28 Jan 2010 ‘Biggest Loser’ fever

Then again, it is a reality show. If you were on TV weighing in front of millions of viewers wouldn’t you do whatever it takes to lose weight? 

It pains me to watch a reality contestant get so disappointed when he or she only loses 7 pounds in one week! Really? The process of losing weight is hard enough. I wonder how many TV viewers aspire to the same weight loss expectations of “The Biggest Loser.”

Let’s put the reality show in some perspective. We know that the contestants exercise 8-10 hours a day. There have been rumors that some contestants have even exercised throughout the night for that extra calorie burning edge. 

What they eat is a bit unclear. There is some education for the contestants regarding calories in foods and what they should be eating, however it seems quite sketchy. If you want to know what diet they follow you must buy “The Biggest Loser” book, of course.  Rumors abound about the lengths contestants go to with their eating.

How can they lose so much weight? Keep this in mind: It takes a deficit of 500 calories a day to lose one pound per week. I’m not sure that many people are aware of how many calories it takes to maintain 300-500 pounds of body weight.

For example, a 20-year-old male who weighs 475 pounds and is 6 feet tall would have to eat 4300-5000 calories a day to maintain that weight. If that person reduced his calories to 1,800, he would lose 5 pounds per week from diet alone.
With exercise, the more you weigh the more calories you burn. It is interesting to compare the obese man to a man of normal weight (see table).

In just three hours, the 475-pound man would burn 3,900 calories which would promote approximately 8 pounds of weight loss in one week (that’s 2,570 calories more than the normal weight man). Eight pounds for exercise and five pounds from diet would give the obese man a 13-pound weight loss in one week.

As we know, the Biggest Loser contestants exercise much more than three hours per day.  If he does exercise for eight hours, he would lose roughly 23 pounds in one week (including the five pounds from diet). Perhaps now you can see how the weight loss adds up in the world of reality TV.

The real question of course is how many contestants will keep off the weight and for how long. There is a lot more to it than calorie burning and calorie restricting. 

The psychology of weight loss is a vital component. Most health professionals know that fast weight loss equals a poor success rate of keeping the weight off. Some studies indicate a 95 percent failure rate among people who lose weight quickly. 

No one talks about this aspect of weight loss. The most successful rate of rate loss continues to be ½-2 pounds per week. I wonder how many people would tune in to a reality show based on slow weight loss and realistic exercise.