Landis Fitness

Why I run rain ☔️ or shine ☀️. It boosts my metabolism and my endorphines, it's great for my cardiovascular system, I get a chance to catch up with different girlfriends while we workout and best of, all most importantly, I get "me time", which is essential for my well being, my health and my family.

I thought long and hard about posting anything in regards to the Biggest Loser but I do think Chalene's comments are great. I will preface this by saying (and judge if you want) I do not watch the Biggest Loser anymore. I used to but see I have 3 busy kiddos so I do not watch much TV at all.

Does Weight loss at Any Cost Make You a Winner?

Does weight loss at any cost make you a winner? It does if you’re a contestant on the Biggest Loser.

I’ve been quiet on this topic for too long but after a days and days of watching the media, blogs and so called “health experts” bashing, criticizing, shaming and analyzing the shockingly rapid weight loss of this season’s winner Rachel Frederickson I feel compelled to take a public stance.

First, this is not going to be a discussion about Rachel’s weight. This is about a show whose producers who have created a weight loss competition, loosely veiled as reality show about people getting healthy. There are moments devoted to health, proper nutrition, exercise and supervised weight loss. Those moments can be found between the clips of public humiliation, shame, unsafe practices, unrealistic weekly weigh-ins, and a heaping serving of misleading, misguided and unhealthy expectations.

(Oh man… this has me quite upset.) Most of you know, in an effort to keep our community as peaceful & positive, & fun as possible, I do my best to stay away from posting controversial topics on this page; however, given my strong emotional reaction to this most recent event, I felt it important to break tradition.

Before you read further or jump ahead and leave a comment, please know in advance that the following type of replies will be deleted:

1. Any attack on the winner.

2. Any attack on another person for their dissenting opinion.

3. If you want to talk about the winner, her weight or debate body image, there are hundreds of blogs for you to do that. This discussion is about the irresponsibility of the show.

(Dissenting opinions are expected. However, I urge you to be polite, kind and respectful to each other regardless of how passionate you might feel about this topic.)

I have first hand knowledge I want to share. I have watched countless news programs and lead stories in the news over the course of the last few days asking the question "Did Biggest Loser Rachel go too far?" Really? How about asking if the public allowed the show to go to far. The show is the problem and the show is on the air because of ratings. The ratings are strong enough to keep the show on the air because producers are able to craft a “reality” show that gives viewers what they find interesting and captivating.

Health is not captivating. Dramatic jaw dropping weight loss in a public forum is apparently captivating. Why is it captivating? I don’t think that the average person takes pleasure in watching the pain, shame and embarrassment of someone who has 100 pounds or more to lose forced to wear a bra top and shorts and step on a scale for all the world to see. I believe (and perhaps I am naïve) that the show has stayed on the air for 10 plus seasons because it gives people hope that rapid transformation can be done “fast.”

I don’t care to discuss Rachel’s results or the “weight” of any other contestant past or present for that matter. I want to discuss health.

A person’s weight does not tell you if someone is healthy or unhealthy. My concern is false hope that is created by a show like this. My concern is that the public is not getting even a sliver of reality in this reality tv show. My concern is that today everyone is up in arms over the “health” of one contestant who appears to be “under weight,” but there are quite possible contestants who may be at even greater risk. We don’t know. There are countless contestants each year who may not have the jaw dropping results we love to see, but who in an effort to win, find themselves on that stage malnourished, over trained, dehydrated, defeated, depressed and discouraged.

Let’s not attack winners for doing what they need to do to win. (We'll save that for another post… let’s keep this on topic. I want to direct people’s attention to the producers of the Biggest Loser.

Going on the show is a decision of desperation. It’s a decision to put yourself in front of millions of people to be judged and shamed and worked to the point of exhaustion. The initial decision to go on the show for most is the rapid weight loss, not the prize. Why do you think people pay tens of thousands of dollars to go to weight loss camps to do this privately? When someone decides to go on the show it’s not about the money… it’s about the transformation they so desperately crave. But once you've made the show, been isolated from your job, your family and everyone else, you are now on a GAME SHOW. To win this game show, you must lose and lose and lose by any means possible. Your only job is to lose. You win by losing weight, not body fat, not bad habits or reduced cholesterol. You win if you drop the greatest percentage of weight. Period.

