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From: Jason Earl on 21 Apr 2008 16:32
The Master <tardis(a)nospam.sdf.lonestar.org.nospam> writes:

> On Sat, 19 Apr 2008, jenuis wrote:
>
>> The Biggest Loser: 'I am a whole new woman' Ali Vincent, the first
>> female winner of the hit show, shed half her weight
>
> So she's half the woman she used to be. Sorry, but she isn't woman
> enough any more...
>
>> Said her trainer, Jillian Michaels: “She's a dream come true for
>> me. I just think she's inspiration incarnate
>
> WHAT?!?!?!?!?!
>
> She is an INSPIRATION? How so? She lost weight, big deal... That's
> not inspirational.

It's not inspirational to you, but it is to lots of other people that
see their extra weight as a problem. In general I have to admit that I
am inspired by people that are successful in achieving difficult goals
even if I do not agree 100% with the goal.

There's something to be said for tenacity and perseverance. Most people
spend their entire lives looking for the path of least resistance.
There's something to be said for people that take a different route,
even if I don't agree with their destination.

>> But in her 20s, she saw that she “literally got fat five pounds at a
>> time.” She was prompted to do something about it when she started
>> “not getting as much affection.”
>
> So, she based her self worth on the input of other people. She went
> from the "hot chick" to a BBW, and lost the affection of perfect
> strangers who don't care about her anyhow. That's losing weight for
> them, not for her.
>
> What she did is the FURTHEST thing from inspirational she could have
> possibly done!

I agree that this is very superficial. However, to a certain extent it
is also very realistic. People are prejudiced against overweight
individuals. Whether this is fair or not is immaterial. The fact is
that people are prejudiced against fat people.

In my own particular case I lost weight because I had several family
members that were diagnosed with diabetes and I wanted to lower my own
risks for contracting the disease. However, I am forced to admit that
as I began to lose weight and look better I found the change in how
people treated me to be very motivating. I honestly don't know whether
the risk of diabetes alone would have been enough, in the long term, to
make me stick to my fitness goals.

Generally speaking peer pressure is regarded as a negative thing, but at
least in this particular case it can have positive effects.

>> She teamed with Michaels upon her return to the show. Michaels
>> described their workouts as “beatings — eight hours a day. Sometimes
>> 10 toward the end.”
>
> 8 and 10 hours a day workouts? How is she going to maintain when she
> has to go back to work? 8 hours working, 8 hours sleep, 8 hours
> working out. That's already 24 hours, and you still have driving to
> work, eating, getting ready, etc...

The real problem with gaining a lot of weight is that it takes a long
time and a lot of work to get rid of it. After a certain thresh hold
you have basically committed yourself to being fat forever because
losing all of that extra weight would require a superhuman effort. "The
Biggest Loser" pattern is definitely one way to make that superhuman
effort.

From my own weight loss experience, however, I can assure you that it
takes far less work to *maintain* a lower weight than it does to lose
the weight in the first place. It still requires some discipline, but
it doesn't require 8 hours of work a day. Maintenance is actually
relatively easy. The difficult part is forcing your body to give up the
weight in the first place.

>> And Vincent was in for the long haul.
>
> Unless she can bend the laws of time, she's already doomed. There is
> no way she can maintain her workout schedule. If that's ALL she wants
> to do in her free time, she could probably get in 4 hours, perhaps
> even 5.
>
> If that's what the fat bashers consider "normal" or "keeping in
> shape", I'd RATHER being obese. Sorry, but that is NOT a better
> quality of life, period.

"The Biggest Loser" is a very problematic show in that contestants are
basically forced to lose ridiculous amounts of weight over a relatively
short period of time. Most people that lose a lot of weight use much
less dramatic measures.

In my own case I have taken the weight off at about the same pace that I
put it on. I've been losing weight for years, and I still don't
consider myself to be done. Of course, I only exercise for an average
of about 30 minutes a day, and until recently I didn't really modify my diet
at all.

In the process I have found that I enjoy discovering what sort of cool
things my body can do.

>> Vincent pocketed $250,000 for her losing ways. After taking a red-eye
>> flight from California to New York, one of the first things she saw
>> was a copy of USA Today with a “Got Milk?” ad featuring her chiseled
>> self.
>
> $250,000 prize money, endorsements? Ok, I stand corrected. If she
> plays her cards right, she could save enough money to not have to work
> again. That would free up the time for her to continue 8 hour a day
> workouts. But again, 8 frickin hours a day? Again, I'd rather be fat.

If that was the only way to lose weight then I would agree with you.
However, it's not. The method employed on "The Biggest Loser" is not
typical in any regard. Most people don't take 6 weeks and devote their
lives to losing weight full time. You *can* lose weight with a far more
reasonable daily commitment of time. However, if you have 100 pounds of
weight to lose losing that weight is going to take a lot of commitment.

I can certainly understand why some people believe that the commitment
is not worth the reward.

Unfortunately, the real trick to weight loss is probably to not get fat
in the first place. It's much easier to make small adjustments in your
diet and exercise to lose 10 pounds than it is to try and get rid of 100
pounds.

>> Vincent hopes her dramatic weight loss will put her in a better
>> position to achieve her goal of becoming a platform artist for a
>> large corporation.
>
> And there go her 8 hour workouts again...

Vincent isn't competing to lose the most weight anymore, she just has to
maintain her current weight and level of fitness.

Jason
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