Ian Karmel

Original Air Date: July 14, 2024

Ian Karmel co-wrote  with his sister, Alissa, “T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories From Being Fat In A World Of Thin People”.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winnerShelley Sunstein. Ian Carmel is an Emmy
Award winning LA based stand up comedian, actor, and writer, and he
and his sister have co written thebook T Shirt Swim Club Stories From Being

(00:23):
Fat in a World of Thin People. And it couldn't be more timely.
Well, actually, you know mywhole life, this has been an issue,
right, Yeah, this has sadlybeen timely for the last probably century
or so. Yeah. Yeah,I would I would say so. I
would say maybe maybe, maybe forever. Maybe dating back to Henry the Eighth,

(00:44):
I think they made fun of himfor being fat too. Yeah.
I think he goes back way.I think this goes back a long time.
Yeah. So what is your story? Uh? Wow? I was.
I was a fat kid, afat teenager, a fat high schooler,
young adult. I've been fat myentire life. Right around the age
of thirty five, I got tomy biggest I was four hundred and twenty

(01:06):
pounds. Wow. Yeah for twentyfour to twenty oh it is four twenty
A nice rail number four to twentyhad something to do with me getting to
four to twenty as well. Well. I was going not unrelated in fact,
hand in hand. Actually, Ithink walk to that number on the
scale, and right around there Istarted to get a little bit more honest
with myself about my health and theunhealthy habits I had. And I always

(01:30):
like to point out you can befat or what people perceive as fat,
right and still be very healthy.There are those kind of people out there
who you know, they'd walk downthe street and someone'd be like, that's
an obese person, and then theycan go out there and run a half
marathon the next day. These peopleexist, They're all around us. I
was not. I was very unhealthy. I had extremely high blood pressure.

(01:52):
I was pre diabetic. It wasa miracle I wasn't full diabetic. What
age was this, thirty five yearsold? Yeah, And at that point
I had a very scary moment whereI woke up one morning I thought I
was having a heart attack. Myheart was pounding in my chest. I
dialed nine to one to one intothe phone and I didn't hit send.

(02:13):
Because my entire life I had beenseeking out comfort. That was the most
important thing to me. Comfort,comfort, from you know, the daily
humiliations of being a fat kid,from the bullying, from just the inadvertent
humiliations of being a fat person goingto a clothing store and saying, you
know, hey, do you haveanything in my size? And I'm like,
I'll go check the back, youknow, like maybe it's in a

(02:35):
dusty box somewhere where we keep clothesfor ogres like you. And I've been
seeking comfort over and over again,comfort especially from going to the doctor and
having to confront these hard truths aboutmyself. And I didn't want to hit
send on my phone and disrupt thatcomfort, because if an ambulance came,
then I would really have to dealwith what was going on with me,
even if that happened to be aheart attack. Fortunately it ended up being

(02:57):
a panic attack, but that wasenough to get me to actually go to
the doctor for the first time inlike a decade and start, you know,
confronting my health. I had alreadystarted trying to lose weight at this
point, and that was sort ofthe fire in the tank that I needed,
you know, to propel me through. I ended up losing around two
hundred pounds. How did you doit? Honestly, it was just this

(03:20):
is, this is, I'll makeit the simplest why I ate less,
I ate better, and I workedout. But those things are sound simple,
but they are incredibly hard to pulloff, right. Those are really
difficult things to do. Part ofthat involved for the first couple months of
you could call it a diet,but for me it was really and has
been a full lifestyle change, whichis what I think it has to be.

(03:43):
I know that's like a cliche thingpeople say that. You know,
it's not a diet, it's alifestyle change. What I have found out
on this journey through writing this bookand also living it is so many of
these cliches or cliche for a reasonthey happen to be true. But that
involved me not keeping any like triggeringfood around the house at all. Triggering
another word that I think people itgets tossed her handle up, and another
word that happens to be true.I could only keep like protein vegetables and

(04:08):
fruit in my house and like nutsat first, and then I got rid
of the nuts even for a while, and then I was able to,
after living in this binary for awhile, losing a good chunk of weight,
start to reintroduce things and reshape myrelationship with eating and examine when my
disordered and unhealthy eating happened, whichis usually when I was stressed or anxious.

