Doing the BIGGEST LOSER math

 

My wife watches the Biggest Loser and I caught a couple of episodes with her.  Since I starting CC I decided to do the math. 

At a recent weigh-in, an individual loss 10 pounds in the week (he claimed double figures for several weeks). 

What does it take to do lose 10 pounds in a week?

1. Since they are very active I did a generic calculation and came up with a base burn rate of 4500 calories (although it is likely higher).
2. They are on a restricted diet; my guess is it is right at the 1200-calorie mark.
3. 10 pounds is equivalent to 35,000 calories (about 5,000 per day).
4. Just basic difference is 4500 - 1200 = 3,300 calories (which means he could lose six pounds a week with the weekly program).
5. That means the trainers have them working out to burn approximately 1,700 calories per day (that is equivalent to spending 2 hours a day on an elliptical at a moderate effort).

That is quite an extreme process and effort, but if you look at your own program and project a month.  Losing 6-8 pounds is practical.  For me I base burn 2700 cals.  I am intaking an average of 2000 cals.  I am working out an average of 600 cals.  A difference 1300 cals per day should push me to lose 10 pounds per month.  If I mess up one day, I can fix it over the next  few days to rebalance me into the average needed to get to my goal.

Yes it can be done safely if you are doing it right. That is why they (the trainers) are on the contestants about eating enough. Because they have to fuel what they are doing but they are doing a decifeit of a couple thousand calories a day. Think about professional atheletes, someone like Kobe Bryant who practices, works out, plays a game, etc in a day is burning as much as 7,500 calories a day easy. Even eating a ton he is going to lose weight, if he did that and was trying to lose weight it would be easy.

Most people can't do this and shouldn't without a trainer, nutrionist, doctor on hand like this show provides. But it can safely be done.

cc doesn't recommend more than 1000 cal/day deficit.  Why does having a trainer make it safe to run a deficit of 3000 cal/day?

Kobe Bryant isn't losing weight.  He has to eat back the 7500 cals he burns, or he'd shrivel up and disappear.

Original Post by thhq:

cc doesn't recommend more than 1000 cal/day deficit.  Why does having a trainer make it safe to run a deficit of 3000 cal/day?

Kobe Bryant isn't losing weight.  He has to eat back the 7500 cals he burns, or he'd shrivel up and disappear.

Just becase cc doesn't recommend it doesn't mean it isn't safe. CC isn't the end all and be all of healthly living or losing weight. CC doesn't recommend it in part because 99% of the people here don't have trainers, nutrionist and doctor available like Contestents on the show have. And those that do have that available wouldn't come here for answers since they have experts answering their questions. You can run that defecit if you are eating enough to still fuel your body and have your body use fat as the extra fuel source. I mean you see it on the Biggest Loser every year that people lose weight, gain muscle, get healthier all while running huge deficets at first. How do you explain that considering this site doesn't recommend it?

 

And yes, Kobe would disappear... *sigh* My point was that you can run large defecits and not be unhealthy. And for the record and I know this because i'm an obsessive Laker fan that Kobe loses about 20lbs over the course of the season and then works in the off season to build it back up. Pretty common for a lot of athletes.

Original Post by thhq:

cc doesn't recommend more than 1000 cal/day deficit.  Why does having a trainer make it safe to run a deficit of 3000 cal/day?

Kobe Bryant isn't losing weight.  He has to eat back the 7500 cals he burns, or he'd shrivel up and disappear.

CC does not recommend more than 1,000 cal day from the base burn.  Exercise is not included into that recomendation.  The 3,300 spread I came up with is very extreme.  But I did hear the one trainer use calorie differential as her philosophy.  These contestants work very hard getting from the very light burn to a very high daily burn rate. 

