The Biggest Loser… Is the Audience
I watched The Biggest Loser last week – as well as the prior week’s opener, thanks to TiVo. I know what you’re thinking, but, hey, it’s my job and it has to be done. Truth is, I figure it’s about time someone shook America by the lapels and exposed the myths and fallacies in this show, which has become one of the most popular on TV. With all the glowing coverage, the average viewer is starting to think The Biggest Loser somehow represents the indomitability of the human spirit and the triumph of modern bariatric medicine. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a made-for-TV spectacle that has morphed into a cruel hoax perpetrated on the typical overweight person in America who is desperately looking for the weight-loss secret. It shows precisely how NOT to lose weight. Talk about two steps forward and three steps back. A few years ago, I suggested in this post that there were a few things right with the show (I still took them to task for their sponsor choices) but I’ve changed my mind. If this season’s opener, in which two morbidly obese, untrained contestants nearly died trying to race a mile in the heat, is any indication, nothing will do more to prolong the current obesity epidemic than a fixation on the Biggest Loser and its yelling, screaming, puking, crying, collapsing, extreme dieting, six-hour workout mentality. Hell, if I were an obese person watching all this, I’d be thinking, “dude, if this is what it takes to lose the weight, pass me another Twinkie and let’s see what’s on VH1.”
For those few of you unfamiliar with the show, every season NBC gathers 16 or so exceptionally obese people on a remote ranch in Malibu (just up the road from me) and then follows them on a 12-week odyssey of rapid, substantial weight loss as they are coached by two celebrity fitness trainers. Men usually start at 300-400 pounds and women at 200-300, but recently some have shown up weighing in at over 450. During the process, which is actually a competition for a $250,000 first prize, the ones that lose the least amount of weight each week are subject to being voted off campus by the rest. As the season unravels, remarkable bodyweight changes do take place and it’s not unusual for the top finalists to lose over 100 pounds during their stay at the ranch. But as we will soon see, the costs can be significant. After each season is over, we don’t hear of the ones that gain much or most of the weight back (and many do). We don’t hear about the viewers who adopt the Biggest Loser strategy only to virtually guarantee failure once again. We don’t hear about the eating disorders that surely emanate from the guilt and shame from failure at all levels.
The first thing I noticed about this season is that the trainers come off looking more like sadistic prison guards or whacked-out drill sergeants than the caring, loving guides I’d seen on previous seasons. I think I’d like Jillian and Bob if I met them on the street, and in their hearts they probably mean well, but this is reality TV and these guys use every means possible to hammer their poor contestants into whimpering puddles of blood, sweat and tears at every opportunity. Their charges are obese people who have historically had a hard time getting up from the couch, yet are now being berated into multi-hour workouts where F-bombs and other epithets are hurled at every missed step and each pause for breath. “Don’t feel like a four-hour workout today? Loser! Pussy! You should be ashamed of yourself!” I assure you those words will be ringing in their ears long after the contestants have left the ranch, haunting them with guilt every time they sneak a pad of butter onto their steamed broccoli or opt for a 15-minute walk outside instead of an hour on the treadmill.
The assumptions that go into this formulaic weight loss program – and, hence, the lessons that are supposedly being taught to the tens of millions of viewers are, of course, based on faulty Conventional Wisdom. Count calories, watch the fat intake, and exercise as hard as you can for as long as you can, and eventually the theoretical math should work out to lost tonnage. And since virtually everyone on the show loses a significant amount of weight in the twelve weeks, the viewer probably thinks something must be working, right? Wrong. If you are a regular MDA reader, you know by now that losing 5-20 pounds a week of stored body fat week-in and week-out (without losing any muscle) is virtually impossible. Reprogramming genes that have been carb-dependent and insulin insensitive for decades so that they can rebuild efficient, reliable fat-burning systems can’t be done in a few days, nor without sending the proper signals. Stress hormones rise, diuretic hormones kick in, testosterone drops, inflammation increases and all manner of metabolic havoc is loosed. Ah, but it looks great for 12 weeks of compelling television.
