Biggest Loser Doc: Registered Dietitian (and Her Husband) React

My husband Vincent and I are unpacking Netflix’s brand-new documentary Fit for TV, a deep dive into The Biggest Loser. We're sharing our thoughts on the stories, scandals, and shocking truths behind one of the most infamous weight-loss shows of all time. Whether you have seen the doc or would rather skip it and hear what someone else thought, I think you'll enjoy sitting in on our thoughts after watching.

From “temptation challenges” to behind-the-scenes medical battles, we've got plenty of unfiltered thoughts on what the show got wrong, what the documentary revealed, and why shows like this shaped an entire generation’s views on weight, health, and self-worth.

Expect plenty of "did that seriously happen!?", marital bickering, and some metabolism 101.

Also, highly recommend listening on 1.2x speed.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• What Fit for TV revealed about The Biggest Loser’s hidden dangers
• The shocking calorie and exercise demands contestants endured
• Whether weight loss reality shows create lasting harm or quick entertainment
• How weight stigma and shame feed binge eating and body image struggles
• Why metabolism myths (like “starving breaks your metabolism forever”) are misunderstood
• What Michelle wished the documentary had covered about binge eating disorder

Studies mentioned:

Biggest Loser Study

Kevin Hall's follow up analysis

Minnesota Starvation Experiment

FAST FORWARD TO

• 00:00 – Why my husband doesn’t listen to my podcast
• 01:31 – First impressions: why Fit for TV felt different from other docs
• 05:06 – Childhood memories & growing up with The Biggest Loser
• 7:21 – Fat-shaming on primetime: how it shaped body image
• 8:19 – Contestants’ stories: Danny, “secret donut runs,” and binge eating
• 9:33 – Meet Dr. Huizenga: hero, villain, or just damage control?
• 15:53 – Calories in, calories out… and why Jillian Michaels is a disaster
• 28:04 – The infamous “temptation challenges” explained
• 36:54 – Shame as motivation? Why yelling doesn’t build a healthy relationship with exercise
• 42:57 – Rumors of drugs, and btw a contestant died!?!
• 47:35 – The infamous "broken metabolism study" and what the show left out
• 54:35 – Important quotes, why some contestants were glad they went on The Biggest Loser, and what we can learn today

Transcript

Michelle Yates (00:00)
Lock in. We're here.

Yeah, mean, honestly, yeah, it doesn't really matter. can look wherever you want. I like this one because I get to see myself.

have ever heard of the story of narcissists? The story of narcissists? No, I haven't. Do want to key us in on that one? No. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Did he stop crying? Yeah. ⁓ excellent. Self-soothing has been achieved. Okay.

Alright. You ready? Yes, I'm glad I wear black. Yeah. It's slimming. You know when you first came down here you were wearing grey shorts. ⁓ yeah, that's right. It's a bit excessive. It's a bold move. Trying to copy me. Anyway, cheers.

Let's do this. Welcome to Nourish and Free, the podcast where mental health meets physical health. We're going to try that again, actually.

No, I actually have to drink wine.

This is for inspiration by the way. Okay. To jog your memory. Ready? Yes, I was about to do my intro. Welcome to NERSH. my god.

Welcome to Nourish and Free, the podcast where mental health meets physical health, food guilt gets ghosted, and toxic wellness advice gets roasted. I'm your host, Michelle Yates, registered dietitian with my master's in health psychology and a certified health mindset coach. This is a show where we get cozy talking about things like binge eating, a body image, and then we also do some good myth busting as well around general health topics because I find that really fun.

And today I'm joined by my husband, Vincent Yates. Welcome back to the show. It's good to be back. I'm really excited to talk about what's new with me. Yeah, you want to talk about all of your stuff? Yeah, I that's what today was all about. Oh, is it not about me? It's it can. No, it's not. Oh, man. All right. Well, I'm still here. I was trying to find a way to lay you down easy and I just got to wrap the bandaid off. This is not what we're talking about.

That's fine. I will say I'm quite impressed with your intro. Thank you. It was a good intro. I've cleaned it up a bit. It's good. Thank you. I know I want to say this. I've never heard it before, but that just means I don't listen to your podcast. I don't expect you to. I was really impressed. I've never heard that before. I mean, you live with me. You hear me talk enough, so I don't blame you. Easy.

Anyway, today we are talking about the new, the brand new, fresh off the press Netflix documentary called Fit for TV. And this is all about the show, The Biggest Loser. We just watched it last night. It dropped last night. And I am really excited about our timing because I think we're pretty good to jump on this as fast as we did. yeah.

Haven't heard a lot of other people talk about this yet. Oh man, what's with the... How long has that been like that? I haven't been staring at the camera at all. Well... Is it because my leg? Because I shake my leg all the time? I don't know, maybe. Can't be. That can't be it.

to be better. ⁓

So I brought my husband back to do another reaction to a documentary together. We've done two so far and they were super fun for us and it sounds like you guys like them too. So we're going to react today to the brand new Netflix documentary called Fit for TV. This just dropped yesterday at the time of us recording this. And I haven't heard a lot of people say much about it yet just because it is so brand new.

I mean, I've seen a few things. So I'm excited to discuss this on the show. And yeah, the way that we usually do these is that we haven't shared with each other our thoughts at all. We are sharing for the first time right now. So you're going to hear what he thinks at the same time I do. And I'm excited to hear what you think because this was a dumpster fire of a documentary. Yeah, big reaction. Huge, huge reaction. You've got huge reactions. Okay, so tell me overall.

How did you feel coming away from that documentary? Well, was sarcasm, of all. OK, you don't have a... OK. Not a It's not going to be good episode. Not a huge reaction. No, I... The past two that we've done, what's different about this one is it was done really well. What makes you say that compared to the others? Well...

The other two were more studies. It was a different, definitely a different documentary. Yeah, it more like person-focused, story-focused. Yeah, so part of it was very surprising. The other part was not very surprising because I, the part that was surprising was just like, yeah, I guess I just never.

never looked into that or never thought about it. And I think where we land in kind of our age is that TV, that show was on when we were in our preteens, probably. I think it was, I think we were younger. Yeah, pretty young. I remember it being on all the time. I don't remember watching it as a kid. It was rarely ever on. If anything, it was, we were just watching the last bit of it before we.

watched like Deal or No Deal or something. So part of it was like, you know, and I had never really thought about this aspect of the show. Like the aftermath aspect? The aftermath and then some of the things that it went to went into during the show. ⁓ And I was like, yeah, that makes sense. I could see that happening. I could see that being plausible. I never thought about it before. So.

That's just where it wasn't these like huge wow factors of like, my gosh, I can't believe that's what's potentially going on, you know, in that show. I do agree with you because I think what do you expect out of a show that's extremely loss focused? It's all about fat shaming. It's all about like making fun of people for their weight and showing how miserable they are and then how happy they are when they lose it.

And I remember it playing some. think my dad watched it some. And I remember just being like, wow, is this what it's like to try to get into shape is having trainers yell at you. Like, I was kind of surprised, I think, when I realized that trainers were not like Jillian Michaels. Yeah. I don't know. That's just like a really. will say our cameras back to not focusing. But this camera has been good.

Okay, I don't know why it's doing that. ⁓

I'll just have to switch over to your screen whenever mine is focusing.

