The Biggest Loser

I love watching this show, but it ticks me off.  They go home for a week and the ones that continue the diet and exercise at home lose 10-15 pounds in one week.  The guy that eats like 40 chicken wings, a huge dessert, and all kinds of soda, didn't exercise and still lost 5 pounds.

I run 5 miles a day, eat about 2000-2500 calories a day, still am about 60-70 pounds overweight, and have only lost 12 pounds in a month.

The one guy isn't hugely overweight anymore and lost like 16 pounds.  How the heck are they losing so much weight all the time?  Granted, they may work out 6 hours a day when they are on the campus, but they have to be eating mega calories or their bodies would go into starvation mode with all that exercise.

i share your frustration. I was like 16 pounds..in a week?! Puh-lease. I love the show but sometimes im like, um.. this isn't realisitic (even though it is, I guess..) I dont know. It makes me mad though haha

3500 calories equals 1 pound.  I'm thinking that the truly dedicated biggest losers are probably burning that during each workout during the show.  Crazy!

I'd bet my last dollar that when their definition of a "week" is more than 7 days.  Plus the point of the show is to make the number on the scale lower, not to lose fat (which is what most people on here want to do), it's a lot easier to lose pounds if you don't care about how much of it is fat (muscle and water come off much easier than fat).

They work out at least twice a day for 2-3 hours a session. They do tons of cardio, but also tons of resistance and strength training and they eat tons of fresh vegetables, lean proteins and tons of water......If I had the time to do this, and the trainer to make me, I could drop that kind of weight too, but I'm just an average girl with normal motivation and somewhat crazy time obligations so.........A beautiful dream shattered by brutal reality....LOL

Those people work hard to lose that much weight.  They work out constantly, eat tons of small meals a day and have professionals helping them with everything.

  

I think that their weight loss is peaking, and that's why we're seeing such big numbers.

meh - it's just TV.  i think you have to separate it from your own experience.  think of it as a soap opera; everything in the extreme.

we could all lose that much if we had no jobs or children or lives to distract us, plus trainers and the best facilities. i get jealous of them sometimes, but then i remember they're on a reality show... the lowest form of anything. haha.

Original Post by doc2bmo:

They work out at least twice a day for 2-3 hours a session. They do tons of cardio, but also tons of resistance and strength training and they eat tons of fresh vegetables, lean proteins and tons of water......If I had the time to do this, and the trainer to make me, I could drop that kind of weight too, but I'm just an average girl with normal motivation and somewhat crazy time obligations so.........A beautiful dream shattered by brutal reality....LOL

Bingo!  I'm sorry, but you can't compare your hour or hour-and-a-half to the 4 - 6 hours that they put in daily.  Strength training is important too, these guys, and girls have raised their BMR significantly.  That's why, even though Paul ate like a pig while at home, he was still able to lose a few lbs.  doc2 is right on -- if we had the time, access, and trainers that they do we could do just as well (on a % basis).  One other thing, I think that Roger was able to lose 16 mostly because he is gaining some lean muscle mass more quickly than the others.  I believe that he is the odds-on favorite to win (ROLL TIDE!).

Plus their week is longer than 7 days.  It is an average of 10 days that they weight in when you look at all the statistics and how long the show runs and I remember reading about it from their actual website.  They are closely monitored and they even had that at home.  But their workout intensity is huge and they have a lot bigger deficit then 1000 calories under the supervision of their trainers and their doctors.  So this allows them to lose more weight in a smaller time frame then what we would because we are doing it on our own and slower because of safety and not having the constant time to workout all day long without interruptions and to be able to eat the type of meals that they eat.

The whole show is nuts. I watched one episode where a poor guy was intaking less than his expenditure (diet) and working out like a mad man.

He lost nothing! And apparently on this show it's bad!? They should be measuring BF% TBW% as well as Weight! The poor guy probably lost 5 lbs of fat, but gained 5 lbs of muscle.

This is why he'll probably lose a ton of weight the next week (as from what I heard the contestants were worrying about because apparently it happens). That extra muscle is going to help him drop more weight.