Losing it With Jillian–Offending a Nation

Hello!  I hope everyone had a fine holiday weekend.  Mine was highlighted by watching a drunk chick twist her ankle while performing “Flashdance” in front of a hand drier in a crowded public bathroom.  Ah, good times.

This week on “Losing it with Jillian”, our favorite scrappy trainer gets promoted from saving a family to saving an entire nation!  Meh—it’s really only about 50 people.  I want to see her little brand of inspiration “save” an entire Walmart during the holiday season.  Jillian visits the Yavapai-Apache Nation in Camp Verde, Arizona to work with the Plunkett-Marquez Family. Cora-Lei is the mother and she also sits on the tribe’s council.  And when she sits on the tribe’s council, she really sits….sigh.  Her mother is diabetic, her son Brandon (15 years old) is pre-diabetic and weighs 253 pounds and her unfortunately named sister, Delight, is also huge.  Okay—let’s go down the check list—family (yes), unhealthy (yes), obese (hell, yes) and an interesting or sad back story (yep—they are Native Americans).  So, Jilliandroid’s biggest challenge is battling an entire culture.  My biggest challenge is to not fill a recap with ridiculously immature Indian jokes and yet still try to find something to talk about with this family’s journey.

I don’t know how, dammit, I don’t know!

Let’s meet the Plunkett-Marquez Family!  (“Family Feud” music…)

They start out at the doctor’s office, where apparently the doctor isn’t allowed to have an office or she just wandered off the street all “Fugitive”-style and has no idea what she’s talking about.

“And these are the most popular cuts of beef…”

The doctor talks about the health risks with diabetes.  Grandma has already had a couple of heart attacks, a stroke and she is Type two Diabetes.  Yikes.  Cora-Lei seems more concerned about young Brandon, who is going down a very dark path with his porn health.  Cora-Lei said, “I didn’t know my son had these diseases that my Mom has.  I want to help him.”  Her mom: “Well f**k you very much…don’t worry about me”.

It’s not a white horse, but it is a shiny brand new Tahoe and here comes Jilliandroid, to save the day!  She arrives in town and the family is burying something.  Rut-roh.  What in the world could it be?  Bob, the smaller, gentler trainer from “The Biggest Loser”?  The last white woman who rode into town?

Hey, where the white women at?

They’re burying something I’m too lazy to research, so hey, let’ s move on!   J-droid gets introduced to the whole family.

There is no one here eating oatmeal.  Nice try, Wilmford

I am “Eats With Both Hands”

After talking to the family and realizing they are not just concerned about their immediate family, but the whole community, they head to the gym.  Twenty-one year old Delight really struggles with the work out and wants to quit, heading farther from “Delight” to “Not-light”.  J-roid makes the family do something called “prisoner” lunges, which is WTH?  But could totally explain this:

Yep– Prison Ink

Once again, Delight wants to quit and Jilliandroid tells her for every lunge she doesn’t do, her family will have to pick up the pace.  Personally, I’d be like, “Cool—peace out fam, I’m outta here”, but I never said I’d be a good tribe member.  I don’t think Delight really wanted to be part of her sister’s quest for newfound health.  She doesn’t even look like she’s ready for a hard workout.

Totally not a sports bra, but my eyes thank you for your presence

Jilliandroid spends her first night at “the Lodge”, which looks more like a no-tell, mo-tel to me and she already seems despondent.  How could these cheerful colors not bring her back up?

Completely soothing

The next morning, she meets the family at their home.  Hilariously, the address number is blurred out on the house.  I’m pretty sure if you wanted to find the Plunkett-Marquez Family in Camp Verde, Arizona, you wouldn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.  The family is busy preparing food for a party the tribe is throwing that day to welcome Jillian to their town.  They are making something called “Fried Bread”, and while they are making this traditional food, J-droid is giving Brandon all the bad news about the flour he’s using.  Really?  I would think the lard they are using to fry it in is a bigger issue, but hey, it’s her show.  “Enriched bleached flour, Brandon.  What do you think that means?”  He thinks the enriched part might be okay, but not so much on the bleached part.  She explains that it is enriched, because all the vitamins were taking out of it and had to be added back in—hence “enriched”.  And the bleached part is well, bleach.  J-droid asks Cora-Lei if her elders had enriched flour and she says no—they were hunters and gatherers, but they’ve evolved into this.  What, bakers?  Dang—let’s just go ahead and insult the pastry world too, while we’re at it.  Good thing she didn’t find their stash of yeast.

Idle hands are the devils leaven

They head to the party and the first thing they show is several tribe members roasting agave in the field.  Cora-Lei greets the crowd (20 people) and shouts, “Our Creator and NBC have sent us an angel. Welcome, Jillian”.  J-droid tells us that everyone there is obese and she is mortified that the children are all lined up for their fried bread.  I’m mortified there isn’t even a keg.  After witnessing the gluttony surrounding her, she loses her s**t and starts throwing the food away.  And I’ve just crossed her name off my guest list for my dinner party for all my imaginary celebrity friends.  One brave young man decides to throw his plate in Jillian’s face in anger over her actions.

Amber alert:  That kid

Jill–can you please TRY to think outside the bun?  Don Decker is the tribe elder and scolds J-roid about throwing the food away—it is against everything they believe.  I’m thinking they go through a lot of Ziplocs in this town.  But Don is royally pissed.  Jill tries to tell him that that food is poison.  Remember folks—this is fried bread.  There’s not even delicious frosting on it or meat shoved in the middle.   Don is unyielding in his anger and just like that—party is over.  I think we know now why they were digging a hole in the beginning of the show.

