"Biggest Loser"

Tonight is the season finale of "The Biggest Loser." I've watched this series since it first aired several years ago, but my perspective has really changed.

When the series premiered, I weighed as much as 268 pounds (my all-time high weight) and I watched people losing weight on this program with a combination of admiration, envy, and despair. In those days I weighed more than some of the women contestants, and I remember thinking I would rather die a thousand deaths than be willing to be filmed in those tight workout clothes that revealed every last bulge and then be weighed in front of the entire country. I had a lot of admiration for people who were willing to swallow their pride and be humiliated (which is how I viewed it) so publicly. I was envious that they had an opportunity to put their lives on hold and have the time to focus on nothing other than losing weight and working out with a personal trainer. I also watched the program with despair (often eating as I watched it . . . ) because I knew that I would never be able to just step away from life for several months and do what they were doing. Because I have a bad knee, I knew that I could never withstand the rigors of the workouts that they did.

I thought that, short of weight loss surgery, the only way to ever really lose as much as I needed to lose would be to go through a "Biggest Loser" type of boot camp. I'd eat and watch and think that my situation was hopeless; I'd try another diet, fail, watch another season of "Biggest Loser", and so it went.

Take Shape for Life/Medifast, of course, changed all that! I was shocked - and relieved - to find out that we weren't even SUPPOSED to exercise for the first three weeks if we hadn't been exercising before we started the program. Now THAT was MY kind of diet :-). This program taught me that the emphasis needs to first be on changing how we eat, then incorporating moderate exercise later on.

I also learned that it's not realistic to think that we could ever exercise enough to lose weight without changing how we eat. I've talked to a lot of people who need to lose weight but assure me that they plan to "work it off" by "exercising more." That might work if someone has, say, 5 pounds to lose, but if they are significantly overweight, it just won't happen.

Dr. Andersen (Medical Director for Take Shape for Life/Medifast) said that to lose 35 pounds, you would need to run one marathon a week for almost a year. The math breaks down like this:

35 pounds x 3,500 calories per pound = 122,500 calories. According to Runners World Online, a 180 lb. person burns approximately 3,573 calories over the course of a 26.2 mile marathon.

If you didn't consume one additional calorie after running the marathon than you normally would, it would take you over 34 marathons in a row to lose the 35 pounds - but I'm guessing you might be a bit hungry and eat a little more after a workout like that :-)

So what is the moral of the story? We don't need to watch "Biggest Loser" and wish that was us! We can lose weight quickly AND safely AND while we live our lives just by opening 5 little packets a day. In doing so, we not only lose the weight, but we learn the healthy habits we need to KEEP it off! The contestants on "Biggest Loser" will face an uphill battle to keep their weight off when they return to their normal lives because they lost the weight under very unnatural circumstances, circumstances that are simply not sustainable over time. What we're learning here, one on-plan day at a time, IS sustainable over time because we are incorporating the lifestyle changes that will become the fabric of our lives.

So enjoy tonight's "Biggest Finale!" I'll be cheering for each and every one of the finalists because they have all done an amazing job. But I won't be watching tonight with envy or despair. I'll be watching it munching on a crunch bar wearing my size 6 jeans :-), confident that I'll still be wearing this size when I watch NEXT year's finale!

Who's committed to an on-plan day today?