I've just watched Fat Club on the repeat. It's not what I expected. How do you all feel? Does anyone want to discuss it?

The professionals:

Dr Raj, bless him: Part presenter and part medical insurance. I'm not sure how he will pan out!

The Nutritionist: Design your own effective diet? How? Tell us the viewer why don't you? Oh yes there's the book! Anyway. I think it's a good idea, giving ownership and responsibility to the Fat Clubbers. But will it work? Is there any support line available?

The Psychologist: Hmmmmm? Tell me about yourself.... Found it interesting that they showed us a woman who had suffered from abuse. I didn't and I am fat! I don't want to trivialise what happened to her but I am not a victim, and I would guess that not all of you are either. It's a steorotype I absolutely hate 'Oh look at the fat girl, she can't help it you know...'

The Trainer: Well! Give control with the diet hand and take away with the exercise hand! Having acknowledged that we all need both diet and exercise to lose weight they go and do it to us again. Make exercise something hard, dificult and nasty! Stick it to the fatties, just like they did in school. Exercise is not supposed to be fun if you're fat! HOLLYHOCKS!!!! Exercise can be fun at any age or weight. Call it physical activity and see how you think about it - walking the dogs, flying a kite, playing with the kids/grandkids.... It's fun!!!!!!!!!

The Clubbers:

Well we know what they think of them! Young lad is a prat, older guy a walking timebomb. Women a bit sad and emotional. Apart from that we'll just have to see won't we?

And behind me on the telly is WW's Powerstart - ad placement or what?

So I vented. How do you feel? Or is it a bit icky just after Christmas when we all packed on about half a stone?


Stef

I just saw Fat Club on the repeat too. I think the programme suffered by being only half an hour long. If the programme had been an hour long, we could have had a more in depth look at the Fat Club programme but the whole thing seems pointless to me. Everyone knows that diet and exercise is the key to losing weight but if all we needed was someone shouting at us and telling us that, then surely no one would ever get overweight in the first place. Its just my opinion, but most people know what to do to be healthy, its the putting it into practice every day that we struggle with. We didn't see what advice the nutritionist gave to each person, we only heard her say "make your own diet", so I guess I shouldn't really judge the programme too harshly. Can't help thinking that if the programme had been made by BBC it would have been handled much better.

I quite agree that we have been starved of all the details as the programme is only half an hour a week. Would have been much better if ITV had allocated an hour session of a couple of slots a week.

I would like to see less of the touchy feely stuff - who wanted to or needed to know that that woman had been abused - didn't add anything to the programme for me. But I too would like to see more about the nutrition and permanent exercise instead of this quick blast effort we got to see this week.

I'd like to see what the people got up to during the month they weren't at fat club. What did they eat, what exercise did they do. Half an hour this Tuesday night isn't going to allow the programme to go into any scope on that. ITV will be more interested in showing how peoples weight / attitude has changed.

I will still watch the programme and suss out that book next time I go round tescos.

Carol

Stef - I agree
Yet another 'look at the fat people' programme... yes, yes, yes, all very good, and there's no doubt I'm as hooked as the next person, but 30 minutes a week doesn't really give anyone any ideas does it?! As for that poor woman - like you said... I was not abused... I was bullied badly at school, but I can honestly say it had no part in making me fat... I LOVE FOOD, and that's that! Thankfully, I've also learned to love exercise
Did anyone see a series on Channel 4 a couple of years ago called 'Why Weight'? Now THAT was good - real people, with very normal problems, given weekly advice, then left to their own devices to battle it out themselves in the real world... Some lost, some didn't... they all suffered normal emotions, and we saw them once a week... it was like bringing a slimming club into your own home! BRING BACK WHY WEIGHT!!!
So we'll see how it all pans out then?

Ive just looked in the paper to see what time Fat Club is on tonight as I am out at a party. I was shocked to see it said part 3? when was part 2 on? anyone know?

Jano - either a pinting error or next weeks paper/tv guide. If you missed it watch out for the late night Sunday repeat.

Soooooooooo. Did anyone learn anything useful this week? I feel vaguely cheated. I don't know what I was supposed to take away from this one!

Men lose weight easier early on in the diet process - yes I knew that already.

When you go on holiday maintaining your weight is success - yep knew that too. A law I wholeheartedly agree with.

Excusercising is only cheating yourself - oh boy! Do I know that one!

Don't diet, just eat healthily forever - yes! I think we all know that one deep deep down.

But what was the focus of this weeks episode. Or is it as beckyfurn implied, it is just another fly-on-the-wall documentary thingy. It isn't suposed to help any of us fatties, just makes good snaky peaky TV?

