The Biggest Loser - (Hint: it's not me...)

When my dear little Piggie and I started this blog, we were both full of the fervor of the naive and deluded. We truly thought if we reduced the number of calories we took in each day, and added vigorous and sustained exercise, our bodies would follow the laws of science and slowly become smaller.

Hah! We were wrong. So much for what we thought.

My body has become smaller, but only by a miniscule amount. 4 days from now, I wrap up my 90 Day Fitness Walking Program without much to show on my body change-wise. I will have those 90 deceptively cheery little check-marks in my journal. Sorry, but that's cold comfort.

My inspiration, as I have said right from the beginning, was the contestants on The Biggest Loser. While I sweated and starved and lost 5 pounds, they sweated and starved and lost anywhere from 50 pounds to more than a hundred pounds in the same time frame. Okay, so I didn't have Jillian Michaels or Bob Harper beating my hump, but I did a decent job of beating my own hump, staying faithful to the program I had chosen. I just didn't understand the program I had chosen wasn't going to do me much good.

Hard to believe, but in 90 days of greatly increased physical activity and greatly reduced caloric intake, I have managed to shed exactly 5 pounds. Now 5 pounds is something, and I'll take it, but I was reading some ads for exercise programs last night, and one woman who started out a bit heavier than me at 215 pounds, claims she lost 41 pounds by doing nothing but this exercise for 90 days. She didn't even go on a diet and lost 21 inches and 41 pounds.

Needless to say, I ordered the DVD right away and will be reporting if it works or not. That's not such a self indulgence as it may seem. One thing I have proven to myself over the last three months is that I do have the will to stick to a program. I truly do want to change my life and remake my body; I just haven't found what works for me yet and that is frustrating. So I guess I made the wrong choice; I walked and dieted for 90 days and lost five pounds; this lady did an exercise tape for 90 days and didn't diet and lost 41 pounds. So she will go to her Christmas celebrations a new woman at 163 pounds and I will go to mine looking like the same old marshmallow in a dress.

Doesn't seem fair to me.

Anyway, on to the topic at hand...The Biggest Loser. Isabeau finally won a challenge, dragging the 73 pounds she had lost so far across the desert faster than anyone else on the team. When she dumped those pounds into a trench and raised her flag, she won $10,000. I was really happy for her. She has grown up a lot since the show began. At first, she was kind of a whiny baby, but with Jillian beating her regularly and forcing her to confront the issues that made her overeat, she finally accepted responsibility for her own health.


Tuesday's show can be summed up in two words: poetic justice. When Neil weighed in and it was revealed he had lost 10 pounds, my heart sank. I thought there was no way he was going to fall below the yellow line with that double digit weight loss. So it looked like he had made it to the finals, and from there, I think he would have been a shoo-in to win.

Then Holly weighed in and lost 5 pounds, a pretty good result for her, but still dicey. Then Bill weighed in with a loss of 9 pounds, and as a percentage of his body weight, that made him beat both Neil and Holly. Then Julie weighed in, and was told she had to lose at least 7 pounds to stay above the yellow line. I was sweating bullets because Julie usually only loses 2 to 4 pounds a week. I thought sure she would fall below the line, but she came through with a loss of 8 pounds, catapulting her to the top of the chart. Finally it was Isabeau's turn and she lost 8 pounds, too, pushing Neil and Holly below the yellow line.


The Black Team did it! Rejected and left alone in the desert, they came back with the guidance and leadership of their kick-ass trainer, Jillian Michaels, and totally eliminated both the Red and the Blue Teams, a first in Biggest Loser history. They stuck together and voted Neil out, which is where the poetic justice comes in. Neil finally paid for his cheating ways and no one could be happier about that than me. If he had ended up being this season's "Biggest Loser," I'm not sure I could ever bear to watch the show again. For once, justice triumphed!

Anyway, I have a dumb business meeting next Tuesday night so I am going to have to tape the program, but I am still anxiously awaiting two things...the arrival of my new exercise tape, and the outcome of The Biggest Loser. I will actually be happy no matter which one of the four Black Team members win, but my sentimental favorite is probably Isabeau.

Planet Fat Cat

The Biggest Loser - Shaping Up in More Ways Than One

Well, things are finally beginning to shape up on The Biggest Loser. Despite NBC hinting breathlessly at more Neil drama to come, he actually behaved himself for the most part last night, especially after his trainer, Bob Harper, called him out for voting out his "friend," Ryan, last week. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I enjoyed watching him squirm, and kudos to Bob for not letting Neil off the hook.


