wwhy to people on the Biggest Loser lose weight so fast?

They are working out for many hours a day, as Ziggy pointed out, and it has been estimated that their calories fall in between 1000-1200 calories a day. According to this link, some people after the show developed eating disorders:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/313738-how-many-calories-do-the-biggest-losers-eat-a-day/

I think that show is wonderful to get America thinking about healthy lifestyles, but the changes that are made in these contestants lives are NOT sustainable or healthy over the long run. Do I care about losing weight? Yes. Am I going to starve myself and work out 6 hours a day to do it? No. Because I know that I couldn't keep that up over the long haul. I'm going to continue focusing on measuring my calories, working out, and coming in a couple hundred calories under my BMR every day.

GREAT RESPONSE WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY I DON'T WATCH IT. I THINK THE SHOW IS MOTIVATIONAL FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT BUT NOT FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY DIETING AND WORKING TOWARDS HIS/HER WEIGHT LOSS GOALS.

This is one interview with a past contestant that wasn't happy:

http://www.bodylovewellness.com/2010/06/09/kai-hibbard-biggest-loser-finalist-part-1-of-3/

Some quotes from the article:

“We did one challenge in a stadium in California. It was about 100 degrees that day and the challenge involved running up stairs and then doing the wave all the way around the stadium and then running down the stairs and back across the football field. When we were done, we were obviously covered in sweat, we were all out of shape, and that was a really hard challenge in that heat. They brought us bottles of water that we had packed ourselves in the truck that had been sitting in the heat all day, and they broke out coolers for the trainers, the cameramen, the audio people, and for Caroline Rhea and they had cool water and we drank 90 degree water after we ran the challenge. . . . And actually one of the contestants, Eric, from New York (won my season) lost it at that point and screamed about how we weren’t animals and to please stop treating us like animals and they handled it the way they handled us always, [they] quieted him down, and reminded him how lucky we were to be there, that it was saving his life.“

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“Unfortunately, what they’re telling you the contestants are doing and what they actually have the contestants doing are two different things, at least as far as my season goes. We were working out anywhere between 2 and 5 hours a day, and we were working out severely injured. There’s absolutely no reason to work a 270 pound girl out so hard that she pukes the first time you bring in a gym. That was entirely for good tv.

“There was a registered dietician that was supposed to be helping [the contestants at the ranch] as well . . . but every time she tried to give us advice . . . the crew or production would step in and tell us that we were not to listen to anybody except our trainers. And my trainer’s a nice person, but I have no idea what she had for a nutritional background at all.”

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“The doctor had taken our blood and tested us and sent us a solution, I don’t know exactly what it was but it was salty, so I’m assuming that our electrolytes were off. And when the trainers found out we were taking it, they told us under no certain terms were we to be taking that, because it would make us retain water and gain weight on the scale and we’d have to go home. The doctors had ordered us to take it and the trainers were like, ‘throw it out, right now.’ There was this interference between the people who were actually probably trying to get us healthy from the people who wanted a good television show.“

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“So I got to a point where I was only eating about 1,000 calories a day and I was working out between 5 and 8 hours a day. . . . And my hair started to fall out. I was covered in bruises. I had dark circles under my eyes. Not to get too completely graphic, but my period stopped altogether and I was only sleeping 3 hours a night. I tried to tell the T.V. show about it and I was told, ‘save it for the camera.’

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“I didn’t learn how to dehydrate until I got on the ranch. It was every week. Every single week, this is what a weigh-in would look like: the real weigh-ins were at 10 o’clock in the morning and they were on a cattle scale at the ranch and they weren’t filmed. . . . Now, mind you, it was shot in Simi Valley, so it’s a desert, so it’s hot. And on the morning of the weigh-in you would get up and you’d put on your underwear, your spandex shorts, and you’d put on sweatpants and then you’d put on a sports bra, a tank top, a long sleeve shirt, and your sweatshirt, a ball cap, and then you’d zip up your sweatshirt, you’d put your hood on and you’d go down to the gym. [The gym] wasn’t a real gym, it was a temporary structure just for shooting and it didn’t have any air conditioning and you’d shut all the doors and all the windows in the gym. Then you would work out for two, two and half hours (as long as you could stand it) without any water. (The boys would take water, rinse their mouth out, and spit it. I couldn’t even do that — if I was going to put water in my mouth, I was going to drink it.) Most, if not everybody, had cut their water about 24 hours beforehand, if not 24 hours then at least by 5 o’clock the afternoon before. And then, you would drink coffee if you had anything the night before, because (a) it would clean your system out and (b) it would dehydrate you.

“So after you did the 2 hours of working out in full sweat, sweating off as much as you can, you would go back to the house, shower, blow dry your hair, and strip down to the lightest clothing you could find, which was usually spandex shorts and a sports bra. Then you’d go downstairs and you’d weigh yourself in and the second you got off that scale you would chug water because you were so dehydrated. ”

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“You really get brainwashed into thinking everything’s your fault, [that] you’re just not strong enough, you’re just not good enough. . . . For example, Heather, on my season, was told by the medical trainer, not one of the personal trainers, . . . ‘Here’s the deal, both your knees are messed up, and I believe you ripped your calf muscle.’ So he told the trainer that too but when you watch the show, Heather’s arguing with our trainer and saying, ‘Look, I can’t do it.’ And they made it look like it’s because she’s lazy and refuses to work out, when actually she’s been told by the doctors, ‘Do not run, do not do this, you cannot do this.’ And production and her personal trainer wanted her to do it anyway, just for the cameras. And when she refused to do it for the cameras because it would have damaged her body even more (she ended up needing steroid shots in both knees while we were still there by the way) it was edited to make her look like she was lazy and disobedient, basically.

I love that programme, in the UK on a Tuesday evening they have Biggest Loser USA on (season 10), BIggest Loser UK and Biggest Loser Australia, so I have an overdose of Biggest Loser on that day.

They do ridiculous amounts of exercise though and that is why they lose shed loads of weight. They wouldn't lose that amount in a week in the real world

My statement was very true. They do get a top nutrionist and they are taught nutrition information. I tried out for the show and got as much info as possible.

Let me clarify, the information presented on the show is not all quality nutritional information. If your definition of top nutritionist is someone advocating excessive VLCDs combined with several hours of daily training, then we just have a different view as to what "top nutritionist" is.

They're not only working out 6+ hours a day, but they have very regulated food intake. On top of that, when they leave the show, most of them put that weight right back on. TBL does not show a healthy way to lose weight. It's a game show to see who can lose the most weight.

I guess I'll go with what you say since you were on the show...

I guess I'll go with what you say since you were on the show...

LOL

I wasn't on biggest loser, so clearly I cannot separate entertainment and poor nutrition information from quality information.