DietTribe: Tri Divas with Really Bad Hair

This is the true story (true storyyyyy!) of five friends, picked to lose weight together and ogle a hot trainer, to find out what happens when people stop eating like crap….and start getting real. Or, according to the title of this week’s episode of DietTribe, it’s time for the Fab Five to face “The Cold Hard Truth”. Ya know, these ladies–at least Stephanie and Tiffany–remind me of what a Real Worlder looks like when they grow up. Too much makeup, crazy hair, and clothes that are too small. Again, when is the makeover show??

(I am really, really tired of the clip of Stephanie crying, “How can you hurt me, when I gave you everything!” Are you?)

Welcome, friends. This week on DietTribe, the women meet at Mary’s house to talk about last week’s failure. Laneesa is the first one to make mealymouthed excuses about why it’s okay that they didn’t meet their goals. Yes, you shouldn’t beat yourself up for it (for too long), but you also gotta own your mistakes and change it. I’m glad when the others don’t seem to have the same rationalizations.

Rita looks really pretty here–a little eyeliner and a colorful shirt sure do a lot to help her out. She speaks up and is honest about how she was snacking on the wrong stuff–how she made that classic dieter’s mistake of thinking, “Well, this isn’t the crap I NORMALLY eat, so it must be better, right?” Wrong. An oversized portion of light popcorn can do as much damage as a Snickers bar.

Tiffany and her awful hair speak up, asking for the support of the gang for when she wants to slip up. Don’t let her make those excuses! Don’t let her get that awful hair touched up, either. WHEN IS THE MAKEOVER SHOW??!

Jesse’s got the ladies in a park for a workout. They’re stretching. Jessie clearly isn’t one of those musclebound knuckleheads who does “curls for the girls” but doesn’t work his legs. Those chicken-legged guys look STUPID. No, Jessie has a lovely set of calves that I’d like to wrap my own calves around. And I don’t mean during a game of Twister.

He hasn’t shaved for a few days, either, and it helps him look like less of a pretty boy and more like a guy worthy of dating SexyPanda. Uh oh. My own crush is starting to scare me. (HA!) Wait…wait. He’s wearing a v-neck shirt. It doesn’t look as awful on him as it does on those hipster doofuses who wear them with the really wide, deep V, but…I still don’t like it. Try again, Jessie.

Anyway, he hands out calorie books to the ladies. The all page through to check out the calories, fat, and carbs in the foods they usually consume. A medium-sized bunch of grapes is 350 calories? Steph is shocked.

Next, Jessie hands out a modified two-week diet. When he explains that the diet has the women eating only 1200 calories a day, I sit up and go, “oh no. No no no.” 1200 calories is not enough for the work these women are doing. It is the bare minumum amount of calories someone should eat to survive the day. I’m really concerned, until I realize that they’ll probably cheat anyway and actually get themselves to the 1500 they were supposed to be consuming all along. And, really, it’s only for two weeks. Still, I’m wrinkling my nose at this. At least he’s honest as he warns them, “You are going to be hungry.”

Tiffany asks why they’re getting this diet now, and it’s such an obvious answer that I’m now pretty sure they’re scripting it. Anyway, Jessie says, “Duh. You all sucked at the last weigh in, dummy, so you get punished.” Actually, no, he just explains that since their last weigh-in wasn’t so successful, obviously something’s not working, so they need to be a little more drastic. Tiffany expresses concern about reducing their calories so much, because the 1500 calorie diet was already a struggle. Damn right.

The women head off to a triathlon supply shop and meet with Kelly Clancy, the founder of TriDiva, which trains women to do their first triathlons. I’m glad that she explains for us that there are different distances of triathlon, and that the ladies will be doing a sprint distance. That’s 0.5 mile swim, 12.5 mile bike, and 3 mile run. It should take ‘em about two hours to complete. Not bad, right? (And it’s fun! You all should try it! Or “tri” it!)

The women then go pick out TONS of gear. They all get tri-suits, transition bags, wetsuits, goggles, water bottles, t-shirts, hats, and helmets. The nose wrinkle returns at them spending all this money on race gear when they barely know what they’re doing, but I recognize this as jealousy and I move on. (I still don’t have a wetsuit yet. I’m using Christmas money to buy one. Lifetime, can you help a sister out??!)