If you do the real math and account for hormonal responses and the gene acclimation process, you understand that one to two (maybe three) pounds a week of burned body fat is a safe, effective and bullet-proof way to drop the pounds with some predictability and regularity over the weeks and months until you reach a comfortable, healthy body composition. Instead, in pulling out all the stops for quick results and TV ratings on the Biggest Loser, the producers have chosen the most dangerous methods with the highest long-term failure rates. Just about every workout on TBL looks like someone’s going to have a heart attack or a stroke. And every meal looks like an anemic Jenny Craig leftover.
Here are a few added observations on what’s wrong with TBL:
Water weight is always the first to go. The extreme (and generally very impressive) first week weight-loss numbers are coming from a few short-term adaptations that largely have to do with water weight. Water is lost directly through urine and sweat as many contestants reportedly drink copious amounts of water (eight pounds per gallon) prior to the initial weigh-in simply to pad the “starting” or “before” numbers. Furthermore, a week of intense exercise will deplete glycogen stores, and for every gram of glycogen, four grams of water is also lost. That’s a 5-for-1 deal in short term loss, but eventually the body wants to replenish that glycogen (which is why a week or two later contestants hit a temporary weight-loss plateau). Diuretic hormones start to kick in as a result of the increases exercise stress, and water is excreted from spaces between the cells and even from the bloodstream. All of these have little or nothing to do with healthy weight loss, but a 400-pound man can “easily” lose two or three gallons (25 pounds) in a week this way.
Too much emphasis on counting calories. The show obsesses over calories – especially the tired “calories in, calories out” mantra. Weighing every portion, counting every morsel, cutting fat wherever they can, they drill the math into the participants. “Burn 5000 calories a day doing our grueling workouts and account for the 2,000 per day calorie deficit from eating less and you’ll lose two pounds a day every day.” I have heard reports that some weeks the contestants are limited to just 800 calories per day. (Thank God for the low-cal gum sponsors or they’d be chewing their arms off!) That could theoretically be marginally safe (the 800 calories – not the chewing your arm) if the diet were, say, zero carbs and amount of exercise they were doing were very limited. But in light of the fact that contestants are expected to burn thousands of calories each day, the simple math ceases to work for them. It becomes a multi-variate, non-linear algorithm.
Too much credit given to portion control. The show also obsesses on the “three meals and two snacks” concept, in a doomed attempt to ensure that contestants will never really go hungry. (Ziplock bags is their portion-control sponsor, as are some of the “100-calorie snack” purveyors). Unfortunately, those tiny low-fat meals not only don’t stave off hunger, they tend to promote insulin resistance. The only saving grace there is the fact that contestants are exercising so much, their muscles suck up every gram of carbohydrate.
Too dependent on exercising off the calories. Five, six hours a day in this case. Calories in calories out again…but what they don’t realize is that for a previously carb-dependant person to start exercising that hard and that much, especially on a low fat, low cal diet, is that a significant amount of lean mass will be allocated to fuel. You’ll actually burn precious muscle to keep stoking the carb-fueled exercise fire. Some weeks, after drastically reducing caloric intake and accumulating 15,000 or more total calories on the treadmill LCD, contestants still GAIN weight. How’s that for math? That’s because the body doesn’t know what it needs to do to achieve homeostasis, so it hoards fat, retains water and tears down muscle. We know from the PB that 80% of body composition is determined by diet, if you allow enough time (and the correct diet!). Exercise is a good thing, but too much can get in the way of successful long term weight loss. Notably, this season sees the return of Daniel, a very likable kid who started last season at 454 pounds and lost 142 (down to 312) between the start of the show and the season finale a few months later. Sadly, in the first episode this season, he weighed in at the same 312 despite his admission that he had been working out four hours a day in the months prior to the new season. Four hours of exercise a day got him NOWHERE. It’s all about the diet, folks. And NOT the diet espoused on The Biggest Loser.
Bottom line, if you like soap operas, train wrecks or movies about gladiators, TBL can be mildly entertaining. If you are looking for information on how to effectively lose weight, there’s probably better stuff on VH1.
So how about you? Weigh in today with your thoughts and let me know what you think about The Biggest Loser.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
The thinner you are the less willing your body is to give up its fat and the less fat you’re going to lose and the more muscles you’re going to lose when dieting.
