The Biggest Loser seems wrong to me

i am currently watching The Biggest Loser (TBL), and since watching the show last season, and now this season, i feel that the way they promote the weight loss is unhealthy for most people.

for example, the male trainer put all the women on a 1200-1500 calorie diet. this could potentially put them at a high deficit - depending on how many calories they burn. their work-outs are pretty intense - which i also don't think are healthy. they are being pushed very hard, and i am sure some people there have hypertension, diabetes, asthma... you just can't push the body that hard without expecting something bad to happen....

the idea that they are losing that much in a week (like 14, 15 pounds), leads me to believe that a) it might be edited for tv and b) they are being really unhealthy about how they are doing it.

compared to what CC tells me, and what all you CC-ers tell me from personal experience, TBL seems unhealthy. People should not be crying and screaming in pain when they work-out. just my thought...

anyone else feel TBL is a little dramatized for tv???

I haven't watched the show, but it doesn't surprise me. It's still a TV show. I know I've been trying to lose weight, slowly, for 5 months now and it's hardly been worthy of a TV show, it's a slow, plodding walk towards an inevitable goal, but hardly good TV :)

So.. yeah, they overdramatized, they glitzed and glammed, they made it GOOD TV! :)

The competition helps make it good TV, but isn't great for real sustainable weight loss. In any competition with men AND women, men have a natural advantage.

But I admit, hearing them put women on a 1200-1500 calorie diet bothers me. Talk about enforcing misinformation. Grar :p

Oh boy, those shows bug me. Having been someone who hadnt been taught about good nutrition before this site, it seemed pretty logical. eat little + exercise alot = lose weight fast! and if I hadnt been so lazy I would have done it (I tried for a few days but failed).
Myself, I prefer the show x-weighted, It seems more "real" to me. though, Im certain some hollywood magic is added for effect. 

I just started watching this show this season and it has helped motivate me. When you are really big like the people are (myself included) you do tend to lose weight pretty fast once you start moving and eating better. And that is what the show is trying to do- it is trying to put the contestants on a healthy track- it has already been taped and so I like the updates of the people that have been eliminated- the first woman- Jennifer- she kept up her healthy life style and I believe continued to lose 75 pounds on her own. Granted that first week looks pretty intense. I myself certainly am not over doing myself enough to make myself go barf out the window! I just take it with a grain of salt- Sure- it'd be nice to lose 10 pounds a week but my trainer (my dog) doesn't push me as hard as the tv trainers!!! LOL.  I think too they know that seeing that dramatic a weight loss keeps the contestants motivated- not to mention the 250, 000 dollar prize....

hee, hee, your dog is your trainer? I think you might need to be kinda self-motivated.  I was interested to see it because it has someone from the fifty states, but if it doesn't promote healthful weight loss, then I'm not gonna watch it. It does seem like too much to cut their diet so far back. Especially since, by the commercials for it, they are all bigger people. If they used the tools on here, I know they would have to eat more calories.

exactly, if they came on here, and used the tools, they'd lose what CC says is a "safe" amount of 1.5-2 pounds a week. i am bigger than most of the women on the show, and i haven't lost weight dramatically like that. i do what CC tells me, and i lose "safely". even if it's doctor supervised i still think there is a "hollywood" element to it, to make it great tv. like HK said, my weight loss is certainly not worthy of a tv show.

i just don't like that the trainers push people so hard that they are screaming and crying. your work-out should be intense yes, torture - no.

Kalkette- Seriously- my dog keeps me motivated- she's a very active border collie mix and when I come home from dropping off my daughter at school- she gives me this look like, "Are you ready to go?" Then if I head upstairs- she starts to get really, really excited- and when I reach for my work-out pants then she starts running and jumping on and off the bed! She can't contain herself! I try to remain calm but she really knows. Sometimes I come home from dropping my daughter off and in the car I'm thinking- well- maybe I won't go out today.... course- that changes when I walk in the house- everyone needs a dog like her! She's a great motivator- plus- the more I walk her- the better behaved she is. :=).

Jen,

That is great that you have a dog like that.  I have three big dogs the smallest one is almost 60 #'s, the middle one is between 60 and 70lbs and the biggest is almost 110lbs.  THe problem is none of them are lease trained so it is impossible to take them with me when walking.  I wish I could take them walking.  Walk one in the morning, then take another in the after, and another in the evening before all of my meals, etc for the exercise but they end up dragging and pulling me down the road instead of walking with me.  I guess one of these days I need to break down and pay the money for them to be trained.  I have tried to train them but haven't had any luck.  Any other ideas??? Heheheheh.

So what if they have a doctor watching over the weight loss. Remember each plastic surgon who worked on Michael Jacksons nose was a doctor. Should they have kept performing plastic surgury on him. No. There are good doctors and bad doctors.

I think the show is less than great. They promote the american way of fast results, right now! Loosing weight that fast is not good. Pushing bodies that are not used to exercise that hard is not safe.

It will get people motivated who watch it and want to lose weight, they will try the same thing, get real motivated at the beginning and lose some. Then there bodies will go into starvation mode and there weight loss will slow down, then they get frustrated and realize going that hard, that fast, that early is just too hard and will give in and gain it all back.