What the Biggest Loser is NOT is a show about health.

I have been a fitness professional and personal trainer for over 24 years. I have worked with thousands and thousands of individuals in my career. I have worked with people attempting to achieve dramatic weight loss. I have worked with Biggest Loser contestants. I say that so you know my opinion is well informed. It’s nearly impossible for a contestant to be healthy on “weigh-in” day of The Biggest Loser finale. People cheer, rave, applaud and delight in the “healthy” transformations of the participants when ironically what we are seeing is quite skewed. Is someone who has lost 150 pounds in less than 7 months healthier than they were when they were obese? I don’t know and neither do you. But the message this show is sending viewers is that thin at any cost must be better. THIS is what I have a problem with.

On the day contestants gather to climb the scale for their final weigh-in (which is done a few days before the finale show and then revealed for dramatic effect – live) most contestants have spent months, weeks, days and even those final hours in a last ditch all out effort to win at all costs! Can you blame them?

If just one pound meant the difference between winning $250,000 dollars and walking home empty handed after 7 months or more with no job, what lengths would you go to?

Several years ago I was contacted by a contestant who had been voted off and sent home to lose the remaining weight. Familiar with the results of people I have worked with, she reached out to me for my help. I was watching the show and was already in love with her personality. I’ve been doing this for a few decades. I love helping people transform. I thought, “this will be fun!” I was wrong.

In an effort to keep this discussion about the show and not a particular contestant, I’ll keep her identity anonymous. What I share with you is my opinion and observation.

Thousands of miles from home and jobless for months in an effort to win the show and make her family proud, once she was voted off, there wasn’t much money for personal training or special accommodations. After getting to know her long-distance, Bret and I offered to have this super sweet, tenacious gal to stay with us. We would workout together. I would become her live-in personal trainer, accountability, chef and motivator. I was excited to help her stay on track.

Man, oh man was I in for a surprise. After workout #1, while she loved the class she apologetically explained to me she wasn’t comfortable doing anything other than long duration cardio as there was a chance she, “might add muscle.” Any gain in muscle at that stage was detrimental to her weight loss.
Problem number two, because I couldn’t guarantee the sodium content of each meal, she didn’t feel comfortable eating the ultra clean, ultra healthy meals we offered. So we arranged to have specialized chef meals prepared and delivered to help her continue to lose weight. She was so grateful! She ate one specially prepared meal and on that day she learned that fellow contestants were taking some pretty radical steps in an effort to drop more weight before the final weigh in.

Panic set in. Though she never said producers were putting pressure on her, the rumors and “talk” of other contestants weight loss created a pressure for her to drastically restrict calories to a diet of herbal tea and um… well, I’m not sure much else. While she assured me she was getting enough calories, I only ever saw her drinking tea.

At this point of her stay…she had become focused and withdrawn. We rarely saw her. In final days she woke to walk on the treadmill, spend some time on her laptop, have some tea, go for a run, walk again and go back to sleep.

Despite my efforts, there wasn’t much I could do to help. She shared with me how much financially she had at stake to win. As with anyone in starvation mode, her moods waivered between quiet and withdrawn or emotional and anxious. She had so much on the line. I really felt for her. With no energy and obsessed with the possibility that just one pound might make the difference, her every waking moment was spent figuring out how to lose more weight.

As the final week ticked away, she cut her fluid intake, had a colon cleanse, walked for 3 to 4 hours at a time on the treadmill, cut all sodium, cut her hair off and clipped her nails as short as possible. Every. Ounce. Counts.

Remember… the winner is the person who loses the greatest percentage of weight.

In the end rumors began circulating that a fellow contestants had become dangerously dehydrated. To their credit, upon learning this, show producers moved the weigh-in date up by 24 hours. That news was quite upsetting to our house guest. She was desperately counting on those last 24 hours to burn more calories.