The fatter you are and the more willing your body is to lose its fat and maintain muscles.
Following this simple rule I have always known that very obese people can lose 20 times what an overweight person would.
The rule of losing at most 1 or 2 pounds of pure fat at week doesn’t apply to obese people that can lose dozen of pounds a week safely and easily.
BL is deffinately a huge hoax, it is really sad to see all those people put their heart and soul into it, only to realize at the end of the day that they were climbing the wrong ladder.
I would also love to see Primal Blueprint on TV, but not as a competition, more like a reality documentary type. Where you started from including weight problems and all the illnesses and ailments, and where you are today.
How can you say BL is “deffinately (sic) a huge hoax” when the results are plain to see? Also, winners from previous seasons have KEPT the weight off — where’s the hoax?
Rick check also Anthony Colpo free booklet “They’re all MAD”. He analyzes dozen of studies that prove without doubt that Taubes is wrong on this one (just like he is on exercise)
There’s definitive proof that calories in/calories out doesn’t hold water in the numerous blogs out there where people have adopted primal/paleo/high fat/low carb/low sugar diets and lose weight while eating to their heart’s content. Look at Mark Sisson’s pictures! There are many others I can show you that have adopted this life style with similar success and equally impressive physiques. For the naysayers out there, what do you eat? How do you look? Where are your pics? I’m telling you from experience and observation that calories in/calories out DOES NOT WORK for long term weight loss. If you want to lose weight and maintain a lean physique, Primal is the only way to go. If you’re going to say otherwise, then create a blog, share your diet with us and post your pics to prove your point.
Anthony Colpo is a Paleo ow-carber, I’m a primal diet follower. You don’t have to be supporter of another diet to question the thin theory that only carbs get converted to body fat. In fact the Primal diet would work in both cases: wether a calorie is a calorie of whether a calorie is not a calorie.
Less carbs and more proteins means a better body composition regardless of total weight. It also means less hunger and cravings and hence less calories.
High-carb intake tends to store the extra fat in the abdomen whereas low-carb intake tends to burn fat primarly in the abdomen. Less carbs means less crash and more energy hence more NEAT and more incidental caloric expenditure. A prima diet means also an healthier body and organs and hence smoother processes of transformation and metabolization.
if you follow the food guide and actually eat the required servings and add some exercise watch your carb intake 15grams per serving fat intake 3% per serving drink lots of fluids you will loose weight. Don’t deprive yourself eat smaller portions on a smaller plate it is a trick of the eye if you fill smaller plate you think you ate more but you actually ate less I lost 20 lbs doing this and am still doing it
I think that it is a shame to watch the mesomorphs make fun of the endomorphs. I’ve watched portions of the show and moved on from time to time.
The emphasis on cardio and long gut wrenching workouts make me feel sorry for the contestants. I understand that drama sells.
It seems so sad to watch torture on TV.
Well, hopefully the endomorphs with mesomorphic tendencies will learn that they can start sprinting, sack the trainer, pick her up, keep running with her, then toss her as she squawks with fear and surprise.
…People like that tend to learn their place when they realize that the muscular fat folk can pound them into mush. Especially since it’s hard to tell which fat people are strong and which ones aren’t.
It’s too bad about the people on the show, but as it’s been running for a while, they DID choose it. What’s sad is that they don’t know any other way to go about it.
Thank you for this article. I had been watching the show and using it to inspire me to continue with my own program, but have started to become disappointed with my own results, and thinking that perhaps some of the contestants were barfing or something, because there’s just no way to maintain that level of weight loss. Granted, I only work out for an hour, and I’m only 200 lbs (was 210 when I started), and I eat higher quality food, although I do eat more carbs than I ought and I don’t believe in low-fat or “sugar free” – I eat primarily organic, non-packaged foods, make my own whole wheat bread, drink raw milk, etc.
Perhaps you are familiar with this article: .http://www.mmdnewswire.com/attorney-a-fitness-professional-with-the-nwsf-investigates-the-biggest-lo…ser-2203.html
I also read contestant Kai Hibbard’s myspace blog and she has a lot of interesting things to say about her experience.