Yeah, I mean as a young kid not the best thing to be exposed to. Yeah, I mean for me, like not a huge effect ⁓ from what I can remember. I think it puts weight loss ⁓ and obesity into a kind of, it gives it kind of a stigma. Yeah. But not, you know, like

I have struggled with body image in my own way as a male ⁓ with expectations. ⁓ And those expectations are obviously the same for females, if not greater. But so how, question for you is being exposed to that at a young age, do you feel like that played any part into your journey? I definitely do. It's hard to say because it's not like it's the...

only thing I was exposed to. mean, this was when did the show come out, like the early 2000s or so. So there was a lot of stuff going on then in terms of, I mean, that was just like Diet Culture Central and like skinny is worth dying for central. So I don't know, like if we were to take that out of my childhood, what I feel like, what I feel differently, I don't know, but I don't think it helped.

by any means, and it just fueled that fire of like, I can never let myself get overweight. Otherwise, this is what people will think of me. And this is how I'll be perceived, which is lazy, no self-control, no discipline. I mean, the people on that show, and actually this was a quote from, I think a producer that I had written down.

He was like, we didn't look for people who were overweight or obese and were happy. We looked for people who were obese and unhappy and desperate and wanted to change their lives. And so thinking about that, how different would it have been? And obviously this wouldn't have made sense for the show that they were making. But if there were people on the show that were actually happy.

in their bodies and showing that different perspective of just because your body looks a certain way doesn't mean you have a death sentence to hate yourself. And you don't have to be lumped into this stigma, you know, at least you don't have to have that, you don't have to bring it on yourself, like you can work through that. So, but again, like they wouldn't have had a show then because the show was all about people who hate themselves and wanted to lose weight because of it. So.

I mean, like watching through like this is brilliant TV when you think about it. It takes so many elements of the human psyche and what we're interested in and puts it all in one show. Yeah. And I can understand why it was so popular, but I can also understand why it was incredibly damaging for the contestants and for, think, many people, myself included after with the aftermath. What did you think about the?

Contestant, what was his name? Was Ryan? Ryan. Was it Ryan? He was like the one that lost the most weight of all time on the show. I think so, yeah. And then, well, so. What's the question? Well, let me give some context here. So one of the main people that they were interviewing and throughout this documentary, they're interviewing people who have been on the show as contestants. They interviewed a few producers.

the show creator and then they also interviewed, what was his name, Harper, was one of the main trainers. Jillian Michaels was not on the show, which was an interesting blank slate. anyway, or blank space, I should say. So it was really interesting hearing from the people who had been on the show. They were contestants. They went through it and seeing where are they now? And one of them

His name was Ryan, believe. was the one who had a lot. He ended up winning the show. I can't remember what season it was. Maybe eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight,

in the public eye for his weight loss and ended up gaining it all back. I think plus more than when he started. Yeah, I think so. And by the way, I do not think his name is Ryan. We keep saying it and I'm like, it's got to be wrong. I think we need to just fact check it. Well, I can check my note. Just get it right for the rest for the sake of the rest of this podcast. OK. ⁓

I can just see the Internet. ⁓ I'm sorry. They don't even know his name. It's Danny. Danny was Danny. I'm so sorry, Danny. Danny. Shout out to Danny. I don't know about that, but it's Danny. Danny. Yeah. What do you think of Danny and his for you? Like, because you're representing the average Joe here in previous episodes. And, you know, we're kind of going on with that still. Still an average Joe. Just an average Joe.

For you, when you see somebody's story like that, because I've got my brain and like what I'm thinking about it from my lens. But for you, what's your reaction to a story like that? ⁓ And especially like this, the shame that he carried. Yeah. I mean, he really hesitated with saying yes to being on the show because I think there was like a sense of embarrassment around gaining the weight back. Yeah.

It's a good question. It's tough for me to even, I feel like put myself in the average Joe category anymore, just based on the conversations that we have and the ways that you've helped me kind of view weight loss too. so ⁓ seeing him go through the biggest loser journey and, ⁓ you know, gain all of his weight back plus more ⁓ goes right in line with all the

conversations that we've had before it's like ⁓ That makes sense to me ⁓ They even alluded to it later in the show. I think it was Tracy that said that that she was like I I am NOT that I am NOT the person at the end of the biggest yeah, like that is not me like And with how fast and how much weight they lost my gosh, it's completely Not sustainable. Yeah so

Yeah, there just wasn't a lot of like, I wasn't blown away by that. Yeah. I wasn't surprised by that. ⁓ I felt for him. He seemed like just one of the sweetest humans in the world. did. Yeah. Seemed like just such a nice guy. ⁓ And so, yeah, I really was happy for him at times. Like it was just kind of a roller coaster, kind of listening to him. Like I was happy with him and...

also sad at times and not totally sure if he ⁓ has made it to, I don't know, I don't want to say the other side of his journey, but to a better place of his journey towards the end of the documentary he's talking about, how it's time to get his life back in order. so.

Yeah, kind of interesting. If you hear that little jingle jingle, it's our cat. We have a visitor. Come on up here. Hi, baby. Hello. Well, I don't know. I wonder, though, because if you're on a documentary talking about how you went on The Biggest Loser, you gained all this weight back, it'd be kind of hard to leave that documentary without saying something like, yeah, I'm really going to try.

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I think that's a cynical side of me. He also said that he was happy. He did. And I did notice that too. It was like a different sense of peace and doing it for him. Like when he was talking about how he wants to move forward, he was saying, want to be healthy for me. I want this to be about my health. I don't want it to be about some show. Right. And I think that's really important. Totally. It's a different kind of motivation that is.

way better, way more sustainable and impactful. So I mean, along with his story, I don't think you're going to see a... Like, I don't have a big reaction to that, just like I didn't have a huge reaction to the rest of the show, because there was a lot of things that weren't really ⁓ proven, I felt like. Do you agree?

I'm gonna try moving this table closer. If this stays at the podcast, we're just having technical difficulties with our camera. I think you keep it in. I think you keep it in or throw it in as a tag just to see the candidness of... Well, I could just have it be on me and then yours is on Just have it be on you. This is on me. What's up?

Yeah, that's a good angle. I'm wearing black. I have my glasses on that don't do anything, so...

Are you happy with that? very happy with that. Do you agree about what? Do you agree about what?

I'm gonna move the cart over and see if helps. Is picking up the cart? No, but if I put the camera on that, it'll have it closer to me.

Wow, this is just getting jankier by the second. No, like how hard is it to have a podcast of two people that are right next to each other? Pretty tough.

You can see your camera and my camera angle. Relax, I'm not done. Relax. ⁓

you

Sorry, I forget that's right in your vocal intake vessels. In other words, for ears.

There's no way that's gonna stay. No. And you can just see all of that jankiness. Well, again, I'm not trying.

How about that? Just move your mic a bit. Move my mic a bit? But my mic is perfect. And you can barely see baby kid. You see baby kid a little bit. Okay. There he is. Hi. Okay. Alright. Where my phone go? Because I had my notebook.

to check your butt.

Just take a second. Just shut up real quick.

