Dr. Phil Weight loss Special: Could this be a challenge Oprah?

"Food is my addiction," says 28-year-old Angelique, who weighs 525 pounds. When she goes out for Chinese food, she says she eats enough food that would last most people two days. "A trip to McDonald's for myself would be three double cheeseburgers, a large fry, a large soda, and three sugar cookies," Angelique reveals. She also admits to having binge days, when she will order two large pizzas, two orders of hot wings, a double order of cheese bread and two two-liter bottles of soda.

"My daughter runs to food, and it’s not small portions. It’s very large portions," says Angelique's mom, Angela. "She says she's dieting, but when you're eating everything in sight and your plate is huge, that's not dieting."

Angelique has been overweight since she was a young girl. "I would get teased and tormented about my weight. I was told that I was a fat slob and that no one would ever want me, and that I was disgusting, and I was a pig. I became a joke," she remembers. "I had this one girl that would follow me home and throw rocks at me because I wasn’t like everyone else. They would pick on me, and I would go home and eat a whole lot until I'd make myself feel better." She says her mother didn't have any sympathy for her. "She would tell me just to suck it up," Angelique shares.

Angela acknowledges that some of her comments are not nurturing. "They’re not sympathetic. This is life. Nobody’s going to be there picking up after you every single time. You have to deal with the situation," she says. "You have control of your life. Take care of yourself. Only you can do that. I can talk until I’m blue in the face and give you the guidance. I cannot walk you through it."

Angelique has resorted to staying in her home so she doesn't have to face the wrath of others. "If I stay here, it's safe," she says. She can't drive a car and she has been unable to care for her daughter because of her size. "My mother took my daughter just for a little while until I got myself together. Four years later, I don’t have my daughter, because I’ve only gotten worse."

"I wonder if Angelique would ever be able to take care of her daughter because she can’t physically take care of all of her own needs," Angela says. "She can’t breathe without trying to take a [deep breath], and you can see the pain in her face."

"I am nothing my mother expected me to be. She modeled. She was exercising," Angelique says. "I hate everything about myself. I hate what I've become."

"How did you get in this place? How did you get in this position?" Dr. Phil asks Angelique.

"I'm a foodie. I like food. I like how it tastes. I like the way you have the textures," Angelique says. "It's been a social thing for me. Food is just great."

"It is great if you’re feeding your body," Dr. Phil points out. He lists the struggles Angelique says she goes through on a daily basis. She can’t be intimate, fears going to restaurants because she thinks she may break a chair, can’t walk more than five feet before getting winded, and her knees and her joints hurt. She also can't take care of her daughter or hold a job. "You describe food as your friend. That’s not a very good friend that you’ve made that pact with, that you’ve made that bond with, because you do comfort yourself with food," Dr. Phil says.

Referring to Angelique's binge days, Dr. Phil asks, "Logically, do you know that when you do that you’re going further and further in the wrong direction? Or is it the immediate gratification outweighs the long term effects?"

"It’s actually both," Angelique says. "When I’m doing it, it’s like I’m compelled to do it, like I’m sitting there and I just have to have it. And afterward, I’ve polished off all of that, and I’m looking at the containers, and I‘m like, 'Oh my God. What did I just do?' And I’m beating myself up. I’m my own worst enemy."

"Why did you write me?" Dr. Phil asks.

"Because I need to know what's wrong with me," she replies. "I'm messing up everybody's life, not just my own."

Dr. Phil addresses Angela. "Do you recognize that what you're doing is not working?" he asks. "Because you're taking her inventory."

"I’m a realistic person," Angela says. "Life doesn’t present us with a bed of roses and not everything is a cup of tea out there for us to go through ... I’m always trying to make her face those — what’s real out there and stuff."

Dr. Phil stresses the importance of everyone working together and being on the same page. "You’ve not been able to motivate her. You’ve not been able to inspire her. You’ve not been able to control what she does, so you’ve got to be willing to try something different, because what you’re doing isn’t working," he tells Angela. "She feels like you don’t believe in her, that you’ve given up on her. And this goes a long way back."

"She’s not a sympathetic person," Angelique says of her mother. "You can’t go home, and you can’t cry and say, 'This is what happened to me today,' because she’s just like, 'Get over it and walk.'"

Dr. Phil explains to Angela about Angelique's relationship with food. "Food never rejects you. Food never hurts your feelings. Food never fails to pick you up on the playground. Food never makes fun of you and laughs behind your back when you walk by. Food doesn’t ever do that to you," he says. "But people do."

Dr. Phil wants to make sure Angelique is ready to change her life. "You’ve got to want this. You’ve got to say, 'I am ready.' And I'll tell you when you’re going to turn the corner. It’s going to happen at the precise moment when you can honestly say, 'I am so sick of where I am right now, that I won’t stand for this from me for another minute, not another second. I don’t care about the unknown. I don’t care how hard it looks," he says to her.

"I am sick of this. I want to live. I mean, I’m 28 years old. I’ve never done anything. I want to be alive," Angelique says.

Dr. Phil assures Angelique that she can make changes. "You do certain things that we’ll isolate on, that you will be astounded by the difference it makes," he says. He points out that currently Angelique eats 13 cheeseburgers a week, which equals 8,350 calories, which translates to a gain of 2.4 four pounds. "If you eliminate nothing but that, we would predict a 125-pound weight loss in a year by isolating that one specific item for you," he tells her. "We don’t think about how this stuff adds up. We don’t think about how it all comes together, but it does come together."

