Okay. I’ll admit it. I have this thing for watching reality TV shows like The Biggest Loser, Celebrity Fit Club, and the new Fit TV’s National Body Challenge. Guilty as charged. You got me. Being in the industry, I feel compelled to watch these shows, not because I agree with them, but more so because this is what the general public believes is true about health, fitness, and weight loss. Just because one is thin does not mean one is healthy and fit. That’s the misconception that these shows are giving the general public. Do whatever it takes to lose the weight and all your problems will be solved. It’s the modern day American Dream. The old American Dream was to strike it rich. Now that many Americans are rich, they’re also fat, feel like shit, unhappy, and hate the world. The modern day American Dream is to be rich and thin. Just look at how many people are getting plastic surgery nowadays (and how many reality TV shows about it are popping up) and how many weight loss supplements and diet groups (Weight Watchers, LA Weight Loss, Jennie Craig, etc) that exist.

Not all exercise is appropriate for all people. Let me back up a bit and explain that you really are what you eat. Each one of our trillions of cells depend on what we put in our mouths. If we eat crap we literally become crap. Our ligaments, bones, tendons, and muscles are all made up of millions of cells. Doesn’t it make sense that these musculoskeletal structures depend on the food we eat? Also, another thing that many medical professionals do not realize is that our body will sacrifice these structures if our organs (which are also made up of millions of cells) are not getting the nutrition they need. A classic example is that if our liver does not get enough sulfur (and a number of other nutrients) from the diet it will get it from a sulfur reservoir, our joints. This means accelerated arthritis, or degeneration of the cartilage. Now if we take a bunch of fat people who are obviously malnourished (in the sense of not getting good nutrition; excess calories does not equal good nutrition) and have them doing sprints, or plyometric activities such as jumping, or running up and down stairs, and constantly pounding the treadmill or even worse, have them running on the beach, all in the name of burning as many calories as they can in whatever time frame they have and what you get is a recipe for injury. You can always expect a few contestants dropping out of the “race” due to some injury suffered while training. Boy, would I hate to be the trainer responsible for them. That would prove that I suck on national TV! Another thing I’d like to point out is the hormonal effects of excessive exercise. Have you ever noticed that many of the contestants on these shows lose a ton of weight within the first few weeks and then some start to plateau or even gain more weight? When excessively stressed, the body pumps out more cortisol, the stress hormone, and after awhile will hold onto any weight as an emergency mechanism. You see, it’s rather a nice mechanism where the body will adapt to all the “cardio” activities and become very fuel efficient and rather than burn it off, will conserve as much energy as possible. But yet you see these poor people end up doing more exercise as a result and whatever other weight they lose is most likely muscle tissue and very little fat tissue.

All of the weight loss reality shows tend to emphasize cutting the contestant’s calories and what better way to cut calories than to cut out the fat since fat has more calories than protein and carbohydrates, right? These shows, like the medical and fitness industries, are still in the dark ages where they consider the calorie as the most important measure for losing weight. People become absolutely obsessed by how many calories does that cookie have? or how many calories did I burn on my cardio machine? We become so obsessed with calorie counting that we become desensitized to our normal satiation, or our ability to tell if we’re full or not. Calorie counting is BS and a waste of time. Have you ever wondered in some of the shows where a contestant has been pounding away on their cardio machine and watching their “diet” and when it comes to weighing in they actually gained weight? In theory, less calories were taken in and more calories were expended, so weight loss should have resulted, right? As I mentioned above, if the stress hormone, cortisol, hangs around longer than it normally does, it will become more difficult to lose weight. Just think if a dog was chasing you all day long for the rest of your life. Your physiology would adapt so that you would conserve as much energy so that you can get away from the dog. When you eat less calories, you will lose weight but sooner or later, if prolonged, the calorie deprivation will trigger a stress response. Entering into what is called a starvation mode triggers the stress response. In a starvation mode, the body will sacrifice muscle tissue for fat tissue (now if you totally stop eating all together, eventually the fat will be used but that is an extreme situation such as in anorexic cases). Now let’s say the contestant gets berated by the health professionals as if they weren’t trying hard enough, that type of parenting they’re getting is another form of stress in which they have to deal with. Now let me recount everything here: you have an already stressed out individual who is unhappy and unhealthy and you give them excess amounts of exercise in a short period of time and drastically cut their daily caloric intake and on top of everything put a ton of pressure on them to lose the weight on national TV. Even though many have lost the weight and some have managed to keep it off, do you really think these individuals are truly healthy in the long run? They may have cut their risks for obesity-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes but no one ever relates other conditions such as arthritis or even cancer, or even psychological conditions like depression that may pop up years down the line. You see, the body is really great at compensating. If you have too much weight and you want to get rid of it fast, all the reasons why you got fat in the first place will be stored somewhere else. That “somewhere else” may be in your organs like your brain or your liver or your pancreas, or even your joints. The reason why someone gets fat in the first place is not because they eat too much (that’s how they got fat) but because they’re lacking something and are compensating for it the same way a smoker uses cigarettes as a compensation.

The bottom line with these shows are the ratings. Bigger ratings mean more sponsors. And more sponsors mean more money. Usually sponsors provide so-called “health” food that are highly processed and commonly “low fat”. This adds to more public confusion. Is fat bad for you? Medicine warns us of the dangers of too much saturated fat and now trans fats. But not all fat is bad. Fats from grass-fed animals, fats from organic raw nuts, and monounsaturated fats like olive oil are great for you. Also, some people need more fat in their diets compared to others due to biochemical individuality (a nifty term that just means we’re all different). There’s a lot of politics and conspiracy involved as to why people (including highly intelligent medical doctors) are brainwashed into thinking fat is bad (this may need to be the topic of another article). Other forms of corporate sponsorship are the health clubs the contestants work out in. In the National Body Challenge, Bally’s is featured. Just to let everyone know, within the fitness industry Bally’s is known for having the worst personal trainers. This is not because the individual trainer sucks but more so the underlying greed of the company itself. Bally’s doesn’t care about people’s health. They’re more concerned with profits. And because of this their personal training education is the bare minimum. They value salesmanship over practical knowledge. In one show the trainer was having a client run a 5K race as motivation to lose weight. Sounds great, but this client was not qualified to run a race. In the middle of the race she developed shin splints in which the trainer just had her “stretch it out”. Needless to say the client finished the race. In another part of the show, the same trainer had an obese man run an obstacle course for sheriff recruits. There was one part of the course where the man had to jump over a wall. Of course he didn’t make it and at the end of the show after several weeks of training they showed footage of him jumping over the wall but it was pathetically obvious they put a stool for him to get over it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention, this same guy injured his knee while training weeks before.