Okay, now where is it? Is it not on the floor? Yeah, it is. Okay. Why can you not move? You're actually in your statue right now, in case you look. Look at my situation here. His eyes are watering, it looks like he's crying. Okay. So. Unbelievable. All right. Do we need to call out? Let's call out the elephant in room. I had to change the camera angles because apparently it's extremely difficult to record a podcast.

when two people are in the same room together. don't understand. Anyway, we're here. When you do it once a year, you kind of forget how you did it the year before. very true. So we don't do this all the time. Yes, you make a point. But we're making it work. All right. Hang on.

So annoyed!

I think. All right. All right. Where were we? We're talking about Danny. Okay, was Danny the one who they showed him talking in the car and he was talking about how he goes to get donuts in the morning? No, that was another guy that they did not spend much time on. Yeah, I have

Okay, so they showed this guy who shall rename nameless purely because we can't remember his name. And he is filming himself. I think this is his audition tape for the biggest loser potentially. And so he's he goes to get donuts. He's eating alone in his car. And he said he talks about how he's doing that four times a week. His wife doesn't even know. And then he goes on to say how he imagines that's what it's like to be doing drugs or addicted to alcohol where you are.

I know, getting a high from it, I guess, is kind of what he was describing. And he's doing this totally in secret. And he I'm like, can we educate a little bit more? This is binge eating. This is literally what binge eating is. And I wish that they maybe talked about that a little bit more because so many people still don't understand what it is. And I also wonder how many contestants on the show were struggling with binge eating or binge eating disorder. I wish that that was like maybe talked about more.

I guarantee you they were not screening for that or anything. I also don't think that it was an official diagnosis yet. No, it wouldn't have been. It would not have been an official eating disorder when that show started. So they wouldn't have even really had that on their radar. They just probably call it secret eating or emotional eating or overeating or being addicted to junk food. So it's not, I don't know, like.

with the Danny story and then this guy and anybody else who gained all the weight back, I wonder how much of that would have been different if we'd actually addressed the behavior that led to the weight in the first place, which was that guy's case and maybe others binge eating, know, just an idea. I have a question for you on that topic. So.

I'm curious to hear from your...

Yeah, from your perspective, from your experience, you've worked in a hospital, you've worked with doctors before. Do you remember the doctor's name? I like literally just read it before coming down here. Oh, the one that was on the show. can't pronounce it. I can't either. like can see it in my It's not even that hard, but it's like the way it's spelled. The way that the oh, you know what? I did write it down on here and I wrote it down in a way that was phonetically helpful. Dr. H.

Let me find it, hang on.

We're looking for Dr. H. Dr. H.

Dr. Huizenga. Dr. Huizenga. Thank That's how I have it spelled out. Huizenga. Nice. So I might be a little off on the pronunciation. think that's It's spot on. OK. So Dr. Huizenga. Yeah. First of all, thumbs up, thumbs down. Just like a very generic, like, he's the best doctor ever or he's the worst doctor ever. whoa. That's a really extreme scale. I know. It's supposed to be extreme. It's like. And I have to pick up or down? It's like upward. Yes. Just like gut.

Okay, I'm ready. Let's do this. Three, two, one. Are you going to do it with me? No, I'm just asking. No, I'm asking you. don't want to. Every doctor seems cool to me. Well, OK, I want you to do it too, OK, three, two, one. Best doctor ever. I did a thumbs up. OK, I guess we didn't play that one. Yeah, you don't really have a hand. Yeah. OK, so best doctor ever. Yeah, yeah, there's a cat here. OK, so Dr. Huizenga

I think ⁓ from what I watched, what I heard, heard from him, the whole experience of the documentary, ⁓ good person, generally good doctor, ⁓ liked the things that he had to say. I didn't, no red alarms, no red flags. Same. Came out, right? ⁓ So with his involvement in the show,

and your involvement in just like the hospital arena and your experience working in that area, what are just your general and even specific thoughts about ⁓ him being kind of in charge of the health and the care of the ⁓ contestants? Yeah, I think his role was medical advisor. Medical advisor, right. And so, ⁓

He's the medical advisor as a dietitian. you like, there needs to be more that's sufficient. He did a good job. I wouldn't have done anything different or added anything. And, you know, this is 18 seasons, 17, 18 seasons worth of, you know, know, advice and stuff. I don't think he was on for the whole time, but, um, you know, a number of seasons, I think at least 14 he was on. So.

long-winded question to just ask based on your experience. ⁓ What is your ⁓ take on his involvement? How he did? What could have been different? What could have been done better? ⁓ Where does a dietitian kind of come into play here as well? I agree with you that I think overall he seemed like he was great. ⁓

I was like always pleasantly surprised by what he said. Because I would expect that whoever was the medical advisor for the biggest loser is probably pretty shady. And maybe there's things about him that I don't know that are shady. I mean, it sounds like he's got a lot of high profile clients and he's been, you know, in the LA scene or whatever. So you never know. But in terms of what he shared and

I guess nobody really talked much about him except for a couple of contestants. It sounded like he really did have their best interest at heart and he didn't want them to be harmed. And I don't think he thought it was by any means like the best, most healthy idea for a show. But his role, my understanding of kind of how he stepped into that role was I just want to be sure that they don't get injured or seriously harmed as they're going through this whole reality TV circus.

And so they showed him at one point talking about how the women need to be having at least 1200 calories. The men ate 1500 to 2000 day, even as they're pursuing weight loss on the show. And then they showed the trainers, Bob and Jillian, kind of like poo-pooing at that and rolling their eyes. And then they cut later to where I think it was like that way on that week because...

this medical advisor had just told them like, don't be eating too low of calories here. Then they all didn't lose as much weight at that weigh in. And the trainers were like, it's because of Dr. Huizenga, like still in their head telling them they can eat more. And that just like made my blood boil because I'm like, this is somebody who's actually medically trained.

And you're basically just acting like he's an idiot. then, know, Bob was saying something about how he has a God complex. I'm like, buddy, I think you're the one with the God complex because you're like, how do you not see the harm that's happening by starving these individuals? mean, Danny, at one point, said he was having less than 800 calories a day and burning more than 6000 calories a day. And Joelle said that, too. They had to burn at least 6000 calories a day through exercise, which is absolutely insane.

It's insane. to be eating like that's just that is quite literally a massive starvation experiment. And it was somehow ethical because it was for reality TV. I mean, it's insane. So I think that Dr. Huizenga was working with what he had. And it sounded like he wanted to be more involved than they really let him be. He wanted to be more involved with some of the challenges. And he didn't even know some of them.

were happening and they didn't bring him in on it. So I think that there was some element of the producers being like, OK, if we bring him in, they're not going to like he's not going to clear this. So it's best he just doesn't know about it. And yeah, I think overall he did the best with what he had. Now, if this show was done in. Well, there's two things here. There's how the show should have been done.

But then there's also the reality that if it was done that way, it wouldn't have been a popular show because it would have been boring. It would have been unsexy. Wasn't it Bob who alluded to that? was like, weight loss is done. I don't know if he said like in the kitchen, but it's all diet related. I mean, when you think about our metabolic health and I guess what makes up our overall energy expenditure for the day.

The biggest bucket of the calories we use every day is going to be our basal metabolic rate. It's how much your body burns just staying alive, breathing, your heart beating, all of the energy that your organs and such use. The next category is your non-exercise activity, thermogenesis, or thermogenesis, depending on how you want to pronounce that.

which is basically when you're walking around during the day. You can think of your step count is contributing to that. The next category is how much you burn through exercise if you do actually engage in exercise, like going to do a workout or playing a sport or something along those lines where you're elevating the heart rate more than just going on a walk.

