During the first season of Biggest Loser I tuned in. As a fitness professional I was intrigued with the premise of the show. I only watched three episodes and haven’t watched it since. The reason for this is that during the first season the contestants would vote off the strongest contestant (i.e. the person losing the most weight), so that they would have a better chance to win. I didn’t see the point of punishing the most successful people for their efforts. It was Survivor for the Obese.

Obesity isn’t a game. It’s sort of life and death. In that it ruins lives and death comes about prematurely.

Now I’ve known for some time that The Biggest Loser’s producers have resolved this issue, so that the person losing the most weight gains immunity from elimination. But I still haven’t watched it since.

That is until this week. It’s week seven of the current season and I’m a little out of the loop. But from what I can tell it is Biggest Loser couples (most of the couples being parent/child). There are two teams, red and black. And it seems like there was some type of team shake up last week. It seems as though a father-daughter team switched from the black team to the red and entered some type of “team pact” that would automatically eliminate them if the red team lost the weight in…

And it also seems like the black team had a fatherson team, where the son(Arther) was responsible for the shake up.

Here’s a quick synopsis. The black team didn’t like the shake up but quickly(by the end of the show) accepted Arther on the team. The father/daughter team seemed to accept their fate that they would be eliminated and the father said it would be him over his daughter (what father wouldn’t). As any one could have predicted the red team lost. Ironically at the hands of Arther who lost 20pounds in one week after under performing for the previous few weeks. And the father was eliminated.

OK enough with the reality show drama. what I’m interested in is the process of weight loss, because it is difficult for so many people. I believe everyone would lose weight on The Biggest Loser. When you are pulled from reality and all you have to worry about is your workout and eating right (in a very controlled environment), you will lose weight. Plus the contestants have access to personal trainers all day long, everyday.

My concern is that the show might send the wrong message. On average the red team lost 7.8 pounds during the week, and the black team lost an average of 7.2 pounds during the week. Some of the contestants have lost 90-100+ pounds in just seven weeks. That amount of weight loss should not be considered normal. Everybody is looking for fast, easy weight loss. And The Biggest Loser delivers!

I think the show is setting people up with unrealistic expectations, mostly because the contestants aren’t in a realistic situation.

That being said the general approach that they take to lose weight is the answer to safe effective and permanent weight loss: Proper Nutrition and Exercise.

But I did learn one important thing during the show and that is…Weight loss is emotional, because the weight gain was also emotional!

OK! Now for my favorite quotes of this episode

“Anything is possible”

“No person is an island, you need help from others to be successful”

“I want to be proud of myself”

“I stopped taking accountability of who I was, I have to compete against myself”

“I won’t gain the weight back”

“Let yourself change”

And the Top Quote of the Week!

“We got something back, that we didn’t know we lost”

I think I’ll keep watching and I’ll be back again…next week!