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'My 600lb Life' Recap | Angela G

Dr. Now's Toughest Challenge Yet

By Jennifer GulbrandsenPublished 5 years ago 5 min read
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This week’s episode of ‘My 600lb Life’ introduces us to Angela G.; a single mother from Ohio who is currently almost homebound and raising her cousin’s daughter, Lacey. Upon meeting Angela, we’re hopeful because she seems earnest to get her health back, and very self-aware about how her weight is out of control, so we get super excited that she is going to be a hard working success story without all of the victim/martyr drama that tends to become formulaic on this show. We’re pumped for her!

And then she keeps talking…

Oh boy, Angela has been around the block. We’re still cautiously optimistic because everyone makes mistakes and has to restart their life, but by the tenth year of the spiral she’s describing, it’s clearly a pattern of behavior. From her kids, to her alcohol abuse, infidelity, the over-eating, her failed relationships… it’s never her fault, and there’s a million reasons why. The biggest red flag in this oral history is when her mother took custody of her children after Angela disappeared to party all night and was charged with child endangerment. Angela doesn’t show remorse or retrace her actions to see how her behavior was problematic and how her need to accept responsibility was the issue at hand.

Nope.

The issue was her mother having her held accountable through the criminal justice system and putting the children ahead of Angela’s desires and making it easy for her.

Angela also reveals that she has been through weightloss surgery before, as well as rehab for alcohol abuse. This is why she sounds so self-aware. She’s been around this merry go round before. All of the ‘correct’ talking points have been committed to memory. She knows exactly what to say in order to manipulate people into meeting her immediate needs.

We’ve got a whole different set of problems with Angela. Dr. Now is going to have his hands full. Angela is the worst kind of toxic personality.

The know it all.

So off to Houston she goes, with her former boyfriend Eric, and it’s an avalanche of victimhood, attention seeking, and entitlement. It was genuinely hard to watch at times as poor Eric exhausted himself to make Angela happy, because it’s pretty clear that she does not possess the ability to tolerate discomfort or frustration.

At Dr. Now’s office Angela is shocked to see her weight at 608. To be honest, I was surprised it wasn’t more.

During her interview with Dr. Now, he sees right through Angela in about 2.4 seconds, and says psychotherapy needs to happen before anything else. He’s not having any of Angela’s nonsense, and isn’t entertaining her act for a second. I wanted to high-five my TV.

But of course, back in Ohio, Angela is going to hit her talking points and show us what a model patient she is, but the lady doth protest too much. There’s such a performative quality to her displays of eating, that there’s no way it’s close to real. The bags of lettuce are brand new every single time, and her crowing about the diet guidelines and how she’s rigorously following them is completely for our benefit. I was just waiting for someone to yell, “and cut!” from around the corner.

She clearly has lost some weight. I would guess 50lbs or so. So, that’s progress. However, we can see the charade building up, because she is finding all of these histrionic excuses as to why she can’t get back down to Houston for her apartment. Her family needs her, she can’t find an apartment, her family doesn’t see the reason to go if she’s just dieting… blah, blah, blah.

My goodness, she’s exhausting.

Angela brings this trope to Dr. Now via Skype call, while announcing she has lost SEVENTY POUNDS. She is so adamant about it, I even believe her.

“How do you know? Have you been weighed?” Dr. Now asks.

“Well, um, no… but I can fit into…” Angela stammers. At this point I’m DYING because she legitimately looks like an insane person. It’s hard to be the most delusional on this show, but we officially have a winner. Dr. Now isn’t backing down a bit, and tells her she needs to come back with twenty more pounds added to her goal.

“I’ll LOSE A HUNDRED AND TWENTY!!!”

Sure, Jan.

So obviously, Angela blows off the rescheduled appointment and takes the insanity up a notch by feigning some kind of attack/illness that lands her in the ER. Her clearly exhausted daughter rolls her eyes and asks Angela what she should tell them to check if she passes out and she replies, “My blood gasses!”

I can’t. I’m even cracking up typing this. I’m not laughing at the obvious mental issues here, I’m laughing at the absurdity of it all and how Angela always thinks she’s the smartest person in the room.

Anyway, we know she wasn’t sick. Dr. Now confirms she wasn’t sick. Angela knows she’s busted, so she goes MIA.

Finally, and probably because production threatened her, Angela calls Dr. Now, and he is having NUNNA her business. He goes all in calling her out on how she doesn’t look any thinner, is obviously hiding because she isn’t losing, straight up says she’s delusional, and in a development that shocks absolutely no one, dumps her as a patient.

Obviously, we all know how her summary is going to go. It’s comical how predictable she is. Of course we say goodbye to Angela in full makeup living her best life cooking healthy food (brand new bags of lettuce, again), she’s going to treat herself to TWO turkey patties tonight. And sure, she’s cheating and drinking, but she’s fine you guys. She’s proving everyone wrong! Her duty is to be there for Lacey and she is going to be the best martyr to ever martyr and put her health on hold for this girl.

Even the kid is stifling a laugh during this whole charade. We all know when Angela took her for ice cream, and only Lacey got ice cream, they went back when the cameras left. Please.

As entertaining as this episode was, it was mostly tragic and sad, because here is a person who is obviously intelligent and could do this, but simply willfully refuses unless she’s in charge of everything and it’s on her terms. I hope it works out well in the end for Angela, but chances are her history will continue to repeat itself.

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About the Creator

Jennifer Gulbrandsen

Writer, Podcaster, Digital Media Gadfly, Former Supermodel. Get the realness at jennifergulbrandsen.com

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