Ditto! Love the show and love the motivation it gives me. And, I want to be like Jillian when I grow up. That women is awesome!

I think that it is a wonderful show. These people would never have a chance if they didnt lose weight. They would be sitting on the couch eating big macs and fries super sized with a lare coke waiting for a heart attack. So yes it may be al little over the top as far as the amount of weight lost and how many hours they are exercising. But I say more power to them. Yeah it may not be realistic in normal peoples lives. But it is TV it isnt realistic. I love the show.

And can we say WOOHOO!!!!!!!!! GOodbye to Amber!!!! She was so on my nerves. I can not believe that she had the B@ll$ to actually say "send me home". Well she got her wish.

Jillian scares me. She always has a mean look on her face. I dont think someone screaming and yelling at me would motivate me. I love Bob and I love how he gets so involved and personal. Kim is cool too.

Did anyone see (I don't know if it was the intro or what) but when they showed Bob, he did a standing jump up to this high platform. OMG!!! I want strength and agility to do that!!!

I saw that and my husband who is 31 years old weighs 312 is 6 feet and has a beer belly said that he could do that. I laughed and said Um ok. RIGHT!!!!

I would pay to see him try to do that. It would be so funny to see him fall on his @$$....

I saw that. Whoa! And I don't know if they were doctoring the angles or something but that thing looked pretty high, at least above the waist. It's something to aspire to.

I disagree that what they are doing is not safe. Definately they are supervised and probably undergo a lot of tests etc that are not shown. I wouldn't doubt that they have their blood pressure and heart rate monitored daily as well as routine bloodwork etc. The last thing the network wants is for someone to keel over while working out. It seems to me that most of the people that are on the show are basically healthy people other than being overweight. Also you have to figure that someone that is 300 lbs and over eats a lot of calories to maintain that weight plus they are probably carrying a lot of extra water. If you went from eating 3000-4000 cals a day to eating 1200 cals a day and exercising 6 hours a day and drinking tons of water than you are going to see a lot of weight loss. The water weight is only going to come off once though, next week most of those people who lost 20 lbs will be lucky to lose half of that. The crazy stuff that people were doing in the time that they were home before the finale show, like Ryan Benson completely dehydrating himself, well of course that is not safe but the tv show can't be responsible for what the contestants do once they are home.

Hey Ladies,
I saw Bob's standing jump to the platform. I not only believe it, but have done it (in my 20's). Now, I'd not even try! When you do something like that, you usually work up to a given height and it hurts when your foot doesn't get high enough! My knees have been injured too many times, in too many ways to withstand the pressure of the land on the platform, even I could get my butt up that far. But my point is: with strength, agility, and balance - you can do it too. (Although it's got to be a ton easier when we're lighter!)
I have to admit, I like Jillian.
She may seem scary...but I think that's part of her point. Extreme weight is scary. Extreme weight may take some very harsh "in your face" methods to allow people to see not only what they can/could/should do, but it also helps people to be "shocked" into doing things they normally wouldn't push themselves to do. Then when the people look back, they can say, "Oh my gosh! I did that! I can do that." It helps set up the mindset that each person is capable of doing more than they've done in the past, or than they realize. She even talks about that in her interview.
Jillian does soften her voice and ask, "Why the tears?" and things like that. She realizes that people have a LOT of emotions that can keep them from success and it's her job to help them address those emotions.
During the show Jillian said that one of the gals "wasn't ready for the house yet" meaning that she didn't have the mind-set to sucessful competitor.
She was right.
Biggest Loser is a competition. (While I like Kim, she's more of the "I want to help everyone" spirit. Jillian is maintaining an on-screen persona of "I'm back to win" to support the "back for revenge" type attitude that the producers are pushing.
In the end, these people didn't hire a personal trainer out here in the real world. They entered a competition on National TV. It's not Wheel of Fortune, it's significantly more motivational.
I've been injured, I'm not even eligible to try out for the show. If you note, only one guy (the police officer) ever even had a dislocated ankle.
In the end, I like all of the trainers - each for their own personal style.
If I were to chose a trainer, it'd probably be Bob or Jillian because I want someone to push me, but also to help me realize "Ok, this sucks. Take a moment to acknowledge it sucks. Now put it behind you." It's never really so easy as that since things keep coming up and biting me, but, to have someone help me do that would be great.
I guess that's part of what I look to y'all for...you're my team of support that says "ok, that sucks. Now put it behind you, eat right and exercise."

