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What I See When I Look In The Mirror…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 3rd, 2010
There is a strange phenomenon that occurs when you lose weight with someone close to you. When Suzy and I were on the show neither of us really noticed the changes that were happening physically. It seems like when we see a person everyday we are less likely to notice the changes in appearance that are taking place.
It seems like the last person to see the change in us when we lose weight is us. When I got home from the ranch everyone was telling me how good I looked but when I saw myself in the mirror I saw the old me. In the same way that we may not notice a weight loss in a person close to us, the opposite is also true. It may not be immediately obvious when the same person we saw lose the weight starts to gain it back.
After Jax was born Suzy said she was going to take six weeks and then get back to working out. At the six week mark she started working out again. By this time I had gotten pretty lazy. Suzy would ask if I wanted to go for a walk and I would go begrudgingly. When I saw Suzy working out everyday, I didn’t see her as someone who needed to lose weight. I saw her as someone who was suggesting that I needed to lose weight.
There hasn’t been a day that has gone by that I haven’t thought my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. When she said she was unhappy with her weight I couldn’t figure it out. I seriously thought she was crazy. That is when I realized that I was being an enabler. Not just for my wife, but for myself as well.
By not being supportive of her feelings I was basically telling her that her feelings about herself weren’t valid. By telling her she didn’t have to work out I was giving myself permission to not work out as well. Although I was trying to show her that I loved her “just they way she is” I was doing more harm than good. Of course we love the ones closest to us just the way they are. What are you suppose to do when you love them but they don’t necessarily love themselves?
I’m not saying Suzy didn’t love herself, she didn’t love the way she looked. Not supporting her was like nonverbally saying everyday “It’s fine with me if you aren’t happy just don’t bother me with it because I think you look just fine.” Unfortunately that type thinking was more of a reflection upon myself than it was on my wife.
If I could just get Suzy to be happy with not working out and just carrying some extra weight, maybe I could do the same. It is a little sad but a lot of times in relationships if one person decides they need to make a change the other person takes it personal. As if them wanting to improve themselves somehow means that we are lacking.
For me it was “If Suzy wants to lose weight, she must really mean that she wants me to lose weight.” Oh whoas me! How could she be so selfish as to want something better for herself. There must be something wrong with me. Suzy wanted to be healthy and be an example for our kids like we had talked about since before they were born. I wanted to somehow be healthy but not have to put so much effort into it.
In 14 months my wife had 2 babies and I was the one feeling sorry for myself when I looked in the mirror. Selfishness not only sabatoges the ones we love but ourselves as well. When I finally took a good long look in the mirror I realized that I did in fact need to make some changes. Changes in the way I really saw myself, not how I thought others saw me or how my wife saw me but in the person I saw staring back at me in that mirror everyday.
See you tomorrow!
Surprise Surprise….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 2nd, 2010
Rex was quite a surprise for us. As a good friend of mine likes to say,I couldn’t have been more surprised if I woke up with my head stapled to the carpet, when I found out Suzy was pregnant again. Jax, our second son, was definitely not on our schedule.
It was tough on Suzy because she was only a few pounds away from her goal weight again when we found out Jax was on his way. I was doing well too. This time we pretty much just let loose. We were dealing with a 5 month old and we just gave in. Once again Suzy and I packed on the weight together.
The odd thing is that since we were doing it together it wasn’t so bad in our minds. After all, I was just trying to make my wife happy. I guess that is one of the things about having been on the show together. I think it kind of gave us a false confidence. “We may have gained weight, but we can lose it when we want.” It was true that we could lose it when we wanted, but it was going to take a lot longer than when we were living on the ranch.
I talk all the time about how people in the real world shouldn’t expect to see double digit weight loss numbers every week like they see on the show. I know from experience that it takes hours of activity and pretty excessive calorie restriction to get those numbers. Knowing all this, in the back of my mind I thought I should still be able to do that.
