I don’t watch much reality TV, but I’m really hooked on The Biggest Loser. It’s about an hour too long, so I fast forward through a lot of the junk (thank god for DVR’s), but the core of the show strikes me as genuine and seems to come from a really good place.

When I was in high school, I had a subscription to Muscle and Fitness in order to learn new weight training techniques. There were always structured diet plans for X goal, or for X number of weeks, and although I read through them all, I never followed them. When outlining the benefits of the diet plans, there was one phrase the magazine always used: “When you’ve reached this point, if you haven’t seen X result, don’t kid yourself, you’re overeating.”

I remember how much that statement used to upset me, and in my mind I would make excuses and justifications for other people who might be following that diet. I imagined them being diligent and working hard, and then not seeing results due to stress or illness. I envisioned some villainous meat-head, cackling away as he wrote that line, knowing it was going to crush the spirit of some innocent person, trying to lose weight or look good. I was so dependent on food as an emotional crutch, I had to make excuses for other people, just to help support my own.

I heard that same sort of excuse from Daris this week when he said “It’s hard to train for a Marathon and lose weight.” He knew he was eating too much, and he knew it was bad, and he was trying to rationalize it away because he didn’t know what else to do. Seeing him break down into tears while petitioning for “America’s Vote” was heart wrenching.

I really felt for Daris this week, mainly because I know exactly how he feels. Those late nights alone, where you feel compulsively driven to eat, even when you know you shouldn’t, even when you are telling yourself out loud you shouldn’t, are absolutely terrible. The mixed feeling of satisfaction you get from the food, and loathing you feel towards yourself for eating it, is something I would never wish upon anyone.