For the record, I have heard more than once that the recommended diet for the contestants is in the 1700 to 1800 cal/day.  I have heard variously that they work out 4 hours per day or 6 hours per day.  They are carefully monitored by doctors as well as by the trainers.  The CC community is basically on its own.  I doubt that there is enough information about what goes on behind the the scenes or about the physiology of weight loss to make an exact determination of how the weight loss occurs.  Two of the contestants lost in excess of 100 pounds in a period of about 3 months.  They were routinely posting losses in excess of 10 pounds while other contestants working right along side of them were posting losses of 2 to 5 pounds.  Part of the issue is muscle development.  Clearly some of the contestants are in a serious workout program for the first time in their lives and they are developing muscle (or muscle mass) at about the same rate as they are burning fat.  So they don't post big weight loss numbers even though their percent body fat is plummetting.

Unfortunately, the conditions on the show don't translate to normal life very well.  Not only are most of us filling in as trainers and nutritionists while we work to get our weight under control, we don't have 4 to 8  hours per day for heavy physical exercise and the necessary recovery.  Oh yeah, most of us won't get any big prize or glory for succeeding.  All we get is to feel better about ourselves.

Original Post by jc343:

Unfortunately, the conditions on the show don't translate to normal life very well.  Not only are most of us filling in as trainers and nutritionists while we work to get our weight under control, we don't have 4 to 8  hours per day for heavy physical exercise and the necessary recovery.  Oh yeah, most of us won't get any big prize or glory for succeeding.  All we get is to feel better about ourselves.

Exactly, CC has to be general and it can't recommend anything that could be mis-used or put them in harms way. And rightfully so. 2 lbs a week is smart and for most people who aren't working out, etc that is the smart thing to do. But I am fairly muscular, ex-athlete and was working out a good amount so it bothered me when someone would say me losing 100lbs in 5 1/2 months was unhealthy. It wasn't, but it wasn't typical and I wouldn't recommend it to 95% of the people out there.

Lets not forget that it's a show and they are picking people from an already select group and they probably pick people who are more likely to be adept at losing weight. That wouldn't work for every 420 pound guy like Neil this year.

I mentioned the cc 1000 cal maximum deficit because I have been slapped silly on this board for suggesting that you could lose more than 2 lbs per week.  The concerns voiced were over safety - muscle atrophy and damage to internal organs from losing weight too fast.  That's why I wondered what a trainer could do that would make losing weight safe at 3-5x the cc maximum recommendation.  Here's my guess.  All of the Biggest Loser participants that I have seen are grossly obese, maybe 100% over recommended weight.  Perhaps there is less chance of damaging muscles/organs in this condition than if a person is 25% or less overweight.  And perhaps the trainers are there to protect against the primary concern of heart attacks and strokes in the participants, rather than long-term concerns.  It's analogous to anabolic steroid use by baseball sluggers. The primary concern is getting home runs right now, the secondary concern is whether steroids shorten the player's life.  

One small comment about the TV show. Sometimes their "weeks" aren't 7 days, they can be as long as 10-11 days in real life. (It varies.)  So, what you see on TV as a loss of XX pounds per "week" may actually be a loss of XX pounds in a 10-11 days.

And, from the moment their weight loss starts on Day 1 and to the Finale, approximately 8 months has passed in real life.

Numerous past contestants have also admitted to skipping meals, living on sugarfree jello, and fasting for days before final weigh-ins.  And, even while still on the show, there is an "honor system" in place about the number of calories they are supposed to eat, and some of the more competitive people have later admitted that they allowed their calories to drop to dangerously low levels before crucial weigh-ins (and some even "threw up" what they ate.) '

When watching The Biggest Loser, don't ever lose sight of the fact that (1) it's ENTERTAINMENT and (2) it's a COMPETITION.

Just so you know.

=^..^= MOLLY

Also remember that the contestants at the time of the finale are still competing for money. Once that incentive is gone they regain weight.

Check out my wikipedia entries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Lose r_%28Season_1%29#Did_They_Keep_the_Weight_Off .3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Lose r_%28Season_2%29#Did_They_Keep_the_Weight_Off .3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Lose r_%28Season_3%29#Did_They_Keep_the_Weight_Off .3F

 

Original Post by mollymouser:

Numerous past contestants have also admitted to skipping meals, living on sugarfree jello, and fasting for days before final weigh-ins.  And, even while still on the show, there is an "honor system" in place about the number of calories they are supposed to eat, and some of the more competitive people have later admitted that they allowed their calories to drop to dangerously low levels before crucial weigh-ins (and some even "threw up" what they ate.) '

It's not that I don't believe you, people would do anything for money but do you have something to back that assertion up?