And then there's also the thermic effect of food. You actually burn calories while you're eating calories, which is interesting. So if we think about that in terms of being how we have calories go out, and then we think about how calories come in, which is through food. Right. Yes. Were you looking to me to finish that sentence? Kind of. Half-heartedly. I was hoping you were just going to I'm just really impressed. You're very smart.

first of all, you're- is basics. mean, really. If you really want me to show- Well, never mind. Very smart, not very humble, I guess. Anyway, so when we think about calories in the- People say all the time like-

By the way, if you hear this clinking sound, it's because he's drinking a drink that he decided to fill with ice on a podcast. Anyway. I'll finish it. No, no, because we're gonna hear you gulping. No, it's... Enjoy your drink. Enjoy It's almost done. It's almost No, no. This is fine because people feel like they're having a drink with you. Well, now I'm self-conscious about that. I I'm supposed to do it. I'm gonna finish it.

All right. Do live your life. So when we think about calories in calories out, you we hear that all the time how you can't burn or I'm sorry, you can't lose weight unless you're in a calorie deficit, which means you need to be burning more than you're consuming. Then. Yes, it makes sense that your diet is going to be the easiest way to control that, because it is like 100 % of calories and that calories and part of the equation.

And then the calories out is a lot harder to control because number one, it takes so much more effort. There's a huge amount of effort into burning more calories. There is very little effort into consuming more calories. Like you take some more bites, you have a food that's extremely tasty that is really high in calories. It's way easier to eat 300 calories than it is to burn 300 calories.

That's where this whole discussion around abs are made in the kitchen or it's 80 % diet, 20 % exercise or whatever is just trying to capture that idea that you're going to get the most bang for your buck to focus on your diet. ⁓ But the show actually did focus a lot on exercise. We were flipped. Yeah, that was what Dr. Huizenga had.

said, I think it was him just sharing like that he noticed when he was working with was at the Raiders. Yeah. Football team that they would be exercising all day long and eating so much food and still it was like difficult to keep weight on them because of how much they were exercising. So and then they were also just talking about like how much entertainment is going to come from a show where they're just like sitting around not eating.

if we get them to exercise all day long and try to burn 6,000 calories, then that's way more entertaining, which to be fair, it is. Yes, that is correct. Yep. They nailed it on the head. anyway, that was like a totally long answer. But I guess just. There you go. Weight loss education 101. And yeah, I mean, of course they lost a ton of weight. You've got a huge margin.

of how much energy is being expended and how little is being given to the body. And that's where Dr. Huizenga is trying to get them to have the bare minimum to at least support their organs working and give your heart the energy it needs, your lungs, the muscle tissue, even the fat that you have on your body requires energy and...

He's just trying to get people to stay alive at the end of the day. And you can't fault them for that. And then you've got people like Jillian and Bob, who are just trainers off the street that I don't know, have a couple ideas. who did who said it? So I think it was him. The doctor said at one point that Jillian is street smart, but she doesn't have that medical background to just understand these basic things like you can't starve the body that much. Otherwise, organs are going to start shutting down and. ⁓

Yeah, I mean they weren't exactly the healthiest they've ever been even though they were the skinniest they've ever been.

That's good. It's real good. Overall, think the documentary, one thing I am glad about is that it's highlighting the fact that just because you see a before and after photo of somebody who loses weight, you have no idea what it took to get there. You have no idea that it was actually healthy. You have no idea that it's going to stay that way. The Biggest Loser is all about just getting weight off as quickly as possible, which means

it's not going to be healthy. And it's probably not going to last because of the means that we used to get there is so unsustainable. Who is exercising for eight hours a day. don't even work eight hours a day. I'm pretty sure some of your co workers listen to this podcast. Probably your boss. you're listening to this, I work the standard amount every week.

Anyway, yeah, yeah, we don't need to focus on that. Let's move on. What do you think about the what are they called the temptations? The temptations. I wish I was in those challenges. Oh, because you want access to volunteer for that talent. Act like I don't give you. Oh, no, no, no. I know. I mean, I'm free to eat whatever I want. But it's something about there's something different about

You know, don't even know what that means. Never mind. Moving on, on, moving on. Yeah, no, I'm just joking. But I kind of like very it's very TV ask. It's just like I didn't understand the the draw to it, like what what the benefits of the temptation challenge was. ⁓

Well, so like if they did, if they ate the junk food, they ate a certain amount in a certain amount of time, they were the most, they ate the most. They got some kind of perk. Let me break it down for anybody who hasn't seen it. Like, what are they talking about? it down. Do want me to beatbox? Yeah, that would be Not that kind of breakdown. No, I think that would be great. OK, you ready? Yeah. You really want to try this?

Okay, you ready? Let's commit. Don't don't pass out. Okay, so here I am. Just putting it all out on the table. Do you want me to beatbox, babe? Sure. Let's commit. You know, do it. Hang on. So does anything come after the beat or is it just the beat? Are you gonna rap? No, I'm not rapping. I'm beatboxing. So I have to rap. Yes.

Like, you're like, let me break it down. I'm like, break it down for you. ⁓ anyway, I don't want to do that. So break it down for us real quick. The temptation and I was starting to try to wrap it out. So anyway, the temptation challenge thing that they did on the show was where they would bring all the contestants into a room that was just full of.

greasy foods, like all the foods you would traditionally think of as unhealthy, candies, cakes, desserts, blah, blah. And if they say they would have five minutes to have as many calories as possible, and whoever had the most calories would be able to, they would get some sort of reward, like going home. And so you're put in that room.

And they're telling you, you can go home to see your family. All you have to do is eat as many calories as possible in these five minutes. But the thing is, they're still getting weighed in at the end of the week. They're still getting their standard weigh in. There's no ⁓ accounting done to make that go away. So what a mind to like, I could see my family if I did this.

but then I might lose the whole show. I just think that was Who cares about their family? Don't you want abs? Oh my word. Don't you want to lose weight? Who cares about your family? You sound like Ben Stiller from Heavy Ways. Liposuction. Obsession or necessity?

Yeah, total, total just like, hang on. What? Like... And the producer was explaining it and he was like, we had to replicate the real world somehow. And when you're in the real world, you're going to be around temptations. And so I'm like, okay, I kind of see where you're coming from. I guess if you're at a party with family, there's all kinds of food available that is high calorie, but...

Also, holy moly, the pressure that is on them. That is so psychologically damaging. I'm surprised that the clips that they showed were people that were very easing into it. Yeah, they weren't sure. I'm not sure. I'm surprised that it wasn't just one person that went up there and was just like, it's me. They did show someone licking the chocolate fondue. Did you see that?

The fountain? guess so. But I felt like that was like that was a whole group of people. Yeah, I think it was the whole group went in at once to do the challenge. Yeah. do the temptation. OK, never mind then. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just like, because then if I saw that person, I'd be like, well, they can just have this one. Like, you go home and see your family real quick. Sure. Yeah. I'll set this one out. It's not worth it. ⁓ Yeah, just a really like.

