August 27, 2025 • 41 mins
From 2009 to 2020, The Biggest Loser was a phenomenon. A huge cultural moment.
What it wasn’t, however, was a show about healthy lifestyles and healthy weight loss.
Netflix’s Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser examines what it was like for some contestants on the show and some members of the production. The push to keep the show in the spotlight wreaked havoc on lives, relationships, and, in some cases, health. Does the documentary series exploit the contestants in a similar way to the show did?
Josh Hajjar, who has personal experience with significant weight loss, joins in as guest cohost. You can find Josh on Instagram @amazingjrab https://www.instagram.com/amazingjrab/.
Join our Discord for free at goodcompanydiscord.com!
Check out our gym (Third Street Barbell) at ThirdStreetBarbell.com https://www.thirdstreetbarbell.com/!
Check out our podcast website: 50percentfacts.com https://www.50percentfacts.com/
50% Facts is a Spreaker Prime podcast on OCN – the Obscure Celebrity Network.
____
Hosted by Mike Farr (@silentmikke) https://www.instagram.com/silentmikke/ and Jim McDonald (@thejimmcd). https://www.instagram.com/thejimmcd/ Produced by Jim McDonald Production assistance by Sam McDonald and Sebastian Brambila. Theme by Aaron Moore. Show art by Joseph Manzo (@jmanzo523)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/50-facts-with-silent-mike-jim-mcd--5538735/support.
What it wasn’t, however, was a show about healthy lifestyles and healthy weight loss.
Netflix’s Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser examines what it was like for some contestants on the show and some members of the production. The push to keep the show in the spotlight wreaked havoc on lives, relationships, and, in some cases, health. Does the documentary series exploit the contestants in a similar way to the show did?
Josh Hajjar, who has personal experience with significant weight loss, joins in as guest cohost. You can find Josh on Instagram @amazingjrab https://www.instagram.com/amazingjrab/.
Join our Discord for free at goodcompanydiscord.com!
Check out our gym (Third Street Barbell) at ThirdStreetBarbell.com https://www.thirdstreetbarbell.com/!
Check out our podcast website: 50percentfacts.com https://www.50percentfacts.com/
50% Facts is a Spreaker Prime podcast on OCN – the Obscure Celebrity Network.
____
Hosted by Mike Farr (@silentmikke) https://www.instagram.com/silentmikke/ and Jim McDonald (@thejimmcd). https://www.instagram.com/thejimmcd/ Produced by Jim McDonald Production assistance by Sam McDonald and Sebastian Brambila. Theme by Aaron Moore. Show art by Joseph Manzo (@jmanzo523)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/50-facts-with-silent-mike-jim-mcd--5538735/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I could use another cup of coffee, but I ain't
got one. Okay, I don't have a role in today
because SeaBASS is ill and uh, and my companion here,
Josh is uh a little under the weather. But we're
we're gonna knock this one out anyway. This one might
(00:30):
end up being a little bit shorter. But you guys
will you'll, you'll, you'll cope. Uh. We're here to talk
about fit for TV, the the reality uh series or
we are reality mean backup documentary series about the reality
show The Biggest Loser, And it really seemed to be
(00:51):
about certain seasons of of The Biggest Loser, not really
necessarily all the people in total.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It was very focused on a few of the of
the few of the contestants. I don't know how you
feel about it, but like the elephant in the room
to me is that this documentary series does the same
thing that The Biggest Loser did. It exploits these people
and their emotions. It has a particular point of view
(01:27):
in that The Biggest Loser probably did more harm than good,
not only to the people who were involved, but to
the to our culture as a whole. They cap it
off by saying that that obesity, the OBC rate in
(01:47):
the United States is higher now than it was before
the Biggest Loser sort of drawing the conclusion that somehow
it had something to do with it, or it at
least didn't help at all. So from that perspective starting there,
what were your overall impressions of this sucker.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I really liked the documentary.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I thought it made a couple really valid points about
obesity in the United States and treating it and what
we do in society. And that's the message that I
think I'd like to take away from it, because as
somebody who's lost a considerable amount of weight, was yo
yoding up and down with my weight, you know, got
up to a BMI of forty eight. Was really unhealthy.
(02:31):
For a time there in my life. I looked at
the Biggest Loser when it was a cultural phenomenon, and
I looked up to it. I thought, oh, this is great.
Look at all these people losing all this weight. They're
doing so well with this. And then when I actually
took the time to really focus on what it took
for me to lose over one hundred pounds and keep
it off and maintain that that level of weight loss.
(02:54):
It was a consistency and such a long game. Yeah,
that that message in the Biggest Loser is completely lost.
It's they go through. I don't know how long each
season was, like what time frame they took to shoot
each season, but I don't think it was longer than
six months.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
The guy who lost the most weight was six months.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Right, so he lost over two hundred pounds in six months.
