'Fit to Fat to Fit' fan recap: Kenlee loses weight, gains confidence

Season 1 | Episode 7 | “Carrie/Kenlee” | Aired Mar 2, 2016

What did we think of Tuesday’s Fit to Fat to Fit? This episode was a roller coaster of emotions, and in some ways, it was probably more honest about why some women, particularly moms, might have trouble losing weight. It all starts with putting yourself first. Let’s get into what happened.

Carrie is this week’s Fit to Fat to Fit coach, and, even though it’s clear she’s a great coach, she, like several of the Fit to Fat to Fit coaches in the beginning, gives off the impression that overweight people are folks who lack the willpower to change themselves. Her opinion on overweight people—that they lacked the motivation and enjoyed wallowing in their problems—seemed to back up what annoyed me about some of her later behavior toward her client, Kenlee. Kenlee has struggled with weight loss and, really, never seemed to have enough time to care about herself due to her overwhelming love for her family and their needs. Kenlee wants to lose weight for herself, but she also wants to lose weight to give her daughter, who is already overweight, a better example of a female role model.

According to the official Fit to Fat to Fit podcast, The Fit2Fat2Fit Experience, Carrie said something else a lot of Fit to Fat to Fit trainers say—that she took on the show’s challenge because she knew she was afraid of gaining weight and stepping out of her comfort zone. She wanted to learn more about herself, and I’d say she did, especially when it came to how tough it is to actually lose weight once you pack it on. However, her journey toward fatness started off easily enough. It seemed like she was having fun eating huge burgers in a restaurant’s food challenge, scoffing baklava and Slim Jims and Bugles. Even the weight gain of eight to 12 pounds seemed not to faze her as she hung out with friends more and cooked fattening food with her fiance (now husband).

But soon enough, the emotional wall gets too strong to ignore, the more Carrie stuffs food down her gullet. She starts arguing with her fiance and sleeping in instead of hiking and adventuring, activities she and her fiance would normally do on sunny weekends. Food stops being enjoyable at all the closer she gets to her goal weight, and she just wants it to be over. When Carrie does hit that goal weight, she bursts into tears.

The first meeting after the four-month weight gain occurs, and it’s now Kenlee’s moment to burst into tears as she realizes that the woman she had idolized for months might still be a fallible human being. I get that Kenlee would have expected Carrie to be in the same boat, but I was surprised at how much she had built up Carrie in her mind. It was sad to see Kenlee’s bubble get busted. Carrie shows off with her acrobatic exercise routine in front of an already demoralized Kenlee, who now feels she’ll have no one cheering her on or understanding her point of view. Kenlee leaves the meeting feeling like she and Carrie will never be friends.

That feeling continues during the first half of the first workout, in which Carrie still seems like she doesn’t get Kenlee’s point of view. The workout takes place in the forest, and Carrie makes Kenlee wear a weighted contraption that forces Kenlee to work twice as hard with any movement. Kenlee is told to jump, run, squat, and do other exercises with this contraption, and the barrage of exercises, plus the weights, plus her growing resentment at Carrie from the other day, finally gets Kenlee to her breaking point. She unleashes a flurry of curse words at Carrie, asking what the end goal of all this exercise is.

Carrie, however, is happy that Kenlee finally unleashed her emotions, since Kenlee is a person who, like many of us, swallows her emotions and limits her voice. Carrie tells Kenlee that she wants Kenlee to know she can do more than she thought she could; that this tough battle is a way to show Kenlee that she’s worth more than she sells herself for. That moment finally brings the two together, and from then on, they start having fun together during their workouts, which does include more hikes in the forest.

One funny point is that Carrie, in many ways, learns more about the pitfalls of weight loss after being overweight. Her social hangouts with friends are costing her, leading the scale to move down much more slowly than she’d like. Her taste buds also lead her astray with what was once her favorite healthy drink; before her weight gain, she loved drinking her green juice, but afterward, she hated it.

The only other hiccup in this week’s weight-loss journey is Kenlee’s continued focus on other people instead of herself. She is fiercely devoted to her family, but when she and her husband make out the weekly schedule, she never includes herself on that list. Carrie calls her out on her resistance toward putting herself first in her life. This is the choice Kenlee must make; will she put herself first and finally change her life for good, or will she continue to put herself last and revert back to her old patterns?

Turns out she does make the right choice, and Kenlee goes to her reveal looking healthier and happier. Her confidence and belief in her self-worth is at an all-time high. Even seeing that she didn’t make her weight-loss goal doesn’t stop her from reveling in her success. What’s most important in Kenlee’s story isn’t how much weight she lost; it’s that she gained the self-belief she needed to become an even better, more complete version of herself.

Interestingly enough, Carrie didn’t get back to her original weight either (although she was in the ballpark). But Carrie’s journey seemed to be more about gaining increased empathy for her clients. She states that she believed she was an expert in weight loss before the Fit to Fat to Fit challenge, but, as she says, how could she be an expert in weight loss when she never had the challenge of losing weight before? The challenge taught her a lot about the issues others are facing, and that she shouldn’t be so judgmental. Both Kenlee and Carrie changed a lot because of each other, and both seem to have found a friend in each other.

What did you think of Fit to Fat to Fit? Give your opinions below!

Fit to Fat to Fit airs Tuesdays at 10/9C on A&E.