The Biggest Loser backlash: Notes from a fan

Season 8 of The Biggest Loser has seen a big ratings increase from previous years (the season premiere was up 25 percent in total viewers from a year ago) and with it, an increase in opinions knocking the show, sometimes from people who don't appear to regularly watch the show.

• Dr. Norris Chumley, at Beliefnet.com: "Teams and individual contestants are provided with refrigerators of their favorite "bad foods" in dining rooms, which I think is ridiculous at best." (Don't know what show he's been watching but that's not the case.)
• Mark Sisson, at Mark's Daily Apple: "It’s a made-for-TV spectacle that has morphed into a cruel hoax perpetrated on the typical overweight person in America who is desperately looking for the weight-loss secret."
• Katherine Hobson, at U.S. News and World Report, writes that fitness pros are knocking the show: "They worry that it gives people the wrong idea of what they need to do to lose weight and get fit."

Here's the deal (at least my deal): The show takes sedentary people with lousy diets, whisks them away from family, friends and jobs, plants them at a maxed-out fat farm with top-notch dietitians, doctors, trainers and equipment and has them obsess about diet and exercise 24/7.

Of course that's unrealistic! But it's also TV. It's life, amplified.

Think of it as New York Fashion Week: Designers send tall leggy models down runways wearing extreme examples of fashion. We look at the photos and think "Man, that's really over the top, but I like the color of that dress. Perhaps I'll look for that color at the mall."

We watch The Biggest Loser, and if we have realistic expectations about diet and exercise, we know that we can't workout for 5 hours a day but we might think "Hey, that kettlebell looks interesting. Think I'll try that out next time at the gym."

And the food component is entirely realistic. There's no starvation going on at the ranch. The Biggest Loser diet is a carefully calibrated weight-loss plan that gives them the right amounts of protein, carbs and fat and teaches portion control and healthy choices and swaps.

In the rarefied world of The Biggest Loser ranch, we see people succeeding at weight loss the old-fashioned way: Diet and exercise. No surgery, no pills, no silly combinations or restrictions. And we think "OK, I can't lock myself away but I can get to the gym more, do more resistance training, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, drink more water, journal my food choices."

It's the takeaway from the show that's the most important thing.

I have watched and written about the show since season 1, episode 1 and I've seen the show evolve from jokingly making contestants sell cupcakes and make food towers using only their teeth, to having real emotional breakthroughs on why they got to the state they were in and how to permanently change those destructive behaviors.

The takeaway for the contestants is strong. Just this past week, Antoine and Sean were kicked off the ranch but while at home, both of them have been able to lose more than 100 pounds. All with life getting in the way -- jobs, kids, commutes, drive-throughs. They're not working out for 5 hours a day anymore. They fit in fitness before and after work, make weekends more active, steer clear of fast-food restaurants and Big Gulps. That's what they've carried with them, and that's what viewers can glean from watching the show.

Keep that in mind that when you can't lose 14 pounds in a week like the Biggest Loser contestants. You're not supposed to. They can because it's their job for that time at the ranch. But you can make meaningful changes that will lead to lasting weight loss.

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