It was two hundred and forty pounds in six months,
which when I heard that, I gasped audibly. Yeah, And
I was just so shocked because even though he was
severely obeset, over four hundred pounds and the weight starts
coming off very rapidly with just a calorie deficit and
some exercise, that amount of weight lost in that such
(03:37):
short period of time puts such a stress on the
body that there was no way he was ever going
to maintain it. There was no way that he was
ever going to stay healthy. And he actually might have
put himself at further health risks by losing it that
fast than by taking a slow and steady process to it.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah. And you see, in the course of this documentary series,
one of the contestants ends up with rabdough like before
the season really even gets started.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, which is something we see in the emergency department
very often. Yeah, it's not even just obese people who
get into it. It's people who your average person who
starts at office desk job puts on ten to twenty
pounds and they're like, I'm going to join a CrossFit gym.
They joined CrossFit, they start doing all these crazy wads
and all these crazy workouts, and then they come to
us a week later feeling like they've been run over
(04:28):
their coke, their urine looks like coke, and they've got
rabbed in mylosis, and it's just crazy.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I you know, I've I've been someone who until until
I started powerlifting, and I've been relatively consistent since then.
Before that, I was like in the gym, out of
the gym, in the gym, out of the gym, depending
on like life and whatever. You know, when people say, oh,
you always have time, it's like, no, you fucking don't
have time all the time. No, yeah, your life can
be too complicated and too just overscheduled in ways that
(04:59):
you can't fix. Like you've got little kids, you've got
a job. You've got your spouse as a job.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
You know, you're just aging parents. Yeah, well you've got
the sandwich generation effect.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Like when is it going to happen?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And do you have the time to do this? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:12):
For some people it's like you always have the time.
Well you don't, you don't. Sometimes you just don't. You
probably have the time to eat better, but you don't
necessarily have the exercise time to exercise, and you for
sure don't have the time to go to a gym. No.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
And I've acknowledged too for my own journey that this
has taken me a two to three hour process average.
Every day I have off, and I'm lucky that I
work three twelve hour shifts and I get four days off,
so I can come here to Third Street for two
to three hours and you know, do my you know,
my compound lifts my accessories and thirty minutes to an
hour of cardio. But if I had a more traditional
(05:49):
position where I was working nine to five, or if
I was back in management like I was before, when
I did put on all the weight, my schedule was
eight hours a day, but that was the minimum. Yeah,
I could tell you I was doing sometimes ten to
twelve as an administrator, and that's required between meetings and
traveling to conferences and you know, conference to calls, all
these things.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So I can't imagine.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
What it would be like for your average person working
the average job, having small kids, having elderly parents that
they have to take care of, and then the stress
surrounding that. I think also they've finally acknowledging that stress
is a huge factor in this way.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Game, right for sure. I know I'm a stress leader.
I'm an inveterate stress leader. Yeah, And that's actually one
of the most frustrating things about dieting is that when
the stress comes on the thing that you have, your
coping strategy, your major coping strategy, which is eating, is
off the table. Yeah, unless you're going to blow the diet,
(06:45):
and that in it in and of itself creates more stress.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So that I mean, that's it's just it's something that
needs to be acknowledge. But in the in the nineties,
the late nineties, I finally was able to consistently to
join a gym, and the gym that I joined came
with three pre personal training sessions. So I went in
and did that and I was perilously close to rhapdo.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, that's it just happened close.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And it's because the trainer to know shit about what
she was doing. She had no clue, she didn't have
two brain cells to rub together, and she just like
didn't did a terrible assessment, you know. I mean, you know,
in healthcare, like the outcome of any intervention is largely
dependent on the amount of the quality of the assessment
(07:38):
before you even start, and she did not have any
of that at all. I mean, my my calves are big, right,
they were bigger, they were huge. I got super swollen.
I felt like crap.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I it was bad.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
It was really bad. I had to I was, you know,
kind of just laid up trying to pull off all
this extra fluid that my kidneys couldn't handle for I
don't know, a good week, maybe two. Yeah, And it's
just it can happen very easily, and like that it
(08:13):
didn't happen more on the.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Biggest losers A shock to me. Yeah, that's the biggest shock.
And the other biggest shock too, is that there weren't
more injuries, and there weren't more people who just suffered
in their body from the stress that they were putting
on it just from the jump. They didn't show that
they eased them into it. They showed that they could
just run them and work them until their bodies gave out.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Every day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, it was like I would call it like a
tough love approach, yeah, except except not so much love,
like more like exploitation than love.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
More like exploitation and more like, this is the thing
that you have to do if you're this large and
you want to lose weight, Yeah, which is which is
unrealistic for the average person.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
It's unrealistic and it's not even true. I mean, there
are a lot of roads to losing weight, but like
taking in fewer calories is definitely like the main road.
