vituperation

July 10, 2002

Before I begin with my comments, read this:

You know, I understand now why people claim the media misrepresents them. The reporter who interviewed me seems to have lost her notes. My comments on the article, in the order their subject matter appears in it.

1. I didn’t lose half my body weight, I lost 175-ish pounds.
2. My snack on May 28, 2000 was Little Debbie stuff, not Oreos.
3. The combined weight of Robyn and myself was almost 740 pounds, and she didn’t even try to ride any amusement park rides while we were in Gatlinburg.
4. I never saw a leg get amputated, I saw them tell a man his leg had to be amputated.
5. The ‘man is born to rule or be ruled’ didn’t run through my head when I saw the thing on TV. That’s from a book excerpt (more on that in a minute) she had me send her. I simply associated eating junk food with the pain and anguish of dismemberment.
6. The whole quote about General Tso and my butt being dependent on the couch is also from the book excerpt, not anything I said in the interview.
7. I actually didn’t throw away the junk food in the house, I threw away what I’d been eating. Robyn was still eating junk then.
8. I never took insulin injections, I was on diabetes medication.
9. I don’t weigh 190 pounds, I weigh 195-198.
10. The food pile - the canned goods - is 175 pounds, not 190.
11. I’ll not be commenting on any book until it’s more ready for the public, so please don’t quiz me on it. Really.
12. The quote about freedom and bondage is also from the book excerpt.
13. That whole "not wanting to sound like a nut" was part of a bigger quote, where I expounded my philosophy of choosing to make the process of physical transformation easy or difficult, purely by choosing to perceive it as such.
14. I’m pretty sure I never said I ate 20,000 calories a day.
15. I’m the one who said Robyn and I got fatter together, not Robyn. I’m also the one who said my ankles don’t hurt any more.
16. We can’t figure out where the "Now she’s comforted by their new life" comment originated.
17. She was obsessed by the fact that I once (note: once) ate a dozen doughnuts on a junk food day. I do NOT do this regularly.
18. Robyn never said, "It feels good to be good." Well, she didn’t say it for the interview. She says it now, in a perky little Leslie Sansone voice, and we laugh about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing the reporter by any means, Robyn and I just thought it was funny how different the story appeared after such a long interview (close to an hour). And let me say that no matter how idiotic I look with my big goony arm stretched out like that - I had it behind my back originally, all nice and out of the way - the picture they used can’t be nearly as bad as the ones of me lifting weights.

I also think it’s a little funny that the whole reason I contacted them was because I thought the delivery of the canned goods to the food bank made for an interesting human interest story, yet that ultimately got just the tiniest of mentions in the final product.

Oh, well, maybe Oprah will cover that one.

Also, go post something in the forums, dammit. Only YOU can prevent their demise.