Original Post by archer531:

Original Post by mollymouser:

Numerous past contestants have also admitted to skipping meals, living on sugarfree jello, and fasting for days before final weigh-ins.  And, even while still on the show, there is an "honor system" in place about the number of calories they are supposed to eat, and some of the more competitive people have later admitted that they allowed their calories to drop to dangerously low levels before crucial weigh-ins (and some even "threw up" what they ate.) '

It's not that I don't believe you, people would do anything for money but do you have something to back that assertion up?

A month or so ago, I spent an entire afternoon reading various articles, websites, etc. about past contestants/seasons and came across this information. I did not save the links to the websites, but I do recall that it was only a few of the players to admitted to doing these sorts of things -- but definitely more than one. If I recall correctly, it was in season 1 and 2, I don't recall if there were any from season 3, nor do I recall reading anything from season 4. 

So, short answer, I did not save the links.

=^..^= MOLLY

Original Post by marc42968:

Also remember that the contestants at the time of the finale are still competing for money. Once that incentive is gone they regain weight.

Check out my wikipedia entries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Lose r_%28Season_1%29#Did_They_Keep_the_Weight_Off .3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Lose r_%28Season_2%29#Did_They_Keep_the_Weight_Off .3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Lose r_%28Season_3%29#Did_They_Keep_the_Weight_Off .3F

 

Some of them regain weight. And do we know if they gained more muscle and didn't gain fat? Do we know anything other then the scale went up? Obviously they pushed themselves further then they would normally, but for those that gained back 20 lbs they still lost like 100 in most cases. Making them signifcantly healthier and more likely extended their life. I don't see how that's a negative.

 

Here we are bashing a show that teaches you smart eating, portion control and hard work is great, yet shows like the Swan that are all about focusing on plastic surgery which is dangerous and expensive isn't.

 Don't look at the trees and not see the forrest people.

Original Post by archer531:

Some of them regain weight. And do we know if they gained more muscle and didn't gain fat? Do we know anything other then the scale went up? Obviously they pushed themselves further then they would normally, but for those that gained back 20 lbs they still lost like 100 in most cases. Making them signifcantly healthier and more likely extended their life. I don't see how that's a negative.

Here we are bashing a show that teaches you smart eating, portion control and hard work is great, yet shows like the Swan that are all about focusing on plastic surgery which is dangerous and expensive isn't.

 Don't look at the trees and not see the forrest people.

I'm not bashing the show, it's great for motivation, showing people it can be done.

As for the question of what kind of weight gain they had, I watched the show, and with the exception of two of them, none of the past contestants looked to be heavier because of muscle gain.

My intent was not to "bash" the television show, merely to remind people that it IS, indeed, a television show as well as a competition... and that a "week" of weight loss isn't always what it seems to be.  My primary concern is that the tv show can give people some unrealistic expectations about their own weight loss ... especially since not everyone has the ability to work out 4-6 hours per day.

=^..^= MOLLY

I dislike the show because people are 'voted off' rather than in it together until the very end.

There is so much more mental work that needs to be done with this kind of extreme weight loss. Work that takes much longer that 13 weeks. It just seems counter-productive to extoll the virtues of rapid weight loss, and ass busting, only to reward the  contestant by  booting them off the show prematurely in the name of gamesmanship.

So, some people regain the weight, guess what? That happens in normal life too! Regardless of how you lose the weight, statistically, most people are going to gain some of it back.

During the early part of the year, I ran a much higher than 1000 calorie deficit, but I had a team of medical professionals watching over me. My blood was drawn monthly at first and I was given a weekly check to make sure I wasn't endangering my health. As well, I was given nutritional counseling. I had weeks when I lost 10 lb a week. The reason this was necessary was that I had health problems that the weight was exacerbating. So getting the weight off by hook or by crook was what mattered.