But there are other ways to handle it, and there
are other ways to implement or begin to implement, you know, exercise,
(09:19):
cardio and weight training. There's just different ways to do
it that you're not killing the person along the way
literally almost literally.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
And it's a surprising thing that they did have a
doctor on the show, and the doctor wasn't saying anything like, hey,
you know, this should be a year long process where
we start these people out on just maybe walking an
extra couple of blocks per day and a slight calorie reduction,
and maybe we follow them in their home with cameras,
(09:51):
because there were plenty of shows by that period of time,
the real world Jersey Shore where people got followed with cameras, right,
Johnny Kate plus eight, all those things. Follow them with
cameras for the first couple months, and let them ease
into a program, and then we can start dialing things
up as time goes on, and then the end of
the show can be this extreme period where when they're
in decent shape, if they want to know further that
(10:14):
they can spend three months in this boot camp place
where they then lose the rest of it and get
down to a weight that they've always wanted to be at,
or a weight that they feel comfortable at.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And the weight loss in that boot camp period should
probably not be more than twenty twenty five pounds.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, if it's a three month period, I would say
maybe eight pounds a month. Yeah, because that's the healthiest.
And that's what I've done two pounds steady. And I'll
tell you too, after two years of two pounds steady
per week, my body is tired of that. My body
does not want to lose two pounds a week. Now,
it's just like it's it's like you're gonna get injured lifting.
The activity level is either going to drop or something's
(10:51):
going to drop with this calorie deficit.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, something that that I encountered recently in losing weight
is and I haven't had this tested, but I know
that as I have lost weight, it is harder to
continue to lose to lose weight. Yeah, and part of that.
They touch on this a little bit, but they but
(11:14):
they really there's no definitive word on it. In the
course of this documentary about metabolism sewing down, so basically
you're you're resting metabolic rate slowing down over time. But
there are studies that show that just a straight calorie
restriction will do that. And one that I read that
sort of inspired me is that a calorie cycling diet
(11:36):
doesn't slow down your your resting metabolic rate. So you can,
like you have your higher calorie days and your lower
calorie days, but on on the average, on a week,
you're still in a deficit.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, which I have heard really good things about too.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, it just I mean, I'm on a week end
of this process, so I don't really know for sure
how it's how it's going to work out.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
But I feel like even though that they had the
doctor available to them who was on the show, they
didn't decide to incorporate any of these strategies or look
at these things.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
No.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I think he just did straight calorie restriction and extreme
amounts of cardiovascular exercise and extreme amounts of some calisthenic exercises.
There was no science behind this, even though they had
a sports medicine doctor who had been a doctor for
the Raiders for many years as their doctor for most
of the season.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And like he says, well, I tried to tell them
this and they didn't listen to me. That was just
his whole thing. It's like, well, okay, so but your
ethics let you keep.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Taking the money. Yeah, And they made a ton of
money from that show. Yeah, where there was so many
things that were branded the Biggest Loser. Yeah, we're selling
so much. And it was very poignant to me. I
think they had a woman that was making commentary about
like society and your value versus you know, and the
point of the show wasn't to show, oh, we took
(12:56):
this person to the healthiest weight that they could sustainably
keep off. What they did was we made this person
lose as much weight as possible, which tells you that
the true value to anybody is how thin you are
or how in shape you are. It's not that you
got healthy, you enjoyed the process of getting healthy. Your
(13:18):
body is now healthier, it's how you look. And there's
been so many times throughout this journey that I've had
to remind myself, Hey, I want to be a nationally
ring powerlifter. I don't want to be ripped. I don't
want to be super thin. And I need to stop
focusing so much on what's going on the scale that
I step on, and I need to focus on what's
going on the bar. And it's just a it's a
(13:40):
hard thing to do sometimes because my coworkers, my family,
old friends, so many people they make comments and they say,
you look so great, you look so great, you look
so great. But that's not why I did this. I
didn't do this to be accepted by society. I didn't
do this to have people tell me how I look
and that I look great. I did this because I
wanted to feel strong again after feeling well for a
long period of time and I think that's the big
(14:02):
message that I took home from this documentary that I
love the most is that we as a society, we
look at people and we judge them immediately by how
they look, But those people might actually be healthy for
the weight that they're at. And many of the people
who didn't gain a considerable amount of weight back from
their time on The Biggest Loser but gained you know,
maybe twenty to thirty pounds and still look a little
(14:24):
thick or whatever adjective you want to use. They still
look good and they're still healthy. So it's really hard to,
you know, rectify what the message of the show was,
especially when they talked about in that last episode, one
of the second to last seasons, the girl who had
been a nationally ranked swimmer, she lost so much weight
(14:45):
that the commentary online and in the news and even
by the trainers was, wow, she took this too far.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
And yeah, she looked she looked innarexic.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, and she didn't look good. She looked innerrexic. Yeah,
and so but that was the woman who followed up
on the documentary. I said, but that was the message
of the show. The more weight that you lose, the
more that you win this competition, and she decided she
wanted to win the competition.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, the the gamification of it is was is really
the downfall and that they put money in the final
episode that the one of the producers said, if I
if I was doing it today, there would be no.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Money like that.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That your reward is that you're you're healthier, you know,
and that really should be enough. I my experience with
with reality shows from the production side is that in
the the super Training days, we went through three or
(15:48):
four different rounds of potentially doing a powerlifting gym based
reality show. And I can tell you that working with
producers and working with network, they are one hundred percent worth.
