I like to call the biggest loser 'fat people torture'. Its fun to watch in a sadistic way but then I remeber its real people who aren't being taught a proper way to lose weight only that they have to workout til they are near dead and if they don't lose a larrgeee amount that week or just retain some water that weak-they are failures and bye bye. Like a lot of them say things like ' I couldn't lose the weight without the biggest loser this is my last hope' . No it isn't. you can lose weight in other ways besides being in a workout bootcamp

I agree with this. Historically, humans have a tendency to just follow the masses and it's not common that a bunch of people will stand up and "fight the power" so to speak. It's more common that one person has the courage to do it, gets a lot of flack, and that's why most people don't do it!

I also agree with your post before this kaplods where you pointed out that a week isn't really truly 7 days but could be anything they choose. It's TV after all!

Editing is like magic! My boyfriend is an film editor and I am amazed at even the tiniest tricks he does to make a film or show. He can even slow down parts of the film to make things look more dramatic, cut from different parts of the show to pretend someone had a certain reaction, etc. Once you see what can be done editing or photoshop-wise, you realize everything is pretty much a lie, especially these reality shows (but I still watch them! LOL).

I'm apparantly in the minority being able to view the show for what it is -- a game show and reality show. Reality meaning not reality at all. I love competition shows, and none of them are realistic.

I don't know if it's a great thing for society or whatever I won't argue that; but I believe stupid reality shows like Teen Mom and that kid beauty competition crap are worse, but that's just my personal opinion.

As an aside, I never was a fan of Kai. She was rude and whiney throughout the entire season. :P

Your not in the minority, Lockitup. I think you come from the unique point of view of someone who has actually lost the weight and you know what it takes and that it is reality programming not meant to be a true view of how everyone is supposed to lose weight. Different people respond to different ways of losing weight and some people do well with the boot camp experience regardless of body size. If they dont then they leave the show which has happened this season too.
I think what bugs me is the assumption that because these contestants are large they need some sort of softer kinder approach, that theyre somehow not capable of hard intense work and hard intense dieting because of their size cause thats whats coming across here. If any person of any size doesnt like the boot camp approach they are free to find another way of training. Size shouldnt matter. I dont think anyone who watches the show actually believes that the TBL way is the only way to lose weight I think they find the TBL method interesting to watch. I also appreciate the fact that the show demonstrates that regardless of your size you are capable to work out intensely and diet strictly if that is what you CHOOSE to do. Im not going to criticize the contestents CHOICE just like I dont want my maybe less hard core approach criticized.
Sometimes I wonder if its easy to rationalize another weightloss approach as dangerous/not healthy/not right if that approach is seeming to be more successful than my own approach. Ive had to deal directly with this. I lost a ton of weight in what was to me a responsible appropriate way with medical checkups and so on. Other friends less successful than me who chose another way constantly criticized my choices as not sustainable not healthy not "right" causing injury and so on mostly because they werent getting the numbers that I was getting. It was easier for them to write off what I was doing by saying "shes getting results in an unhealthy inappropriate stupid dangerous way *subtext and I'm smarter than that*" than to say "Im mad that Im not getting those kind of results even though Im not doing what it takes to get those results" and deep down they werent happy with their results. I personally think TBL triggers this kind of response in alot of people.
I never liked Kai either btw.

EXACTLY!!! If I can lose a 2 -3 pounds a week and not have to starve or kill myself to do it, I'll take that.

I wonder what happens to these biggest loser contestants once they do not have all of the help and support of those people... or when the incentive of winning the money is gone... or when the spotlight is no longer on them?

I totally agree with you

Joe, probably what happens to most people who lose weight which is that most who lose weight eventually regain it no matter what program theyve used to lose it.
Id really love to see something or exam of this, like if they just did an anonymous survey of all the contestants with a questionnaire like "did you lose weight" "what percentage of body weight did you lose" "1 year later what was your weight" "was your experience on TBL worth it" that kind of stuff. So wed know exactly what the scoop was. I think until theres a no name anonymous kind of survey of everyone we probably wont know how the contestants felt about their experience. We are all kind of judging the contestants experience from the point of view of whether or not wed like that kind of treatment, not if the contestants themselves felt it was bad. Editing IS editing after all.

The statistical maintenance success rate of a BL contestant is much better than someone in the general population (at least for the first several seasons - I haven't seen data on the more recent seasons, and they were recent enough that maintenance numbers may be hard to come by anyway).

Most of them bump up after the show, of course, since they are doing all kinds of things to get as low as possible for the finale (and wouldn't you, with $100,000+ on the line?), but of the first 53 contestants, only 2 gained more than 50 lb back. Another 11 had gained between 25 and 50 lbs (and one of them had just had a baby).


That beats the measured success rate of every other weight loss program I have seen studied.

Don't try to mimic the results of that show. For the average obese person, it is not a healthy nor sustainable way to lose weight.

It's shows like this one that make me happy I don't have cable. I've been so much more content since I stopped watching tv and reading magazines. Most of that stuff is tripe, try not to let it get you down.

I've also read that many biggest loser contestants gain quite a bit of their weight back after the show. The regiment they teach them doesn't seem to really be able to fit in "real life."

It also makes me wonder if they are really getting to the root of the weight problem with most contestants (be that of hormones, psychological, ect.)

I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Part of me finds it to be motivating- the other part of me finds it to be borderline abusive.

Their maintenance rates are actually better than in the general population. Of course, those numbers are really dismal, so take that for what you will, but BL contestants do regain less weight, on average, than your average person losing at home, even on more moderate plans (even the most optimistic numbers on Weight Watchers, for example, show 16% of those who reached goal weight maintaining it after 5 years...and that's the folks that made it to "Lifetime" status to begin with).

I wonder if that is less about the regimen and more about being in the spotlight where everyone can see if you mess up.

That could be part of it. I'm not sure how "in the spotlight" they are after their season ends (unless they come back for a reunion special...not sure if there are contractual obligations for them to do so). Personally, the thoughts and opinions of a million people I didn't know on a regain wouldn't matter as much for me as the thoughts of the people I did know (friends, family, etc), and both BL contestants and non-contestants who lose weight on their own face that the same way.

My guess would be their maintinence results are better for multiple reasons. In no particular order.

1) Social pressure - they were on National TV and got a lot of attention. Thus there is more pressure to not regain.

2) Professional education - most people get horrible horrible education.

3) Pain - they went through a lot of pain. Pushing yourself to your physical limits is extremely painful during and after. The association and idea of repeating this pain is likely very motivating to maintain.