The Biggest Loser, the worst show on TV

I like Jillian's exercise videos, but I have to say that the show itself annoys me- when someone loses 'only 5lb' in a week, it makes me wanna throw the tv out of the window. Anywhere else, that would be a HUGE and admirable loss! God, if I lost 'only' 5lb a week for 3 weeks I would be past my bloody goal!

Also. Regarding dehydrating to the point of pissing blood? *shudder*

One of the trainers from the UK version was fired for getting her contestants to eat apples and seeds for a week. She killed herself relatively recently and I wondered if it was anything to do with the stress. Saying that I don't think the UK ones go as hardcore? They don't seem to lose as much money.

And finally. Some of the contestants on that show are such *kitten* that I want them to GAIN weight.

Though I'm not a big fan of the "game show/reality show" aspect of The Biggest Loser, I have to say that it is because of the show that I got my *kitten* in gear and started down my path to a healthy lifestyle. Back in 2007/2008, I watched the show and took notes through 2 seasons of the show, picking up tips on how to eat and exercise. I was the most unmotivated person there is an knew nothing about health, working out and weight loss before watching the show. A slightly shy and introverted person, I was too shy to go out and ask for help. So, from the tips and lessons and examples I picked up from the show, I gained a great interest in becoming healthy and fit for life. I began researching more and more and worked up a diet and exercise program all of my own which helped me to lose 145 lbs from March 2008-Feb 2009. Granted, I did fail come Christmas 2009 and gained most all of the weight back, but that was due to not being as fully educated as I thought I was. Since March 2012, I've lost 117 lbs, again using the plan that I created for myself that all started from what I learned watching the Biggest Loser. I have since also learned that this is not a diet, but a lifestyle. That is something I had not learned the first time around.

With that said, for someone like me that did not know where to start and was afraid to just get out there and ask, the show provided a great inspiration to me to learn and to keep pushing forward and taught me that by breaking out of the box, so to speak, I could achieve the results that I wanted. Looking past the game show part, I think the show is a great inspiration and motivation to get someone started.

Here's a trick for you. Do an engine search for "Biggest Loser gained weight back." You'd be amazed how many hits you get with it.

I'm so glad I DON'T watch the show because IMHO, it's the most faulty version of motivation I've ever seen. I've transformed my life in less than a year, but not enough to warrant being on Biggest Loser.

What forced me to change my life was getting diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. I've gone from 181 the day I was diagnosed in January down to 135 today. It's taken me nearly 11 full months to do this, and I have NO intention of gaining that weight back, either! I don't need the Biggest Loser for motivation, when diabetes did it for me already!

I will always remember this one episode where Alison Sweeney said, "If everyone loses ## pounds this week, NO ONE will get eliminated." The problem was, with 38 minutes left in the episode, I already knew that wasn't going to happen. I'd rather be real than watch a show that makes some of the most unrealistic goals I've ever seen.

Good for them for getting healthier and I hope they keep the weight off.

Most of them don't keep the weight off. Keeping the weight off is a life time commitment to the lifestyle you lived while losing the weight, with SOME modification, a FEW more calories, a FEW minutes less at the gym. It is completely unrealistic for a person to live the Biggest Loser "life style" for the rest of their lives, even with a few minor modifications. Going from "I work out 8-9 hours a day while crying and eating nothing and puking even that back up because I work out until I feel like dying" to a more healthy diet/schedule is a drastic change. Most of them leave the show believing that what they learned on Biggest Loser IS a healthy lifestyle, and they probably feel like big losers when they realize that they can't live that lifestyle forever.

Live the lifestyle you are willing to live for the rest of your life while you are losing weight. It's about lifestyle change, not about a few pounds on a scale.

People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.”
― Jess C. Scott, Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody

Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.
Woody Allen

When you're young, you look at television and think, there's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.
Steve Jobs

The nuclear generator of brain sludge is television.
Dave Barry

“Truth is often hard to swallow, so we rest in comfortable lies and delusions.”
– Dorothy Anne Seese, Freelance political writer

If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves." -- Howard Zinn, historian and author

Let's face it. Reality show are anything but.

I do not watch much tv but I just think it's amazing how much weight these people lose. Who cares why they're doing it or why they didn't do it before? Good for them for getting healthier and I hope they keep the weight off.

Wrong. They dehydrate before every weigh in, work out in as much clothing as possible when the cameras are off, and after the finale, almost all of the contestants gain 10-20 pounds in water weight because they weighed in SO dehydrated. Season 1 winner dehydrated to the point where he pissed blood for the final weigh in.

Yeah, show us that.... We need to see real plateaus, real struggle, real breakthroughs.

This last season, there was a week where most of the black team didn't lose or gained weight for the week so they could vote off the returning do it from home chick.. I thought how could they have eaten when the place isn't packed with ****ty food? The answer, they simply didn't dehydrate themselves for their weigh in.

What the $&^*(^&*%

....how would you possibly know about this pissing blood and such??? seriously....I am curious?? Do you watch the show? You clearly follow it - but for what reason, work? Honestly, super curious...

If you do a couple google searches for "The Truth Biggest Loser" you will find the season 1 winner's blog, blurbs here and there about why Caroline Rhea left the show, Season 3's Kai Hibbard, and many many more stories out there that have slipped by the NBC censors.