I don't know what it's like now. I'm sure, I'm
sure it's the same. But back then, while because Lusure
(16:10):
was on while we were doing this, there is pushed
to do the most outrageous thing. Yeah, pushed to have
the most conflict. Yeah, And that's the unfortunate part of it.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
That the message of the show getting healthier, which is
why I took that comment with a grain of salt.
I wouldn't give any money. Getting healthier is the point.
But that's not what you did. And you know that
that wouldn't sell. Yeah, I would never sell. That would
never get the ratings even in today's day, and agent
wouldn't get the ratings. And I think that's a big
message here that was told was excuse me that this
(16:47):
wasn't really about people getting healthier, even though the show
tried to make it about that. This was really about
showing people that it was okay to fact change because
there was fat shange.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, there's definitely fat shaming. That was part of the quote,
you know, tough tough love or as I always a
tough exploitation of it.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And that's why I hate things like that and my
six hundred pound life, because there's not a lot of
things that talk about, hey, there's a reason why this
happened to this person, and they have food addiction. They
don't have you know, they're not just lazy, they're.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Not just it's not moral failing.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yes, they look at you and.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
They think they think you're a bad person because you're
of weight. And I've had that judgment so many times,
especially as a nurse. I've walked into jobs when I've
been thirty to forty pounds overweight, not even as overweight
as I was before. I lost the weight recently, and
I was immediately judged as being poor, a poor nurse, lazy,
all these things that were just completely not true. And
received promotions in my career because of my work ethic
(17:47):
and my abilities. And every time I've walked into a
job being overweight, I've always been judged, and just in society,
I've always been judged. I've noticed that i've lost weight,
people are friendly. They talk to me more now, they
smile at me, me more, now, they're willing to just
bring up random conversation with me now And the ostracization
that you receive from being obese in the first place,
(18:10):
that they didn't, you know, talk about it all on
the show. Hey, I got this way and now I'm
ostracized and it makes me feel worse, so I eat more,
and it's just this terrible cycle I can't get out of.
So let's change the stigma. Let's talk about this. Let's
say that this is unacceptable and that we should look
at food addiction as an addiction like it is to
gambling and shopping and drugs. You know, That's why I
(18:30):
really appreciated the show Intervention. They talked a lot about
the trauma that preceded a lot of the people on
the show Intervention's addiction, and they didn't touch upon that
in the Biggest Loser, and even on My six hundred
Pound Life, with those people who are severely overweight, the
clips that I see on that show are of that
(18:51):
doctor looking at them incredulously and saying something borderline insulting
to them about weight loss and stopping eating and those things.
So it just becomes this whole process, this whole circus
of look at this fat person trying to lose weight.
Look at this fat person trying to lose weight. We
should call them a fatty and tell them to lose weight.
And I think that was one of the things about
(19:12):
the show that the producers never really talked about.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
No, I think that that's true. And I mean a
little bit of it is like how kids used to
be taught to swim. You used to throw them in
the deep end, right, you know, And and that was
it was a definitely kind of a deep end philosophy
where they just like throw you in and see if
you survive. And that's you know, survived the game. And
(19:38):
as you know, it's a reality game show, it was
a game show wasn't a weight loss show. It was
a game show. Was always a game show. They could
have been building fricking cars. It's like, you know, and
in trying to make the fastest car and not the
and and working crazy hours twenty four hours a day,
and you know, some of the some of those shows existed.
(19:58):
It's just a game. It was a and they didn't
really respect the contestants in any appreciable way, and you
can get that from the people that they talked to.
I would like for them to have had a bit
more balance around around experience about former contestine talking about experience.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, I would have liked them to have a little
more balance around experience. And you know that it did
benefit some people, and don't get me wrong, it benefited.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
A lot of people.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
And they did have a couple that there was a
two women who were sisters who lost a lot of
weight and they said, the biggest loser was the best
thing that ever happened to me in my life. And
you know, I can't see how this could be a
bad thing. And that's great that that's definitely their experience.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
But it was just those two.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
It was just those two. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And then and then the guy who lost the most
weight put it all back on and then some and
he was the one talking about how he reached out
to producers and said, hey, can we get some follow
up after the show is over kind of aftercare, some
kind of aftercare gym memberships, personal trainers or you know,
psychology treatment, psychological treatment. And I think that's the biggest
thing that they should have hammered home that to sustain this,
(21:11):
they definitely needed some sort of treatment, mental health treatment.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's difficult. I mean, unless you
have unless you have some kind of disorder that that
causes you to gain weight. There's definitely a psychological component
to weight.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Gain, Yes, definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
And if you're not addressing that then then what are
you doing? And they, as the documentary points out, that
there were no no mental health professionals involved with the
show at all, and they subbed in the trainers for
that part of it. And essentially it was like, you know,
it was carrot and stick, yeah, and sometimes you know,
(21:52):
sometimes it was like even food as a as both
a carrot or a static.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
They had some challenges in there, that's that were temptations
quote unquote, and part of the challenge was to win
an added like advantage for that week's weight loss. You
had to pig out on something that was your favorite food.
