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This has been a great read - thank you for sharing. I'm really impressed with your drive and dedication.
My question: are you a fan of shows like the Biggest Loser?
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Thanks. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
I hate hate HATE that show. I admit that I watch it (this season's my first), but my girlfriend gets annoyed with me while we do because I scream at the TV so much.
It's ridiculous how bad that show is in terms of what you really need to do lose weight in a lasting way. The grand majority of the contestants have apparently regained the weight, and I think that that's largely a function of how horrid and unhealthy the whole process is.
Here's an article on what happened to contestants after being on the biggest loser.
My list of complaints with the show is long, but here are some of them:
1. They are NOT doing it in a sustainable way. They are killing themselves for hours a day in the gym. This greatly affects their metabolism - and what's going to happen when they go back to work and CAN'T work out as much?? Their bodies will gain more from eating less.
2. They are not doing it in a healthy way. They are eating almost nothing - which screws up your metabolism when you do it for a long time so that when you DO start eating again you gain massive amounts of weight. This isn't even mentioning the fact that they are intentionally making themselves horrifically dehydrated - and calling that weightloss. Losing and gaining weight very, very quickly is a horrible shock to your system, and they are setting them up to run their bodies through a meat grinder. WTF is the rush?? You didn't gain it overnight, you don't have to lose it overnight, either.
2. They have a completely unrealistic situation regarding their motivations. They have someone (like, for instance, the millions in the viewing public, who they have to be aware of at all times, what with the cameras...talk about peer pressure) watch their every move. When they get home, are they going to have that? No. They will have to find that motivation internally. That is the single biggest adjustment that anyone has to make in doing this, and as far as I can tell they will have no support in doing it.
3. Relatedly, they are in an isolated environment. In order to REALLY lose weight in a sustainable way, you MUST learn to do it in the course of your everyday life. When do people fall off the wagon? When they have interactions with other people that trigger their bad habits, either in the form of people or events causing tension or in the form of people or events that they've previously associated with foods that are not healthy (gatherings, birthdays, holidays, etc. etc. etc.). When you're isolated from that, you don't have to learn how NOT to grab a box of twinkies when the person you're dating dumps you, how NOT to eat candy at Halloween, etc. etc. etc. And when you put them back in that situation, they're just not going to be prepared for it the GRAND majority of the time. I can't tell you how much of the traffic on my weightloss board is seasonal - people screw up during the the christmas holidays, then show up repentant in the new year, or people work out for the summer and then fall off at halloween. Life doesn't stop just because you need to lose some weight. You need to learn how to deal with that, or you absolutely will fail.
4. The show is goddamned degrading. This week they had them digging through donuts to find a coin worth $5,000, and they had to eat a donut just to play. Ha-ha, fat people digging through donuts. Where's your [censored] dignity, people?? The fake goddamned sympathy and empathy they toss around and then have them do garbage like that is revolting to me. What a lot of people don't realize is that these people are essentially addicted to a drug, and they're having them degrade themselves and their situation on national television. That donut thing is exactly the same thing to me as if they had a bunch of coke addicts sifting through kilos of blow looking for cash, and forcing them to do a couple of lines beforehand just to participate. It is exactly the same thing. These people are killing themselves with that drug, but it's a socially-acceptable drug and people love making fun of fat people, so it's okay. Having been hooked on that drug and nearly killed by it, I honestly just find it repellent.
I seriously could go on for a while, but those are my biggest complaints with it - and that's before I get to the basic things, like how annoying the trainers are, how annoying the commercial breaks are (because they always hold you "in suspense") and how I wish they'd find SOMEONE to be on there who's not a wuss because they seriously ALL cry like every 5 minutes, which just leaves me embarrassed for those people.
That said, go kae! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] She's the one who I think is the least likely to regain, along with Bill.
-bb.