Thoughts on the biggest loser?

I think it is far too extreme, and without the support of this show none of the contestants would be successful. It works for the contestants but is hardly showing realistic lifestyle and fitness changes to motivate their audience. From someone to go from 400 lb to suddenly doing hours of exercise a day and eating a restrictive diet (not to mention some of the weird things they get them to eat), away from all their usual support systems... well I think it is a great opportunity for the contestants to turn their lives around but also sends a message that it is essential to take such extreme measures for a morbidly obese person to lose weight, which I think is really misleading.

I think that the lets hug it out bull**** approach to weight loss is why so many people have a weight problem in the first place, I lost 91 llbs and still have some weight to shift and it was because a personal trainer kicked my *kitten*! Yes I was motivated to do it too but I think the likes of Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels are to be applauded for the work and transformation they do to these peoples lives...

I will continue to watch it because it inspires me and reminds me that I will NEVER put that weight back on! for some people extreme is the only way forward because getting to 300 + pounds is extreme and frankly its either put up with a bit of shouting ( positive motivation ) or die!

People who go on the show know exactly that it works and know what they are in for so to call it bullying is just ridiculous !! if more people adopted that approach there wouldn't be the massive obesity problem worldwide! I come from a country where its deemed that over 50% of the population are deemed overweight and within that 30% are obsess.

and before you all get on your high horse that I'm being judgmental I was a fat person and still consider myself fat but instead of *****ing about it I'm working my *kitten* off to change it!

Good day folks

I was about to make a new thread asking this very thing, and searched first instead. I had never seen this show, heard of it? Yes. Seen it? No. Not until this season. I haven't seen any "bullying" but it has really confused me. I mean, what I have seen time and time again on this board is losing more than 2 lbs a week isn't the best thing, or the safest. Then I watch this show and see them lost I think up to 20lbs on one ep. HOW can they lose so much in one week?? Sometimes its only 3lbs but many times its been 6+. How are those results reached, and how is it safe?

At first it motivated me, and now, it borders on motivation and depressing, because it is so hard just to lose 1lb, let alone 20lbs.

That's exactly why I have a problem with it. Firstly, the big losses you see are not in just one week, a "week" on the show is actually quite a bit longer than a week, plus contestants are encouraged to do unhealthy things like dehydrating for the weigh in, so they see the big scale weight losses. And a lot of that will be water, not fat. You can see big losses in scale weight by deliberately depleting yourself of glycogen and dehydrating yourself, but it'll be mainly water and the amount of actual fat you lose will be no more than someone who lost 1-2lb the healthy way.

Focus on losing fat, pure fat, nothing but fat, and that changes the whole game. What's a 6lb weight loss worth, if 4lb of it is water? If you go about it the healthy way, i.e. sensible deficit, exercise, sustainable lifestyle changes, you might see only 1lb a week weight loss, maybe even less than that, but if what you're losing is pure fat and it's not going to come back because you can maintain the lifestyle that's making you lose fat slowly, then does it really matter that it's only 0.5-1lb on the scale each week?

Hmm, didn't realize a "week" isn't a normal week on the show. I would be happy with 1-2lbs a week if I could get that constantly. It just did confuse me and had me wondering HOW that was possible.