So I can't see how this could ever be something
that was healthy for them to do, because that just
reinforces the whole thing of binge in restriction binge and
(22:21):
restriction good foods versus bad foods and putting morals on foods,
which is the right way to sabotage any sort of
weight loss.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, the the more than one of them, I think afterwards,
basically said not so many words always, but that they
developed eating disorders that they didn't have before. Yeah, during
the you know, during their time on the show and
after the show, and and you know, that's obviously that's
(22:54):
a that's that's that's doing harm in the in the
process of trying to theoretically trying to do good. It
is worth talking about the trainer's approach and the personalities
involved there. I was to say up front that Jen
Wiederstrom is a friend, and she was on the show
(23:16):
toward the end of the run in part I think
I think she stepped in for Bob when he had
his heart attack, but it may have happened after that
after maybe after Gillian left. I'm not sure exactly what
her run was in it, but like, Jenny is somebody
that has a lot of respect for and I know
she cares for people, and I know that she you know,
her approach is not like what we see here.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
So there's that.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Bob Harper participated in this documentary, and I think it
was I think he was I think he was being honest,
but I think it was also a pr move on
his and his partner, his you know, his representation or whatever,
whereas Jillian Michaels did not, and so they were free
(24:05):
to just shit all over her.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Oh yeah, and it you know, you.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Only know so much, but it seems justified.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It does seem justified.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And I think too, from what little I did watch
of the show, she was the really hard trainer on everybody,
but that you know, they did have moments where she did,
like we said, there was some psychological care provided by
the trainers, and I did see in the show when
I did watch it a couple times that I did
that she would speak to her team and talk to
them about their weight loss journey. But you have to remember,
(24:39):
these are trainers. They're not qualified to talk to them
about in their their psychiatric or mental health issues.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
And remember that anytime the camera's on, anything that goes
on is performative.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yes, like ridiculously performative. And so there was probably just
that conversation and that care in that moment for that
moment on the screen right right, and then afterwards it
was just hey, listen, if you want to win this,
you gotta lose weight. So drop the calories to a
very unhealthy amount to lose fifteen pounds. Some of these
people were losing fifteen pounds per week.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
That is so insane.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
That is insane. There is no calorie deficit that is
healthy that way. Even if you if you put them
on ideal body weight calories for their height, that would
be dropping their calories so dangerously low that it's basically
starvation mode for them. So of course they're dropping fourteen
to fifteen pounds per week.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, she Okay. Here's my experience with Julian Michaels
is not a personal experience with her, but with her
podcast back in the old days with the Power Cast,
were we would bounce around, you know, in the top
five with her and she would be like number one
(25:52):
and maybe number two. There were was a week or
two somewhere along the line that we were actually above her,
and it was a huge vic because that bitch anyway,
you know, just the competitive feeling about it, you know,
like we felt like what we were doing was more
authentic than what she could possibly be doing. I don't know,
(26:14):
I don't you know, I haven't really tracked her that closely.
I know she's kind of a big She's into politics
now in ways that I think are really not.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Caring at all, which seems to be the playbook. It's like,
when you lose relevancy, just get on TV and start
saying and that things that'll bring you back to relevant
to a certain demographics.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And I mean that's actually kind of a point because
this show lasted for you know, it was for what
sixteen seasons something like that, so there are multiple seasons
per year, but so actually in production it was like
eight nine years something like that. It is difficult to
keep your show in this geist for that period of time.
(27:04):
You have to keep reinventing it in increasingly uncomfortable ways,
I think, at least increasingly desperate looking ways. Having had
an incredibly popular podcast and then shifting gears to this
(27:25):
show and doing it differently and not chasing that. I
can just tell you even even to be able to
continue to produce content, you have to keep reinventing. And like,
we've never really chased the kind of thing that was
that was going on in the previous show, especially toward
the end, where you're bringing on controversial figures just to
(27:50):
be controversial because they are trending at the moment whatever.
It's just like, I can't imagine that, but they definitely did.
They did. They did kind of stunt casting kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
They did.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
They did all manner of things to try to keep
going because they were all making money and they want
to make money. And a question that I have is, okay,
so that the top price was a quarter million dollars,
what are the other ones get paid.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
For being on the show and drawing in all that revenue?
Because at points it was one of the biggest shows
in the United States.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So I feel like they were probably getting a day rate.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
They had to have been getting a day rate. There
was just so much money being made from the brand
from the show. From I remember Jillian Michaels had her
own brand and she was selling things and she was selling,
putting her name on you know, fitness bands and videos
and all these things. So all the money that was
just generated from the show, did the contestants see any
(28:48):
of that and didn't make their life easier to lose
weight because, you know, without the stress of finances, which
obesity also is a socioeconomic thing that we don't look at,
right because I will say the having a trainer, going
to a gym like this is a lot higher than
going to a planet fitness where nobody there is gonna
you know, see you and encourage you along the journey
(29:10):
like it's been here at Third Street.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
And also the there's also the food quality issue.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
The food quality issue to buy things that cost you,
you know a little bit more to get better quality food.