It's interesting, it's mean, it screws with your mind. So many things, right? They're trying to do TV, they're trying to... I mean, think the relating this to the real world is just an excuse. At the end of the day, it's just like, okay. Maybe there's a sliver of truth to that, but it's like, on that scale, it's absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, if you wanted to maybe relate it to like the...

real world, like when they have meal time, like give them an option to eat something different. Like that is actually real. Right. And also real world is that you're not going to be eating within five minutes and you're not going to be having as much as you possibly can. And I don't know. I'm trying to think back to.

Do we need to talk about binge eating? Anyway. I eat fast. I eat fast sometimes. That's just You're not a binge eater. You just eat super fast. Yeah. You eat so fast. just down. you sometimes pass out because of it. It's the Italian-ness in me. don't. OK. I pass out from it is the most out of context thing I've ever heard in my life. Go ahead and explain. I'll explain. Please do. you swallow something that you haven't chewed enough, it triggers your vagus nerve, correct?

I mean, you know more about this than I do. The vagus nerve? Yeah. Yeah. And I've got a vagus nerve. I'm ready to go. Anyway, and then it triggers some sort of reflex where you pass out. Yeah, something like that. like that. So that's happened to me. That's outside of my scope. At least twice. At least twice. Yeah, and I was around. One time it was I swallowed a big mucinex pill.

Those things are big. Anybody would pass out from that. Which you don't need to take mucinex, by the way. I'm not a doctor, but mucinex, I think, is a scam. I'm just going to say it there. I have nothing to back that up. Any prescribers, please feel free to chime in. Any education on it, whatever. Pretty sure it's a scam. Yeah, so I swallowed a mucinex pill.

just knocked me right out. And then I think the other one was like a bowl of spaghetti or something. was just like. So stereotypical. So I'm a fast eater. So yeah, that's real world. Eat as much as you can in five minutes. I'm like, yeah, I've done it before.

I got five minutes before my meeting, like, yeah, yeah, let's go. Your mom and I connected on a molecular level the other day when she mentioned, I had not said anything. She just unprompted was harping on you for how fast you eat. I've been telling you to slow down and chew your food since you were a kid. And I felt like the heavens had opened up and I felt so validated that she saw me and she saw what I deal with because she also had to deal with. Yeah.

Anyway, so that was and it was interesting to hearing the host of the show whoever hosted Gosh, why did I not remember any of these names but the blonde gal? don't they were both there? Both blonde the first lady the first lady was from the sweet life of Zack and Cody. ⁓ she was a cast member for some episodes

She was also on My Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire. Oh, and she was on, there was another ABC family show that she was on. Oh, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Yes, that's right. That's right. Yes. So she was the first three seasons. She was the host of the first And then it was the other gal. So the other gal, not Sabrina the Teenage Witch person.

The other gal was talking about how the temptations were really hard for her to be a part of. And I could tell that she struggled with being a part of that show. Just the meanness of it. I think she mentioned how she was like, you know, I joined the show and I'm not going to get this quoted correctly, but the gist of it was that she joined it because she does want to be a part of something that's inspiring people to be healthy.

But I think like in practice, and that's probably true for pretty much everybody that joined the show that was not the show creators or producers. But, ⁓ you know, in practice, she was like, was hard. It seemed like it was hard for her to be a part of it in a lot of cases. And they weren't I mean, that's just like, they were really mean. They were really mean. Yeah. To people. it's

Just thinking about the work that I do, how much shame is a component of our eating habits. If you're ashamed about your body, or you're ashamed about how you eat because of how it might affect your body, even just that forward thinking of what is this going to do to my body? There can be I mean, that is an emotion that nobody wants to be a part of. Nobody wants to feel shame or guilt. And

You know, guilt is more like I've done something bad. Shame is I am bad. And it could be either one or both, I guess. Guilt is I've done something bad. Shame is I am bad. I just said that. You did? I think so. Hmm. I thought you sure? Whatever you said, I agree with, but I think that's what I just said. Anyway, that's a playback. Listen to the playback. I thought you I thought I heard you say it wrong.

Maybe you just expected me to say it wrong. Probably. You think so little of me. Yeah. No, totally. Anyway. ⁓ So when we're when we're feeling those things and you know, nobody wants to feel that it can drive you towards food more because now if you've learned to use food as an emotional coping mechanism and you've learned that you get a release from it, a sense of relief, it

spikes some dopamine for you, it's ironically when you get fat shamed or we call it weight stigma in the clinical world, then that can really drive people to food actually even more. And also create that sense of, what's the point? Because people have labeled me this way. Maybe they've tried to diet in the past and it didn't work. Like pretty much all these contestants had some story of like, I've tried everything.

And so then there's this element of, I'm going to mess up anyway. So I might as well just not even try. And it's even a form of protection, because if you don't start, then you won't let yourself down when you fail. So it's like you're just shooting yourself on the foot type situation. it's sad that shame and like, gosh, like watching Jillian was so hard. Seeing how she talked to those contestants was just

And the, I mean, it's really just abuse at the end of the day. And even Bob, it points to, it was like pretty verbally abusive to them. And somehow that's supposed to get them to enjoy exercising. Because at the end of the day, that's the most predictable factor of somebody continuing to exercise or really engage in any behavior change is if they enjoy it. And those people did not enjoy it.

what they were doing. I don't enjoy exercise period. So yeah, I don't even have Jillian Michaels yelling at me. Maybe I do. Well, and then you hear from people. So let me ask you this. Do you think that would make a difference if you had somebody like Jillian Michaels yelling in your face or Bob? Like if you had that type of aggressive, borderline abusive type of treatment in exercise, would that be super motivating for you? Because I've heard guys like

It's always guys like the bros, the gym bros are like, I want to be. I'm not a, I'm not a gym bro. Well, I'm not saying you, I'm saying when people say this, it's usually the gym bro pool of people are like, yeah, yeah, it's good to be a little shamed. It motivates you, you know, but I'm like, maybe in the short term, but that's, that's an extrinsic motivation of I want to please that person. It's not an intrinsic one where you want to please yourself.

Yeah, great question. And I might answer it with a question. OK. ⁓

So I want to first I want to like set the ground rules of like of abuse like. Yeah, and to be fair, I'm not a therapist, so I might be using that word wrong. Yeah, I mean the when the contestants there's a contest or two that named it as abuse like dwell. Yeah. So like when when a victim names abuse.

it's incredibly hard if not impossible to challenge that. That's just like, okay. And she even went into it. Like she went into like, here's the thing. I think the abuse that Joelle received like would maybe not be considered abuse to somebody else. Joelle went into how that abuse brought up things in her story. How it put her back at home, how it put her back into why she got into. ⁓

how she became obese, how she got into binge eating, whatever it may be. So there's some pretty obvious, direct correlations of she does not respond well to that ⁓ yelling. That is named abuse in her story. ⁓ So when I, for instance, am coaching, I'm coaching high school boys, I yell at them. motivate them. ⁓

I don't think I'm as hardcore as Jillian or Bob at sometimes. mean, hopefully you're not damaging their character. No, I would never do that, right? And so, yeah, I think it's just like, I don't know, I guess I didn't really pick up too much on it in the documentary. Maybe you just picked up on it more. The abuse was, I just think, kind of a gray area because the only contestant that did name that abuse

had a very direct correlation to it in her story. ⁓ How would you describe then like the yelling and the pressure that they were receiving? I mean, extreme. Yeah. Extreme. A bit much. A bit much. A bit.

