A Heavy Hoarder Intervention

Are you battling a few extra pounds? Feeling guilty about your sink full of dishes and or several piles of unfolded laundry on your floor? Well stop feeling bad, sit yourself down in front the nearest television, and cue up my new favorite feel-good shows on the 'Flix (or On Demand, TiVo-whatever your poison).

1. HEAVY: It's in the vein of the "Biggest Loser," only these people make the Biggest Loser contestants look like tributes from the Hunger Games. Each episode of "Heavy" focuses on two morbidly obese people, some well into the 600lb range. No joke, these people eat cheeseburgers like they're pieces of popcorn and can barely walk from one room of their house to another.

They're sent to a fitness ranch for a month to jumpstart what will ultimately be a six month diet/exercise regimen. Their trainers are a bubbly blonde woman named Britny (that's not a typo- apparently an "e" was overkill in this woman's name) and a bald, bespectacled man with arms bigger than my Jetta.

The trainers are energetic, strict, and often fail to understand why their clients are out of breath and complaining after 17 hours on the stairmaster. "Are you really THAT tired? Sounds like you're faking it to me," a sympathetic Britny says to one woman who looks like she's on the verge of seven simultaneous heart attacks.

Anyhow, with the help of trainers, a dietitian, and a therapist, these people usually drop a good hundred pounds and look and feel so much better by the end of the six months. It's wonderfully rewarding to see them work through their emotional roadblocks (most of them have had trauma in their life) and make their way down the road to becoming the best versions of themselves. It's also wonderfully rewarding to scarf down ice cream sandwiches and take comfort in the fact that you still retain a svelte physique of under 400lbs, which most of people on this show would KILL for.

2. HOARDERS: Oh, HOARDERS. My father introduced me to this show, and for those of you who can't fathom why anyone would want to spend an hour of their life watching a documentary about someone's messy house GIVE IT A CHANCE! You will feel like MARTHA STEWART after watching this hot mess of a program!

In a nutshell, "Hoarders" focuses on people with a legitimate psychological condition that makes them almost incapable of throwing stuff out. To say that these peoples' homes are dumps would be like calling Buckingham Palace a "nice place."

Each episode showcases two households and employs the help of professional organizers, cleaners, and psychiatrists in the RIDICULOUS hope that in 48 HOURS the houses will be clean and the people who inhabit them will be "back to normal." Listen, if you have to spend half an hour convincing a woman that she doesn't need a rotten pumpkin from the late nineties, you better bet it's going to take more than two days to turn things around! But we ignorant viewers love instant gratification....

Anyhow, Hoarders is a glorious train wreck and I highly recommend it. A couple highlights include a woman whose house is so packed with junk that she has to TIE HERSELF TO A CHAIR at night to go to sleep, and a home that can count, amongst many items in its endless clutter, feline skeletons.

3. INTERVENTION: I've only seen one episode of this show, but I know I'll be watching more. It is both heartbreaking and inspiring. That said, at the end of the day I let my trivial worries fall by the wayside and rejoice in the fact that I'm not passed out in a ditch somewhere....

What is wrong with me.

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