(04:30):
That thing I thought was a heartattack, it turned out to be
a panic attack. I never identifiedas an anxious person, but it turned
out I was tremendously anxious. Iworking out helped with that. I started
meditating as well, and after Igot down to a much healthier weight.
My little sister had been on asimilar journey. She was a fat kid.
She dealt with being an o.She channeled that energy of being a

(04:53):
fat kid into getting a doctorate inpsychology and a master's degree. She works
with nutrition counseling with other fat kids. And I became a stand up comedian.
And we were talking to each otherafter we've gotten to a healthier place
in our lives, and we werelike, boy, we really you know,
I think we have a story totell here, me through you know,

(05:13):
like more of a narrative journey aboutmy life. Essays. You know
this this book, T Shirt SwimClub is in thirteen essays about you know,
me being fat and my journey throughthat. And she approaches each of
those chapters afterwards from an angle ofexpertise, being a doctorate in psychology working
with fat kids. So she takeseach of these like me, you know,

(05:35):
I will display my mess for everyoneto read, and then she'll come
in after and be like, Okay, here's what's actually going on with that.
Here's what's happening in your brain.Here are some things you can do,
you know, here's how to talkto a fat kid. Here's how
to talk to you know, afat person in your life. Here's some
things we can do better. Andwe wrote that book and you know,
we're we found it's been really helpingpeople who've read it so far. And

(05:58):
you know, it's funny, it'srelated. We wanted to come to it
from empathy and detail and specificity andthen also like a little bit of medicine
with your sugar, as it were. And it's actually a reinforcement for you
and your sister. Oh yeah,because you put it out there. Yeah,
so that kind of reinforces almost ina form of pressure to keep on
track, right it does, yeah, yeah, in a way. Although

(06:24):
I would be quick to point outthat you know, you're it's a it's
a relationship that you have with yourhealth right, And that was another thing
I had to learn. That wasanother thing I had to learn through losing
weight. I thought at some pointI would see, you know, I
would get below two hundred and fiftypounds on a scale, or get below
two thirty, and then some bellwould go off and I'd be like,
oh, I'm fixed. I'm nota fat guy anymore. But no,

(06:45):
you're a fat person forever. Itdoesn't really matter what number you get to
on the scale. Those patterns arestill in your brain, those patterns are
still in your soul. You stillseek comfort in the same things. So
you know, honestly, I havefound myself right now. I weigh,
you know, twenty thirty pounds morethan I did at at my lightest,
and I'm sure I'll lose some ofthat way and I'm sure i'll gain some

(07:06):
of it back, because you know, it's a relationship, and I think
that's an important thing to point out. But the most important thing for me
isn't that number on the scale orseeing myself in pictures. It is now
having a more open relationship with myhealth and being like, all right,
is my blood pressure getting out ofcontrol again? Because if that's happening.
That's bad. I can buy abigger shirt, but I don't want to
buy a big old coffin. Youknow. That's like, that's the thing

(07:29):
I'm focused on the most. Iam speaking with Ian Carmel. He is
the author of a new book,T Shirt Swim Club Stories from Being Fat
in a World of Thin People,co written by a sister Lisa. So
we're at a weird place in oursociety right now, where on the one

(07:50):
hand, you have this except mybody think and nobody should be shamed for
the body that they have, andyou see a lot of people embracing that
and wearing clothes that they wouldn't haveworn ten fifteen years ago, absolutely because
they would have been body shame.But on the other hand, we have

(08:13):
this total ozempic craze where almost everybodyknows somebody, whether they admitted or not
that they're on it, they mightknow five or ten. I was at
a dinner in back in I livein Los Angeles. I was at dinner
in LA with several comedy writers.I was the only man at the table
not currently on ozempic. There werelike six of us, and the other