Dr. Phil also points out that Angelique consumes an enormous amount of sugar. "It is toxic," he says. "You should be consuming, I did the math, 15.64 pounds of sugar in a year. You are consuming 295 pounds a year." He rolls a shopping cart onstage filled with bags of sugar that weigh 295 pounds. He explains that if she gets her sugar and salt intake in check and cuts out the cheeseburgers, she could lose over 100 pounds. He says that Angelique's ideal body weight would be 140 pounds, and he shows a computer-generated body image of what she would look like at that weight. "I want you to take a long look at that," he says.

In order to help Angelique get down to 140 pounds, Dr. Phil sent Robert Reames, nutrition and exercise expert, and author of the book Makeover Your Metabolism, on a special mission to Angelique's house.

"Dr. Phil sent me to get Angelique healthy. She weighs over 500 pounds, and I know it's because of what's in her cupboards and in her fridge," Robert says.

As Robert cleans out Angelique's pantry and throws away Doritos and Honey Buns, she says, "You're taking away my best friends."

Robert allows her to keep her whole wheat pasta and brown rice, and he swaps out her peanut butter for a more natural peanut butter.

Robert packs her refrigerator with healthy food. "We’ve taken care of the inside of your house. Now, I’m going to take care of what’s going on on the outside of your house," he tells her. Robert goes to the 15 fast-food establishments within a mile of Angelique's house, and tells them not to serve her. Holding up a picture of Angelique, Robert says, "If you see this woman in here, please do not serve her. She's going to lose 300 pounds."

Robert joins Angelique and Dr. Phil onstage. "It’s important, Angelique, that you get activities that you’re good at now. You’ve got to like it. You’ve got to like what you’re doing," he tells her. "The steps, for example, out in front of your house. You’ve got to climb up those steps to get to your house, right?"

"I try not to because there’s this neighbor, and he likes to stare out his window," Angelique says. "And so, he’s watching me waddle up and down."

"There are seven keys you need to talk about. When we get through with the thinking, we get through with the feelings, you’re going to take your power back, and you’re not going to be worried about people judging you," Dr. Phil tells her. "They are morons, and we can’t give our power away to morons. You are a quality human being."

Referring to Robert's book, Makeover Your Metabolism, Dr. Phil says, "It is a great book, it is a great companion for The Ultimate Weight Solution." He tells Angelique that she will receive copies of both books, and that Robert Reames will be working with her. She will receive amembership to Gold's Gym and will be working out with a personal trainer.

"We’re also going to get you evaluated medically as well, because it’s important that we monitor all of your numbers, everything that’s going into your overall health," Dr. Phil says.

"Are you going to be showing up at my house unexpected again?" Angelique asks Robert.

"Probably," Robert says with a smile.

"You never know who's going to be showing up at your door," Dr. Phil says.

The Seven Keys to Weight Loss Freedom

When you use Dr. Phil's seven keys, you begin to: rid yourself of wrong thinking, heal yourself of emotions standing in the way of a healthy relationship with food, create a no-fail environment, shape your eating behavior into what you need for lifetime weight control, get real about nutritional choices that worked to your detriment, change your priorities to include exercise, and plug into a circle of support for encouragement and accountability. In short, you are changing how you're living.

Key One: Right Thinking
Lay aside self-defeating, invalid mindsets that do not work. They have the power to keep you from making different choices or developing new behaviors. Too often, we let these negative notions go unchallenged, and we act as though they were true. You must monitor what you're thinking and challenge whether it is true. If it's not working, replace it with thinking that works.

Do You Have Faulty Thinking?

Keep an Online Diary

Key 2: Healing Feelings
Overcome emotional overeating by managing inappropriate reactions to stress; solving problems rather than dwelling on them; changing self-defeating thoughts, since more often than not, feelings follow thoughts; gaining closure on unfinished emotional business; and learning new ways to cope without resorting to food.
Are You an Emotional Eater?

Key 3: A No-Fail Environment
Design your world so that you can't help but succeed. This involves removing temptations to eat and rearranging your schedule in order to avoid or minimize triggers to overeat.

Key 4: Mastery Over Food and Impulse Eating
There's only one reason why you haven't changed the bad stuff in your life. You're getting something out of it. I'm not saying that you're getting something healthy or positive, but people do not continue in situations, attitudes or actions that do not give them a payoff. This key helps you identify those payoffs, unplug from them, and replace bad habits with healthy behavior.

Key 5: High-Response Cost, High-Yield Nutrition
To lose weight, you must choose foods that support good behavioral control over your eating, that is, high-response cost, high-yield foods, organized into a moderate, balanced, calorie-controlled plan to ensure weight loss.

What Should You Be Eating?

Key 6: Intentional Exercise
Prioritize regular exercise into your life most days of the week — walking, jogging, aerobic dance classes, yoga, playing a sport, or lifting weights. Exercise does more than simply burn calories; it changes your self-perception so you stop labeling yourself as a couch potato.

Keep a Workout Diary

Key 7: Your Circle of Support
Surround yourself with supportive, like-minded people who want you to lose weight and succeed at your health and fitness efforts.