Tell me about it..I bust my butt and im down only half a pound..it makes losing weight for them like a piece of cake..I often think "man i wish i could do that, that fast"...But its never gonna happen..Funny thing, is that it has nothing to do with not having Bob or Jillian for a workout coach..it has to do with the fact, that im not willing to delete everyone from my life and leave my house a total mess and my baby girl not attended to, just to get to my dream body faster. Yes, i want a happier healthier smaller body..but the biggest loser way and the heavy way..just aint going to be my way..and its why we need forums like this..so that we can encourage and support one another..

I thought the amount of food they showed on Monday's episode of Heavy was inadequate, as well, until I thought about it. They showed no other food. We have no idea if that meal consisted of appetizer, salad, entree, and some sort of low cal dessert.

I've never watched TBL because I've always thought that losing weight in a competition was just plain detrimental to the psyche, and I agree that the program shown on Heavy is unrealistic for most individuals. However, at least Heavy lessens the monitoring as they go and keeps the individual accountable to themselves rather than to the prize money.

just want to add-
HATE THOSE SHOWS

my 2 cents-

i sometimes watch TBL just for entertainment purposes. take it at face value. i know it's not realistic for me. i'm currently unemployed, and i could work out for 6 hours a day, but i need to find a job...lol. and honestly, i'm not inclined to spend my whole day working out. 30-60 min, sure. i do wish TBL would focus on food more, (not just those product endorsements!) but then bob and jillian wouldn't get air time.
as far as the show heavy, i do like that they focus more on the addiction side of obesity. that there are different reasons why/how people get to that point. also, if you look at some of the women on the show, over the 6 month period, they lost a reasonable amount of weight. granted, their first month being in a controlled environment helped, but i think Flor's 60+lbs in 6 months is feasible, for someone at her start weight (but, again, that's her, not all of us, you know?)
i do wish heavy focused more on food too. i can't imagine that they would have had some of the heavier males on a 1200 cal a day diet with all that exercise...doesn't seem healthy.

edit- sorry, back to original post- we live in the real world, and we shouldn't compare ourselves to others who have been given such an opportunity. we also have to just go at our own pace, celebrate our victories, and keep at it. i don't think any of us have to put in 4 hours at the gym everyday. you're doing a great job. just focus on YOU and your success

sorry, but I don't understand how anyone can see these shows as anything other than unrealistic. Of course you can't duplicate the results at home. To me going on and on about it is like complaining Survivor isn't realistic because no one would REALLY go to china and live on the edge of a lake for a month with no water food or shelter. Or how Trading Spaces isn't realistic because no one would ever really trade houses with someone and do that much work on a weekend. Or how jeoprady is soo misleading because no one would ever really phrase an answer in the form of a question. It's entertainment just take it like that and maybe get a little inspiration from the before and after pics.

I THOUGHT (and don't quote me on this) that I read somewhere that after an hour of cardio, you are no longer getting any benefits. Even marathon runners don't run four hours a day.

i used to like watching TBL, because they gave tips on exercise and healthy food. now it seems to be almost every show too much game play and product placements. sometimes when they are talking about eating fiber one cereal, you can TELL the contestant doesn't like that cereal from the look on their face. sure it's like 60 cal. a serving. but the average person would hate the taste, and even for those of us that do like it, it needs some fruit or yogurt or something for flavor. even when curtis shows them healthier ways to cook, or when they have a cooking competition, there's not enough detail to how they made it healthier. or to use budget friendly ingredients. we can't all buy tri-color peppers and asparagus year round.

Finally somebody who thinks like I do. Except that I don't see the shows as unrealistic - they are realistic, but only in those settings and under those circumstances as presented on TV. I do not understand why anybody would compare his/her weight loss to those of the contestants.
I sure don't. Why should I?

- I work full time
- I am not on a ranch where my only duties are excercise and healthy diet
- I don't have medical supervision 24/7
- I don't a trainer who is responsible for making sure all my body parts are getting equal workout
- and, I don't need to lose 250+ lbs

Exactly! I always say if I were on a ranch I'd probably lose the rest of my weight in 2 months- BUT I'm not. I'm a wife and sister and daughter and I work a full time job, etc. I WISH I had what they did.

I like all the weight loss shows, though I have yet to catch "Heavy" yet.

I don't know why anyone would watch these shows to learn how to lose weight, these shows are made for entertainment. Most people wouldn't watch a TV reality show to learn how to treat themselves for a life threatening disease. They all put up the warning notices numerous times that a person should seek medical advice before starting a weight loss program. I think most people who want to lose weight know you normally can't lose 20 pounds in a week... I think most people who watch these shows just like watching the transformation. But maybe I'm a little naive. I kind of think if a person doesn't like it, they shouldn't watch it.

Anyway, I think the message in all of them is that obesity will kill you and you need to talk to your doctor and find a way to take care of it.

The main reason I enjoy watching these shows is because i find them inspiring. I know that I won't lose at that rate, but I can look at these people who are 400, or 500 or 600 lbs and think "if they can commit to making the change, and stick with it, so can I".

Right, I totally agree. But I think they kinda do a disservice to people who watch the show in hopes of changing their own lives. Thankfully I have a good idea of nutrition and already have my solid plan in place. But if I did not and was given the idea that THAT was what I had to eat to do it, I have a feeling I would just give up before I even started.

