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[goblyn]

Does anyone here watch the Biggest Loser?  I don't at all (partially because I think its totally impractical to take obese people, set them in extremely structured environments feed them hardly any food and make them work out 10 hours a day and then say "see, its so easy to lose weight" because all that is likely to happen is that these people will go home and gain it all back, and partially because it doesn't interest me at all).  Anyways, yahoo has a slide show of before and after pics for the current contestants, and I am totally wondering how some of the guys look the way they do.

You see, some of the guys currently weigh more than me and yet look totally fit and slender.  There's one guy who started off weighing 372 and now weighs 238, and yet he looks like he has a totally trim torso.  Maybe he's alot taller than me, but still, it doesn't really make sense.  Shouldn't he at least have a bunch of extra skin, especailly since the weight came off so quickly?  Is plastic surgery (i.e., getting extra skin trimmed off) part of this show?  Or is he just really really oddly fat in places where it doesn't show as well (such as, say, his calves?)  I just don't understand how someone can weigh 15 lbs more than me and look like he weighs 40 lbs less than me!

Is this a common phenomena?

[TalkingRat]

I don't watch BL because I hate how it creates false expectations about weight loss rate and patterns.  Contestants make stupid decisions, using extreme changes in food and hydration to achieve a particular weight that week.  They are under a doctor's care but it doesn't mean they are making healthy choices.

But yes, exercise can make a difference.  Muscle is more dense than fat; pound for pound, fat takes up more space.  For a given height and weight, someone with a more muscular body composition will look smaller.  When I started exercising, I stopped losing weight, but lost two sizes.




ETA:  although this 'exact replica' of 5 lbs fat and 5 lbs muscle makes the muscle volume look way smaller, I've also read from a source stating muscle  is 18% more dense.   So what I see and read doesn't add up...

Muscle density is 1.06 g/ml and fat density is (about) 0.9 g/ml. Thus, one liter of muscle would weight 1.06 kg and one liter of fat would weight 0.9 kg. In other words, muscle is about 18% denser than fat.

[goblyn]

Well even accounting for, say a 50% decrease, I swear the one guy in particular looks like he should weigh, at the most 200 lbs, there is no way he's hiding 38 lbs of fat anywhere.  My guess is that BL, just like most reality tv is fake, rigged, and a big huge lie to the american public.  OY.

[nougat]

i used to watch biggest loser - i had intended it to inspire me - but actually it works in the opposite way.  how is it possible to lose say 14lbs in a week???  it makes me feel hopeless that doing my best i barely lose 1lb.... and up again and down again....

[terio]

how is it possible to lose say 14lbs in a week??? 

You know that I believe that it is physiologically impossible to lost that much in a week.  I have a feeling that it's mostly water weight.
You need a calorie deficit of 3500 calories to lose one pound.
That's an awful lot of exercise - I'd say about 7 hours of solid cardio - just for one pound!

[nougat]

well they do stress on huge amounts of exercise...how don't they fall down dead??? :lol:

[VeganKitten]

I believe that show is insane, and a lie, and really counterproductive for the average American to emulate.

Plus, there are a few success stories that keep it off, but I think I read that the majority of contestants end up gaining right back to where they were, or more, after the the show ends.

This article includes some telling quotes from contestants -- what they had to do in order to make those double-digit weekly losses. No thank you!
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/01/17/minding-the-media-the-impact-of-the-biggest-loser/

Here's another good analysis: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/biggest-loser/ <-- also, this looks like an interesting site to explore. Bonus internet points for me!

[nougat]

VK thanks for the links - the second one in particular is very informative.

[shovelqueen]

Yeah, me too, VK.  I've spent a few hours on MDA already. I like his exercise ideas.  And this morning, I went for a fartlek run, incorporating sprints into a 2 mile run.  It was fun. 

[nougat]

a WHAT run??? :shock: 

[VeganKitten]

Haha, and on reading further, our primal Mark eats a lot o' meat so his lifestyle is -- how you say -- so not for me  :lol:

[shovelqueen]

a WHAT run??? :shock: 

Fartlek means "run play", or something similar in Swedish or Finnish or something Scandinavian.  It's a form of running workout with varying intensity, but unstructured.  Make it up as you go along.  Funny word though, eh? :lol:

[mrbarnett21]

Does anyone here watch the Biggest Loser?  I don't at all (partially because I think its totally impractical to take obese people, set them in extremely structured environments feed them hardly any food and make them work out 10 hours a day and then say "see, its so easy to lose weight" because all that is likely to happen is that these people will go home and gain it all back, and partially because it doesn't interest me at all).  Anyways, yahoo has a slide show of before and after pics for the current contestants, and I am totally wondering how some of the guys look the way they do.

You see, some of the guys currently weigh more than me and yet look totally fit and slender.  There's one guy who started off weighing 372 and now weighs 238, and yet he looks like he has a totally trim torso.  Maybe he's alot taller than me, but still, it doesn't really make sense.  Shouldn't he at least have a bunch of extra skin, especailly since the weight came off so quickly?  Is plastic surgery (i.e., getting extra skin trimmed off) part of this show?  Or is he just really really oddly fat in places where it doesn't show as well (such as, say, his calves?)  I just don't understand how someone can weigh 15 lbs more than me and look like he weighs 40 lbs less than me!

Is this a common phenomena?

I have noticed that though someone maybe the same height and weight as you but they either look bigger or Skinner is simply because we have unique body frames. One person can have larger calves than you yet you guys are both the same height and similar weight.