It's just it's just such a socioeconomic and psychological issue,
and he just attacked it from this viewpoint of all
you have to do is separate yourself from society for.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Six months and you two can lose this weight.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, yeah, remove all the other extraneous you know, circumstances,
and you can lose two hundred and forty pounds in
six months.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, that's that's just it's pure insanity. Yeah, I did
find that. I you know, I had a lot of
empathy for the people that participated in the documentary, but
at the same time, they refamed themselves a little bit
by doing that, and it's it's not it's not a
(30:08):
pure it's not a pure endeavor to be involved in
something that's kind of going to put you in the
public eye again.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, it brought them back into the public arena. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
I the one guy, the guy who lost the most weight.
His name is just giving Danny Danny Cahill. At the
end of the documentary, he's saying, well, my wife and
I feel like now we need to do this for
ourselves and actually lose weight again. And you know, a
(30:42):
game show is the last place that he would do that.
I'm curious because, I mean, this is probably filmed over
the last couple of years and it's probably been in
the can for a minute. I wonder, I wonder where
he is with that now, like what he's managed to accomplish,
or if it was just something he said because it
(31:03):
puts a put kapper on the show.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, because I know that.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
I mean, this kind of documentary and a reality show
are almost the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, they're all sensation.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
The Venn diagram is damn near a circle, and a
lot of documentaries, you know your fed lines. In one
hundred percent of reality shows your fed lines.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Or like with reality shows, they will record hours upon
hours upon hours of content, and then even for a
three part documentary that was three I want to say,
forty five minute episodes episode, they only use maybe twenty
minutes total. But you know, of course, because they're showing
two minutes here, two minutes here, two minutes here, it
looks like a considerable or just one one hour interview,
(31:52):
but what they probably did was more of like close
to three to four hours of content of him talking,
and they took and then they took the highlights from that.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, And the one thing I will say is that
they obviously did one long interview with each one of them,
and then all the other interview stuff was archival from
Biggest Loser and it was pretty Christine quality, which leads
me to believe that they actually got access to the
Biggest Loser tapes themselves and not or maybe they got
(32:24):
it from you. It was NBC, right, maybe they got
from there. Often with documentaries, you're taking a YouTube video
and you're converting it to whatever you know system you're
currently using, and then you just get clearance. You know,
you work on getting clearance, just you had to pay
(32:45):
for it. Other times it's just you know, fair use
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I wonder.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Part of me wonder is how they got all of
that footage because they couldn't and made it look so good. Yeah,
there's no way that they could have done this with
out all that footage.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
And I think that this brings up a good point
that is, if we see the Biggest Loser make it
come back in a couple of years here, we'll know
exactly why they made this documentary.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, like they're basically revisionist, cleaning it up, you.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Know, or saying, hey, we did it wrong the first time. Yeah,
now we're bringing it back. Because you know, there is.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
With social media and fitness influencers, a lot of this
fitness stuff is back front and center in the social zeitgeist.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, and with the the GOLP one receptor agonists available
now waitless, it's a totally different kind of experience for
some people.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Now you know where they just like, you know, it's
basically attacking their appetite and so they're not gonna they're
just not gonna eat as much and then they're gonna
lose weight. And you don't necessarily have to take the
crazy exercise approach to keep like whittling these people down
to shadows of or their former selves. Yeah, he could
(34:04):
definitely be like a you know, we'll take the hits
on on the criticism what we did before, but we're
going to do better.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Yeah, We're going to do better this time around. It's
a totally different production team. You know, the Biggest Loser
sponsored by Ozempic. And your trainers are you know who's
who's really big in the fitness influencer world out there
in Instagram, Like one of the most popular ones Joe Rogan.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
No, he already did his reality show turn. He doesn't
need that money anymore.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
The trainers are these fitness influencers that you see all
over YouTube or Instagram or TikTok and and it's sponsored
by ozempic. And now this is the Biggest Loser. You know,
we're going to get you not only we're going to
get you into being thin, but you're going to be
as jacked as you know, a bodybuilder. And it's going
to happen in six months. You know, there's there's there's
(34:55):
that thing.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
That yeah, that's crazy, and it's like possible, and it's possible.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Yeah, up right, And that's what a lot of fitness
influencers who are big and who also sell coaching try
to sell you. They do it, they show you their results,
and then they try to show you, Oh, I did it,
Now you can do it.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
All you have to do is follow my plan. Is it?
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Longevity Clinics HRT clinics also.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Like it's huge, it's huge money, and it's always been
huge money. Yeah, yeah, And that's the reason why they
push the shame of it, the shame of being overweight
on you so much, because they know that you would
be willing to take a shot that you have to
pretty much pay for out of pocket, right because insurance
isn't covering a lot of GLP ones unless you absolutely
need them.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, it does for some people, but it's not as universal.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
And then now there's clinics where you can go and
pay five hundred dollars a month to get the muscles
you want or five hundred dollars a month to lose
the weight that you want.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And now it's even bigger business these days.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think of anything else
that really occurred to me while while watching this. It
I just just in terms of the production, if you
take the point of view out of it and talk
purely about the production, the production was really well done.
And in general, a three parter will have a lot
(36:12):
of fat that you think about top fat that could
be cut, and this didn't have a lot of that.