(08:35):
five were talking about like when theydo their shots and no they don't want
any bread like and all this stuff. And I was the only one at
this table. I had lost themost weight out of all of them,
but none of them, you know, they were all on ozempic. It
was interesting. But what's interesting tome? I mean we talked before the
show and you said, I said, I worried about the long term effects,
and you pointed out Ozempic's been aroundfor like twenty years, right,

(08:56):
we just it wasn't popularized, didn'thave the commercial with the theme song that
we're all say, yeah yeah,though, oh oh oh yeah, yeah
right. I don't want to.I don't want you to have to Panny
royalties. I don't. I'm notsaying about you. I'm not gonna say
it, but I still, youknow what about what happens when you go
off it? So I'm not amedical professional, so that as to all

(09:18):
that, but you know people whohave been I know people who have been
on it. The thing that worriesme about people who go on it and
then off it is honestly the samething that worries me about any fad diet,
which is, any diet works aslong as you're doing it. As
long as you stick to it.And that's you know, pretty much true
from like doing the all juice rebootdiet, which is something I tried where

(09:39):
you bring a juicer with you everywhereyou go and make like cucumber and kale
juice to you know, weight watchers, to like those little packets of like
dust that you turn into like soupthat you drink and then you have one
kale salad a day. Everything worksas long as you stick to it.
Oh zempic will go be. Thosethings are also true if you go off
it and you haven't learned into healthierhabits, if you haven't examined your relationship

(10:01):
to eating, if you haven't hadthose honest conversations with yourself, you're going
to see that weight come back up, and you might see a little bit
of it anyway, because it's trickingyour brain into not wanting to eat a
ruben sandwich. Right, It's notthat you don't want to, it's that
there's some sort of chemical reaction happeningin your brain. And once that goes
away, if you haven't said like, okay, I can have a ruben

(10:22):
on Wednesday and then on Thursday,maybe that's when I have a salad and
then maybe on Friday, you know, I eat a little healthier, and
then on Saturday I have an icecream. You know, something like that.
You haven't re educated yourself to reconditionyourself when it comes to stress or
anxiety or whatever those triggers are foryou with unhealthy eating. So, yeah,
you take the ozembic away, thenall of a sudden, you know

(10:45):
you're back where you started in thefirst place. So that's my only real
concern with it. Again, I'mI'm not a doctor, so I couldn't
tell you. I know people arehaving like other kinds of like crazy side
effects with it. And that's anotherscary way women getting pregnant even when they're
on the pill, which is thatof strange. Yeah, it's making birth
control of my work in some insome cases right, and then their hunger

(11:07):
was out of control during the pregnancy, like on steroids, right exactly.
Yeah, So that these are thingswe haven't really examined or anticipated before,
Like any medication, I think you'vegot to be sort of a buyer beware
situation and know that you are fundamentallychanging your body's chemistry. I personally,
though, I'm on two different kindsof blood pressure medication the smallest doses for

(11:30):
me. So when I weighed fourhundred and twenty pounds, you know,
I can't tell you that I wouldn'thave done ozampic. I probably would have
because there's this desperate feeling like,now listen, if you gotta I'm not
gonna shame anyone at all. Uh. Yeah, it would be a hypocrite
if I did that. But ifyou got to lose five, ten,
fifteen, twenty pounds, maybe there'sa healthier and easier way to do it.

