Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Morning After

It's the morning after The Biggest Loser. I've had time to mull over last night's episode. I teared up again last night. I'm amazed at the accomplishments of this group. I'm still a little creeped out with Sunshine's father's dedication to her but I shouldn't be-I'm that dedicated to my kids.
I wish: There's been no discussion that I can recall about why someone might hit a plateau or why women's weight might fluctuate. And I don't remember ever hearing anything like "don't expect these results at home".
We teach people that losing up to two pounds a week on a weight loss regimen is the healthy way to lose. Then we see people distraught when they get on the scale and they've only lost five pounds! So how about reminding us that what we're seeing isn't "real". That these people are eating minimal calories and exercising excessively. That it's not real life. Not even close to real life. How about reminding the audience that as the contestants get "smaller" (and with this group, that's a relative term since they are still very big by most standards) they can expect to lose more slowly. How about some reality in this reality tv show.

This morning I realized that we're seeing less and less of Jillian and Bob. Or at least it seems that way. Perhaps because they aren't being as obnoxious? Gosh, the vomiting has stopped. Or they're not focusing on making people work out so hard that they vomit. And Jillian is now the soft spoken "therapist". From raging maniacal trainer to sweetheart all in one season.

Did I miss something or was there no product placement last night?

I didn't like that the group was taken away from breakfast to perform a challenge. Bad message. Ally should have told them to finish eating and then go work out. And watching them pour cereal and milk without weighing amounts was perhaps not the best message either. Sure, by this time they should have pretty good eyeballing skills but weighing and measuring could be an opportunity for teaching the audience. Oh, excuse me. This isn't an instructional show but "entertainment". And who had the idea that watching people sweat, vomit and expose their rolls of fat would be good entertainment? Some genius.

1 comment:

Judy said...

I feel exactly the same way. I love the show but wish they would give real tips to viewers at home rather than just product placements. I would love to see a breakdown of how many calories they eat per day vs how much they burn and how they break that nutrition up. Instead we learn that we can eat Jennie-O turkey to our heart's content while also eating a couple of Lara bars because they're SO healthy for you.