To me, it was it was a relatively you know,
straightforward production. Each episode flowed from one to the next.
Each episode sort of had its own identity, and it's
(36:33):
all the same people all the whole time. From that perspective,
it was well done well what they were trying to do.
I think they did a good job of accomplishing it.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
They did, and I think it was a little bit
more fair at the end of the day, where there
were people who said, hey, this benefited me and was
good to my life, and then there were a couple
of people out there who said this was the worst
thing for me. And I didn't really lose as much
weight as I wanted to, or I didn't keep it off,
and I did stay healthy. I think they were a
(37:03):
little they were a little sensationalized about saying how bad
it was, but I think some of it was accurate,
because again, the message wasn't getting these people into a
healthy weight for them and getting rid of their health
issues and starting them on a healthy path towards, you know,
being healthier in their body in their minds. It was
lose as much weight as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Actually, that reminds me of something that I was going
to say. There's a lot of dialogue online about o
zembic face. So people either face looks a particular way
after they've been on ozepic, and like people try to
lay it off on ozembic. And there were people who
(37:45):
had lost a lot of weight in this show who
totally had ozepic face. Yeah, and it was just because
it's just weight loss. It's just rapid weight loss.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
It looks a particular way it does, and if you
don't want that effect, you got to slow it down. Yeah,
you got to play the long game. You got to
lose one pound week or less for however long you
need to lose that for it to get to the way.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
You want to go to.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
And just as an aside too, if you're over forty.
Your face is constantly refashioning itself. Yes, the bones in
your face replace those cells are replaced over time, and
when they refashion they have errors, and so you're gonna
(38:27):
look different anyway. But yeah, the rapid weight loss face
is you know, distinct, It's very distinct. Yeah, I was like,
I was shocked by that, all right. Traditionally we rate
to these things on a scale that I come up with,
and then they're all individual. There's no usually no relationship
(38:51):
from one rating to another about quality. It's just within
the show. And I usually pick a thing to rate
on and I would say this time that I want
to rate it on tubes of Gillian Michael's lip filler,
(39:15):
going one through five, five being best, one being worst.
You can, uh, let's let's say, let's split it up.
We'll say one rating for production and another for for
quality of the message.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
For production, i'd definitely give it a five.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would too, And then for quality
of the message, I'd give it a three and a half.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, yeah, I would say, yeah, probably probably three three
and a half for me too. It's it, you know,
if you take any thought of alterior motive out of it,
it's it's definitely a net positive.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
If if you think that there's alterior motive like we suspect,
then it's a little less but but it's worth watching
for sure. I mean people, if you people who hated
Biggest Loser, hate watched Biggest Loser, or we're actual fans,
(40:17):
I think that there's something for everyone in those groups
in this documentary series.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Well, thanks for coming on, Josh. Where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You can find me at Amazing j rab at Instagram.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I am at the j McDonald of these social media.
This show is fifty percent facts for a percentage of
the word and fifty sus numbers fifty percent facts as
a speak upon podcast associated with that heart media.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
On the obscuer.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
So if net or fun not fucking misord
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Oh,
I could use another cup of coffee, but I ain't
got one. Okay, I don't have a role in today
because SeaBASS is ill and uh, and my companion here,
Josh is uh a little under the weather. But we're
we're gonna knock this one out anyway. This one might
(00:30):
end up being a little bit shorter. But you guys
will you'll, you'll, you'll cope. Uh. We're here to talk
about fit for TV, the the reality uh series or
we are reality mean backup documentary series about the reality
show The Biggest Loser, And it really seemed to be
(00:51):
about certain seasons of of The Biggest Loser, not really
necessarily all the people in total.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It was very focused on a few of the of
the few of the contestants. I don't know how you
feel about it, but like the elephant in the room
to me is that this documentary series does the same
thing that The Biggest Loser did. It exploits these people
and their emotions. It has a particular point of view
(01:27):
in that The Biggest Loser probably did more harm than good,
not only to the people who were involved, but to
the to our culture as a whole. They cap it
off by saying that that obesity, the OBC rate in
(01:47):
the United States is higher now than it was before
the Biggest Loser sort of drawing the conclusion that somehow
it had something to do with it, or it at
least didn't help at all. So from that perspective starting there,
what were your overall impressions of this sucker.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I really liked the documentary.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I thought it made a couple really valid points about
obesity in the United States and treating it and what
we do in society. And that's the message that I
think I'd like to take away from it, because as
somebody who's lost a considerable amount of weight, was yo
yoding up and down with my weight, you know, got
up to a BMI of forty eight. Was really unhealthy.
(02:31):
For a time there in my life. I looked at
the Biggest Loser when it was a cultural phenomenon, and
I looked up to it. I thought, oh, this is great.
Look at all these people losing all this weight. They're
doing so well with this. And then when I actually
took the time to really focus on what it took
for me to lose over one hundred pounds and keep
it off and maintain that that level of weight loss.
(02:54):
It was a consistency and such a long game. Yeah,
that that message in the Biggest Loser is completely lost.