Then they get the dorkiest bikes I’ve ever seen. I think this model of bike is the same crappy bike I rented in Vancouver a few months ago. That is, it’s two wheels and has pedals, a seat, and handlebars, but it’s not a tri bike. It’s not even a road bike. These poor women–not only is a crappy bike harder to ride for longer distances (it’s probably heavy!), it just looks stupid. They should be riding these up and down a boardwalk, not in a race.

Now that they’re all kitted up, the women meet up with Kelly Clancy and other TriDiva triathletes for a brick workout. A brick is a bike and a run workout done consecutively. You use different muscles for biking and for running, and it’s good to practice that transition between the two so you don’t fall over on race day.

The first thing I notice as they start their brick is that their bikes don’t fit. The seats are too low. They are REALLY going to struggle with that over 12 miles. It’s painful for me to watch. It’s also painful for Laneesa to keep up–the biking is really hurting her hip. Ouch. Poor thing. She actually swears for once. Thatta girl!

Next up is the run. Everyone’s struggling, but the TriDivas swoop in to help motivate ‘em. Women supporting women! Lifetime!

Laneesa’s really hurting, but Jessie and his amazingly striated calves swoop in to help. He runs with her the whole way. What a guy!

Next up is group therapy! Yay! The women enter, wearing white hazmat suits. Give them some black boots and tophats and they’d totally be the Clockwork Orange droogs.

Stacy explains today’s exercise–writing their excuses all over their white suits. These excuses are getting in the way of these ladies really getting that weight GONE. They don’t even realize the excuses they’re making, but this is one way to make it real.

They’re all surprised at how many excuses they had to write all over each other. They’re covered in graffiti. NOW they look like Kid n’ Play or Fresh Prince. (Parents just don’t understand.) Stacy has them stand in front of mirrors to get a good visual of these excuses. Then she has them take the hazmat suits off…to reveal the squishy bodies in the tri-suits underneath.

Stacy has them repeat some long, awkward psychobabbly phrase after her, in unison, and I roll my eyes. I’m all for the therapy, but this stuff is just stupid. It insults everyone’s intelligence. My guess is that she found some study that shows that people who say things out loud follow through with it more or something. Whatever.

Jessie comes in to rescue them from this ridiculous exercise. (The excuse suits were cool, the “repeat after me” stuff was not.) They’re all heading to the pool for a swim workout. Whoops, not you, Laneesa. stacy noticed that something seemed amiss with our friendly giant. They head outside to chat one-on-one. Laneesa reveals that, in a former life, she WANTED to be overweight. She wanted to shut people out. She probably had some crazy shit in her past that she tries to avoid by becoming “ugly”. (But not that “fat” = “ugly”!)

Stacy’s sympathetic…and then she drops the hammer. She’s all, “You’re totally sabotaging yourself with this program. And I want YOU to tell ME what you’re doing wrong. C’mon, out with it.” Laneesa’s all, “oh, you want therapy words? Okay, I’m not ‘present’ or ‘in the moment’.” Stacy’s like, “Aaaactually, I meant this–you’re late, if you even show up at all. Don’t you think that’s disrespectful?” SLAM. Then Stacy and her damn “commit” speech again. She wants Laneesa to “commit” to being on time and being present. Like, makes her say it. Stop it with making people commit shit, PLEASE!

Jessie brings the tribe to the pool in LA where the olympics were held–hallowed ground. They meet with their swim coach, Diana Nyad. She holds the record for the longest open-water swim–from the Bahamas to Florida. Dear God, that’s a long way to swim.

They all did two laps to show Diana what they can do, and she ain’t impressed. But hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? Next, she makes Jessie take his shirt off so HE can show the ladies what he’s got…in the pool. Oh my, shirtless Jessie. Throw some chest hair on that, and I’m … well, I shouldn’t complete that sentence.

He does two laps and Diana critiques his form. I critique his bowl-cut hair when he surfaces for air. My assessment? Adorable.

The camera lingers as Jessie exits the pool. I laugh–Lifetime knows where to get its money shots. Dripping-wet shirtless Jessie.