It's a show, a show that I happen to really enjoy watching! I do like the segment where they go to the grocery store with the nutritionist. But I think in general they are missing an opportunity to really educate people on good, respectable weight loss with good, respectable, delicious menus that anyone could really follow for life. That meal rubbed me the wrong way because it looks like every time I ever tried to starve myself to lose weight. I would LOVE it if they showed all the meals, snacks, etc, that amount to the 1200 calories the people are supposed to be eating. Maybe their intention isn't to educate, but it sure would fit in well with the rest of the program!

Something to remember about these shows, other then the Dark side of them where people do things in an unhealthy way to lower the pounds for the scale.

Working out more gets faster and greater pounds lost. Don't try and kid yourself that more working out means you have stopped gaining benefits after a certain period of time. This is after all why there are two types of heart rates fat burning zone and cardio zone. If these were not real things it would not be possible for people to lose certain amounts of weight in certain periods of time without potential muscle loss.

Take me for example. I eat when I am hungry, my weight loss so far has been huge, and I sit at 17.2% body fat. Since my last starting weight of 225 pounds, and my last fat% measurement of 27-28% using some professionals device. From 225 to 200 has been entirely fat loss. I am 8 weeks into my own training regimen.

This is an average of 3 pounds a week I work out close to two hours a day. 5-6 days a week. All of it, according to the numbers I have gotten from professionals for fat percentage, and current weight has been fat.

I had a week off from work last week, and I started that week at 206. I worked out for four hours a day that week. By my own weigh in time I had lost 6 pounds.

Now granted I am a man, but please don't fool yourself into thinking that massive weight loss like that is impossible. If a person as average as they come like me can lose 6 pounds in one week when he has so little body fat left to lose, then maybe when you have all the time in the world to focus on weight loss you can actually pull those numbers.

Not that I recommend putting yourself through my regimen, or a biggest loser type regimen. I am simply stating that weight loss like this is plenty possible, just hard for people with average lifestyles.

Also I eat close to 2500 calories a day, in case any kind people were worried a little about me.

I'm so glad others noticed the same thing I did while watching "Heavy"--namely that those meals looked alarming! I saw that tiny piece of fish and those few green beans and thought, "Wow, if that's representative of a meal on a 1200-calorie-a-day diet, I must be doing something very wrong to eat the way I'm eating on 1500 calories a day because I eat mounds more food than that." It actually made me double-check my own counts and consider cutting back further even though I'm losing weight steadily on my current caloric intake. That morsel looked like punishment on a plate to me, and if my own diet isn't punishing me, it made me wonder if I should punish myself for better results--and that can't be a good way to think.

It's a little unsettling to me that I can become so paranoid about what I'm putting in my mouth because it isn't as "diet-ish" as the stuff I saw on a television show. What's on the screen should not be more realistic to me than what's weighed out on my own plate, especially when I'm about 99% sure that that was only one course and not their whole meal!

So yeah, I agree that weight-loss shows of every variety can be discouraging or misleading as well as encouraging at times. I would cry if faced with eating portions like those if those were all I got during a day. Anyone watching that episode who isn't well-versed in calorie counts could easily see that pathetic portion and say, "Well, guess that's the way I have to eat to lose weight" or worse, "If that's what it takes, then I'd rather be fat."

Ultreos, I had to respond to your post separately, so please forgive the two Nola posts in rapid succession.

With all due respect, Ultreos, as you point out you are a guy. If I'm not mistaken, you're also pretty young and you're about a foot taller than a lot of us posting here. I respect your ability to shed pounds so quickly and applaud your efforts to make it happen, but it truly isn't realistic for some to match your loss rate--not because of lifestyle, but because of biology.

Evolution has made us different in more ways than the obvious ones. Female bodies have less lean muscle tissue than those of equal-sized men. We pack on fat easily and lose it more slowly because female hominids who had those characteristics produced viable offspring in times of scarcity. Your body did not evolve to support pregnancy; ours have, and that means easier weight gain, tougher weight loss.

The woman on last week's "Heavy," Flor, lost around sixty pounds in six months. That's an average of ten pounds a month--pretty moderate weight loss for a woman with her starting weight. Yet she had every advantage in which to lose, especially in her first month during which she had no distractions and ample access to facilities that most of us can only dream of having at our disposal. Did she just not try hard enough? Sure didn't look like that was the case, considering she puked her guts up and still kept trucking without complaint or fuss. She worked hard.

So yes, there are people who cannot come close to multiple-pounds-per-week weight loss even under ideal conditions. It really is much tougher for some than for others even if everything else--gym access, workout times, effort--is equal.

My husband has lost the same weight I have and reached his goal already without changing his diet much at all. He never weighs, he never measures, he never counts a calorie--he's just limited his soft drinks, stopped drinking sugar in his coffee, and quit fast foods and junk-food snacks. Meanwhile I've had to weigh, measure, and record every bite of food I eat, adhere to a calorie budget, eschew a lot of the foods he still eats, and work out half an hour a day to get the same results.

Unfair? Nah, no more so than the fact that he can reach the top of the fridge and I can't. It's just how I'm built, and while I don't cry about it--after all, I'm still perfectly capable of losing weight--I also acknowledge that there are plenty of others like me for whom the double-digit weight loss per week as shown on various weight-loss shows is not possible.

"If I can do it, anyone can!" is not a biological truth, especially not when spoken by a young guy a foot taller than me. I'm not saying that with rancor, just saying that evolution gives you an advantage in the weight-loss race, Ultreos. Far from being upset by it, I'm impressed that you're putting it to use and seeing such success--you deserve to be proud of what you've accomplished.

Just pointing out that for a fortyish short woman, a pound a week is reason to celebrate, not beat myself up and push myself to work out with a puke-bucket like poor Flor just because it doesn't match your weight loss.