at the bottle ropes.
Fortunately, Heidi is there to give her the words and inspiration Sally needs to push it. At 152 bpm, Sally kicks butt and she can finally rest up a bit. While Sally takes a lil’ break, Chris show her the video Sally made for himself before she started her transformation. “Free your mind, and your ass will follow,” Sally tells herself. She swears she’ll never go back to her old self again. While at the Powell residence, Sally loses 5 pounds.
It’s Day 270 and Sally is back in California. She mets with Dr. Schack and finds out that she now only has 28.9% body fat from over 50%. Plus, she’s also gained some muscle as well. Maybe that’s why she didn’t lose as much weight. But will she make her Phase 3 goal? So far, she’s missed her first two goals, and Chris admits that he’s a bit nervous. At Phase 2 she weighed 238 pounds. For Phase 3, Sally needs to weigh 199 pounds or less. She steps on the scale and it reads 210 pounds. She’s only lost 28 pounds, and only lost 37%. Chris doesn’t know if that’s enough, but only Dr. Stoker can make the final decision.
When Sally meets with Dr. Stoker, he tells her that she’s not eligible for the skin surgery. She still has a bit more fat on her abdomen and arms than he’d like. Fortunately, Dr. Stoker tells Sally that if she can get below 200 pounds at the end of her 365 day program, he’d still be willing to perform the surgery for her.
It’s Day 365, and a crowd for Sally has gathered around the Lincoln Memorial for her big reveal. Up to this point, Sally has failed every single Phase goal. Sally needs to meet this Final Phase goal to be eligible for Dr. Stoker’s surgery. From an original weight of 335 pounds, Sally now weighs 197 pounds! She hit the final goal! Sally has lost over 138 pounds. Weeks later, she meets with Dr. Stoker and finds out she’ll probably be losing about six square feet of skin!
Months later, Sally meets with Dr. Jenn Ashton of “The Revolution.” They evalute her old diet, and find out Sally had been taking in a pound of fat a week from soda alone. Add to that her regular meals, and Sally had been eating thousands upon thousands of calories everyday at every meal. Today, Sally has sworn off that life and promises to live a healthy life to always be there for her for her young, growing son.
Next week, a former college football star whose world collapsed after his mother got sick, trains with Chris to get back in the game.
Until then, check out our Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition archives HERE.
Image credit: ABC
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About Kyle Nofuente
Kyle, a U.S. Navy brat who’s travelled the world on planes and ships, is a Philosophy graduate who eventually discovered there weren’t too many job postings for “Philosophers." Fortunately, Lady Luck gave him a sweet gig as a radio DJ and TV host for a nationally syndicated tech show. When he isn’t on-air playing music and spreading the “Nerd Word” on TV, Kyle spends his waking and sleeping hours making Nerdles a dream come true for him and fellow nerds worldwide. Find out more about Kyle on our Staff page, or connect with him via the links provided below.
