Ready for a serious dose of inspiration, on September 11th, 2007 I plopped down in front of my TV to watch the Biggest Loser Season 4 premiere. The Biggest Loser is such a relatable show because almost every person has at some point struggled with losing weight and eating right. Watching the Fall TV premiere, I was shocked when 62 year old Jerry lost 30 pounds in the first week! Now, how is it physically possible for a person to drop this much weight in just one week when most of us struggle to lose 1 pound a week? Starting to believe that the Biggest Loser was a complete hoax, I embarked on a journey to uncover the weight loss secrets of the Biggest Loser reality show!
New Fitness Technology
One of the new tools being used this season by all the contestants is Apex Fitness Group’s BodyBugg – “the world’s most intelligent calorie management System.” You’ll notice that every Biggest Loser contestant this season is wearing an armband 24/7. Kim later explained in the second episode that this gadget is “weight management on your arm.” The BodyBugg is the latest advancement in calorie expenditure prediction. Using sensors to measure skin temperature, skin resistively and ambient temperature, the BodyBugg is 92% accurate. The Biggest Loser trainers are able to track each participant’s daily calorie expenditure, similar to a GPS device, as the device communicates with software on a PC. The trainers can then pinpoint the exact time of day when a contestant is lying down or resting and burning little calories and suggest ways to modify activity and diet to keep those calories burning! By simplifying the tedious chore of calorie counting and calculations, the BodyBugg allows you to reach your weight loss goals but at a price of $500 plus ongoing subscription to the Bodybugg web service. Access to the latest advancements in nutrition and exercise technology and gadgets, such as the BodyBugg, is one of the Biggest Loser’s weight loss secrets!
Diet
With a formidable team of nutritionists and doctors, the Biggest Loser contestants have top-notch diet and nutrition information and tips. In an interview with MSNC, Dr. Michael Dansinger, a consultant on The Biggest Loser Season 2, explained “the people in the show are in a fantasy, unrealistic environment where everything is optimized for weight loss.” He notes that having nothing else to do working with a trainer makes it possible for participants to entirely reconfigure their diet and exercise routine.
Dansinger says that “50 to 60 percent of [contestants’] weight-loss success comes from dietary change.” The Biggest Loser contestants are used to consuming almost 3000 calories a day in their daily lives, but on the show they are consuming only about 1500 calories a day. Also, the trainers focus on substitution of sweets with sugar-free deserts and fruit and increasing contestant’s lean protein consumption in order to rev metabolisms.
Past contestants have revealed the following about their weight loss successes on the Biggest Loser in an interview from TvGuide.com:
~ “Eat 5-6 meals a day to your keep metabolism burning and never more than 2-3 hrs without food.”
~ “Eat protein at every meal and always couple carbs with protein because protein helps your body process carbs more efficiently.”
~ “Counting calories is key.”
~ “Don’t skip breakfast. It’s very important. You’ve got to get the motor running. I equate my body to an engine, and you’ve got to get that engine started first thing in the morning.”
~ “It’s all about choices. You can have a beef patty for 300 calories or substitute lean turkey at only 150 cal for the same 4 oz.”
Some of the diet advice the trainers, Bob and Kim, regularly emphasize is:
~ “Sit down at the dinner table when you eat; don’t stand up. People eat more when they’re standing up.”
~ “Make friends with fiber. Not only is it good for digestive health, it fills you up so you don’t get hungry as often.”
~ “Carry healthy snacks with you so that when you get hungry, you won’t cheat.
~ “Make friends with fiber. Not only is it good for digestive health, it fills you up so you don’t get hungry as often.”
With the help of the show, the overweight contestants establish new healthy food relationships and learn about nutrition. And with such a restricted diet, it is no wonder the Biggest Loser participants shed such big numbers on the scale each week!
Fitness
So if 50 to 60 percent of the Biggest Losers weight loss success comes from diet, where is the other 40 to 50 percent coming from you ask? Through three to four hours of intense exercise every day, with at least an hour of strength training and two hours of cardio! This amount of activity allows the contents to burn an extra 1200 to 1500 calories, almost eclipsing the amount of calories they are taking in! Dansinger says. “It’s hard to do by yourself, but on the show it’s easy to do. When people allow themselves to be put in that kind of environment … when you pull out all the barriers to weight loss, that’s when the weight loss can come very quickly.”
The Biggest Loser Pete Thomas shared more secrets of the reality show’s exercise regimen in an interview with the 700 club. Pete revealed they were not allowed a television or phone on the ranch and had not contact with their families. Every day participants completed a four hour intense workout, especially cruel for how out-of-shape the contestants all were.
Pete says about the fitness routine, “Well, first thing in the morning, we were required to do an hour of intense cardio, so we had to keep our heart rate above a certain number of beats per minute. And in the afternoon, Jillian would come in, and she’d work us out an hour doing the resistance training and another hour doing the cardio. Then in the evening, we’d do another hour of cardio. In between, all you had time to do was get something to eat and rest because you were sore all the time.”
Not wanting to excessively stress the contestants joints, high impact cardio such as running and skipping rope were not the staples of the Biggest Loser fitness regimen in the beginning. The elliptical machines, treadmills and bikes of the Biggest Loser gym were the staples of the exercise program.
With exercise routines specifically formulated by personal trainers and diets tailored and timed around workouts to burn fat and build muscle, the Biggest Loser contestants chief weight loss secret is their fitness plan!
So how was Jerry, the oldest contestant in Biggest Loser history, able to lose 30 pounds the first week at the ranch? As a male he has the advantage of increased muscle mass and with a history in athletics, the workouts came easier for him. But the dramatic weight loss results on the Biggest Loser are due mainly to technological advances like the BodyBugg, first-rate personal trainers, Jilian, Bob and Kim and at least 3 to 4 hours of intense exercise a day combined with a calorie-restricted diet. The shocking number of pounds the contestants drop each week is also due in part to sheer size. It takes more effort and burns more calories to move a 300 or 400 pound body then a 150 pound one, hence the significant weight loses. With an almost 50% calorie consumption decrease and no television, phone or family distractions, it’s no wonder the Biggest Loser contestants lose weight so quickly. The question, however, is if such rapid weight loss is healthy and in the long-term what matters most is if you are able to keep those pound off or not!
Reference:
- Information about Apex Fitness Group’s BodyBugg: www.bodybugg.com