Talk about squirm-inducing...that little scene with Amy and Kim was bad. I'm not a huge Amy fan, but I thought Kim over-reacted when Amy said she was hurt by Kim telling the Red Team to vote her off right in front of her face. Kim also lost points with me for her use of the "f" word; that wasn't professional at all. It seemed like the two of them were trying to out-whine, and out-accuse each other, and both did a really bad job of trying to portray themselves as a victim.

Kim, you threw Amy under the bus in a very pubic way. Step up and own that and stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's unattractive.

You had conflicts with Amy, and even with David, who seemed like an absolute sweetheart. He got off the treadmill and left the gym rather than listen to your mouth any more. So maybe you have some soul searching to do about how you interact with your team members?


Amy, the reason Kim picked you to go is that you did nothing but complain from day one. You didn't ever want to do the work; you always had some cry baby excuse about why you couldn't do your share. Last night, instead of being happy for Julie to get picked to go home, you whined and cried and complained that you didn't get picked. Why would you have been picked? Did you and Hollie have some great friendship? No, you didn't. But congratulations on successfully continuing your journey at home. You look great, and I hope you have learned a few lessons about your own character as a result of being on the show.

Now on to the challenges. I continue to be stunned by the ongoing junk food challenges. On a program where contestants are supposedly being taught new ways to look at food and better nutritional and exercise habits, to force them to eat the worst possible food in order to win some prize or benefit is downright sadistic.

This week, contestants were faced with a sea of doughnuts, thousands stacked one upon the other and inside one, a wooden disk good for $5,000. The catch was, in order to be able to dive in and search for the disk for 60 seconds, the contestants had to eat one 300-calorie doughnut.

No one found it, so they had to eat a second donut to search for another minute, and then a third to be allowed to search until the disk was found. Every single contestant went for it instantly, except for Kae. She was the only one with the intestinal fortitude to pass the temptation. The others inhaled their donuts, willingly downing 3 each in order to be able to search for the disk. Bill finally found it and won the money, leading some contestants to complain about his luck since he won the car last week, too.


Okay, I would have been jealous, too. I don't understand karma, how some people just seem to have good luck and good things happen to them over and over again.


I think it's disgusting that all that food went to waste. The temptation was like a college cafeteria food fight. With all the hungry people in the world, the idea that probably several hundred dollars worth of donuts simply got destroyed is disturbing.

But what really makes me mad is that ever since I watched the show, I can't stop thinking about donuts. I am probably going to have to just go and eat one just to remind myself how bad they make me feel.

Hint to The Biggest Loser producers: I watch the show for inspiration on my own weight loss journey; not to be reminded that there are bad but wildly tasty foods out there I have purposely eliminated from my life.

Congratulations to Bill who reached the 100 pounds lost mark this week! I think he and Bryan are probably my two favorites out of the remaining contestants.


In the end, Amy went home. I was amazed that Jillian Michaels tried to get her team to vote out Bryan and keep Amy. I think Jillian was just trying to be supportive of Amy and keep her word, but Amy was dragging the Black Team down.

As for my own weight loss challenge, I'm back down to 201 pounds again, not in time to be able to post it on weigh-in day, but a hopeful sign that some day I will get below 199 pounds. I have this weird mental thing that once I break 200 pounds and stay there, my weight loss will somehow accelerate. Probably a goofy thing to think, but that's my fantasy.

I'm glad The Biggest Loser is shaping up to be more entertaining and less gag-inducing than the last few weeks, but I do wish they would either cut way back on the product placement or do it in a less disingenuous way. Bob Harper seemed truly ill at ease when he advised a contestant that eating instant oatmeal loaded with sugar, salt and preservatives was a good idea for a weight loss program.

The Biggest Loser - This Week, Not So Outrageous

Well, I have to admit I liked this week's two-hour edition of The Biggest Loser. My favorite part was the challenge. It was amazing to see all the refuse that junk food generates, especially the mountain of 148,000 soda cans.