I can’t. Not only can I not lose double digits each week, I don’t want to. I don’t want to live on 1200 calories a day the rest of my life. I like to eat food and enjoy it. I don’t want to feel guilty every time I eat something I’m “not suppose to”. I want to be able to go out to eat with my wife and have some bread. I want to enjoy living a healthy life.
After having our second son, Suzy and I decided to make it our goal to be a healthy family. Not a family on a diet with an exercise obsession, but a healthy family. We decided that we would eat healthy as a family and be active as a family. This meant taking the boys with us when we went for walks. It meant working our schedules out so that each of us could get our own workouts in. It meant making healthy meals and staying away from the fast food joints.
Suzy made all of the boys’ baby food. We never bought a jar of baby food from the store. Doing this made us more aware of how we were eating as well. Just before Jax was born we went for a hike. On the way down from the mountains Suzy wanted to stop and get some ice cream at Dairy Queen. Well, I didn’t want her to have to eat ice cream alone so I got some as well.
About 2 minutes after we got our ice cream Rex started squaking in the back seat. He wanted some ice cream. Suzy said “No Rex, this isn’t for little boys.” After she said that we both looked at each other. We couldn’t tell our kids not to do things if we weren’t willing to not do them ourselves. We tossed the ice cream.
We knew that Rex was getting old enough to see what we were doing. We couldn’t fake it anymore. This crazy life of ours has just gotten crazier as the boys get older but we are doing our best to change our family’s legacy when it comes to health.
See you tomorrow!
Seeds of Insecurity…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 28th, 2010
I have decided that it is redundant to keep making the title of my blogs Life After Biggest Loser since everything I write about is my life after the show. After reading my blog a couple times yesterday I decided that I want to talk more about what I am going to call “Fat Person in a Skinny Body Syndrome” or FPSBS for the purposes of my blog.
As most of you know, I am not a doctor or psychologist so the things I am talking about are my own experiences. When you have been a contestant on a show like The Biggest Loser, people remember you one of two ways when it comes to physical appearance. What you looked like before the show or what you looked like at the finale.
When people see you in person who remember you from when you started the show they are very complimentary. “Wow, you have done a great job!” Those who remember you from the finale say “Wow, you have put back quite a bit of weight on!” They are both right.
If I had lost a bunch of weight in the privacy of my own home and people just learned through conversation that I once weighed over 350 pounds they would be like “Wow, that’s great!” Since I chose to do it on national television it’s a little different. The day I signed the contract to be on the show I signed up to be publicly judged by strangers.
Today I want to talk about how words from strangers and even people we know can take root in our lives and sometimes even cause us to self destruct.
Believe it or not, spring is just around the corner. This spring, farmers will start planting seeds in their fields. They will drop them in the ground and then cover them up with dirt. Even though we can’t see it underground, that seed is sprouting and developing a root system for whatever type of plant it is to become. As the seed continues to sprout the roots will take hold and become the support system for the plant as it begins to push it’s way through the dirt.
That little seed, once planted continues to work it’s way to the surface even though we can’t see it. “Great Matt, thanks for the farming lesson, what’s the point?” Here you go. Let’s imagine the words other people say to us are like that seed. They may something mean or discouraging and at the time we think nothing of it and just brush it off. We may even think to ourselves “What a jerk.” We bury it.
Maybe after a few hours we are sitting around and the words that person said come back into our mind. This time rather than dismissing the words we begin to dwell on them a little bit. If those words were seeds, we have just planted them in our mind. They have begun to take root if you will. Now is when the words that have taken root can grow in one of two ways. We can use them to fuel us to become better or we can begin to believe them and let those words bring us down.
I once had a lady at an event I was speaking at only a couple weeks after the finale, a time when I actually felt the best about my appearance, say I better watch it because I had already gained weight. A couple of weeks later she was kind enough to email me and tell me that I better get honest with myself because I was probably gain all my weight back.
