The new season, season 4 of Biggest Loser is now underway. I am again excited at the prospect of a new season and glad that they did away with and introduced some changes to the format of the Biggest Loser.

Of course the big change was to bring back Jillian Michaels as the trainer and coach of the new Black team, a team that the main group knows nothing about. Jillian has a bit of an edge in that she is playing on the emotions of her team as the castoffs that were not chosen while the other teams duke it out at the new non-ranch location.

Another change this season is the integration of the teams with the trainers. Bob Harper and Kim Lyons were both in the room for both the initial and second weigh ins and you could see their excitement and disappointment when members lost more or less than they had hoped.

Finally the Biggest Loser changed the format in that they do not have a few people on and kick off most of the people to workout at home by themselves, I did not like this last season and made it quite clear a few times in previous posts.

So now finally on to the show – the first of two two hour episodes with next week being two hours as well.

The Biggest Loser season 4 started with an almost 15 minute preview of this coming season, I guess this was OK even though it felt a bit like a commercial but the thing is that over the first few weeks we do not have a chance to get to know the people on the show very well and that is really to me what the show is all about.

The show starts with 18 people racing to Bob Harper and Kim Lyons with the two winners picking a team of 6 and having 6 people sent home, waving as the two team busses leave….or so they think, in rides Jillian Michaels to secretly take this team of 6 outcasts to become her new black team that will not show up in the game until after the second week.

More…

So the teams are now set, Bob Harper is working with the Blue team, Kim Lyons is working with the Red team and Jillian Michaels is working with the Black team. All the teams have six members and at this point seem pretty evenly matched as far as we could see.

The challenge this week was to load all of the weight that the teams want to lose individually into a private jet and then push and pull the jet across a finish line. Impressive to say the least with the red team winning the challenge and getting to read letters for home. Both my wife and I thought it was a little early for the letters at home type of reward, when did they see their families last? Last week? Anyway they could have waited 4 or 5 weeks for that one I thought.

Jillians black team is still working away in secret…

Finally in the weigh in the Blue team won. At the end of the weight in the captain of the Blue team, 62 year old Phil (an IT Project Manager) had to lose more than 5 pounds for his team to win and ended up losing 31 pounds.

So the Red team had to kick off one of their own, Amber, who tried to give up early seemed almost relieved to be kicked out of the game. I think that sometimes people are excited about being on a reality show and when they actually get there have trouble with the pain and interpersonal relationships that they had not really though through.

That’s it, the first episode of the Biggest Loser Season 4 is over but I am going to add some posts this week about the tips from the show as well as the people and what they seemed like.

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

I was looking through Dr Phils book, The Ultimate Weight Solution, of seven keys to weight loss freedom. The book seems to make sense from a couple of standpoints but it is interesting how Dr Phil spends so much time on subjects like your relationship to food, your support systems, how you feel emotionally about food and stuff like this. As we all know the psychological aspects of weight loss are really important but what this book is a little more short on is the diet and exercise portion of weight loss than I would like. I know that Dr Phil gets shots taken at him for being so obnoxious and rude to people, apparently for their own good but as I have said before I believe that Dr Phil means well when he comes across with a lot of these ideas.

I think that this book is great for getting the mind aspect of weight loss right, for this Dr Phil is great and then get another book, maybe Body for life or you know my favorite, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle for the diet and exercise portion that they are both so great for in that aspect.

If you are interested in The Ultimate Weight Solution you can buy it directly at Amazon

OK, I thought I had mentioned Dr Phil before here but it appears that I did not. I have always thought that Dr Phil means well in his show, on his CDs and with his weight loss books but he does get very irritating.

I just saw that there is some kind of a lawsuit being filed against him and I thought it was another one of those crappy “I don’t like you so I’ll sue” type suits but it appears there is more to it

Dr Phil’s Supplements: Class Action Lawsuit?
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OK I get to finally talk about which plan I support for weight control. Over the years I have seen all the diets come and go. My dad years back did the Mayo Clinic diet, my wife joined Jenny Craig, and I have a bookshelf full of books starting with Susan Powter’s “Stop The Insanity”, Atkins Diet books, the GI Diet, Dr Phil’s Diet books and even more that I can even think of without standing in front of the bookshelf.

So what’s my favorite? It’s Weight Watchers. My wife joined Weight Watchers a few years back before getting pregnant with our second and I was more than a little skeptical. Over the years we learned so much about our diets, exercise and the role that weights cardio, carbs, fats, protein, and water played in our lives that I was pretty sure we could do it ourselves. Lastly I was nervous about how my wife Michelle was going to do as Jenny Craig had not gone well and she was talking about gastro banding surgery….this is something that I am not a big fan of at all unless as a last resort.

Well I was apparently wrong. Weight Watchers has a very simple system for weight loss by giving a point value to every food based on the calories, fat and fiber. Weight Watchers also has people mark down in a journal all of the fats and water taken in as well as number of servings of fruit. One really important factor to me is that weight watchers does not ban certain foods but instead preaches portion control and the ideals of healthy eating. This means that you will not get bored of the food and stray off of your diet, in fact it never feels like a diet to us but just a responsible way of eating.

Although the weight loss that Michelle has experienced is not like on The Biggest Loser TV show it is consistent and it has been really great to see the results. One of the really great things about Weight Watchers is the support that they give, Michelle goes to a meeting every Saturday morning where she weighs in and then a leader talks about holiday eating or motivation or what to replace problem goods with and at the end of the meeting Michele will often come home with a great new recipe.

Our family is definitely a Weight Watchers family with her watching the way she eats every day but more importantly we have great meals that are easy to make and not to strict and the whole family eats the same meal for dinner instead of us having a diet meal and three regular meals.

There are Weight Watchers meetings in practically every city in North America and there is great online support as well with an extensive website and numerous internet message boards.