Hollywood doesn't care. They only care about the ratings. Like HK said, if they did a program on a safe and truelly healthy way someone is likely to stick to like Calorie Counting as suggested on this site, it would take a much longer time, and would be boring.

just my .0238415 cents.

I agree when I saw biggest loser I was very motivated but then I had to realize that their results were not realistic. I went to the site of last season and saw before, after, and now. All contestants except 2 or 3 look like they are slowly gaining there weight back. I do like celebrity fit club.

If

• all of us were able to quit our ridiculously common jobs and still pay our equally common bills
• and if we all could afford high quality foods --

then

• we could spend the greater part of our days exercising (at any intensity - walking, swimming, running, sprinting, weight-lifting, whatever)
• and preparing carefully controlled amounts of high-quality food that we would eat and maybe enjoy
• and we'd lose weight at the maximum rate possible for us, which would still vary according to our individual health and starting point and it would probably be more than 1 or 2 pounds a week.

But

• how many of us are likely to be able to quit working to devote 8+ hours a day to calorie-burning?
• how many of us can live in a controlled environment where things like cheeseburgers, nachos and chocolate chip cookies aren't easily available 24 hours a day?

So most of us will stick with

• working at our jobs,
• paying our bills,
• doing the best we can with nutritious food choices and
• getting as much exercise as we can in between doing all the other things we have to do
• losing .5 to 2 pounds a week

Kalk- I hope you check this section today- sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday- Yes- have you tried the "Halti" or the "Gentle leader"  It fits kind of like a halter around the dogs muzzle- I use it for both of my dogs as I am never able to train anyone to heal! But the Halti works great- my female- 63 pounds- still tries to pull and jumps out ahead but she eventually settles down and will walk beside me on my left- my male- 75 pounds- is great with it- if I give it a little jerk- he immediatley stops pulling and walks on my right. I have found that it is easier to have them on either side of me as when they walk side-by-side on the same side- the female will try to be dominate and wants to walk in front of both of us- but with myself in the middle- we all walk like a "pack" with ME as leader! Beware though- non-dog people will think that you are using a muzzle- even though the dogs can clearly open their mouths full bore to be able to pant so that obviously they would be able to bite too! I used to let it bother me that people think it is a muzzle but now I'm fine with it- because if they are dumb enough to think it is a muzzle- then I don't want them coming near me or my mutts...:=).

nomoreexcuses,

good point about being able to quit and just devote everything to exercise and have trainers and a state of art gym at your disposal. Although if you watch the show in about every room of that house they have junk food and piles of it.  They can just reach right over and grab a hand full of calorie filled treats at anytime.  If they want something healty to eat they have to drag there buts down to the kitchen, which is conveniantly full of all the wonderful things we need to run to the store every other day to have available fresh.

Well, I just watched the show last night. It was interesting, but I agree that these larger people are being pushed very, very hard. One person lost 20 pounds in their second week. I don't think that's healthy at all. Not only are they going to have problems with flabby skin because they lost it so fast, but it is going to be so much easier to gain it back. They also aren't going to be able to continue their intensive workout schedule when they are at home. That's gonna make it even harder for them. It does encourage me to be healthier but I know they aren't losing weight in the healthiest way. It was nice to see others going through the same struggles I have though. I may or may not watch it again.

But a TV show where you watch people lose weight at a realistic rate.... would be soooooo BORING -- which is why it's so hard to make a lasting lifestyle change - progress is slow, not exciting, and you want instant reward for your effort and you're not gonna get it.

(as noted by mick above, I don't watch the show...)

BUT!  what if you taped a show of a person losing weight at a normal pace and speeded up the film like those old Benny Hill shows and played that yakkity sax music....  that might be mildly amusing.

The contestants on the show do have to have a dr's physical and ok and are monitored by a physician while on the program.  I think if we could be constantly monitored and have our food prepared and proportioned for us and excercise we would also show significant loss each week.  Since CC is not a "supervised" diet plan then yes we should only shoot for 1 -2 lbs a week.  WEight Watchers also has this same guideline but they are not drs either.  People who go to "fat farms" and have surgery are monitored and under direct supervision of a professional and can show better weight loss because if a problem arises it can be addressed quicker if you are being monitored.

I've been there, I know it can be done.  I started out at 260 lbs and lost 80 pounds in 4 months.  The first month alone, I believe I lost 25-30 pounds.  When your bigger, your body can burn alway those pounds like nothing.  I could tell the more pounds I dropped, the harder it became to loose the same amount of weight each week.  I pushed myself just like the people on the show do.  My parents would look at me and wonder if I was going to kill myself from all the sweat and hard breathing I was doing.  Some days I wonder, how will you ever know what your limits are if you don't push them? 

the day you have cardiac arrest?  is that when you know your limits?

target heart rate?  anyone?

i think that some of the problem is that if you push your limits too far, it will be that much harder to stick to the regime that you've developped and ultimately lead to failure.

a slow, steady, reasonable pace is better for long-term success for the general public who don't have that drive, triton.

Some people on a forum Lynn hangs out on were turned down for that show 'cause they had too much self-esteem O_o .  I find that highly disturbing!

the US season just started here last night and I somehow got sucked into watching the first episode...and that's just unfair, these people are losing in a week what it's taken me three months to lose! :p and I've only just hit half-way.

it just realllly doesn't seem healthy, either. as well as being unfair ;)