I really love y'all for it, too.

I love the show and at my starting weight I would have loved to be on it. I would not have minded having Jillian as my trainer at all. I needed the sterness and kick in the butt to quit feeling sorry for myself and just accept the problem and deal with it. Of course, I probably would have shed a few tears at first, but I wouldn't have asked to go home.

I agree.

If you look closely, most of the bigger ones are wearing an armband type thing. I would think they are monitoring them very very closely.

I can see that they may have picked the healthiest fat people in america to be contestants, so maybe the risk to each contestant is minimal. I still have mixed feelings about the show because, while there's a disclaimer at the end of the show (don't try this at home), I'm not sure it's enough to keep people at home who don't have the doctors and ambulance standing by (or a lick of common sense) from trying to pull these kinds of weekly weight losses at home. I think it also gives the impression that "see, fat people could lose the weight fast if they wanted to bad enough, they're all just lazy."

It just reminds me of gym class when a gym teacher thought the "fat kids" were just lazy and could do anything the thin kids could if they were pushed hard enough. I told her I couldn't do a cartwheel, she forced me to try, and I landed on my ankle, breaking it (I actually didn't find out until college that it had been broken, as it was a hairline fracture that didn't show up on the first xray). Even after I hurt myself, she didn't think I was hurt and made me keep going. Yikes when I got home it had swollen like a balloon and was BLACK. What was worse, when the gym teacher saw that I had an excuse for PE, she made me unwrap the ankle and show her, she looked a little pale, but still acted like I was the criminal. She sent a letter to my parents, an "accident report," stating they had called the parents and put ice on it (NOPE).

And on the other hand, I do like seeing the fat contestants do things I know some skinny person is watching saying "I couldn't do that."

Funny you should say this. In gym class in 5th grade we were playing kickball. My foot bounced over the ball & I twisted my ankle trying to keep my balance & fell. The girls in the class walked me in (carrying my leg), but the teacher thought I was crying for attention & made me walk on it. I could HEAR crystals breaking when I walked on it, is the only way to describe the feeling. He then carried me to the principal's office & dumped me at the door. I tried to hop to the nurse's office from there & he let out a huge sigh & carried me to the cot. The ambulance was called & yes, it was broken. Unbelievable. I don't know what ever happened with billing & insurance & all that, but I do know it made me never want to participate in any group sports. Even now I do things solo at the gym, swimming, lifting, riding the bike, etc.

I hardly doubt they do the things they show on TV. Pulling the jet, I mean that is rather easy, it is al getting it to begin rolling. But I doubt they do all that exercise stuff they show on TV. They might for the 30 seconds they are on the screen, then the rest ofthe time they are doing normal exercise and stuff. Also who knows that it was only a week, it might have been three or four. You never know. I doubt any of it is real, but it is fun to watch and as long as you remember that it is as real as CSI, then have fun

i went to the open casting for this season. i was sad when i didnt get a call back.

haha. oh well, im the biggest loser anyway!

I heard earlier in the week that the "actual" time spent filming is around six months, but condensed to look like three. This might explain the little "slip-up" a time or two when someone on the show mentioned "two weeks--oops, one week" weigh-in.

But what the heck -- bottom line, we all know WHY the show is on TV -- to make money for some already rich folks. But we enjoy it, and it is motivating to more than a few of us, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride!

I just have to laugh when I watch CSI or other crime dramas. What real CSI is going to wear a low-cut blouse every day to work? And wouldn't they leave some of that long, flowing hair at the crime scene? While I enjoy Law and Order, last season when they had the female detective, she was always wearing a tight, cleavage-revealing shirt when she was arresting people or interviewing them. Made for more male viewers, I guess, but I can imagine the ruckus it might cause at a police station if a female detective actually dressed that way.

Did anyone watch the reunion TBL show the week before? There didn't seem to be a whole lot of people who had maintained most or some of their weight loss (like where was Kai?). I'm not sure if that's because people regained their weight, or the producers just took a few of the people who maintained and put them on the show, for the sake of time. Given weight loss statistics, I bet that many regained what they'd lost. Has anyone seen anything that gives the stats for each season as far as maintaining? That would be interesting to know.