I’ve always supported the Biggest Loser.  I like that the contestants put forth hard work to make changes.  I think all viewers, regardless of their weight, can be inspired that each individual has within them the ability to change themselves.  When the idea for this show was first presented, several said it couldn’t be done.  They didn’t believe you could take such obese people and really make changes through diet and exercise.  But, in today’s world of quick fixes, through pills and surgeries, I love the alternative that the Biggest Loser puts out there.

However, when contestants are voted off the Biggest Loser campus, you realize the show is not 100% about their mission.  Arthur had gotten up to 646 pounds.  He dropped 139 pounds before even being on the show.  He had great success on his nine weeks – dropping another 117 pounds.  To me, this is just amazing.  Arthur has lost a total of 256 pounds!  But, even so he still tops the scale at 390.  He still has a long way to go to be at a healthy weight.  Someone like Arthur needs to be on the Biggest Loser campus as long as possible.  Trainer Bob Harper even pleaded with the other contestants telling them Arthur is exactly the kind of person that ranch was made for.  Arthur needs to continue his journey with trainers and a support network to achieve lasting weight loss.

There are a number of other shows popping up, I Used To Be Fat and Heavy, to name a few.  What’s great about these shows is the focus on the individual’s success.  There are no teams or alliances, no chance to be given boot halfway through.  These shows follow an individual’s journey – the only battle being the one within them to change their ways.

When you take a step back and look at the Biggest Loser, you do see they are making a “game” out of weight loss and changing people’s lives.  That being said, it does make for good television.  I’d still rather watch a game where contestants are making positive real changes in their lives than trying to find their true love in a reality show.

Lets face it. Everyone wants to get the fat off as quickly as possible – and having that desire is not wrong its simply human nature. However, you must become aware of some serious problems that can occur if you try to force it and lose weight too quickly. The faster you lose weight, the more muscle you will lose with the fat, and that can really mess up your metabolism. An even bigger problem with fast weight loss is that the loss just wont last. The faster you lose, the more likely you are to gain it back. Think about it: We dont have a weight loss problem today, we have a keeping the weight off problem.

Weight loss will be the healthiest, safest and most likely to be permanent if you set your goal for about two pounds per week (and even if you lose only a single pound each week, that is healthy progress). This is the recommendation of almost every legitimate and respected dietician, nutritionist, exercise physiologist and personal trainer, as well as exercise organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Dietetic Association.

Are there any exceptions to this rule? Is it ever okay to lose more than two pounds per week? The answer is yes. It may be ok to lose slightly more than two pounds per week if you have a lot of weight to lose because the rate of weight loss tends to be relative to your total starting body weight. Generally the rule is that its safe to lose up to 1% of your total body weight per week, so if you weigh 300 lbs to start, then 3 lbs a week is a reasonable goal.

But there IS a catch.

What really matters is not how much weight you lose, but how much FAT you lose. Where did your weight loss come from? Did you lose body fat or lean body mass?

“Weight” is not the same as “fat.” Weight includes muscle, bone, internal organs as well as lots and lots of water. What you really want is fat loss, not weight loss. If you only wanted weight loss, I could show you an easy way to lose 20 or 25 pounds in about 5 minutes. Just come over to my house. I have a really sharp hacksaw in my garage, and well just slice off one of your legs, after all its just extra weight right?

Lets look at an example with some numbers so you can really grasp this concept of weight versus fat and then you can see, clearly illustrated, what will happen when you lose weight too quickly (because I know you probably dont believe me and you STILL want to lose weight as fast as possible read on and it will all become clear to you).

As an example, lets take a 260 pound man who has a lot of body fat to lose – lets call it 32%. With 32% fat, a 260 pounder has 83.2 pounds of body fat and 176.8 pounds of lean mass. Using this example, lets look at a few possible scenarios with losses ranging from two to four pounds per week.

Weight Loss Scenario 1:

Suppose our 260 pound subject loses four full pounds instead of the recommended two pounds per week. Is this bad? Well, lets see:

If he loses a half a percent of body fat, here are his body composition results:

256 lbs 31.5% body fat 80.6 lbs fat 175.4 lbs lean body mass

Out of the four pounds lost, 2.8 pounds were fat and 1.2 were lean mass. Not a disaster, but not good either. Thirty percent of the weight lost was lean tissue.

Weight Loss Scenario 2:

If he loses a half a percent of body fat and only three pounds, here are his results:

257 lbs 31.5% body fat 80.9 lbs fat 176.1 lbs lean body mass

These results are better. Although he lost less body weight than scenario one, in this instance, 2.3 pounds of fat and only 0.7 lbs of lean mass were lost.