I looked at the book, very briefly. It didn't seem to be very interesting. It tells each persons story: Chapter 1, Simon's story etc etc. No I didn't look to see who lost what! Has anyone else had a read? What did you think?

Now instead of slamming it what do you all thing would have been useful information? I like the BBC's idea of fact sheets and websites. I can look at the bits that interest me most. Any other ideas?

Anyway, I shal probably HAVE to watch the rest of the series, just to shout at the telly a bit more! Stef

Yes it IS true, scientifically.

Without boring you all completely it has to do with fat storage. Not only do women store more fat by percentage of what is eaten BUT we also have more fat cells so we can store more fat altogether. We also store fat in different places and those places are harder to shift once stored.

Also men have more muscle and less fat by body weight than women. Muscle uses more energy than fat. Because men have more muscle, they burn between 10 and 20 percent more calories than women during REST (so they're not being clever - just lucky, lazy sods).


I'd give you the nitty gritty details but my masters degree is in health and exercise sciences not nutrition so the details escape my memory. If anyone really wants what my American friends call the 'real skinny' (but that would be just too much wouldn't it?) I'll go look it up.

And no, you don't have to be a skinny thing to do the degrees I just completed. I'm a fat aerobics instructor as well! I like to think I am the living embodiment of fat and fit - but I doubt that somehow!

BFB I hope this gives you some good nose plugging material! Stef.

Hiya - well, this programme really made me angry last night, which is quite unusual for me.

There are two aspects of this programme which really annoyed me. The first is the nature of the programme itself. I personally feel that this programme has not taught us anything at all. So far it has been fairly basic common sense, we all know we won't lose weight eating chips and chocolate and drinking beer and we all know that exercise is good for us.

Sadly to me the whole programme smacks of a freak show - these poor people are having their weight and mental health problems aired on national TV and are being humiliated for the entertainment of the masses. I can't see the difference between this programme and the old fair ground side shows of years ago - the bearded lady, the dwarf or the two headed baby. I think the public's fascination here is to find out how far the public humiliation will go before someone snaps.

The other aspect to make me angry is the lack of commitment of some of the participants. With all these experts on hand it would be reasonable to expect that these people will have been psychologically screened for their suitability to provide good 'television', so I think they have been specifically chosen because they will fail .... and boy are they giving the producers what they want! It is so sad that the producers felt they couldn't provide us with good role models, yes, it might not have made such good television, but it would have given us all a ray of hope.

The women picked out to be featured (because of their poor weight loss) had - basically - just not been trying at all. Yes - losing weight IS hard - but I am sure anyone could manage more than 2lbs in a five week period, especially bearing in mind that this was their first month and we lose a lot of water in the first week or two. That woman cried because of the humiliation of being 'found out' rather than because of not losing more weight. I've been there and done that and cried for the same reason. I have a feeling that on the Wednesday or Thursday before going to the health spa place on the Friday she realised that she had been eating the same way as usual and just cut back for those couple of days. At her weight a 2lb loss in the first couple of days of a diet would be fairly average.

As for the one who stayed in bed.... what a waste of time having her on the programme is. She has got out of the swimming thing twice using the same excuse (heavy period) - if she wasn't prepared to do the whole programme then she should have been replaced, but then I suppose having a negative personality like that makes good television as well.

Sorry to vent like this, but I hate us more shapely people being made fun of like this and I just feel that they are reinforcing the stereotype image that the general public have of us. Lack of self control, lazy, selfish, etc.

But I will carry on watching it....

I totally agree with your comments Sarah. I don't want to slate the people on the programme at all because I know how hard it is to lose weight. But if you sign up for something like this, with all the expert help, knowing that it will be shown on national television, surely you could lose more than 2 lbs in five weeks. I just think this programme is only showing overweight people in a negative way, although the men do seem to be more committed than the women. Although, they haven't really introduced us to all the participants yet and they didn't show everyone's weight loss. Maybe they are focussing on the failures to reinforce the public perception that overweight people are too lazy to stick to diet and exercise. And what is that exercise guy about?!! He's like some nasty drill sargeant, he would put me off exercise forever.

Sorry to vent, I just think this is a dreadful programme. I saw a programme on the Discovery Health channel on Sky TV called Dietbusters and that focussed on two women who had both lost a considerable amount of weight. This was a positive programme showing sensible eating and exercise plans and handled much better than Fat Club.

It seems this programme is provoking strong responses in us all!

oh dear...I recorded it and haven't watched it yet... maybe I won't bother

Ok - so I recorded the WRONG SIDE - can someone tell me whe its repeated on ITV 2? Is it Monday?
Jano