Anybody who’s a participant of the Fb web page for BGG2WL is aware of that in The Greatest Loser’s most up-to-date season, we hosted weekly chats discussing the ongoings of every episode. For me, this was my first season watching the present, and I didn’t even watch it from the beginning.
I’m not a giant TV individual. It’s simply gotten lazy, to me. Every part is “unscripted actuality,” which is admittedly simply code for “The community is simply too low-cost to pay writers, so let’s simply pay just a few cameramen to take shifts following round actually problem-prone folks.”
Let’s not even discuss in regards to the “weight reduction porn” that we preserve seeing as of late. That’s proper.. I mentioned it – weight reduction porn. It’s nearly as if seeing folks battle with weight is being fetishized. Pornographic in nature, even. Large. Ruby (thanks, Felicia!). The Greatest Loser. Dropping It. One Massive Comfortable Household. Movie star Match Membership. No matter Crap Kirstie Alley Is Doing To Get Her Face On The TV Display screen Once more. For some purpose, Individuals love watching the obese agonize over not being “one of many stunning folks,” and salivate on the considered watching them sweat the kilos off to get there.
I’ve simply by no means been that individual. Whereas I like to root for a very good story similar to anybody else… I’m simply… all the time reminded that it’s TV – conditions (and pictures) are manipulated to current us what they need to current us.
Enter Kai Hibbard.
A contestant from the third season of The Greatest Loser (TBL), she not too long ago appeared on virtually each main venue talking in regards to the ills of the present that helped construct her title.
(For those who had been suggested to be cautious of triggers, I might advise you to not learn the next highlighted passages.)
Taken from her unique interview with Golda Poretsky:
On the seclusion of the ranch:
“Lots of people don’t know that when we had been really on the ranch, it was 6 weeks earlier than we had been allowed to get mail from residence and our mail was opened and censored. And it was 8 weeks earlier than we had been allowed to talk to anyone on the cellphone and it was for five minutes at a time with a chaperone.”
On the that means of a “week” on the Greatest Loser:
“It assorted. It went from 14 days and I imagine that close to the tip we had one week that was 5 days.”
On being handled as “an expendable commodity”:
“We did one problem in a stadium in California. It was about 100 levels that day and the problem concerned working up stairs after which doing the wave all the way in which across the stadium after which working down the steps and again throughout the soccer area. Once we had been finished, we had been clearly coated in sweat, we had been all out of practice, and that was a extremely exhausting problem in that warmth. They introduced us bottles of water that we had packed ourselves within the truck that had been sitting within the warmth all day, they usually broke out coolers for the trainers, the cameramen, the audio folks, and for Caroline Rhea they usually had cool water and we drank 90 diploma water after we ran the problem. . . . And really one of many contestants, Eric, from New York (gained my season) misplaced it at that time and screamed about how we weren’t animals and to please cease treating us like animals they usually dealt with it the way in which they dealt with us all the time, [they] quieted him down, and reminded him how fortunate we had been to be there, that it was saving his life.“
On the way in which contestants (and viewers) are brainwashed into believing that fats persons are subhuman:
“I imagine that . . . a lot of the contestants, felt prefer it was okay to deal with us like we had been subhuman once we had been there, that the ends justify the means. In the event that they had been going to make us skinny, then it was completely price it to humiliate us and deal with us poorly all the way in which alongside. I simply don’t really feel that manner.”
Kai on The Greatest Loser’s weight-reduction plan and train program:
“Sadly, what they’re telling you the contestants are doing and what they really have the contestants doing are two various things, at the least so far as my season goes. We had been understanding wherever between 2 and 5 hours a day, and we had been understanding severely injured. There’s completely no purpose to work a 270 pound woman out so exhausting that she pukes the primary time you usher in a fitness center. That was totally for good television.
“There was a registered dietician that was alleged to be serving to [the contestants at the ranch] as effectively . . . however each time she tried to offer us recommendation . . . the crew or manufacturing would step in and inform us that we had been to not take heed to anyone besides our trainers. And my coach’s a pleasant individual, however I do not know what she had for a dietary background in any respect.”
