52,500 Calorie burn per week

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JaimeNay
JaimeNay Posts: 80 Member
in Food and Nutrition
If you watch the Biggest Loser, have you ever noticed how the contestants can lose 15 lbs. per week? If you go by the calorie in verses the calories burned theory, they've got to burn 52,500 calories a week, or 7,500 calories per day.

That's insane. How do they do that? Just wondering if anyone else has watched them lose that much and wonder how they do it? Of course they can work out all day long if they choose, but how do they sustain energy and still lose that much weight? Anyone know how much they eat a day (in calories) and still pull big numbers?

I know it's not healthy, just curious.

Anyone else have a thought they'd like to share about this?

Replies

  • shannieboo
    shannieboo Posts: 144 Member
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    bump
  • tseabee
    tseabee Posts: 22
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    I don't think their week is an actual "7 day week" on the show, i think it's longer
  • auroranflash
    auroranflash Posts: 3,569 Member
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    Good question... I'd guess they do work out all week as their fulltime job. If a million bucks were on the line, I'm guessing a lot of them don't eat as much as they should? Also they're larger so they burn more calories exercising.... x_o I don't know, really.
  • RAFValentina
    RAFValentina Posts: 1,231 Member
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    mostly water weight and control on how much is being guzzled like how much soda etc and salt.
  • Sheri3182
    Sheri3182 Posts: 88 Member
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    Bump!
  • LilynEdensmom
    LilynEdensmom Posts: 612 Member
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    I've wondered the same thing.
  • Behavior_Modification
    Behavior_Modification Posts: 24,482 Member
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    Great topic!

    When I was 300lbs+ I could easily burn 750 cals/hour - but that would be 10hrs of working out per day! YIKES!!! :noway:
  • JaimeNay
    JaimeNay Posts: 80 Member
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    But what's crazy is one of the women weighed in last at 150ish lbs and lost 15 lbs that week, dropping her down 130ish lbs. Amazing!
  • logatha
    logatha Posts: 5
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    It's because when you are that overweight, you burn WAAAAAY more calories than even a slightly overweight person. i wouldnt be surprised if they can burn close to 2,000 calories (or more) in one hour of activity...
    They have alot more weight to carry around.
  • abbygm
    abbygm Posts: 7 Member
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    I run marathons and even on days when I run 20 plus miles I rarely burn more than 2500 calories -- so I think maybe the week is more then 7 days?
  • amberiam
    amberiam Posts: 55 Member
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    You guys may find this article interesting:

    http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/9880085/ns/today-entertainment/t/how-does-loser-cast-drop-so-much-weight/
  • tameko2
    tameko2 Posts: 31,634 Member
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    I don't think their week is an actual "7 day week" on the show, i think it's longer even tho for the show they go week by week

    I think I have heard this before too.

    Also, a 400 lb person exercising every day is looking at like a 6000 TDEE every day. And don't they have them eating pretty low cal? So they have people burning 6000 calories a day and eating 2000 calories a day. 4000/week at a 14 day "week" comes out pretty close to what you are talking there.
  • Shenni83
    Shenni83 Posts: 2
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    I think a big part of it is that they have personal dieticians on the show to make sure they are eating the correct amount of calories/foods plus their own personal trainers... The few episodes that I've watched were with really out of shape, large people (no offense to anyone) and that makes it much easier to lose the weight faster because they have the weight to lose/convert initially... Once they are off the show (not to mention smaller and in much better shape) I bet that they go to the normal 1-2 pounds lost per week....
  • fitterpam
    fitterpam Posts: 3,086 Member
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    According to a consultant on the show:

    Dansinger says that "50 to 60 percent of [contestants’] weight-loss success comes from dietary change." They're used to consuming around 3000 calories a day, but on the show consume about 1500 calories a day. As he says, "few people are really in a position to cut their calories by 1500 a day, but that's what these people are able to do." He says there's "nothing controversial" about the diet, nor are the contestants given pills or other shortcuts.

    The other 40 to 50 percent of weight loss comes from the three hours of exercise the contestants do every day: an hour of strength training and two hours of cardio. That helps them burn an additional 1200 to 1500 calories, Dansinger says. "It's hard to do by yourself, but on the show it's easy to do," he said. "When people allow themselves to be put in that kind of environment ... when you pull out all the barriers to weight loss, that's when the weight loss can come very quickly."

    I've also heard that they employ some pretty dangerous activities right before taping, like not drinking water, not eating within a certain amount of time before taping. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/25/biggest-loser-contestants_n_370538.html
  • tuppance
    tuppance Posts: 132 Member
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    I am pretty sure that on one of the British biggest loser programmes Davina mentioned that the contestants did 5 serious workouts per day

    ......and didn't Jillian michaels get sacked for getting some of her team to not drink water for a while before they weighed in? I could be wrong there though
  • HeatherHoskins
    HeatherHoskins Posts: 157 Member
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    I have heard the people on the show talk about how they work out about 6 hours a day. They do workouts with the trainers and then get "homework" to do before bed. It does not supprise me at all that a 400 lb person suddenly eating clean and working out all day can drop so much weight.
  • netsirk12
    netsirk12 Posts: 220 Member
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    there was an article done where the weeks were really 2-3 weeks. They just make pieces to film and show each week.
  • dstyle811
    dstyle811 Posts: 4 Member
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    Im not really sure but I know the olympic swimmer Michael Phelps burns 4,000 calories a day just swimming alone and does other workouts throughout the day so obviously to have this kind of burn u cant hv a serious career because i just can see it.
  • JaimeNay
    JaimeNay Posts: 80 Member
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    Thanks for the info. I read the articles some of you posted and it was helpful in knowing how the show works. They still do major burning and put a lot of effort into thier workouts. If only we all had the time to do nothing but commit fully to our workouts and nutrition, we'd all be fit and happy in a few short months.
  • lesnak
    lesnak Posts: 1
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    You burn a a lot weight when you weigh more. So if you carry around an extra 50kgs on you and work out then you will notice a different.

    But also there are different types of fat types within our body. You may notice when your losing weight you always lose it in certain places, some places you dont want and other places you wish would just go. This is because they are over weight that fat isnt as dense as a leaner person may be the first couple first couple of kgs come off after some time (everybody is different). You may even notice on the final weeks of the biggest loser they go from losing 7-8 kgs a week to 2kgs a week.

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