(11:50):
When I needed a weigh two hundredor lose two hundred pounds to get
to a healthier place for me,you know that seemed impossible. Let me
ask you, are you a dad? No, I'm not a okay,
because that's a difficult one, Likehow do you talk to your kids about
weight without them ending up with youknow, psychological issues and yes, we're

(12:15):
worse than eating disorder. Well,we talk about that. My sister is
a mother who I wrote the bookwith Eliza. You nail the name on
the first try, by the way, which has been I think that's like
the first time that's happened this entirepress cycle. Well, done. Thank
you for that. But you know, I think I think the big difference
with with with kids, at leastfor us. So when we were fat

(12:37):
kids, you know, our homewas a safe aban, which was great.
We would go home, we wouldn'tbe shamed for our eating. Wasn't
really commented on it at all.Maybe it should have been a little bit
more, maybe there should have beensome more healthy modeling. But like you
know, my parents were divorced.They were both present in our lives,
but my mom was like throwing acasserole in the oven, taking it out,
and then going to work the graveyardshift as a nurse in a maternity

(12:58):
ward. So there was only somuch she could do. She'd leave for
work and then I would be likein front of a cupboard eating peanut butter,
you know, putting chocolate chips init with a spoon. She wasn't
there, She couldn't do anything,but she had to go to work.
And I think having a safe havenis better than being shamed at home.
But I think what it would havebeen even better is having positive or neutral

(13:20):
conversations about our bodies, or conversationsthat focused more on health. You know,
you don't need to say if yourkid is Like, if your kid
is fat and you're worried about them, you don't need to say like,
hey, it's awesome that you're fat, you know, like that's amazing.
But you can say it's awesome thatyou're you, and it's not a bad
thing that you're fat at all,and you can be fat. But what

(13:41):
we need to make sure we're doingis is making sure you're healthy because I
love you and I want you tobe around for a long time. And
you can recenter the argument on thatkind of thing because they're gonna get the
negative feedback about being fat out inthe world. That's just gonna happen,
you know, like it's unavoidable,even from adults. When I was in
middle school, you know, Imissed the bus leaving school somehow. I

(14:05):
was like talking to a teacher.The bus to take me home was taking
off. I saw it leaving,and I was like, oh no,
I got to catch it. SoI started running after the bus. You
know what I'm running after It lookslike a scene under John Hughes movie,
Like I'm running after this bus,waving my hands. The bus finally stops,
the door opens, I get onthe bus. This bus driver,
who's probably in his sixties, getson the intercom and says to the rest

(14:26):
of the kids on the bus,that's the hardest he's running his entire life.
I'm this little fat kid. Youknow. Everybody laughs because you know,
fair play. It's a pretty funnyjoke. So I have to go
back on the bus and sit down, you know. And this is like
happening. This is adults. Andthat's not the only time that's happened.
I had another teacher at that middleschool who, out of you know,

(14:48):
the goodness of his heart, hewanted to treat me like I wasn't different
than anyone else. And we hadthis gymnastics unit in class, and he
was like, every kid in theclass is going to do this gymnastics unit
where you have to run and jumpover a pommel horse and land in these
pads. It looked super fun,and he was like, e and you're
not any different. We're not gonnatreat you any different just because you're bigger.
And I kept telling him, butI am different, I am different.

(15:11):
Please don't make me do this,Please don't make me. I weigh
three hundred pounds. I don't wantto run down this thing, hit a
spring and like take to the air, you know, And he just kept
encouraging of me, encouraged me tothe point where I got like embarrassing and
I felt sort of singled out,even though he was just like trying to
make me feel like everyone else.And I eventually relented and I was like,
all right, I'm gonna do it. And he stood at the other

(15:33):
end. He's like, I'll catchyou. I'm gonna get you. We're
gonna do this. And I tookoff running down this runway, jumped,
hit this springboard, and went flyinginto the air again, three hundred pounds,
careening through the air. I lockeyes with him mid air, and
I see the realization on his face. Hit him in that moment when it's
too late. Oh this kid isdifferent. And then I hit him all

(15:56):
three hundred pounds to me and hewent down like a guess who died.
And then everyone laughed again. Andwe're all laughing. So you know,
you gonna like that's gonna happen toyour kids. So have positive and neutral
conversations at home. And I'm sorrywe are out of time. Time n
Carmel, thank you so much.And the book t shirts, swim club
stories from being fat in a worldof thin people. You've been listening to

(16:19):
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