On how the trainers and producers overrode the present’s medical doctors:
“The physician had taken our blood and examined us and despatched us an answer, I don’t know precisely what it was but it surely was salty, so I’m assuming that our electrolytes had been off. And when the trainers came upon we had been taking it, they informed us beneath no sure phrases had been we to be taking that, as a result of it will make us retain water and achieve weight on the size and we’d must go residence. The medical doctors had ordered us to take it and the trainers had been like, ‘throw it out, proper now.’ There was this interference between the individuals who had been really in all probability attempting to get us wholesome from the individuals who needed a very good tv present.“
On the present’s low-calorie weight-reduction plan and her subsequent consuming dysfunction:
“I believe once I was on the precise ranch we had been consuming between 1,000 and 1,200 energy a day, I’m not sure. The factor is, it bought worse once I bought residence. . . . I might get e-mails always from the producers: ‘what have you ever finished at present?’ ‘are you understanding sufficient?’ It was simply all the time, all the time, all the time. At that time, [I had] all of the stress on me, and [I was] attempting to do proper by what I had been informed is the very best factor to ever occur to me. And they might let you know on a regular basis, ’200,000 different fats women had been in line proper behind you. How dare you waste this expertise? How dare you let anyone down?’
“So I bought to a degree the place I used to be solely consuming about 1,000 energy a day and I used to be understanding between 5 and eight hours a day. . . . And my hair began to fall out. I used to be coated in bruises. I had darkish circles beneath my eyes. To not get too utterly graphic, however my interval stopped altogether and I used to be solely sleeping 3 hours an evening. I attempted to inform the T.V. present about it and I used to be informed, ‘reserve it for the digicam.’
“At that time, my boyfriend on the time, who’s now my husband, and my finest good friend and my household stepped in they usually mentioned, ‘Hey, loopy, you’re going to die in the event you preserve this up.’ At that time was doing actually enjoyable issues like not consuming in any respect. . . my main meals teams had been water, black espresso and splenda. I bought to the purpose that once I was nervous or upset I used to be actually vomiting my meals up. And at one level the size stalled, I used to be caught at 163, and my coach and the producers all ordered me to take a free day. . . . They mentioned, ‘oh, you’re physique must be shaken up.’ And I used to be so afraid of meals at that time I went in [to the store], I purchased a bag of snicker doodle cookies, and a quart of milk, and a field of ex lax and I ate all of them collectively. And I knew that I used to be in bother. And it was at this level that I used to be like, ‘Hey, the place are these medical doctors and that psychologist which might be alleged to be following up and maintaining a tally of me that I saved listening to about?’”
On how the contestants dehydrated themselves earlier than weigh-ins:
“I didn’t discover ways to dehydrate till I bought on the ranch. It was each week. Each single week, that is what a weigh-in would appear like: the true weigh-ins had been at 10 o’clock within the morning they usually had been on a cattle scale on the ranch they usually weren’t filmed. . . . Now, thoughts you, it was shot in Simi Valley, so it’s a desert, so it’s scorching. And on the morning of the weigh-in you’ll stand up and also you’d put in your underwear, your spandex shorts, and also you’d placed on sweatpants and then you definately’d placed on a sports activities bra, a tank prime, an extended sleeve shirt, and your sweatshirt, a ball cap, and then you definately’d zip up your sweatshirt, you’d put your hood on and also you’d go right down to the fitness center. [The gym] wasn’t an actual fitness center, it was a short lived construction only for taking pictures and it didn’t have any air con and also you’d shut all of the doorways and all of the home windows within the fitness center. Then you definately would work out for 2, two and half hours (so long as you possibly can stand it) with none water. (The boys would take water, rinse their mouth out, and spit it. I couldn’t even try this — if I used to be going to place water in my mouth, I used to be going to drink it.) Most, if not everyone, had reduce their water about 24 hours beforehand, if not 24 hours then at the least by 5 o’clock the afternoon earlier than. After which, you’ll drink espresso in the event you had something the evening earlier than, as a result of (a) it will clear your system out and (b) it will dehydrate you.