I am a big recycler and have been for almost 20 years. In fact, I have to watch myself to make sure I don't take it overboard because when I get busy and can't get to the recycling center, it does clutter my house. I recycle plastic bags, bottles and other containers, clear and colored glass, cardboard, paper and aluminum. One really nice thing about giving up Coca-Cola other than the health benefits is that I don't have dozens of cans to recycle every week. That used to take up a lot of space in my utility room. I know I am only one person but I figure I will do what I can as an individual to help the planet. Most people can just throw stuff away but I practically have to appoint a standing committee before I can decide if something is garbage, trash, compost or recycle. I am very careful about what I put in the garbage.


Well, enough about recycling. On to the show. When I heard Julie's story about giving up her car so she and her husband could afford for her stay home with their new baby son, my opinion of her immediately shot up. I used to feel rather neutral toward her; she seemed very nice but didn't really stand out. But on Tuesday night, I really wanted her to win the car. She and Bill busted their butts to win, in fact, Bill was almost superhuman, with the result that they gathered 96 pounds of cans, more than twice what the two lowest teams each gathered. I was really glad they won the cars. I feel like the two of them are really deserving. When I saw Julie's emotional reaction to finally having a car of her own, I felt even happier for her.


I was glad Ryan got booted instead of Isabeau. It's about time that one of the cheaters went home. But Neil seems to stay on week after week. And the promos don't augur well for next week because NBC breathlessly hints that Neil again does something funky to "change the game." So I guess he'll just be allowed to cheat and get away with doing whatever he wants to do, just because the producers like the drama he creates when he cheats. Ugh, it makes me sick but I can already see them setting him up to be the big winner. The Biggest Loser winners are supposed to be inspiring people; not cheaters.

I just saw the promo for The Biggest Loser again and it's nagging at me like a thorn in my shoe. I know its probably nothing; just something the promotional people cooked up to lure viewers, but it sure does seem like they are hinting that Neil does something bad again.

I guess we'll see next Tuesday.

Planet Fat Cat

The Biggest Loser Outrage - Part 3

Well, things went from bad to worse on The Biggest Loser last night. My commenter Matt, who suggested on my original Biggest Loser post that Neil had really pulled off a double scam, turned out to be right. Neil won the weigh-in last night because he had a 17-pound head start from cheating the week before.

Why is this guy even still on the show?

But it turns out the cheat was even bigger than we knew. Not only did Neil and Ryan cheat by loading water right before the weigh-in, but they pressured Amy from the Red Team into doing it as well, which is why she didn't lose any weight last week even though she was working out with Jillian Michaels. So it was a Blue Team-Red Team conspiracy to try to get rid of members from the Black Team since they couldn't beat them in a fair fight.

I was angry with Kae last week for voting Jez off, and because I thought she was in on the deal. But seeing her reaction to the scam this week made me change my mind. I think she was played, and kept in the dark about the intended cheat. I think Neil and Ryan knew Kae would never go along with it, so they just made a voting pact, which is perfectly acceptable, and Kae went along with the voting pact, not realizing the fix was in. The fact that she was so upset she wanted to leave the show told me a lot. I don't think she would have voted for Jez if she'd known that Neil and Ryan cheated, and I now definitely don't think she was told about their plans. She worked as hard as ever and lost as much weight as she usually does last week. I think she's honorable and was devastated when she heard last week's results came from cheating by her fellow Blue Team members, and that she had gotten caught up in it by casting her vote for someone who really didn't deserve to go home.


So this week, still thanks to Neil's original cheat from last week, another person who shouldn't have gone home this early is gone, David the cowboy. I was happy to see he is continuing to work out, watch his diet and lose weight at home. He's lost 103 pounds so far, but still has a good way to go. He and his wife look so happy in their interview, and their kids were just thrilled that daddy could now run and play with them, and ride horses with them without putting the poor horse in danger of its life.

My question to NBC and The Biggest Loser is this: why is Neil still in the game? Why is cheating tolerated? Do you really have no idea that you are turning your viewers away? Yes, we're talking about the show, but not in a good or supportive way. And talking about the show is way different that watching it. Remember what happened to Bravo when they screwed with the Top Chef show. Viewers were so outraged the whole show almost collapsed.