Mark, great story as always.
To be honest I started to weep while I read it.
Here is why.
I have never been obese or had to deal with weight problems other then being lazy and choice.
I am currently in my last phase of my second round of P90x and through the whole process along with you MDA and team boards, I have learned proper ways to eat.
Reading I come to see that others pain has become a tool of enjoyment as well as a means to quantify in some a justification that they aren’t fat.
Watching obesity when one “Isn’t as Fat” can on it’s own make us somehow feel good about ourselves as we watch others suffer with the “Wrong methodologies.
I have learned that “right” way to care for my body. And discovered that there is a lot of “Crap” out there to eat that we are spoon fed daily…
Jillian has (had?) an AM radio show on the weekend mornings in Los Angeles. She spouted wayyyy too much junk-science for my taste.
I generally don’t watch very much TV and I think reality shows in general are the most insipid form of “entertainment” on TV (or anywhere else), yet I like TBL and I think it is performing a valuable service, while as you point out, there are significant flaws in how they go about it that diminish the benefit they might otherwise achieve.
As someone who has lost 50 pounds (admittedly, over a period of 9 months) and kept the weight off for 5 years, I realize that there’s one key to successful weight loss: changing your attitude about yourself. Feeling good about yourself. Most people who are obese are depressed and they will never lose weight until they address the underlying cause of their obesity, which is not diet or exercise, but self-image.
Intermixed with the yelling and screaming that Bob and Jillian do, there are some golden moments where they discuss with the contestants what their personal goals are and the reasons for their previous failures. Admittedly, these are too few and far between, but based on the way these discussions are highlighted during the episodes, someone there realizes that this is perhaps the whole point of the show.
Maybe it would better serve the people struggling with their weight to just have a bunch of people who’ve successfully lost weight talk about their transformational personal moments, but I doubt that the ratings would be high enough to keep the show on the air.
So for all its flaws, having this show on the air is, to me at least, better than having no successful show that tens of millions of people will watch that shows the types of transformation that are possible.
HMMM So i went to a casting call for the biggest loser the other day in boston. It sounds like i should’nt be sad if i don’t make it?
I watched the show of the man who gained the weight back. It was really sad to see that he had gained it all back.
-Chris
Personal Talking Scales
I have to admit that I really have no idea who you are Mark, but I thank you so much for this. In the past 10 years due to a number of reasons I have managed to gain a considerable amount of weight. Seeing that some of those reasons are money related, it is very tempting to give becoming a contestant on the biggest looser a shot. But I wondered what I really did have to lose. It seems as I suspected… a lot.
I have known a few people who have had gastric bypass surgery or the lab band and that is a resounding no and not an option for me. I was very athletic up to my late 20′s and I am well aware of the dedication it takes to get in or keep healthy and in shape. And in my mind I didn’t see the biggest looser to be much different then gastric bybass or the lap band.
It drives me crazy that all I hear is that loosing weight rapidly is not healthy, but yet here we are celebrating all these means of doing just that.
While It would be a dream for me and my family to acquire a large some of money from winning a contest of any kind…
I think a bigger blessing is a healthy me. And so I will continue to plug away eating right and exercising and just accept the reward of a longer, healthier life happily.
The season I liked the best was the one with Tara. She was a superwoman! And as far as getting entertainment with other people’s “struggle” I say it’s their choice to be in the show and expose themselves like that. So yes, I will get guilt-free entertainment from the show. But, I will not follow their guidelines, it is not sustainable. And many people who lost weight in the show, ended up gaining it all back again. So what’s the point of working out so hard, looking thin and then once you are out of there, your weight is back on? That goes to show that the contestants were not happy and at their first opportunity they will start eating the foods they like and enjoy some well deserved rest. As Mark said, they probably think that if it takes that much effort to be healthy, then screw it!
LOVE IT! Suuuch a great post. Thanks Mark!
“Loser” means “someone who loses”.
“Looser” means “more loose”.
Seriously, folks, LERN 2 SPEL, ferchristsake!
I was wounded in Iraq in 2004 and went from 175 to 210, and where I live there are trainers with some intials behind there names but that is about it. Then when you look up a fitness camp, well they cost more for a week than I make in a month. So I will keep trying on my own. I quess it is only a rich person’s problem.