“So after you probably did the two hours of understanding in full sweat, sweating off as a lot as you possibly can, you’ll return to the home, bathe, blow dry your hair, and strip right down to the lightest clothes you possibly can discover, which was often spandex shorts and a sports activities bra. Then you definately’d go downstairs and also you’d weigh your self in and the second you bought off that scale you’ll chug water since you had been so dehydrated.”
On her most painful weigh-in:
“The worst one I can keep in mind is the final one, earlier than the ultimate weigh-in, and it was down to 5 contestants left. I keep in mind being on the elliptical and being so exhausted and so able to go residence and so dehydrated that I burst into tears and I’m crying . . . and I’m nonetheless understanding and it set off a sequence response and each single individual within the fitness center, all the 5 contestants that had been left, had been crying. And we had been so brainwashed at that time that I keep in mind saying out loud, ‘Effectively, at the least we’re dropping extra water-weight by crying.’”
On how the present is edited to make contestants look dangerous for refusing to work out with accidents:
“You actually get brainwashed into considering every thing’s your fault, [that] you’re simply not robust sufficient, you’re simply not ok. . . . For instance, Heather, on my season, was informed by the medical coach, not one of many private trainers, . . . ‘Right here’s the deal, each your knees are tousled, and I imagine you ripped your calf muscle.’ So he informed the coach that too however while you watch the present, Heather’s arguing with our coach and saying, ‘Look, I can’t do it.’ And so they made it appear like it’s as a result of she’s lazy and refuses to work out, when really she’s been informed by the medical doctors, ‘Don’t run, don’t do that, you can not do that.’ And manufacturing and her private coach needed her to do it anyway, only for the cameras. And when she refused to do it for the cameras as a result of it will have broken her physique much more (she ended up needing steroid photographs in each knees whereas we had been nonetheless there by the way in which) it was edited to make her appear like she was lazy and disobedient, principally. So then you definately’ve bought the 22 million Individuals that watch it considering that you just’re this horrible, lazy, ungrateful individual. And she or he actually bought dying threats on the NBC web page. I simply have people who inform me stuff like, I’m ugly once I cry, or I’m lazy. She bought dying threats.”
On the fantasy of being skinny:
“They mentioned that they had been very stunned by me as a contestant as a result of, in the event you watch from the start of the season to the tip, my persona doesn’t change in any respect. And my remark was, ‘Why would it not?’ However I suppose that 95% of the contestants begin off one individual and find yourself a unique one on the finish. And it’s as a result of they imagine that being skinny will make all my desires come true. [But] your mortgage is identical in the event you weigh 144 or in the event you weigh 268. You’re both completely happy along with your life otherwise you’re not.”
I can recall an argument I bought into with a good friend of mine about exhibits like TBL.. along with his argument going one thing like, “We’d like exhibits like this to point out folks what it appears to be like wish to work exhausting within the fitness center. You sweat, you grind, you burn, you get pissed, however you’re completely happy while you see the outcomes.” Yeah, I hear you talkin’, however um… 17lbs in a single “week?” What about ol’ dude that misplaced ~30lbs his first “week” there?
My grievance has all the time been that it units an unrealistic expectation for what one can proceed to anticipate all through their weight reduction journey. The typical individual – who in all probability (sadly) is aware of little or no about how their physique handles weight outdoors of what the commercials inform them – doesn’t acknowledge that “exhausting work can’t produce 11lb weekly weight reduction” regularly. What I can see taking place (and admittedly, what has occurred to me), is somebody going to the fitness center, busting their tails, “solely” dropping 4lbs and considering that “That is as exhausting as I can work, and I solely misplaced 4lbs? Why can they lose 11lbs in per week, and I can’t? I can’t do that anymore!” and giving up. Everyone knows that individuals will generally search for causes to surrender… and whereas it isn’t NBC’s accountability to maintain us motivated, a little bit integrity may be good, right here.
