The Biggest Loser

I find the show entertaining, but I don't think it represents the reality most SMO people deal with. The situation is completely artificial, and the prize incentive creates an artifical endpoint. If you want to maintain a weightloss, you need to know that there is no endpoint -- you need to change the way you eat and exercise for life. I also wonder how many of the people who lost weight hoping to win the second place prize went out right after taping the final show to have a celebratory pizza? I'm thinking a few of them. Not everyone opted to participate in the final taping last time, which suggests that you had some who fell off the diet wagon. With rare exceptions, I have a feeling that a lot of the people who participate in the show will go down the same path as most successful dieters: they won't keep the weight off, or will gain it back. Has a woman ever won on the show? It seems to me that they choose people who will show the most dramatic results. Have they ever had a woman on the show over 300 pounds? Or 350? Because when that woman manages to take off 100 pounds, she still isn't going to look like Barbie. The men usually start with a higher BMI and have an advantage. I also hate it that there are people who've had surgery who get harassment because of this show. Friends who've never had weight issues will point to it and say "Well, you took the easy way -- you could've done it like the people on the show!" Except that most of us don't have a personal chef, personal trainer and two months to spend in seclusion focusing only on weight loss. I started at 571 pounds. I'm pretty sure I'd've had some problems with lugging 50 pounds of ice cream across the desert. I did lose 50 pounds before surgery. I did it slowly, and my personal trainer was me. I also had people ask me if losing 50 pounds meant I didn't need surgery. I told them it didn't; I doubt I could lose all the weight I need to by conventional methods. I know I couldn't keep it off. The biggest losers aren't the people on TV. I've seen profiles on this site of people who've lost as much as 400 pounds. It doesn't play to the old puritain work ethic Americans love (despite the actual work involved in having surgery and making it work for you as you lose weight), but it's a huge accomplishment.

I don't have enough time to address all that you said, I broke out in hives all over my body... head to toe... and I'm going to bed as the antihistimines are making me drowsy. But I will say this. Only one of the people from the last season chose not to come to the final taping. He was voted out in week one and is the ONLY person from the show to have anything negative to say about it. Everyone else was there and had lost weight. All but one other lost significant amounts of weight. Some lost over 150 pounds. I doubt very much that there were many "celebratory pizzas" being eaten. There is certainly more than one way to deal with obesity. You do yours, I'll do mine. I have no issue with weight loss surgery. I've simply chosen to opt out. Cheers