Captain Kelly S. Parrson, M.S. , 65D
Unhealthy manner? That is just dumb. Being 450 pounds forever is far more unhealthy than losing weight “the bad way”. And as far as the show being like a schoolyard bully picking on fat kids, I am an overweight man, I am not particularly sensitive about comments about my weight but I really don’t see how making people do what they could not or would not do for themselves is a problem. I know some people gain weight back. But what is the percentage of people on this show that have gained back most or all of the weight they have lost as compared to those that do other diets and or surgery. I see the show as a jumping off point. The people in the first workout are puking and fainting, but that seems to dissipate over the course of the however many weeks they were there. They are left with a motivation and physical ability to actually DO what is healthy when they leave. Of course there are some extreme personalities that will end up practicing unsafe diet and exercise, but for the majority I think it’s just a springboard. Being morbidly obese is more dangerous than the practices on the show. Period.
Now I would suggest to anyone that is hugely overweight to use what God gave you (GOOGLE) and figure out a safe diet and vigorous exercise routine to springboard yourself off the couch. And definitely do whatever it takes to get yourself to a point where you can exercise and not feel like you are going to die. Just do it
I’m really enjoying the theme/design of your blog. Do you ever run into any web browser compatibility problems? A couple of my blog audience have complained about my blog not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Opera. Do you have any suggestions to help fix this problem?
It\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’s good to see blogposts exactly like it! I love when people are very inventive. I shall be back for sure!
I actually know Daniel and he really is a wonderful person. I know this wasn’t the healthiest way to lose weight, and he still works out like a beast, but I have to say that for him it was a wonderful experience. The process may have sucked, but he is incredibly healthy compared to where he was and he found a wonderful loving girl in his second attempt.
I really wish he would try PB now to eliminate the last of the flab and to give him a more relaxing lifestyle, but he’s definitely a disciple of the Biggest Loser fitness and eating. Maybe someday.
well first of all, thank you very much for your time used in this post and even more thanks for your content, actually I really like, I begin to follow your blog more. regards
I have never watched this show, but my guess is that they are feeding the contestants junk. If they were feeding them good healthy raw vegetables instead of sugar, additives, processed foods, white flour, etc., they would be getting healthier. They also would benefit from fresh raw (green) juices. The goal should be HEALTH not losing weight.
Somebody had to say it (yay) – Thanks Mark!
Everything you say is absolutely correct. However, I think the contestants are largely at fault for the effect that the show has on the masses. If the contestants didn’t spend the whole season pretending that walking 3 miles and not eating cupcakes is an amazing feat of human fortitude, then the masses would see the show for what it is: a competition.
MARK SISSON, you are nothing but a liar. The fact you said the trainers called the contestants “Losers” and “Pussies” just shows how nobody should take anything you say seriously. What a fucking tool you are.
The biggest loser show is a big health hazard to any person at any size. It is not normal for any person to exercise four or more hours a day and eat so little and not the proper diets for each indivaul person for each person is different with what he or she can eat. Some people can not eat certailn foods for the food makes them sick or they take certain meds. Fat yes it is bad to have to much however male or female we all need some and women more than men. People are different shapes and sizes still and always will be. To really be fair and true let’s have a show that has all real skinny people on it that is trying to build their bodies up so they can be more strong. Plus my baked cabbage is just as healthy as yours. What is the first thing that your enemy is going to do to you or should do to you is to make you more weak than he or she is.
What is the first thing that your enemy is going to do to you? Make you and your body weak to fat weak or to skinny weak. The Biggest Loser is a show that is totaly stupid and dangerous for people of any size for every person’s diet is a little different because of alergies, meds ect. Plus people come in diferent shapes and sizes and always will. Most people lose to much weight when they get sick oh I could go on and on. I will add this real fact that is that women are to have more fat on their bodies than men.
