Well last night was the finale of this seasons version of the Biggest Loser and it was a night of celebration and motivation not a night to watch challenges, gameplay or workouts and not very many tips either. I taped the show as always becasue two hours is too long for any TV show and they use lots and lots of commercials for filler.

The show was broken into two parts, first all of the kicked off players did a weight in to see who would win the $100,000 for the also rans and then the last four did their weight in to see who would be crowned Biggest Loser and wind $250,000.

As they introduced all of the players except the last 4 we were amazed at home at how much weight everyone seemed to lose. There were many ways that these people could have just given up and then not attended the final show but everyone was there and everyone lost a ton of weight. Read the rest of this entry »

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I hope that I am not going to be spoiling the Biggest Loser episode from last night for anyone, and if I am please please do not click the read more (until you watch the Biggest Loser on tape or PVR). Read the rest of this entry »

I know that I was mad at Neil and was boycotting the Biggest Loser because of the way that he gamed the game but last night I sat down with my wife and we watched the Biggest Loser. Last nights episode was the makeover episode and the biggest losers went onto the set of “Days of our Lives”. It was fun to watch since some of the people on the show really do follow that soap but I have never seen it at all except Allison Sweeney on a commercial one day for the show.

I was shocked at how much weight these guys look like they have lost. They are all looking really slim and Neil (who I still hate for the water drinking incident) seems to be now losing more than anyone. One of the big changes that I always notice on the Biggest Loser is how all of the people look younger every week the more weight that they lose.

Kay got kicked off the show and I think it was kind of ineveitable but i am not really sure how the strategies work on the show. As we know she has lost the most weight percentage-wise but she would not be losing much each weight anymore I think. Last night they brought Kay back and after 3 months at home she lost another 18 pounds. That is fantastic! She is really slim and healthy looking and espeically when you compare how she looked when the show started.

I guess I will be back on the Biggest Loser bandwagon now. The show is fun to watch and it seems that no one is holding any grudges for game play.

One other thing that I did notice last night was the stupid product endorsements. Jillian is walking and talking and out of no where she says

“Sometimes you don’t need a snack, Just have a piece of Wrigleys Gum” and she pulls out a pack of gum.

Drives me crazy.

Last night on the Biggest Loser I found that the over arching theme to the show seems to be that people were working out harder than they ever had before. Actually some of the people did not even know how hard that they could push themselves.

Our mind is very slow to adapt when it comes to diet and exercise. If you live a sedentary lifestyle of years and then begin to work out your body will think that it can run let’s say 100 feet. So you run 100 feet and your chest is sore and you are out of wind. Now let’s say you do this every day and after two weeks you finish this “workout” of running 100 feet and you are still winded and your chest is sore. Your mind thinks that you are just as strong but really you could push yourself a lot harder.

Discomfort is a trigger to the brain telling you that you have pushed yourself to hard and no one like to be in discomfort. Most trainers know that you have a sticking point in your own mind where you think that you cannot go any farther or harder. This is just a psychological sticking point that is not real but just a level that you are not comfortable going past. The trouble is that this is the level where all of your gains come from.

I am a victim of this lack of pushing myself as easily as anyone else. The thing that helps is to remember before your workout that you are setting low levels of limits on yourself and to set goals every single time that you workout.

Another way that you can make yourself work out harder on a regular basis is to read and see success stories. I am sure that this is the reason that I watch the Biggest Loser and also the reason that success stories are always so popular in the sports sections in newspapers be it home run kings or the greatest quarterback this week kind of stories.

Stop looking at how hard you are working as being the hardest that you can work out. There is always a step farther, a pound more, a minute quicker. Try today to make sure you have great goals and you will make greater improvements in your health and fitness endeavors.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about last nights episode of the biggest loser, instead I just want to dwell on the lack of weight loss over the last two weeks on the show.

If you remember the first week of this season of the Biggest Loser, everyone lost big weight and now over the last two weeks just about everyone is losing 3-5 pounds per week. This is very disappointing to the people on the show I can imagine because they have gone from a basically sedentary lifestyle with unlimited food to a very regimented 3-4 hours a day (I am guessing) of exercise and a very strict diet.

So, this of course begs the question, “Why are the biggest losers ont losing a lot of weight?”. Well the reason that everyone lost a lot of weight during the first week of the Biggest Loser was due in a large part to exercise and eating change coupled with a lot of water weight loss. You only get the chance to lose weight these ways once per diet so they will not work for very long.

Now over the last two weeks the biggest losers are now going through the pases of tougher and tougher exercise while keeping their diets clean. The losses from all of those workouts should obviously be helping them lose weight but the bodies of the players are at this point probably going through the turmoil of the changes and everyone is having some kind of metabolism problem.

One of the things that we are really seeing is the sleep problems that people are having. With all of the exercise and injuries these guys are needing a lot of time to heal but with all of this exercise and changed diet the regular circadian rythym that would have them sleep deep is all screwed up as well.

So lets say that over the next couple of week everyones bodies will start to adjust, metabolisms will rise and the weight loss will start to really mount up. What should these guys do to make sure that they feel good and don’t go into a depression over the lack of weight loss.

First, remember the changes that are taking place in their bodies are temporary - know that as lifestyle changes your body needs to slowly catch up.

Secondly, make sure that you don’t look for shortcuts - starving yourself or doing an extra couple of hours of cardio or weights in the short term will scare your body into preserving fat and in the long term will lead to discouragment in the process.

Thirdly, make sure that you have the end in mind - Changing your life for the better is a process and change in habits. As long as the players trust that they are going to lose the 100 pounds or whatever eventually and that the plan will work. Lifestyle changes (exercise and better eating not crazy amounts of exercise and not eating) are going to be permanent and therefore the weight loss will be permanent.

None of us know what next week will bring but sometime over the next couple of weeks we are going to see these guys lose a lot of weight again, 8-12 pounds in a week at their level will be more normal but of course it all depends on the outside and internal influences to the eating and exercise.

The second episode for the Biggest Loser this season was a two hour episode just like the first episode was. We get a bit of a recap and then watched as the two main teams worked out and the Black Team headed by Jillian Michaels had their first weight in. These guys are all working out really hard and in fine Biggest Loser form we are getting to see punishment.

One of the great things about the Biggest Loser is the little short tips that you run into during the show. One of the guys was eating next to nothing and got beat up for it. If you do not eat your body goes into a starvation mode and you will not be able to raise your metabolism to lose weight. Kim Lyons also brought up the idea of eating ground turkey instead of ground beef. Turkey is high in protein and very low in fat so it is a great alternative whether ground up or just cooked instead of steak or chicken.

I want to skip the other stuff for now from the show because I think the real highlight in the two hours was the read and blue teams finally seeing the cast-offs, the black team coached by Jillian Micheals.

“strong like a tidal wave” I have no idea who used this line as it came so fast but one of Jillian Michaels people used this term to discribe one of his team mates. This was the day that the red and blue teams got to meet the black team. As happened last season the read and blue teams did not feel that the black team deserved to be there but just because they did not see them does not mean that the black team was not working hard. The problem last season was that all of the bonding that went on meant the the people working out from home were looked at as infiltrators and were never really accepted…we will see how this season goes as there are now three pretty evenly matched teams.

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