Even their cars are obese

The next morning, we have an awkward, “So, how’s everyone this morning?”  Well, dumbass, we’re all hungry because you threw away our fried bread.  Actually, they talked about bringing J-droid’s doctor (Dr. Van Herle) to the town to address everyone about the seriousness of obesity and diabetes.  Sounds hilarious.  But better than Carrot Top.   They decide to print up fliers and pass them around town about the doctor’s upcoming visit.  The only resident remotely interested is already in pretty good shape.

Carrot Top, really?

In the auditorium, it is evident the only thin thing in this town is the crowd.  J-roid can’t understand how these people don’t know that they need this!  What they really need is someone who doesn’t trash their party favors, but that’s neither here nor there.  They don’t even show the doctor’s speech to the half dozen or so people who decided to show up.  It’s amazing how out of touch these people are.  Don’t they know it’s the dream of every American citizen to have five minutes of fame on a reality TV show?  So what if she pitches more food than Ramsey? This is big time, people.

Later, J-droid and Cora-Lei are working out in the desert and they decide this tribe needs a leader.  I couldn’t agree more.

They talk about here are hills to climb and mountains to um, restrain…

Yikes (me=secretly  jealous)

Jill tells Cora-Lei a smart leader surrounds him or herself with smart people and isn’t afraid to ask for help.  J-roid sees a big break through with Cora-Lei and decides that despite the huge disasters of offending everyone in town and no one showing up for the doctor’s talk, they need to keep pushing.  They decide to head back to town and go straight to a daycare.  Whaaa?  What kind of target group is this?  The little kids I’m allowed to be around don’t even buy their own freakin’ food.  Well, it turns out Ophelia is the day care operator who used to have a walking program but quit a few years ago due to money constraints.  What kind of crazy town charges people to walk?

Gee, where do they hang the kids’ bad art?  And what time is class “Orange”?

Jilliandroid wants to re-start the walking program and here we are with the fliers again.  Kinko’s is making out like a bandit this week.  Delight and J-roid walk around town, committing federal offenses by putting fliers in mailboxes and shoving them in people’s hands.  Delight tells J-roid she has a four year old son who she feeds trash.  Hopefully, not literally.

Pink thing:  Definitely not an Olympic torch

Jill has a complete meltdown and starts yelling, “Why don’t you care?  Why is everyone so apathetic?  You are not healthy!  You are 70 pounds overweight!”  Wow, she is so not fun to hand out fliers with.  And you can forget about selling Girl Scout cookies in the fall.  Delight’s defense is that she needs someone to show her these things and all she knows is crap.  Her words, not mine.  J-roid tells her that’s why she’s here and when she’s gone, she’ll call her every single night, if that’s what it takes and if she really…wait, what is this place, Dog Town USA?

“What?   I ain’t fat.”

Cora-Lei takes J-roid back to Mr. Decker to give her a chance to apologize, which she does.  She tells him that she was not trying to offend him, but they’re all eating poison.  Well, he should take that well.  He says there is a big buzz in the community about her actions but he understands that she is doing what she is doing for ratings their health.  But will he throw his support behind her?  Will he???

Or will there be a scalpin’?

The final day. The final push to get everyone to go on a walk.  This time, they’re all, “Screw the fliers—we’ve got bullhorns”!

Which actually work better when you yell outside of the window

They get to the starting point and people begin to show up!  The now-deaf Jill starts yelling, “This is the beginning of the rest of your life!  I applaud you!”

What does that mean, exactly? And this is CBS, right?

The crowd gathers for the walk and J-roid and Brandon even get in a foot race.  It’s so heartwarming to see a group of people come together and you know, walk somewhere.  Besides the buffet, of course.  They get to the end of the ½ K and J-roids yelling, “How do you feel?  I can’t hear you!  How do you feel????!!!”  Some people are a little lost…

C

Um, do you know where we can buy moccasins for our granddaughter?

She proceeds to give the tribe the great news—free membership to the Jillian Michaels website—it has recipes and work-out tips!  They cheer, “Great—as soon as we get internet out here, we’ll be right there!”  Cora-Lei announces that Jilliandroid will be back in six weeks.  Humorously, J-roid seems surprised by that.  “Oh, that’s right.  I forgot”.  Wow, take away a girl’s bullhorn and you take away her zest.  And dammit, she needs to see a change!

What’s a website?

Six weeks later (feels like 6 years, doesn’t it?).  A decent sized group has gathered and the Elder, Mr, Decker, is announcing the transformations.  They come out of Gilligan’s hut one by one.  Delight lost 30 pounds and has much greater energy.

Well, she does look um, delighted…

J-roid says that Brandon takes her breath away.  Easy, girl, he’s jailbait.  He lost 52 pounds and looks awesome.

Successful because his sweatband never once slipped out of place

The Grandma no one cared about comes out and she lost 18 pounds.  Way to go, Nana:

How you like me now?

Cora-Lei:

Brandon’s now going out for football and Elder’s back to his garage band…

J-roid reminds us that 6 weeks can change our lives.  So can the best damn pizza pie ever, but once again, this is her deal…

Until next week…