How do they do it on Biggest Loser?

Bobby__Clerici · December 2012

TBL seems like an encyclopedia of everything one should not do.
I am content with steady, slow and most important...LASTING results.

yourenotmine · December 2012

They all seem to have injuries all the time. And I've seen several of them puke. And, it's a TV show - who knows what's really happening?

DoingitWell · December 2012

TBL seems like an encyclopedia of everything one should not do.
I am content with steady, slow and most important...LASTING results.

ditto and to date no injuries

LeslePG · December 2012

Don't let it get you down, you have to start somewhere! And they have shown the BL contestants throwing up

Don't think most of us could handle that kind of intensity

LernRach · December 2012

omg I absolutely love that program, makes me feel so thin :-)

seriously, I wondered that too. also, I watch the UK version and I remember one of the girls who won or who came second said seh lost all her weight from running and cutting out some food!!! I dont know... how can that be possible. When seh was 21 stone she couldnt run at all right? she then lost about 10 stone... it didnt happen from a bit of running or I would be anorexic

myfitnessisavirtue · December 2012

Why do we assume that all of them didn't exercise before? You can exercise and still gain weight. Not every obese person sits on the couch all day.

seansquared · December 2012

Uh..

It's TELEVISION, and it's FAKE.

Flixie00 · December 2012

I am always curious about how the contestants cope post filming. I am always impressed at how well they did away from the cameras when it comes to the final weigh in show, but do they keep off the weight once their series is over?

Not a big fan of the show, and for some reason I always felt the need to eat a big bag of Maltesers when watching an episode

MusicInMyHeart · December 2012

There is a lot of creative editing I'm sure :P

^^^This.

DebraYvonne · December 2012

I really think they ease into at first. They don't want anyone dying. Someone from my area won the last one I think ... Patrick something and it changed his life. He is now doing motivational talks all over and is a fitness trainer. I think it encourages me but also I know we all do not have access to all this physical and other training they have.

OnionMomma · December 2012

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40423712/ns/today-entertainment/t/biggest-loser-where-are-they-now/#.UOCOn-RZWqg

I found this. It seems like alot of them gain weight back, some of them alot of weight.

kdeaux1959 · December 2012

"The Biggest Loser" is actually a show on how NOT to properly lose weight. It is a "reality" show which means it is based in drama and ratings, not in reality....

MaraDiaz · December 2012

They do not have there family, work or any other distractions.

This is what I was thinking. Plus they have meals prepared for them I'm sure. Healthy, high-energy meals.

larryc0923 · December 2012

There is a lot of creative editing I'm sure :P

Editing is what I do for a living.

Scenes of vomiting may work on certain cable channels, but they don't work on prime time broadcast channels. If a contest gets sick from over exerting themselves, that scene is cut out.

A contestant may be curled up in the fetal position bawling for 45 minutes because they can't take it anymore. The producer and editor will select about 10 seconds of the crying and then choose a good take of Bob yelling at the contest to get moving. The time is magically compressed to tell the story in a compelling way.

If a contest nearly passes out due to dehydration and is tended to by medical personnel the scene is edited out. Because this sheds a poor light on the show itself. Dehydrating contestants getting ready for a weigh in is dangerous.

All shows on television have been altered in some way to craft the story line. Reality type shows are the most altered shows on television today. The shortest trip to craft reality television is the careful placement of the reaction shot (aka cutaway shot). Reality shows involve recording hundreds of hours of footage to put together a single one hour show. That footage is carefully logged resulting in a library dozens of reaction shots from the various characters. The reactions range from joy to sadness to everything in between (anger, fear, curious, confused, etc.).

Consider two versions of a scene:

version A
Sally: "I just can't take it anymore - I'm thinking about quitting"
***cutaway to Larry (sad) ***

version B
Sally: "I just can't take it anymore - I'm thinking about quitting"
***cutaway to Larry (laughter) ***

In version A, Larry is a caring and sympathetic person. In version B, Larry is a shallow insensitive jerk. The producer and editor have the power to present Larry to the audience in whatever form they choose regardless of Larry's true nature. This is what reality television really is, the producers altered version of the story.

I don't understand why some users here on MFP hold up the Biggest Loser as some sort of real life example of how to lose weight. The show is so far from the truth is should be labeled as fiction. On this site you'll find real people with real lives (not a game show) that have found reasonable, healthy ways to lose weight. Stop looking to reality television for motivation.

Thank you for this excellent information.

bearkisses · December 2012

i thought the exact same thing after my first bootcamp class!!!!!

ninerbuff · December 2012

If a gunman held a gun to your head and said "if you don't complete this workout today, you're dead"...........................you'd find a way to complete it. That's their mentality. Unfortunately, most people don't feel this way about their life which is why they got very overweight or obese in the first place.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

SherryTeach · December 2012

Among the many problems with the show is the over-emphasis on exercise as a weight loss tool. Exercise is for fitness and is an important part of health, but losing weight is mostly about eating at a calorie deficit. I see the effects of the exercise thinking all the time, especially here on the MFP boards among some of the users who can't understand why they aren't losing weight with the hundreds of hours of high intensity cardio they are doing.