Though she lost in excess of 80 pounds, she did not win.

Since then, I've tried many times to reach out to her, however, to this day I've been unsuccessful. I have tried to track her down and catch up with her many times, but again, I've been unsuccessful. To this day, I have no idea how she’s doing. I really liked her, she was smart and driven. I pray she is well and most of all that she is happy and healthy.

I do not intend to imply that every contestant has a similar experience.

Contestants are said to be medically supervised. I don't know what their present medical protocol is today, but several years ago when I was working with her, her supervision consisted of a weekly check in with show producers. In producer’s defense, once the contestants leave, they are on their own. I am in no way suggesting producers encourage contestants place their health at risk.

What I AM saying is this...producers want jaw dropping results because the public wants jaw-dropping results.
Yes, contestants are on the show of their own free will. My issue is not with the contestants. I just want people to know that the show sends a dangerous and misleading message. I could write a book about the methodology they use to train, berate and publicly shame these people. The Biggest Loser is not a show that promotes healthy, realistic or safe weight loss. It is not a show about health. If it were, would people watch? Contestants are judged not by their health, body fat, cardiovascular endurance, reduction in cholesterol, gains in strength or overall health. Contestants win when they lose.

Apparently watching morbidly obese, desperate, food-addicted adults endure the unrealistic conditions to drop in excess of 20 pounds in one week is very interesting. Losing a few pounds a week, learning to cook, shop, exercise and the habits of healthy people is…well…boring.
Even Jillian Michael’s, “Losing It” lasted exactly 8 episodes. If we can’t make healthy transformation interesting even with a popular, results driven, knowledgeable, captivating and charismatic trainer like Jillian, then what’s the answer?

Do we blame producers for perpetuating the notion that it’s okay to gawk, demean and publicly shame the obese? How is obesity any different than any eating disorder? Eating disorders have nothing to do with being lazy or active. Over eating and over restricting are most often the symptom of the same cause – emotional pain. It’s the public that tunes in to watch the overweight berated and forced to exercise well outside their level of fitness. The viewer doesn’t see the physicians and EMT’s standing just off set. Do we fault the shows producers for giving us what it seems the public wants? Do we blame the contestants for getting in over their heads and doing what they need to do to win? Or do we take personal responsibility and just stop watching? Do we ban together and demand that producers create a healthier show, one where the contestants win based on points awarded for all areas of health like nutrition, body fat, waist to height ratio, resting heart rate, hydration level, sleep average, gains in strength, mental wellness, nutritional knowledge, etc?

Over the last 20 years I believe we’ve become smarter as fitness consumers. I think we crave reputable knowledge, science and honest answers. But if we’re tuning in each week to watch what we know is unrealistic, even dangerous, can we really fault producers, trainers or contestants?

By my own admission, my recent knowledge of the show is only via clips I see on the news and on blogs, etc. I stopped watching the show after my personal experience. As such, I hope my assumptions that little has changed are wrong. I hope that you’ll let me know that the weekly broadcasts are very different than they were a few years ago. But there’s one thing that I know with certainty has not changed.

The Biggest Loser is a show you win by only one measure…weight loss.

Keep in mind that hoopla over Rachel being unhealthy because of her weight is even further evidence that the public has been misinformed. It is misguided to judge the health of one contestant based on their weight. There may be contestants who appear a “normal” weight, who we assume are healthy, while in fact they may be malnourished, dehydrated, bulimic, anorexic, addicted to exercise, etc. The number on the scale is a tiny reflection of a person’s health. That’s my point.

I DO know this… the scale is a small measure of health.

Love the show? Like the show but wish they would send a different message? Well then, let them know…. Here’s what I sent…

https://twitter.com/biggestlosernbc Please consider more accurate measure(s) of health when selecting next season’s winner.

I'd like to know what you & your friends think about all of this. Please share this post with those you think may be interested in chiming in. Together we CAN make a difference.