36 lbs in one week??

i remember reading an interview with someone who had competed on the show years ago and they said alot of times, they will maniuplate the scales. such as, before their weigh-in, they will eat bananas & drink tons of water, then weigh-in. then the next week, they will starve themselves before the weigh-in so they will appear to lose alot. if there is a particular game being played, they can also either gain or not lose, so as to manipulate who is eliminated or "win" that particular game for the week. also, they don't weigh on the scale shown on t.v. they weigh off-stage and don't get to see their weight. the "scale" on the stage that we see isn't even a real scale. it's all for show, they just plug-in the actual weight from backstage and put it on the digital monitor above on the stage.

i remember reading an interview with someone who had competed on the show years ago and they said alot of times, they will maniuplate the scales. such as, before their weigh-in, they will eat bananas & drink tons of water, then weigh-in. then the next week, they will starve themselves before the weigh-in so they will appear to lose alot. if there is a particular game being played, they can also either gain or not lose, so as to manipulate who is eliminated or "win" that particular game for the week. also, they don't weigh on the scale shown on t.v. they weigh off-stage and don't get to see their weight. the "scale" on the stage that we see isn't even a real scale. it's all for show, they just plug-in the actual weight from backstage and put it on the digital monitor above on the stage.

This manipulation was true for the early US series'. That's why they changed it in future version around to world to be "You have immunity at the weigh in, so long as you dont gain weight".

As for the weigh in, i agree, its how they can set the drama just right and get people weighed in in the right order for maximum impact.

When I weighed 230 lb and started my weight loss journey the first week I lost 12 lbs. To me that is a lot on a 230lb woman.

Is 36 lbs a lot on a 400+ lb person? Not really when you consider that most of those people lived off meals consisting of pure junk. I'm sure it was nothing for most of those 400 lb folks to eat 1200 calories in one meal. Some probably even did that all 3 meals a day or more! Add to that no exercise and a more than sedentary lifestyle and then throw them in an environment where they are eating only healthy foods and exercising for hours a day... yes 36 lbs in one week (or even two) is completely doable.

Let me also say that I do not agree with everything BL does 100%. I do think a LOT of it is "for tv."

When you are 400 lbs or more, losing 36 lbs in one week is difficult but not out of the ordinary, especially if that is their first real week of VERY strenuous activity coupled with a VERY restricted diet.

It's when you get down closer to your goal weight that weight loss slows.

The people on Biggest Loser are typically morbidly obese. As such, week 1 numbers SHOULD be high for their weight loss.

This. Also a lot of it could have been water weight. For a 400lb person...that's not that crazy for him to be carrying around that much in water.

I can't see any way that such a loss can be healthy. What I can so is that they are supervised by trained professionals so, for his sake, I hope it was water weight. Either way it goes, that is too much...too soon.

It's not really very safe, but it's all medically supervised. I wouldn't try that at home or expect those same results outside of the biggest loser gym.

Not sure if anyone said this... but if you google it - a lot of past contestants said that a "week" in the biggest loser house, or what we perceive is a week is actually more like 2-3 weeks.

At least that's what I've read. A lot of it is deceiving and don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of the show and it motivates me to wanna push myself super hard in the gym but it can really make you feel like crap if you're seeing these huge weight losses on people and thinking it's taking place in an actual week, when it's not.

edit: here's one link that a previous contestant revealed it's not always a week.
http://www.tampabay.com/features/media/former-biggest-loser-competitor-kai-hibbard-calls-the-show-unhealthy/1084764

Love that quote!! So TRUE!