I’m not a huge fan of the Biggest Loser show but for whatever reason my wife and I have been recording the shows this season. If you watch the show you’ll know that during the first week the contestants lost an incredible amount of weight (30lbs in a week!); but this week the weight loss was SLOW and one woman gained a pound. My wife and I talked a bunch about what happened to cause such a great halt in weight loss.
I was going to write about it but here on the NN Blog but I just read a post by Adam Campbell over at Men’s Health and he laid things out very clearly so I won’t rehash it. Click the link and read what Adam had to say:
Adam’s Take on The Biggest Loser
I should note that one thing that I think happened that Adam didn’t address was metabolism and I think this plays a big role. These people were used to consuming a large amount of calories. To some extent the more you eat the more your metabolism increases (to some extent). Then these people started exercising a TON. But they also started to severely restrict their calories (SEVERELY). I hypothesize that during the first week there was a period in which the contests’ metabolisms were way up and their intake was way down. This huge gap in intake vs expenditure caused huge weight loss for some people.
But this week their bodies responded (via a survival mechanism) in an almost supercompensation mechanism and their metabolisms were greatly down regulated. Thus the gap between intake and expenditure was much smaller.
I have a feeling that this coming week their weight loss number will increase again as their bodies adapt a little and go out of metabolic/caloric deprivation shock. We’ll see.
Now go read Adam’s Take on The Biggest Loser
You’re right. Each season the same thing happens, because basically their bodies think they are all of a sudden chasing antelopes 8 hours a day but not catching them. Thus starvation mode kicks in and they stop burning fat. Next week they will be back to putting up relatively big numbers.
By the way, their diets, from watching previous seasons, vary slightly by trainer, but basically consist of 1800 calories and 0 sugar 0 simple carbs. They do eat weat bread however, which in my opinion should probably be cut out completely, and increase the total calorie intake a bit.
Anyway, keep up the great work Mike.
I have tried to explain this to my weightloss clients in advance. Unless they truly understand that carbohydrates hold water, they will become very dissapointed at their progress. I allways look forward to your E-mails. Thanks Mike.
Hey Mike … great that you brought this issue up.
I think that one of the biggest problems with Biggest Loser is that it is setting up unrealistic expectations with people on what is possible for real world fat loss.
20 pounds in a week is a 70,000 calorie deficit (if it was fat) … but uneducated people sitting at home desperate for a quick fix solution easily buy into the illusion that rapid fat loss is possible.
Interestingly I just posted in my blog that the winner of the Australian version who lost 70kg on the show (154 pounds) recently said that he regained 30kg almost immediately afterwards. Check out my blog for more info.
Keep up the great work Mike. I loved your book and now use it as the nutrition guidelines for helping people burn the fat.
Regards
Rod
Fat Burn Blog
Survival mode and compensatory drop in metabolism is a huge myth. There may be a slight slowing as research shows but the idea the the body will kick into starvation mode is unfounded. Likely in week one the contestants drink a lot of water before initial weigh in to bump up weight, also week one they likely sweat out and lose a lot of water weight and start burning muscle as they eat less than needed and maybe become somewhat catabolic. Week two…well water weight is already down… Weight loss is all about moving around, all the time. Walking, taking the stairs, carrying your own groceries – research points to this being as important if not more so than gym exercise. Especially since people tend to eat more after a gym workout than is normal to "reward" themselves.