The other problem this year is the egregious product placement, I could not believe Bob Harper had the gall to stand there and promote an instant oatmeal product to a morbidly obese woman who needs to lose some serious weight. Instant oatmeal is loaded with sugar and chemicals and has little to no fiber and few of the nutritional attributes of real oatmeal...you know, the kind you actually cook, not nuke. But Quaker paid for the mention (read "ad") and so there it was...bogus advice being handed out to gullible contestants and viewers not because it was sound, or based on scientific principle, or even because it would promote good health and weight loss, but because a sponsor had paid for the product placement and therefore could claim whatever they wanted. They could say that oatmeal cures cancer, acne and baldness, and I'm sure they'd have Bob or Kim up there smiling and saying it was so.

Well, that's enough for this week. I sure hope Neil goes home next week. I really really don't like or respect him at all. And as soon as he goes, boot Ryan next, and then Amy. Cheaters shouldn't win.

Planet Fat Cat

The Biggest Loser Outrage - Part 2

Wow, I guess I didn't realize there would be so many people who, like me, were outraged by the fact that Neil was allowed to get away with cheating on this week's episode of The Biggest Loser. The Internet has been abuzz with emails flying back and forth, blogsters penning their generally negative opinions of what went on, and search engines working overtime as people who missed the show look for little tidbits of information about what happened.

If you don't already know, here's the scoop. Right before the weigh-in, one of the Blue Team contestants, Neil, drank about 2 gallons of water to artificially pump up his weight by 17 pounds. So instead of losing weight after a week of hard work in the gym and dietary restrictions, he managed to GAIN 17 pounds by cheating with the water trick. That meant his team lost and one member would be voted off by the other three trios. By prior arrangement, Neil got the trios to vote Jez off.

In the real scheme of things, no one was going to beat the Black Team. Jillian Michaels had been kicking their butts in the gym and they were kicking butt at the weigh-ins. They'd only lost one team member and had more people, 5, than either of the other two teams. The Red Team was down to 3 members, and the Blue Team down to 4, so it pretty much looked like the Black Team was going to dominate right into the finals. And that's how it should have been because they did the work and they deserved to be in the finals.

Enter the weasly Blue and Red Teams. They obviously colluded with Neil on his wormy little plan to throw the weigh-in, because they voted Jez out even though he was one of the nicest, hardest working guys there. Weasels never want to compete on a level playing field; the Red and Blue Teams couldn't defeat the Black Team honestly, so they had to resort to cheating.

And Neil's reward for cheating doesn't end there. Just who do you suppose will be The Biggest Loser next week? Matt left a comment on my original post pointing out that Neil will almost certainly win and be immune from elimination because he will lose at least 17 pounds by next week and probably even more if you throw in the 7 or 8 pounds a week he usually loses when he's not busy cheating. It's highly unlikely that anyone who is playing the game fairly will be able to match that.

That's bad enough, but the idea that The Biggest Loser and NBC let Neil and his Blue Team members get way with their underhanded scheme is well nigh unthinkable. NBC almost had a lawsuit on its hands when its subsidiary Bravo TV let a similar situation get way out of hand on Top Chef Season 2. Reportedly, producers gave a video camera to some contestants who had been verbally assaulting another contestant. They were planning a physical attack and Bravo wanted to make sure they caught the smack down on tape.

Bad decision. When viewers saw the episode with the physical attack, they were sickened and outraged and let loose a flood-tide of angry email, snail mail and phone calls. The sheer volume of angry comments posted on the Bravo website almost fried their server and nearly took their website off-line. Bravo folks were unrepentant, and it fell to NBC, the parent company, to reign in its rambunctious offspring.

As a result, this year's Top Chef was a much calmer, more watchable show, still not as good as season one where food was the focus, but vastly better than season two. But just like this season's Biggest Lower, Top Chef Season 3 also suffered from too many stunts, where the cheftestants were asked to do ridiculous things in impossibly short amounts of time with few resources and inadequate budgets. In other words, not like in the real world of restaurants where chefs can plan their menus and budgets and allow adequate time and money to produce food of a consistent quality.

But I digress. Why did NBC, after having to reign in Bravo, fall prey to the same sort of misguided thinking in regard to its own flagship reality show? Somebody screwed up big time. If there is to be a next season of The Biggest Loser, one thing simply MUST happen or I won't ever watch again. There has to be a new rule stating that any contestant who artificially manipulates his or her weight through any means whatsoever is immediately disqualified from the show and sent home in disgrace. That's the only way the show can regain its credibility for me. If the producers and NBC don't take this simple step to ensure the integrity of the program, then in good conscious I can no longer watch.

Planet Fat Cat