Now that I've lost 125 lb, I am doing it more slowly not because I think I'm more likely to keep the weight off if I do it slowly, but because it's winter and I'm hungrier plus my health has made a 180 turn and I'm in great condition so there's no longer a hurry to get the rest off as quickly.

Calorie-count's advise is for those who are not being monitored by a medical professional. So it has to stay on the side of caution because there's no lifeline there saying, hmmm, your lipids are unbalanced or hmmm, your iron count has gone low or hmmm, your muscles are being damaged.

Original Post by kathygator:

I dislike the show because people are 'voted off' rather than in it together until the very end.

There is so much more mental work that needs to be done with this kind of extreme weight loss. Work that takes much longer that 13 weeks. It just seems counter-productive to extoll the virtues of rapid weight loss, and ass busting, only to reward the  contestant by  booting them off the show prematurely in the name of gamesmanship.

Well blame that on a society that wants to see a competition and not just a show on weight loss that you can see on DSCH or something. That said, I agree with you. Although everyone kicked off the show is still competing for a consolation prize.

And if you watch the show and you saw Neil kicked off this week he specifically said his goal on the show was to change his life. He has lost 14o+ pounds and he said he did what he wanted. He now has the knowledge, and motivation to live healthier and not be 420 pounds.

 

Molly, you make a good point. it's not typical of what someone can do. I lost over 100lbs in less then 6 months which is amazing, I would not have won the show, lol. But I use that show as a tool, as motivation and for idea's. That show was an inspiration to me and let me know that I can do this, and I did do this. I now get PM's all the time from people here saying I inspired them a little bit. Heck, the girl at Best Buy today asked me how I lost weight when I had to show my old fat license pic to her. It is a show, it's not typical... but where is everyone bashing detox diets and the next great pill to lose weight when they show pics and say it's not typical. Of course it isn't, and this show isn't either. But that shouldn't distract from the great messages it does send and the way it sends them.

In my very very humble opinion... ;-)

 

Original Post by archer531:

But that shouldn't distract from the great messages it does send and the way it sends them. In my very very humble opinion... ;-)

Agreed.

=^..^= MOLLY

How do some of the people not lose anything during the week?

A big question on this board.  Why aren't I losing weight?  Seen several posts on that since I have been here.

I am not fully qualified to explain that.  My guesses:  an increase in digestion effeciency, increase in water retention, and a decrease in basal metabolic rate.  If I remember BMR correctly, it accounts for 70% of our energy expenditure.  So it can offset some of the exercise calories burned.  (Straightem me out Doc Marc if I am going in the wrong direction).  That is why it is important to eat enough cals to not cause your body to turn down its BMR.

 

Original Post by strikez:

When I sprang my wisdom of the BIGGEST LOSER math to my wife  - she nailed me with the big question - how do some of the people not lose anything during the week?

A big question on this board.  Why aren't I losing weight?  Seen several posts on that since I have been here.

I am not fully qualified to explain that.  My guesses:  an increase in digestion effeciency, increase in water retention, and a decrease in basal metabolic rate.  If I remember BMR correctly, it accounts for 70% of our energy expenditure.  So it can offset some of the exercise calories burned.  (Straightem me out Doc Marc if I am going in the wrong direction).  That is why it is important to eat enough cals to not cause your body to turn down its BMR.

Yep.

And sometimes our bodies (especially women's bodies) are just plain weird, and do what they want. I can see the scale do many different things each Sunday morning when I step on it ... go up, stay the same, go down a little, go down a lot ... no two weeks are the same (even though my dieting and exercising have been the same.)  It can be water retention, it can be unexpelled waste, it can be hormones, it can be a fluctuation in our metabolisms. Heck, sometimes I am convinced that GRAVITY shifts in my house! (grin!)

In some ways, a truer picture of how we're doing (weight loss wise) is to look at a four-week (or monthly) average, since weight fluctuations are very common.

=^..^= MOLLY