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???

It is a tv show.  The drastic changes in their lifestyles would produce drastic results.  Even if you are in the best shape of your life you could still get sick from excercise...Marines get sick after PT all the time.

I think safe is relative...when you watch Celebrity Fitness there is always someone feigning "problems"  and medical exams show over and over that they are fine to work out.  My boyfriend is extremely overweight and he "hurts" himself all the time...his back, his hip, his knee, ...yeah no kidding, your body isn't made to carry globs of fat around...it is going to hurt.  I have never met people with more excuses than overweight people.  Drug addicts aren't even as conniving as overweight people...I am sick of hearing the whining and all reports of the "epedemic" of obesity...are you kidding me?  It's food...stop eating so much of it...and work harder.  I am so sick of hearing about taking baby steps....baby steps get you nowhere...initially you have to take big steps and make huge changes.  I admire the people on the show and I am sure their health is monitored better than any person that has voiced concern over the health of the contestants.  When you are 200 lbs overweight...5 lbs a week is not too much...we need a lot less calories than 2000...we aren't freaking pioneers...

Most of the people in the first season of The Biggest Loser haven't really lost that much more weight than when they ended the show.   Just goes to show that slow and steady wins the race.

Where are They Now

I tuned in once and watched one fellow using insanely bad form on barbell bicep curls.  He was obviously using too much weight, was going way to fast, and was thrusting his hips back and forth, using the momentum to move the barbell.  Not only was he not working his biceps, his was going to do major damage to his back.

His trainer didn't stop him and correct his form.  No voiceover cautioned the audience about the hazards of not knowing what you're doing with free weights.  It was just presented as the way that a really dedicated person should exercise if they're really committed to the program.

(*sigh*) 

Needless to say, I never watched the show again. 

They were adivised for the program from one of the nutrition experts from tufts university which is the leading school of nutrition in the country, if not the world.  They say the reason they are able to lose is that they live in this unreal world where they can work out three ours a day (i could never commit that kind of time) they do an hour of strength and two hours of cardio.  They also eat around 1500 calories.  When you add in the fact that obese people can burn a lot more calories doing a much lighter activity it makes sense.  In the show the weight totals drop as the show continues and they keep losing which shows as time goes on, the less you weight the less you burn and so if your not increasing intesnty (they cant cut calories any more) the less your going to lose.  I still like the show it modivates me. 

However I LOVE workout on bravo even more.  Jackie warner has this power to come through the tv and modivate me.  Since watching the show i have lost 14 lbs.  Only 33 lbs to goal weight

I am really grateful for the show, the Biggest Loser. It is extremely inspirational and it shows that anyone can lose weight. It is just a matter of accepting the fact that you need to eat less and exercise more. Our lives are so comfortable that we have no clue about what the body is capable of and that is why many perceive the amount of exercise to be unhealthy but clearly it isn't. We would probably be able to do even a bit more than they are on that show if our lives depended on it.
I also think that it is primarily stepping it up which is difficult, once you are doing the right thing, it is easier.
I like the fact that they are losing the weight fast. You can keep the weight off by changing your life style with all that common sense blablabla but first you have to get rid of it and busting one's ass is the fun and quick way. I recall reading some report about how those who lose weight fast initially are those who succeed in losing all the weight and keeping it off.
I have enough sources of inspiration that I feel confident that I will be in perfect shape but sometimes I wish that I could be on that ranch so that I could lose the weight faster and for sure.
I like what Jillian said, "Will power is greatly overrated". I think this country needs more of kick-ass inspiration and support to address the obesity problem. We should not feel guilty for failing. We should just accept that it is hard to do it on your own for many of us and that we need inspiration and support together with own determination.

Original Post by magicbluefairy:

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???

 

This biggest loser is real and it's not edited to make us believe anything.  In a normal persons life you are correct losing 5 to 10 pounds a week is not healthy, or recommended.  Remember these people are being monitored by doctors, and they are not pushed harder than what they can handle at the time.  Also remember if they are working out for 4 to six hours a day then they are probably burning anywhere from 3500 to 4500 calories a day and that's more than they have burned in their life time.  I've watched this show for the last 7 seasons and it has motivated me and millions of others that watch it.

Now the 1200 to 1500 calorie diet is designed to give you a healthy food balance that mixed with exercise will cause you to lose weight.  I have applied their diet to my lifestyle and honestly I don't see anything wrong.  I'm healthier, losing weight, and I don't miss all those fatty foods I was eating.

Now I know I said that the show does not edit, but we know they have to edit stuff so that the show does not go longer than 2 hours.  That's normal, but when you watch these contestants go home and then have to work out on their own, you see the real weightloss happening.  This last season it was shown on average the contestants lost about 10 pounds in a month, and that's pretty much O.K. 

The biggest loser diet and workouts may not be your cup of tea, but to others, man it what we needed. 

 

 

The problem is the fact that a man should never eat below 1500, and a woman 1200. that is the bare minimum. If you are sedentary. Going below it migh speed up results in the beginning, but that is not beneficial long term. Food is my feul now, not the enemy.

My goal is to have a more efficient metabolism. To do that, I keep a maximum and minimum deficit between 500-1000 a day, usually about 750 most days. I eat 6 times a day. If you drop too low, your body will evetually slow down becuase it is not getting enough. If you burn close to 3000, and eat 1200....that is not enough. Results are just part of the process. Self esteem, learning new habits etc are worth just as much and if you try to get the process to fly by, you could miss some of that.

So although seeing the results is inspiring, it bothers me as well. There have been studies done showing that your body can only metabolize about 1% of its fat per week. I might find a link later if I get bored. So what is the rest of the 5-9 lbs or so some people loose weekly? Water weight? muscle? I've lost and gained 10 lbs a week in the past, but I see now that I was just subjecting my body to ridiculous ups and downs.

So no thanks I will stick to the steady 1.2 lbs I have been losing weekly. And in about 2 months, I will reach my goal weight and have the energy I need to maintain it.

aaaah, zombie thread!

Yeah...I didn't see the date on this one/

Original Post by jimmyz123_:

This biggest loser is real and it's not edited to make us believe anything. 

The timelines are heavily edited.  If you notice, last season, they had one episode where the contestants were told they'd been on the ranch for 150 days or so - but it was only "week 12" to the audience.  Well, by my math, the end of week 12 = day 84 not day 150.  (I don't guarantee those were the exact numbers as my memory is fuzzy, but the discrepancy really was that big.)  So, a "week" in the Biggest Loser world is often 10-20 days long because that makes for more dramatic weigh-ins (and also allows for things like Christmas holidays).  Similarly, some of the weeks where everyone seems to do poorly may have actually been shorter than 7 days (or maybe it's just that those ones actually were 7 days).

I actually like The Biggest Loser.  It was what tipped the scale for me, so to speak, and convinced me that I wasn't 'destined to be fat' - that even fat people could lose weight.  But I by no means think that it's a realistic portrayal of weight loss.