Here is a very interesting story I read on a forum and written by a guy who participated in a “The biggest loser” competition at work. It shocked me a bit, so I am embedding it here.
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I actually participated in a "Biggest Loser" contest at work with 6 other co-workers. We all agreed to buy in for $500, and the winner got to keep the pot (3K). We had 8-10 weeks (can't remember exactly but it was just over two months).
When I agreed to join, I sized up the competition and felt that most of them (if not all of them) would start strong and eventually cave in and fall off the wagon. I thought MFD and a steady 2-pounds per week would be enough to win it (i.e. slow and steady wins the race).
Turns out, 4 of the 6 did just that ... started off like gangbusters and then fell off and basically out of contention. What I didn't expect was that two guys would go nutty (a la The Biggest Loser show) and pull out all of the stops to lose weight.
Both of them immediately dropped down to something like a daily calorie intake of 500-800 calories ... which given that we were all in the 250 range, was insane. They began losing 4-5 pounds per week, every week. In a very unhealthy manner, they were starving themselves. One guy would have an orange for breakfast ... and a piece of grilled chicken with mustard for lunch ... that was all. The other fellow decided to eat only a small breakfast and dinner, and skip lunch entirely. He also began training for a half-marathon (despite only getting about 800 calories per day).
I realized I was in trouble when half way through I was down 12 pounds (and very proud) and they were already close to 30 pounds.
The real scare came at the very end. Both of them were battling down to the wire ... and for the last 3 days, one guy fasted entirely. He just ate a multi-vitamin every day. As a co-worker, it got worrisome because he was weak at work, having a hard time focusing or staying awake, and said he was even starting to hallucinate. He also did a colon cleanse that last 3-4 days as well!
The other guy, who was training for the half marathon, came into work at 4 AM on the day of the weigh in and ran in a water-proof suit for 3 hours to intentionally dehydrate himself for the weigh in. After his 3 hour run, he was pouring large amounts of water out of his suit's boots into the sink ... He lost 8-10 pounds in water weight that morning alone!
So, the final tally was that the winner had lost 53 pounds in just over 8 weeks, and the guy who came in second (and fasted) had lost 51 pounds. I was the tortoise, and lost a whopping 22 pounds in 8 weeks, finishing 3rd.
The sad part? Both of the guys who lost the 50 pounds gained it all back within 6 months. I am still 25 pounds down 1.5 years later.
So what bothers me about the concept of the biggest loser, is that you shouldn't play games with your health. The concept of a competition based primarily on pounds (and not more healthy factors like body fat percentage, resting heart rate, metabolic rate, muscle increase, diet, cholesterol levels, etc) concerns me. It's more of that typical American "magic bullet" smokescreen, where everyone is more worried about minimizing the time spent to lose weight, and not worrying enough about losing weight in a healthy manner and improving your overall health in the process.
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I totally agree with his resolution.
Glam glam!
