one of my favorite tv shows is the biggest loser. i love watching these people take charge of their lives and make a decision to become healthier. and i get excited seeing how many pounds they drop each week. the new york times recently ran a story about how people who are not as heavy and trying to lose weight on their own are getting discouraged and giving up because they aren’t dropping double digits every week like the contestants on the show are.
i understand their frustrations. really, i do. i’ve been frustrated for weeks now as my scale hasn’t budged and i lose only fractions of an inch a week. but, i do realize it’s going to be a lot slower for me. i have a lot less to lose, and my decreasing my calorie intake is nothing like how the contestants on the biggest loser change their diets. i would guess they’re decreasing their calories by at least 1,000 a day. that’s a lot more than i am! and i know it’s not healthy for me to lose more than a pound or two a week.
several years ago, i lost about 40 pounds on the l.a. weight loss plan. i hated it. i felt like i was starving myself, and i probably was. the plan doesn’t require you to count calories, but if i had to estimate, i’m sure it was fewer than 1,000 a day. for breakfast i would have a piece of toast and a serving of vegetarian breakfast sausage. lunch was a sandwich and trail mix, and dinner was a piece of toast, a serving of vegetarian meat and veggies. i lost a lot of weight, but i wasn’t working out, and once i went off the program i gained half of it back.
so now i’m trying to do it a different way by watching what i eat and working out to tone (and i can already see my body changing!). i’m sure i will eventually be the size i want to be. i get discouraged at times, but i’m not going to give up. and i hope others out there like me won’t either.
I love Biggest Loser because, in general, the concepts they teach are good. However, the weight loss on that show is totally unrealistic! Sure, you can lose 15 pounds in a week if you’re more than 200 and this is your first week dieting at all, but it’s not sustainable and it’s not possible for those of us who have less than 100 pounds to lose!
Hang in there–slow progress can be frustrating, but making changes in your eating and exercise that you can maintain is the most important thing!
I also love that show. The transformations they make are amazing. It’s hard to compare real life weight loss w/ that show b/c no one works at it 24/7 in real life like they do while they’re on the show. Good luck with your new, healthier weight loss tactics, Cady. I’m sure you’ll do great!
you can do it, cady! weight training really does help with the shaping. you are probably gaining some muscle right now to take the place of what would normally show up on the scale as lost weight. the biggest loser is such a great show, but they definitely aren’t showing realistic results for the average person.
thanks guys. i really hope i wasn’t sounding like i was complaining. i mainly wanted to share that article, which i thought was really interesting.
I tried watching that show, but gave up watching it because I didn’t have a trainer, etc… but even though I am hugely over weight, I never took in the calories those people did before they went on that show…
But, have you seen the people after the show is over… almost all of them have gained the weight back… so sad!