by Timmy Duncan

Created on: March 23, 2010

NBC’s The Biggest Loser, boasts a resume unlike many of its reality television contemporaries. Rather than watch as cast members get drunk and hook up with random people while embarrassing themselves and their entire families, we get to watch people take control of their diet and fitness and save their own lives. Obesity is a major health problem in this country and one that quite frequently has serious – and sometimes fatal - consequences. With the help of their no-nonsense trainers, Bob and Jillian, and the show’s top notch medical staff, contestants learn how to live healthy lives and shed massive amounts of weight in the process.

One of the more popular questions from viewers is how the contestants manage to lose such massive amounts of weight, week after week. Many viewers wonder if this is even healthy since they are commonly told by their doctors that losing 1-2 pounds per week is a healthy rate of weight loss and any more than that is unrealistic and unsustainable. And it is – for normal people in a normal environment. The contestants on The Biggest Loser are not in a normal environment and they typically have much more weight to lose.

Coming in to the show, the average Biggest Loser contestant is eating approximately 3,000 calories per day. The show cuts that in half to about 1,500 calories. This cut is responsible for a large portion of the weight loss. The contestants are not given supplements or diet pills or any other short cuts of that nature. They simply cut the amount of calories they are taking in each day in half. Very few people are in a position to do this.

The other major factor in their weight loss is that they exercise for several hours each day, burning anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day. This is nearly impossible to do on your own because most people have other distractions – like jobs and families, for example. In the Biggest Loser environment, all distractions and barriers are removed. The contestants full time job is to drop the weight. With everything else taken off their plates, they are much more able to accomplish this.

Contestants are also closely monitored by a medical team so any health concerns are addressed immediately. The rate of weight loss may be unsustainable and unrealistic for the average person who has no access to this distraction free zone. However, they also do not typically have their weight loss program closely monitored by a physician as the contestants do. The show creates an unrealistic environment in which rapid weight loss is possible.

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