And since we’re speaking about scales, I can fuss in regards to the weigh-ins, as effectively. I simply spent three months ramping up my weight lifting routine in order that once I burn the remainder of this fats, my pores and skin could have an precise form to cling to.. not simply dangle and dangle there. I understand how many inches I’ve misplaced, and I understand how a lot leaner my physique has change into. I additionally know that I really gained weight throughout that point, too. If I had been a scale freak, I may be bothered by this. TBL encourages weight lifting with the left hand, and breeds scale freaks with the correct – your longevity on the present (and your probability at 250k) is wholly decided by what exhibits up on that scale. Changing muscle with fats (changing a pound of muscle with a pound of fats… continues to be changing a pound with a pound)… implies that you’re not dropping. A scale freak’s nightmare.
I like the tales of individuals overcoming their struggles. I additionally love the truth that TBL exhibits folks working as exhausting as they will, and the enjoyment on their faces once they see how that arduous work paid off. Regardless of how manipulated that footage or scenario could also be, the message that will get throughout is that “exhausting work produces outcomes.” I can respect that. TBL has impressed numerous “workplace competitions” the place teams of comrades host their very own TBL competitions and help each other. We can’t deny the truth that one of many greatest examples of weight reduction porn has finished some good.
We additionally can’t deny the truth that TBL creates an surroundings the place “regular” outcomes are frowned upon, and now it looks as if unhealthy strategies of weight reduction are being glorified on the low. The typical American, roughly 20-30lbs obese, is just not going to lose 30lbs in a single week with out surgical procedure. I’personal care what you say. Two kilos in per week is smart, however somebody dropping 2lbs on the ranch is able to cry. The on a regular basis TBL fan gained’t all the time say to themselves, “Effectively, if I used to be on a ranch the place all I did was exercise and sleep, 2lbs can be a disappointment to me, too.” They’ll say, “2lbs? Gosh, he sucks.”
9 occasions out of ten, in the event you lose a gang of weight rapidly, it’s extremely unlikely that you just’ll preserve it off. Why? Since you in all probability misplaced it by doing one thing you possibly can’t keep for the remainder of your life. Residing on a ranch the place your solely stress is shedding weight – no payments to fret about, no youngsters to chase round, no boss to brown nostril – is not a way of life change. It merely isn’t. And with as little as many people find out about our our bodies and weight achieve… we’re not specializing in that life-style a part of this. We’re specializing in the “how can I lose 8lbs in a ‘week?’” a part of this… as evidenced by the typical grocery store journal cowl. Hibbard, herself, was quoted as saying the next:
“I really placed on about 31 kilos in two weeks. After my physique had an opportunity to stabilize I spent all final yr hovering between 159 and 175, I battle on a regular basis to seek out some stability.”
In my thoughts, exhibits like this have some constructive factors… however they merely don’t outweigh the destructive (no pun supposed, I promise.) In an surroundings just like the BGG2WL FB web page, we are able to discuss in regards to the present with out assigning these expectations of 8lbs in a “week” to ourselves. (Apart from, there’s all the time somebody prepared and prepared to leap in and announce how unrealistic the present is, anyhow.) Most of America doesn’t get to take pleasure in that sort of help system, on-line or not. Fetishizing unrealistic strategies producing unrealistic outcomes can solely flip us into individuals who imagine weight reduction is unattainable… and that’s unfair to all of us.
All of that is to say, in the event you’re watching these sorts of exhibits for the occasional tidbit of knowledge they share or the leisure worth (?), then by all means, take pleasure in your self! However don’t maintain these exhibits as much as be some normal or mannequin of success, as a result of they merely don’t mirror our on a regular basis lives in any capability… and even when they did, there are anatomical (and, as outlined above, apparently moral) explanation why the phrase “outcomes might differ” rings true, right here.
Look to your self, your help system and your private inspiration to information you in your journey. Not a TV present that may be – and can be – manipulated for the sake of cash. Your well being deserves a lot greater than that.