dramatized, overplayed. This is TV we're talking about. I mean, it's giving military. And the military is seeing the movies. I don't even know if the military is actually like that. heard some personal experiences. Yeah, I think it is. I it's just as bad, if not worse. I think there's plenty of stories out there to support that. And if I'm wrong, I don't care.

come at me. I don't have social media, so I can't hear any of the noise that you guys say about me. ⁓ No, I actually think that people would agree. Whenever I hear stories about the military, it's pretty intense. Yeah. Militant type of coaching. So I think your question was like, that motivate me? ⁓

Or would that make you be like, screw this? I do deserve some respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T, man. I'm a pretty sensitive emotional guy. mean, got like, yeah, I think growing up in basketball, there was things that were said about me personally to try and motivate me, I think. And it just fell flat. It just never worked. I was just...

always so in my head that I needed like positive reinforcement and I needed to be told that I was like doing good and that like I just needed to keep going and yeah. ⁓ bullying. Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for. Yeah, it's totally bullying, right? Yeah. You're not abused, but bullying. Yeah, I think there's just there's a lot of ways you can put it. Yeah. And I think it's just dependent upon the person. And I think that motivation, I think a lot of people responded well to that motivation on the show. ⁓

or that coaching, that abuse. Some people didn't. Maybe in the short term. I'm thinking long term here, longevity. Maybe in the short term, you're on camera. You're super motivated in that moment to lose as much weight as humanly possible. Also, you're out of your normal routine. This is your life right now.

probably just like, yeah, this is it, we're in it. Yell at me, let's do this. My concern is, is that developing a healthy relationship then with exercise? Because I think it'd be really hard. I wish I could interview somebody from the show. I think it'd be really hard for them post ⁓ taping, whatever post production to feel like,

they can engage in exercise without it seeming like a form of self-punishment. I mean, I have such a very specific lens here with the women that I work with and my small sample size compared to the rest of the world. But it just seems like in general, when we don't make it about punishment, it's so much easier to follow through on. And I believe that's supported in the literature as well with behavior change.

I don't know. There's always outliers. So I just curious to hear your take on that. Yeah, I don't want to speculate too much, but I think that there's a very plausible case for that. I think that's more than possible. All right. The big thing, probably the biggest thing about this documentary that didn't even really come to too much fruition. Drugs.

Jillian Michael is pumping these contestants full of drugs. That was interesting. Well, it sounds like she wasn't. It was just the caffeine pills. She wasn't? Are you sure? I mean, I don't know either because that's the biggest problem I probably had with this documentary is that any kind of like scandalous activity was like

pretty much inconclusive. Yeah, I agree. I learned a few things, but it's like, where's the bad secrets? Where's the dirty little secrets of the biggest loser? I don't know. don't know. It was Tracy and Joelle that both were a part of that article about the drugs. I don't think it was Tracy. I think it was the season two.

⁓ contestant.

Joel? Samantha, potentially. What? Who She was the police officer. ⁓ I thought she was a part of it. ⁓ thought it was her and Joel. I don't think it was Tracy. ⁓ okay. Well, I do, yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I feel like there wasn't very clear recall of whoever made those allegations about that.

There was just like some little mention about caffeine pills. Somebody, think it was Danny, was offered caffeine pills by Jillian. And that was admitted. Like, Jillian had admitted that. On the show. On the show. That was like taken care of. And then there was this lawsuit, right? Or there was ⁓ this article ⁓ that called out a lot of, I would say, probably mishaps like on Dr. Heisingis, right? And things that he was unaware of, which ended up...

in a lawsuit and that article was retracted. He sued the post for defamation. So yeah, just like, okay, I guess that didn't happen then. Maybe it did. I don't know. My takeaway was they over dramatized that Jillian gave them caffeine pills. was my take, my understanding of it. And you know what?

for TV and for documentary purposes, it's really unfortunate. You wish she had your... Well, yeah, this is what we're here for. We're here for a big scandalous documentary. That's good. juicy. Totally. But okay, some caffeine pills, not great. That was admitted. She was penalized for that. Okay, we're moving on. Slap on No big weight loss pills or anything extreme was...

You know going on nothing illegal That was like hinted at it like that was you know, that was the cliffhanger was that illegal substances and drugs were given to Contestants. Yeah, so that there is like an investigation, but I don't think the investigation found anything because I don't think it was actually a thing or was it? Anyway, so that was just like kind of the

I think I was like expecting maybe even looking to that wow factor. And then I just found out at the end of the day that like, the Biggest Loser was not a great show for some people. And some people thanked it at the end of the day. And some people wouldn't have never gone on it if they had the chance to do it again. And I was like, okay, this is all pretty, I probably could have like, I probably knew that. I didn't need a two hour documentary to.

Yeah. Kind of bring me through that journey, but still glad that I watched it. Like it was a was a fun, was enjoyable watch. It was done really well. And I agree. I didn't know about the heart attack. Well, was it a heart attack? Bob's heart attack. Did not know about that. I also didn't know about whatever it was that happened to Tracy where she collapsed and she said died. She said she saw the light. Literally. She did say that. Yeah. And this was when they were doing a one mile run.

in order to even just get on the show. She wasn't even like a contestant yet. It was just to compete, to be a contestant. And she ran as hard as she could to get to the end there and then didn't even cross the finish line. Had to have everybody pull her across because she collapsed and saw the light. I didn't know about that. That is wild. That is wild. I don't think Dr. Heising knew about that. OK. And then speaking of

You asked me earlier what I thought about him. This was like one of those moments where I was like, wow, he does seem like he really cares because he was so like, you cannot do the workouts with Jillian and Bob. You need to give yourself rest. He even was like, you shouldn't do this show. But she was, think, in an abusive marriage and didn't want to go home. And he was like, well, OK, but you can stay and do this for you. But don't do their workouts. then everybody hated her because she wasn't doing it.

And I'm like, do you blame her? She just died. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I, I like wonder. I don't know. I kind of want to watch the show. I know, but I don't at the same time because it's like so revolting and sad. We should do it. Let's do it. I need a new show. You won't watch Star Wars with me. So we need a new show. I mean, it's not like I never have.

just always my and or yeah I'm sorry I just didn't get hooked in I didn't either when I first started it but that's kind of the process you had to trust the process but I dropped it I dropped it it's fine we're not watching the indoor okay I'm a nerd a little bit not Star Wars we should watch one of the seasons of Vegas loser maybe we'll see

I think it would be really good. I think we would be invested in it if we watch one with one of the contestants that was on the Yeah, that's true. At the least it would give me some more content. Yeah. Okay. And then the last thing, because we've been doing this for quite a while, the last thing I want to touch on is they talked about the study that showed that essentially their metabolisms were all broken. Yeah. Tell me how that landed for you. What did you think about that? ⁓

Like you're talking metabolism. I kind of get it for the most part. The general sense that I like what I'm basing my knowledge of like metabolism is, like ⁓ growing up as a kid and I had friends who were like tall and skinny and we like playing basketball together and we're like, you know, in high school, you're like, you're just trying to build muscle. You're just like trying to get bigger. Like

And my tall, skinny friends, they're like, oh, I just eat so much. And I can't put on muscle. I could just have too high of a metabolism. don't know who I'm impersonating right now. just to give you an idea. It's just another person. I catch myself when I do impressions or do another voice of why am I doing this? Why am I doing this other voice right now? I don't know where it comes from. Anyways.

you know, the basic sense of like our metabolisms were messed up and one of the contestants, think it was Danny alluded to like that show did not mess up my metabolism. Like I messed up my metabolism for years of overeating and being obese. So it was kind of just like, ⁓ so I walked away from that. Well, like, I don't know what the show, what effect the show had on their metabolism.

