“If I don’t lose weight, I’ll die young. That’s just a fact,” says Marcel resolutely. “When I look in the mirror I see a fat, hairy man who has not exercised enough.” The most difficult thing about his weight is that he gets reactions from other people who are not nice. “Or that you are looked at because you stand out. That is bad.” Marcel used to exercise seven days a week, now zero. “I’m a Burgundian party animal. Multiple courses. I like a nice dessert. I try to pay attention.” His partner Danielle sometimes worries about the health of her great love. “I don’t want to think that he will die at a young age if he adds even more kilos.”
When Miljuschka surprises him at work, he tells that he has already lost 45 kilos. “44.9 kilos are now back on,” he now jokes. It all happened after Marcel started a cooking course. “I’m just very busy with food.” And losing weight is not always easy for Marcel. “It also has to do with discipline.” But he has a goal in mind. “I want to be able to run again. I want to be able to sit in an airplane seat normally again.”
–
Marcel’s starting weight is over 154 kilos. Together with personal trainer Sebastiaan, he sets the goal to lose 35 kilos, so that he weighs less than 120 kilos. To support him in this, he receives a personal sports schedule. After 84 days, Marcel has already lost almost 12 kilos, but then he has to deal with a hefty setback. When his foot hurts, it turns out he has gout. Therefore, he cannot train properly and he has to pay even more attention to his diet. Thai cuisine is Marcel’s favorite, but it’s full of sneaky sugars and carbohydrates. And he sees that reflected on the scales. He even gained some weight a month later.
Losing weight takes Marcel effort. A conversation with Hilde, the psychologist from the program, does not go smoothly. When she tries to help him and asks what he expects from her in this process, he says: “I don’t know. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” Hilde doesn’t know how to help Marcel, because he doesn’t know either. “But you’re the psychologist, aren’t you?” he then says. The conversation between the two comes to a complete standstill. “My role for you has no added value,” says Hilde after the conversation. “It doesn’t seem logical to me to continue having conversations.” Then personal trainer Sebastiaan also cancels the collaboration. “We differ too much. I can’t work with him like that.”
–
Then head coach Roberto and Miljuschka pay a visit to Marcel and he promises to pop for another nine weeks and he gets a new trainer. When he starts working with Alex, the helm seems to have turned completely. “The end is in sight,” says Marcel. “It has been a bumpy road. In the end we close on a positive note, I am happy with that. This is a good ending.”
At the end of the trajectory it appears that Marcel has lost 31 kilos. Despite the fact that he did not reach his goal of 35 kilos, there is still applause from these people from his environment. “I am very happy with this”, concludes Marcel.
–
Obese see you every Wednesday evening at 20:30 on RTL 5. Missed an episode? You can look back and look ahead at Videoland.
–