I loved the show, and tried to emulate them. They were losing SO much weight each week, and I knew that I couldn't duplicate their success, I knew they were working out 6-8 hours a day - But I didn't know they got around the dehydrating issue. As you lose fat your body holds onto more water until it whooshes, it's called dieter's edema.

There's a reason why the trainer from season 3 never came back or the two new trainers from season 11 never came back. When someone sees what goes on behind the scenes...

I really thought there was something wrong with me, If the guys there could lose ten pounds a week, SURELY I could lose ONE.. but a week isn't a week, they weigh every ten days, two weeks. Sometimes its shorter.. They dehydrate to get around water retention, They eat no more than a thousand calories a day, most of it rabbit food.

I mean you can find all this info doing a google search, I'm just a guy from his home wondering why it's not working!

"Let's see, insert peg A into slot B and-OH SCREW IT JUST PRESS BUTTONS!!"

Wow! I watched the first few seasons, knowing it was totally unrealistic for the general folk, however, I had no idea about the behind the scenes. Pretty scary!

I watched the past season without Jillian; only Bob and Dolvett. I was.. kinda stunned at how it was so fricken dramatic. Nothing but cat fights and the team members purposely doing things to get someone they didn't like voted off. I was kind of curious to watch one more time since Jillian will be back, but.. your points make so much sense that I might just save myself the dvr space.

Good for them for getting healthier and I hope they keep the weight off.

Most of them don't keep the weight off. Keeping the weight off is a life time commitment to the lifestyle you lived while losing the weight, with SOME modification, a FEW more calories, a FEW minutes less at the gym. It is completely unrealistic for a person to live the Biggest Loser "life style" for the rest of their lives, even with a few minor modifications. Going from "I work out 8-9 hours a day while crying and eating nothing and puking even that back up because I work out until I feel like dying" to a more healthy diet/schedule is a drastic change. Most of them leave the show believing that what they learned on Biggest Loser IS a healthy lifestyle, and they probably feel like big losers when they realize that they can't live that lifestyle forever.

Live the lifestyle you are willing to live for the rest of your life while you are losing weight. It's about lifestyle change, not about a few pounds on a scale.

That's it, right here! I've made a lifetime commitment to keeping this weight off, and I plan to keep it real with my simple plan:

1. Watch WHAT I eat.
2. Watch HOW MUCH I eat.
3. Drink LOTS of water.
4. Exercise MORE.

So none of ya'll have the right to judge the biggest loser contestants or any overweight person who struggles with losing weigh. Speak not on what you do not know.

Follow your own advice, because you utterly and completely missed the point of the thread.

Nobody here is judging or "hating" the contestants. No - rather it's disgust with the methods that the trainers and/or producers have used to make good television while putting the contestants at unnecessary risk. Seriously - read the interview with Kai Hibbard and then try telling anyone that what the producers/trainers have been doing is acceptable.

I'm really curious about how morbidly obese people are able to work out for 8 hours a day. I had a job that required me to hike fifteen miles a day (an eight hour day) two or three times a week. I found that pretty taxing, and I was in triathalon competing shape at the time. I don't think I could do that seven days a week. Even backpacking, I can only do ten+ mile days for 2-3 days before I am hurting pretty badly.

So none of ya'll have the right to judge the biggest loser contestants or any overweight person who struggles with losing weigh. Speak not on what you do not know.

Follow your own advice, because you utterly and completely missed the point of the thread.

Nobody here is judging or "hating" the contestants. No - rather it's disgust with the methods that the trainers and/or producers have used to make good television while putting the contestants at unnecessary risk. Seriously - read the interview with Kai Hibbard and then try telling anyone that what the producers/trainers have been doing is acceptable.

Thank you! I've lost my weight by just changing what I've done in my life. I've made those changes into habits, and they'll stick with me for the rest of my life.

I have never had to rely on TBL for motivation at all. There is no way I could ever work out for 8 hours a day, especially since I have a job that's exactly 8 hours long. I'll just stick to what I'm doing and be happy with it.

Now, if I were to run into someone who really is struggling to lose weight, I would give 'em some encouragement by saying, "I've been there, friend. It can be done, but it's up to you."

I do agree with you somewhat when it comes to the Biggest Loser, BUT if it has changed 1 persons life or saved a persons life that that's all the reason we need to support a show.

But at what cost? out of the hundreds of contestants now who have been on the show, if just 1/100th of them develop an eating disorder or some kind of unhealthy complex, was the shows motivation of "even one person" enough to justify their destructive and haphazard ways of training and getting results?

I still stand by hating the show because of the dehydration issue. Show us people who work out sure, but have them weigh in while fully hydrated - what am I saying, a reality show that shows "reality" on tv.. hah! what a laugh.

/soapbox

Hate to point out the obvious, but a lot of people going to weight watchers meetings dehydrate before going to weigh in. My mom quits drinking anything like noon the day before her weigh in day.

Dehydration for weight loss is nothing new nor anything special to Biggest Loser.

I hate this show so much. If they really cared for people show them how to eat and excercise properly. Instead they have them ridicolous competitions and have them vote each other off. It's a circus.