Rick, good point. But it is NOT just about calories. Insulin levels are a major part of the story, but receptor sites are the other major component. Without receptor sites, insulin has little or no effect on a cell. The distribution of fat cells throughout the body and the number of receptor sites that control access will dictate where and how fat will deposit itself when insulin is elevated. Genes play a major role here. Women have a greater genetic propensity to distribute fat (IE more fat cells) on hips, buttocks, thighs. etc; men tend to accumulate more on their stomachs first. If it were only about insulin levels and not the distribution of fat cells and receptor sites, we’d add fat uniformly throughout(like, on our fingers, feet, faces and knees!). In some populations (like Taubes’ pictures), these genetic predispositions are grossly exaggerated, so a systemic increase in insulin (or, alternatively, an increase in insulin sensitivity, which equals more receptor sites) would predispose one to accumulate fat where the fat cells are waiting and none where there are few or no fat cells (or fewer receptor sites) – despite insulin being uniformly distributed throughout the blood.
I think what Taubes fails to understand is that fat from food is converted to body fat as easily as sugar and even in the absence of insulin.
Basically whatever extra intake of calories force the body to up regulate its fat storing mechanism.
Grok neeeded to store extra fat for when food was scarce and since carbohydrates were scarce it means that his body had to store fat as well.
When food was abundant Grok would gain weight (the simple caloric excess triggering fat storage) and when food was scarce he would lose weight by consuming the extra body fat.
There are tribes that follow this cycle: they get fat before winter and start spring all thin and lean.
After all if you don’t consume an excess of calories and your body needs to draw upon its fuel within, it doesn’t matter whether extra insulin turns sugar into body fat since that fat will be burned by the body if the calories from the diet are not enough.
@Rick,
Yes, McDonald does not have the full picture. But please, read Taubes’ book before you decide. He addresses the very arguments that you bring up. I think you will be very surprised at the thoroughness of his research.
Rick, you do owe it to yourself to read Taubes. Meanwhile, Lyle doesn’t agree with the idea of a metabolic advantage, yet it has been shown to be very real. Clearly, if you want to lose fat, you need to have a net negative calorie intake whereby the deficit is made up from your own stored fat. But this doesn’t necessarily apply to maintainance or even to gaining weight if the macronutrient mix is right. In fact, studies have shown that a very low carb, high fat diet with 1,000 extra calories per day (over average BMR) will not necessarily result in weight gain, since insulin is instrumental in the storage of excess nutrients. The body will increase thermogensis and mitochondrial proton leak to dissipate the extra calories. Meanwhile, the same excess 1000 calories on a high carb diet will cause weight gain. As I say often, calories do have context.
Even the writers who think there’s a metabolic advantage claim it is at most 150 calories. It’s impossible for 1000 extra calories to be dissipated as heat and no study proves such a thing is possible.
And it doesn’t make any sense from an evolutionary perspective. Since carbohydrates were scarce and we needed to store nutrients when food itself was scarce, to waste 1000 calories as heat when the body could just store them (and the body can easily store fat without insulin through Acylation Stimulating Protein) would have declared our premature extinction.
By exactly what mechanism would the body draw upon its fat stores in the presence of excess insulin?
As far as I can tell, when the mechanisms to effectively utilize fat are not in place, the body is more likely to consume muscle tissue in order to maintain glucose levels.
Fat tissue can be stored without insulin present, sure, but that doesn’t really explain how people can eat many more calories a day than they are “supposed” to and still not gain significant fat mass as long as their carb intake is very low. I recall that Taubes does cite an overfeeding study where this very thing is demonstrated. If necessary I can go hunt the reference down.
Of course there has to be some sort of calorie deficit in order to convince the body to draw upon its fat stores. It’s just that they’re much, much harder to get at when there’s too much insulin in the way, and more difficult (but possible) to add on to in insulin’s absence.
…And I’ve gathered you’ve never experienced the post-prandial “OMG I THINK IMMA GONNA DIE OF HEATSTROKE WTFIMABBQ” effect on very-low carb primal. It’s the very reason I don’t like to take my carbs too low, even though weight comes off stupidly fast that way. My best friend doesn’t like to sit anywhere near me when I’m eating right, because I turn into a fleshy space heater. Going out into sub-freezing temperatures shoeless, wearing only shorts and a tank top? BRING IT ON MOTHERCLUCKER