At first I dismissed her as the ignorant person she was, but then I found myself becoming more and more critical of myself. Guess what I did. I cultivated those words into thoughts and actions that became detrimental to myself. I let a perfect stranger plant the seeds of doubt in my mind and rather than turning it into a positive began to feel guilty.
Thoughts like “She’s probably right”, “I’ll show her, I’m going to go eat whatever I want”, and “That’s what I’ve done before” consumed me. A perfect stranger! I started to punish myself and set myself up for failure because of words a stranger said to me took root. It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it!
As ridiculous as it is when you read what I just wrote, how many of us have done the exact same thing? If we don’t learn to appreaciate ourselves and our new body, it can be really easy for those seeds of insecurity to take root and undo all of the hard work that we have just done. A fat person in a skinny body is much more likely to go back to being a fat person in a fat body if they don’t plant new seeds and see themselves as the new person that they have become.
See you tomorrow!
My Life After The Biggest Loser Part 1
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 21st, 2010
This is a serious question I want you to think about. What do you suppose would happen to you if you walked up to someone at the grocery store, looked in their cart, and then picked something up and asked them if they should be eating whatever it was that you picked up?
They may look at you like you were crazy or they may spray you with a can of pepper spray. This very incident has happened to my wife and I on several occasions. When you go on television you open yourself up to receive unsolicited opinions both bad and good.
Here’s the weird part, we don’t mind when this happens to us. It is our life. Suzy and I have opened our lives up to the world. People know a lot about us, they know about our children, they know about our marraige, we have made that available to them.
The thing is that the people they “know”, they really don’t know at all. Most of what they know is based on CHARACTERS from television. I changed a lot during my time on BL. There are actually very few people who really know me.
When I first signed up to go on the show I was very naive. Seriously, I thought that when you go on a reality show you just have a camera following you around while you do whatever it is you do. I didn’t know about filming days or interviews or doing press. I was like the country bumpkin going to the big city.
I’m not going to lie, when I arrived at the BL ranch I was there to workout, lose weight, and win some money. That was it. I didn’t care about getting famous or being on tv. Needless to say, I was a tough person to work with. I didn’t realize until later in the process that I was a character in a story.
What people see each week is a two hour story based on hundreds of hours of footage. What the viewer gets to see, and the opinions that they form by watching, is based only on what the story line is for that week. You will never really get to know the people on the show unless you meet them personally.
“Matt, quit complaining. You won a bunch of money and this what you get.” You are right and I am not complaining, in fact, I enjoy it. My career as a speaker depends upon people wanting to see me and hear about my life. What I am saying is that I had no idea how much life would change as a result of being on BL.
Yes, it is tough when you read some of the harsh words that people say from time to time and yes I do see it. I would bet that most people who have been on the show see what is being written about them. What I am saying today is this. I wish that people would think about what they are saying about another person when they say what they say. I wish they would give the contestants the courtesy to be human, to make mistakes and even have struggles.
I love this country and the rights that we have. I believe in free and uncensored speech and opinions. All I ask is that before saying what a horrible person someone is or calling them names is that we think about a couple of things. First, you may not really know that person or what they are going through. Second, that person probably has family and friends who do know them and words from a stranger can hurt.
For me, words from strangers can sting but often they motivate me. You wouldn’t believe the things that people said about me when it was announced that I was doing the Kona Ironman. At first it was a little rough but then I used it to motivate me.
Lesson for today: The people who go on BL are real people. They have feelings. They have struggles and successes. They have jobs, families, and friends. They have opened up their lives in order to inspire, motivate, and yes, even entertain perfect strangers. Keep that in mind next time you may feel like tearing them down.
As for me, let it rip! I love the good and the bad of being a “celebrity”. It allows for me to have a great life, spend time with my family and love my career. I appreciate and value the opinions that I get from everybody because at the end of the day I know who I am. My family, friends, and my God know who I am and that is all I need to know.
See you tomorrow!
PS. For those who were wondering if I ever tried to reach out and talk to Jillian, the answer is yes. I wouldn’t have talked about it if I hadn’t taken action on my end.