Weight Loss Scenario 3:

What if he only lost two pounds? Here are the results:

258 lbs 31.5% body fat 81.2 lbs fat 176.8 lbs lean body mass

These results are perfect. Even though our subject has only lost two pounds, which seems slow, 100% of the two pound weight loss came from fat.

Weight Loss Scenario 4:

Now lets suppose he loses three pounds but he loses more body fat: .8%

257 lbs 31.2% body fat 80.2 lbs fat 176.8 lbs lean body mass

These are the best results of all. When the weekly fat loss is .8%, 100% of the three pounds lost is fat.

So the answer to the question is yes – its safe to lose more than two pounds per week but only if the weight is all fat or at least mostly fat with minimal lean mass losses.

If you take example one with thirty percent lean tissue loss and compound that over a few months, youre talking about a massive muscle tissue loss which can dramatically slow down your metabolism and turn you into nothing more than a skinny fat person (a person with low body weight because they lost all their muscle, but still holding stubborn body fat because they slowed down their metabolism).

One thing you should know is that water weight losses sometimes distort the numbers, especially when you first begin a new nutrition and training program. Its very common to lose 4 – 5 pounds in the first week on nearly any diet and exercise program and sometimes even more on low carb diets. Just remember, its NOT all fat – Its water!

The best advice you will EVER get is to focus on losing fat, not losing weight. If you lose three to five pounds per week, and you know its all fat, and not lean tissue, then more power to you!

Of course the only way to know this is with body composition testing. For home self-testing, I recommend the Accu measure as first choice. I suggest using the bio-electric impedance analysis body fat scale only as second choice behind calipers for home self testing because this device gives some funky readings sometimes.

Even better, get a professional caliper test from an experienced tester at a health club, or even a water (hydrostatic) or air (bod pod) displacement test.

From literally hundreds of client case studies, I can confirm that its rare to lose more than 1.5 – 2.0 lbs of weight per week without losing some muscle along with it. If you exceed 2.0 to 3.0 pound per week, the probability of losing muscle is extremely high. If you lose muscle, you are damaging your metabolism and this will lead to a plateau and ultimately to relapse.

Lack of patience is one of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to losing weight. If you want your weight loss to be PERMANENT, you have to take off the pounds slowly.

This is one of the toughest lessons that overweight men and women have to learn – and they can be very hard learners. They fight kicking and screaming, insisting that they CAN and they MUST lose it faster.

Then you have these TV shows that encourage the masses that rapid, crash weight loss is okay. I say to the producers of these shows SHAME ON YOU! To the personal trainers, registered dieticians and medical doctors who are associated with these programs, I say DOUBLE SHAME ON YOU, because you should know better.

The rapid weight loss being promoted by the media for the sake of ratings and by the weight loss companies for the sake of profits today makes it even harder for those of us who are legitimate fitness and nutrition professionals because our clients say, But look at so and so on TV – he lost 26 pounds in a week!

Sure, but 26 pounds of WHAT – and do you have any idea what the long term consequences are?

Short term thinking, folks foolish. There are hundreds of ways to lose weight quickly, but only one way to lose fat and keep it off in the long term.

Do it the right way – the healthy and sensible way. Take off the pounds slowly with an intelligent nutrition and exercise program make this a new lifestyle, not a race, and you will never have to take the pounds off again because they will be gone forever the first time. No more yo-yoing.

Author: Tom Venuto
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Creditcard Currency Conversion Fee

In the article Nancy Clark (Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics) states, “The messages in The Biggest Loser are all about deprivation, denial, starvation, and punishment. Exercise is akin to torture.”

I have to say I do not agree.  All the contestants are happy to be on the show and upset when faced with the possibility of being sent home.  I might agree that the exercise sometimes seems like torture, but these are people in extreme situations and need extreme action.  They do struggle and push themselves each week, but all that hard work results in pounds shed.

The contestants are taught about healthy eating.  Despite what some may think, the contestants must cook for themselves.  They are given nutritional guidelines, but they are responsible for the food they eat.  In Nancy’s article she seems to state the contestants are rewarded for enduring starvation.  No, they are rewarded for hard work.  The contestants work out 6-8 hours each day and never go more than two hours without eating.

Personally, I think the show is great because it demonstrates that with hard work and determination you can lose weight.  Of course, when they go home there are challenges – they don’t have the entire day to devote to exercise, but they have learned tools to incorporate into their lives.  And once they leave the show, most contestants no longer have substantial pounds to shed.  They can transition more into a maintenance routine.

With all of the pills, diets, and surgeries out there advertising quick and easy weight loss,  I think it’s great that The Biggest Loser shows hard work through diet and exercise are the true paths to weight loss.  There are still two episodes left – if you’ve never watched tune in and you’ll be amazed at their transformations.