Yeah, I can see that being confusing. it just, it made like, well, yeah, your metabolism is obviously not going to be fixed from an experience like that in such a short time period. And that's just with a super basic general knowledge, not even probably of how metabolism works. yeah, a little confusing, a little over my head, kind of just walked away from it. Like, yeah, again.

just another not so surprising thing that was only surprising because I had never thought about it. Yeah. So something I wish that they had included in that discussion was that there was a follow up review done by Kevin Hall, who's a lead obesity researcher who actually he was in the news recently because he

left after RFK Jr. was trying to influence him to not publish certain findings or to change his. so interesting, interesting. What a great guy. Anyway, so Kevin Hall did a follow up. Yeah, like talking and discussion about that study that made the headlines and he pointed out that

you look through it, there actually was not a correlation between those who had the most metabolic adaptation. Basically, metabolic adaptation is a fancy way of saying that their metabolism adjusted or changed. In this case, it would be slowed down. Those who gained the most waste

weight back had the least amount of metabolic adaptation. There actually was not the correlation that people were making it sound like, or you can't draw that conclusion that it broke their metabolism. It's unfortunate because the biggest losers, that study that they were talking about in the show, and then the Minnesota starvation experiment are two studies that people love to bring up when they're talking about how...

our metabolism can be broken by eating too little. And when you think about it, those are the most extreme, if you don't know about the Minnesota starvation experiment, do know about that? Okay, this was. Why not? Anyway, why not my gen pop average? Anyway. So this was like a study done on men who were, they volunteered, I believe it was in the 40's And it they literally like

starved them, had very little food. I'm trying to remember off the top of my head, I think it was 500 calories. They had a control group too, but anyway, what they found was that they developed disordering habits, with food, and then apparently it slowed their metabolism down too, and like in a lasting way, not just while they were being starved. And then that's the whole argument with the Biggest Loser too, is that it wasn't...

just that it slowed down while they were on the show is that it stayed down. So they were overall, when I was talking about like the different buckets of how you burn energy throughout the day, their overall basal metabolic rate was lowered and it stayed low, even after they stopped doing all the extremism. So those are super extreme examples, though. Nobody is exercising eight hours a day and having less than 800 calories.

I hope not. Please don't reach out to me if you are. Let's talk about that. But nobody's doing that. then the starvation, like, yeah, like nobody's doing those conditions either living in those conditions either. And so you can't take those studies and then apply them to gen pop to the general population and say like, ⁓ if you ever eat too little, your your metabolism is broken.

especially if it's just like a 500 calorie deficit or something that most people do for weight loss. So such as overblown thing and ⁓ then Kevin Hall goes in and does like a follow up on that study and even like kind of disproved all of those things. So I'll post the link to Kevin Hall's article or journal article and the show notes in case you want to see that because I think that's like what is not talked about is

The follow-up that was done to that, a lot of times we just hear about like, the biggest loser study, everybody's metabolism is broken. But most people don't go on the biggest loser. And the sample size was 16. You cannot generalize something that was done on 16 people to the rest of the world. You sure about that? I'm positive about that. OK. I just want to make sure you were sure.

So anyway, that was what I wanted to point that out because they brought that up. And I was like, ⁓ you brought up only half the story, though. And I don't want people, and I know they will, I don't want people to watch that show and be like, my gosh, my metabolism can break. keep in mind who I am and the women I work with and the things I stand for. I work in the eating disorder population. I am not saying, yeah, you're good to go.

and lose weight, like you need to ask yourself so many questions before you ever start something like that. And you need to evaluate how you're going to do it. It needs to be safe. It needs to be sustainable. You need to make sure it's actually necessary. And necessary might mean something to you that it doesn't mean to a medical professional. There's so many conversations that we can have there about weight loss. so just I'm not saying like, you're good to go and just cut your calories as much as you want and do whatever you want.

But I am saying that we need to stop throwing this myth around and this misunderstanding that if you eat too little, you're going to break your metabolism and be basing it off of those two things. That's just not helpful or accurate. That's misinformation one-on-one. So anyway, I wanted to share that for any listeners who find that helpful. They mentioned at one point that they made that show about children.

They did a biggest loser for children. was a very quick five second blip and my jaw dropped. Yeah. then we got nothing else. It happened so fast. was like, maybe that didn't just happen. Maybe I didn't just watch that. You're like, that can't be. Yeah. And I just like kind of pushed it out. I was confused. was like, did they just say that? Is it what? Yeah. I wish I could push it. pierced me in my soul.

I was absolutely mortified by that. And I didn't know that was a part of it. I didn't know that was a spin off. did. I've never seen that before. That is heavyweights right there. That is heavyweights. show heavyweights. is the movie heavyweights. Shut up, Ben Stiller, though. Ben Stiller is so funny in that movie. Yeah. Come here, you devil. I might end up cutting this out of the podcast, depending on how you respond to this and how this conversation goes. But I have a question for you. OK.

What did you think about the physician who talked about how in medical school they were basically watching porn?

of different types of people.

I hate that you asked me that question. I hate it so much. Well, there's no expectation on your answer. I just like, what did you think about that? I didn't know that that was a thing. Please tell me if that's a thing. There's things that...

And maybe you relate to this, maybe you don't. When you don't know or have experience in something, it's like someone is speaking, I don't even know it, like you are convinced in that moment that something is normal. Like when someone is speaking about it in such a confident, assuring way. like in medical school, we had to learn about that. had to be desensitized. And like, yes, in medical

school yes yes obviously why would you not why wouldn't you where do i sign up for medical school so like what was my reaction to that it was i sat back in the couch and i was like okay

normal, I think, don't really know how do I fact check this can't, I had like no idea what to do with this information. So I'm just gonna like, it's just gonna go in my brain and it's gonna sit there for a long time until I forget about it. The way she talked about it was like it was so normal. And that's just what everybody does. And that and then I was like, wait, you did what? Yeah. What? Yeah. Watching who do what?

People we know. Yeah, it's and in the context that she was like speaking about it and the reasoning for it was like it was, you know, it's very how the world is and how it's changed. And ⁓ it was was just such a convincing and such a confidence behind that story that.

I was just convinced like it was normal that this happened that you know No thoughts of even like I was not surprised even by that. Yeah because of how well that story was told. Yeah There was probably part of me that I was like, that's kind of weird I Just think there's probably other ways There's probably other ways there's there's there's other ways for sure. So yeah, really interesting

Really interesting interesting approach to education. Yeah Yeah, I don't like that you asked me that question because I don't think I I was like, I don't want to think about this ever again. Yeah, sorry. I just brought it back up. It's all right. It is what it is. It is what it is. I had a couple of things that a couple of quick quotes that just kind of like hit me as really striking that I want to share and then I think we can wrap this up. Wrap it up.

So the first one is, I can't remember who said this, but somebody said, I can't get married unless I weigh 130 pounds. And that just was like really sad. What if you're 134? What if you're 138? Are you really going to limit a significant life moment based on what this scale says? Like, yeah.

