After a public health battle, it takes a certain kind of bravery to return to the television stage and allow people to see you. When Season 6 of “The Real” debuted, Adrienne Houghton did just that. She appeared noticeably thinner and, by most accounts, exuded a genuine sense of relief rather than a diet victory.
She said to the audience and her fellow hosts, “I just feel great”. Although it was the type of statement that could be dismissed as a talking point, its context caused it to have a different impact.
Adrienne’s weight loss journey is complicated by her diagnosis of Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune thyroid condition that causes fatigue, weight fluctuations a host of other symptoms that are frustratingly invisible to the outside world. That kind of unpredictability is cruel for a public figure.
For months, viewers had been making assumptions about her appearance, with some even speculating that she might be pregnant. “This is not a baby, this is sweet potato pie”, she said, shutting it down herself on air in a moment that was equal parts brave and frustrated. Hashimoto’s is mine.
It’s difficult not to value the directness. Until the numbers changed, the majority of people would have quietly vanished. She stayed, gave an explanation continued.
It turned out that the change that really made a difference for her was going vegan. In February, she picked it up and showed her fans a refrigerator filled with celery juice, arugula, almond milk Ezekiel bread. It wasn’t exactly a glamorous haul, but it was a purposeful one.
By the end of the summer, she had stuck with it she believes that the plant-based diet significantly improved the way Hashimoto’s affected her day-to-day life. The weight loss aspect is practically incidental, so it’s worth taking a moment to consider that. She had no intention of chasing a number. She wanted to feel like herself once more.
Then there is Adrienne Osun, a different Adrienne, a mother of four and fitness blogger whose narrative breaks thru a different kind of clutter. Osun posted before-and-after pictures showing a significant physical makeover brought on by weightlifting and sporadic fasting. The catch is that she shed precisely two pounds.
Two. The body in the pictures is obviously altered; it is leaner and more muscular its measurements and clothing sizes are entirely different. She wrote, “The scale doesn’t measure fat vs. muscle”.
Although this statement is frequently made in fitness circles, witnessing it so clearly is quite different. Her picture may have done more to make that point stick than any other.
The notion that weight loss is a number that decreases, that the objective is always lower that the scale is the only reliable arbiter is what both of these women are fighting against. Osun demonstrated that it can be wholly deceptive.
Houghton demonstrated that managing one’s health is more complicated than any diet headline that recovering from years of autoimmune disruption is a transformation in and of itself. Together, the two stories give the impression that, at last, if slowly, the discourse surrounding women’s bodies and health is becoming more open.
It’s noteworthy that neither tale truly deals with willpower in the traditional sense. Houghton didn’t force herself to go on a crash diet; instead, she changed her diet to treat a medical condition, which led to physical changes. Osun changed the type of tissue she used, changing her shape while the scale hardly moved, so she didn’t lose much weight. Both required perseverance, consistency a readiness to define success differently than the majority of fitness cultures would have you believe.
It’s still unclear if the scale will remain the standard metric or if these kinds of stories have a lasting impact on the larger discourse. The fact that both of these women publicly discussed their experiences with the intention of altering people’s perceptions indicates that at least some segment of society is willing to pay attention.