Then Diana heads into the water. The women are in awe of her form and speed. They’re like, “it’s like she’s floating on top of the water.” Well, actually, girls, she is. She’s wearing a wet-suit, that’s what it does–makes you bouyant. It’s actually pretty awesome.

Aww, Jessie’s hair is drying dorky because the pool water washed out all of his product. Sigh. The camera kindly ignores any kind of close-up here. I guess they don’t want to show his vulnerability.

Rita’s cooking dinner for the family, and she’s back to harping on the calories in the grapes. Shut up about the damn grapes! What’s most annoying about it is that she’s accusing the grapes of being bad for her. No, that’s not the lesson here. The lesson is that a serving of grapes is actually pretty small, but they’re still good for you.

We spend some time with the other families too. Basically, it’s a bunch of whining about the 1200 calorie diet plan and how hard it is to change your lifestyle. Yup. At least they all seem to be sticking to it…the threat of the upcoming weigh in seems to be heavy in their minds. Pardon the pun.

Tiffany and Stephanie are doing their little black-and-white confessional recording together, talking about how much their friends rock. It’s pretty cute. “Yay, Mary! Yay, Rita!” They even comment on how much more into it Laneesa’s been. That’s the Lifetime moment for ya right there.

Now it’s Steph’s turn to meet with Stacy mano y mano. Here we go, the segment I’ve been dreading, “How dare you hurt me…?” UGH. Get it over with. Basically, Steph’s husband was cheating on her, and that broke up the marriage. Steph now has trust issues, and who can blame her? She starts to question the whole “self first” mantra that Stacy had them “commit” to on the first episode, but Stacy stops her. There’s a difference between taking care of your self so that you can give to others, and being selfISH, which means taking from others.

Then we start talking about personal truths and such, and I tune out. Sorry. Basically, be honest with yourself and you’ll be better off. There, I just saved you $120/hr in therapy bills. Want to hug? (Steph and Stacy did.)

Now the ladies are partying up at a nearby club. Tiffany’s all ready to find Steph a man, and Steph reluctantly agrees to it. Cue to many shots of the ladies laughing and sipping on drinks and standing in small groups talking to short men of different ethnicities. Stephanie looms over them all. Some guy compliments Steph on her weight loss so far. And I agree, she looks great.

Stephanie gets a text from Laneesa–she “can’t go out right now”. Turns out, she and her man were having The Talk. Tiffany heads over the next day to see what’s up. She actually seems like a really great friend to have–she won’t pussyfoot around the questions we all want to ask, and she seems so engaged and sympathetic when she’s listening. Her clowny hair takes away so much credibility from her–I never noticed this calm side to her before. I like it.

The good news here is that Laneesa’s taking control, didn’t run for the milkshakes and cheeseburgers when she and Matt were done breaking up, and now wants to hit the gym to sweat it all out. Very good!!

Finally, time to weigh in. Remember, the goal for this week is 30 lbs. Wait, Jessie’s coming down the stairs with a big pink box. The girls squeal. He smiles and sets it on a pedestal behind the big scale.

THIS is what you’re working for this week, ladies. Let’s get to it:

Rita, who controlled her snacking this week, lost 5 lbs.
Stephanie, who looks really pretty here tonight, lost 6 lbs.

Tiffany lost 5 lbs…and cries about it. (I think that’s the stress of the 1200 calorie diet right there. It messes with your expectations.)
Mary, wearing stupid braids in her hair, lost 7 lbs. You are NOT Lauren Conrad, so stop!

Laneesa, who had a rough week but got her head back in the game, lost–HOLY SHIT–13 lbs! She starts to cry, and…well, so do I.

HUGS!!

They win their prize, having lost a total of 36 lbs for the week. Woohoo! So what’d they get? Beautiful diamond/sapphire pendant necklaces. Just beautiful. Tiffany points out that there are five tiny diamonds surrounding the big one, which to her symbolizes their DietTribe. Aww.

So, next weigh in’s goal? 30 lbs. Again. Will they still be on that awful 1200 calorie diet?

And next time, we get to see more of The Misfits softball team. Oooh, and hidden video of the women with their kids, shooting whipped cream into their mouths. And therapy time will be with Tired Mary. *sigh* I might need a drink before next week’s show. See you then!