Actually, you are because so many people do and I get it. get it. You get so fixated on a number and make it mean something. This is something we talk about a lot with our clients is like what we make that number mean because it is just a pull on gravity. That's all it is. But we make it mean something. We make it mean that we're not attractive yet.

or that we are attractive now, that we're not lovable yet, that we are lovable now, that we deserve something, we don't deserve something. We make it mean something more than just the fact that it's 130 pounds of pull on gravity. I don't know. I think I'm just so far past being in a state of mind like that, that hearing stuff like that. And I hear it all the time, to be fair, with the work I do. But still, there was just something extra.

soul-crushing hearing that that time like man you're put off getting married and anyway but great tv great tv this is great tv and then the other one ⁓ this was from the cop suzanne her name was suzanne suzanne that's right she said i'd like to take my fist and show him my weight problem that's good one that was great yeah she was

She was funny. She was great. I love that New York accent. They're so good. And then the last thing I want to I want to highlight was this moment when Tracy came home and she was the one that had the abusive marriage that she was he was cheating on her. Like there was so much going on. And I my interpretation was that the show was kind of a escape from that marriage for her. I will ⁓ hail Mary to try and fix it.

And she comes home and her daughter runs up to her, like the whole family is like hugging her and saying how much they missed her. And then you hear the daughter say, I'm so happy that my mom's home because I missed her. She doesn't say anything about her body. She doesn't say, I'm so happy my mom's skinny now. She says, I'm so happy my mom's home because I missed her. I just feel like.

not to be cheesy, but I feel like maybe somebody needs to hear that today, that your children do not care about how skinny you are or how big you are, unless you make them care about it. And they really just want your presence and they want you. And that was like so heartwarming in a way, like bittersweet, heartbreak, I don't know, so many emotions to hear that daughter say that because

Tracy probably was coming home thinking like, wow, my family is going to think I look so good now. But that was not what her daughter was thinking about. She was just thinking about how much she missed her mom because she loves her mom. She doesn't care about her body. I thought that was a really sweet, powerful thing to witness. Yeah. Agreed. What do you think, Mr. Ash?

I so uncomfortable.

I haven't moved for an hour. My foot fell completely asleep. ⁓ no, Mr. Ash. The things we do for cats that decide to snuggle with us. have to sit completely still. You can't sacrifice this moment. I gotta take a picture of this. If I move one inch, I'm gonna lose this.

So overall thoughts? Yeah, great watch. I recommend it. don't think it was a damaging documentary to watch.

Hmm. That's a thought. Was it damaging?

I think you're right. I critiques that the original one was damaging. Yeah. And so in a way prevents it from being damaging that way. Yeah. So if that's your journey, if that's something you struggle with, I don't think this documentary does any harm. Hopefully it helps clarify.

the extremes that we go to for something that is so unsatisfying or that just isn't worth it at the end of the day and that won't last. know? And the only women that or I should say contestants but it just happened that they were the women that kept weight off and I don't even know if this was like they kept it off the whole time or if they gained some back and then lost it again.

but it seems like they were the ones who were on a GLP one. Like there was Joelle who mentioned, she didn't explicitly say it, but I mean, context clues I gathered that she mentioned it taking away her food noise. And then there was another, think, no, it wasn't Tracy, it was the blonde gal, Suzanne? She was talking about how she enjoyed it and was grateful for it. And so even the contestants who were,

small, I guess. I don't know how to say that. They just had lost weight or were still small. I don't even think they were still small. I think they gained it all back and then they went on a GLP one and then lost it again. And so all that to say is what was done in the Biggest Loser was not sustainable. I hope that's really obvious. And so unhealthy. my goodness. There was a moment when Jillian, they were talking about that girl that had

too much weight and how she was so skinny and they were so concerned about her and how Jillian was being interviewed on a podcast and was like, she was unhealthy, skinny. like, that was what made you think someone was, you thought the rest of them were healthy? After everything they had just gone through, you thought they were healthy? Just because somebody's in a normal weight range, say that with quotation marks, doesn't...

mean that they're healthy or that they got there in a healthy way and they're going to like there's you can't see somebody's heart muscle being broken down or the palpitations that are going to happen in 30 days, you know, and the heart attack that's going to happen because there's too much stress put on the heart from all the exercise and no food. You can't see that. Yeah. ⁓ Well,

If you are listening to this podcast before you watch the documentary, which I don't know why you would do that, but if you are, there's you're not going to be, you know, there's not going to be any whiplash. There's there's very little surprises about how the effects of The Biggest Loser were. Not that great. Yeah, like that's just where it ends. Like, you know, some people think.

the biggest loser at the end of the documentary. We're like, that's the best thing that ever happened to me for a lot of different reasons, but they still said it and some people felt very different. so, yeah, go into it if you haven't watched it. Expecting to not be that surprised. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it does bring up this interesting conversation around how certain diets that we go on or experiences that we engage in that

or maybe unhealthy in the long run from a physical standpoint or unsustainable from a weight loss standpoint, they can still be something that someone's grateful for. And you can still find like little gems or things out of that experience that you carry with you as a positive learning gem or whatever like I'm thinking about people that went on Noom, the diet Noom that

you know, they gained all the weight back. Maybe they had a lot of like really horrible side effects from it. But now they enjoy vegetables. And they're like, at least I enjoy vegetables now. And it's kind of similar with the people who were saying that they were grateful for the Biggest Loser. I think like my impression of that was that they they don't agree with the methods. But they were grateful that it gave them some sort of new discipline, I guess, or

willingness to be uncomfortable, a new sense of grit and stuff. I'm like, okay, yeah, resilience is what you need more of. At least you have that. But let's try to be a little bit healthier about it. At least you have that. It's something. It's something. Okay. Well, last thoughts? Any?

No. Okay, great. And I'll give my usual plug for let me know if you enjoyed this. If you want Vincent, my Vinny back. You don't need to say it. I know. I know I'm wanted back. I'm wanted, but I can't always give the people what they want. know, got to space it out a little bit. But I'll be back. I'll be back someday. Why one love.

is for you to let us know what else we should react to. If there's anything. Yeah. Let us know if you want to really his thoughts because you hear from me all the time. But let me know if you want to listen to our marital bickering anymore. But anyway, thanks for sticking with us. And I'd love to hear your thoughts about the show. The my show. Yes. But really also the fit for TV show on Netflix.

about the Biggest Loser contestants and the whole show. I'm so curious to hear what you guys think. And if you agree or disagree or if there were other insights that you had, let us know. You can let me know by ⁓ reaching out. There's a link in the show notes to leave feedback and it's anonymous. So, I mean, really you can be as brutal as you want. But remember, we are human and we do have feelings.

And then I can't get back to you. It's just a one way communication. like I said, you can't be as brutal as you want there. good to know now. I've been trying to contact you on that for months.

You gotta put disclaimers around this stuff. let me know. And if you do want me to contact you, just be sure you leave your actual name and email on there so I can get back to you. anyway, yeah, let us know what you thought. And if you love my show, you're big fan. I'm a fan of you too. And I'd love to know that you're fan. If you would leave me a rating and review, that'd be great. So anyway, thanks. Love you. I love you. You're amazing.

You are the light of my life. Thanks. It's getting really late at night, so I'd like to go to bed now. ⁓ really? You don't want to do another podcast? That's a great place to stop.