It's they go through. I don't know how long each
season was, like what time frame they took to shoot
each season, but I don't think it was longer than
six months.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
The guy who lost the most weight was six months.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Right, so he lost over two hundred pounds in six months.
It was two hundred and forty pounds in six months,
which when I heard that, I gasped audibly. Yeah, And
I was just so shocked because even though he was
severely obeset, over four hundred pounds and the weight starts
coming off very rapidly with just a calorie deficit and
some exercise, that amount of weight lost in that such
(03:37):
short period of time puts such a stress on the
body that there was no way he was ever going
to maintain it. There was no way that he was
ever going to stay healthy. And he actually might have
put himself at further health risks by losing it that
fast than by taking a slow and steady process to it.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah. And you see, in the course of this documentary series,
one of the contestants ends up with rabdough like before
the season really even gets started.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, which is something we see in the emergency department
very often. Yeah, it's not even just obese people who
get into it. It's people who your average person who
starts at office desk job puts on ten to twenty
pounds and they're like, I'm going to join a CrossFit gym.
They joined CrossFit, they start doing all these crazy wads
and all these crazy workouts, and then they come to
us a week later feeling like they've been run over
(04:28):
their coke, their urine looks like coke, and they've got
rabbed in mylosis, and it's just crazy.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I you know, I've I've been someone who until until
I started powerlifting, and I've been relatively consistent since then.
Before that, I was like in the gym, out of
the gym, in the gym, out of the gym, depending
on like life and whatever. You know, when people say, oh,
you always have time, it's like, no, you fucking don't
have time all the time. No, yeah, your life can
be too complicated and too just overscheduled in ways that
(04:59):
you can't fix. Like you've got little kids, you've got
a job. You've got your spouse as a job.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
You know, you're just aging parents. Yeah, well you've got
the sandwich generation effect.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Like when is it going to happen?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And do you have the time to do this? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:12):
For some people it's like you always have the time.
Well you don't, you don't. Sometimes you just don't. You
probably have the time to eat better, but you don't
necessarily have the exercise time to exercise, and you for
sure don't have the time to go to a gym. No.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
And I've acknowledged too for my own journey that this
has taken me a two to three hour process average.
Every day I have off, and I'm lucky that I
work three twelve hour shifts and I get four days off,
so I can come here to Third Street for two
to three hours and you know, do my you know,
my compound lifts my accessories and thirty minutes to an
hour of cardio. But if I had a more traditional
(05:49):
position where I was working nine to five, or if
I was back in management like I was before, when
I did put on all the weight, my schedule was
eight hours a day, but that was the minimum. Yeah,
I could tell you I was doing sometimes ten to
twelve as an administrator, and that's required between meetings and
traveling to conferences and you know, conference to calls, all
these things.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So I can't imagine.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
What it would be like for your average person working
the average job, having small kids, having elderly parents that
they have to take care of, and then the stress
surrounding that. I think also they've finally acknowledging that stress
is a huge factor in this way.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Game, right for sure. I know I'm a stress leader.
I'm an inveterate stress leader. Yeah, And that's actually one
of the most frustrating things about dieting is that when
the stress comes on the thing that you have, your
coping strategy, your major coping strategy, which is eating, is
off the table. Yeah, unless you're going to blow the diet,
(06:45):
and that in it in and of itself creates more stress.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So that I mean, that's it's just it's something that
needs to be acknowledge. But in the in the nineties,
the late nineties, I finally was able to consistently to
join a gym, and the gym that I joined came
with three pre personal training sessions. So I went in
and did that and I was perilously close to rhapdo.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, that's it just happened close.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And it's because the trainer to know shit about what
she was doing. She had no clue, she didn't have
two brain cells to rub together, and she just like
didn't did a terrible assessment, you know. I mean, you know,
in healthcare, like the outcome of any intervention is largely
dependent on the amount of the quality of the assessment
(07:38):
before you even start, and she did not have any
of that at all. I mean, my my calves are big, right,
they were bigger, they were huge. I got super swollen.
I felt like crap.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I it was bad.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
It was really bad. I had to I was, you know,
kind of just laid up trying to pull off all
this extra fluid that my kidneys couldn't handle for I
don't know, a good week, maybe two. Yeah, And it's
just it can happen very easily, and like that it
(08:13):
didn't happen more on the.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Biggest losers A shock to me. Yeah, that's the biggest shock.
And the other biggest shock too, is that there weren't
more injuries, and there weren't more people who just suffered
in their body from the stress that they were putting
on it just from the jump. They didn't show that
they eased them into it. They showed that they could
just run them and work them until their bodies gave out.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Every day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, it was like I would call it like a
tough love approach, yeah, except except not so much love,
like more like exploitation than love.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
More like exploitation and more like, this is the thing
that you have to do if you're this large and
you want to lose weight, Yeah, which is which is
unrealistic for the average person.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
It's unrealistic and it's not even true. I mean, there
are a lot of roads to losing weight, but like
taking in fewer calories is definitely like the main road.
But there are other ways to handle it, and there
are other ways to implement or begin to implement, you know, exercise,
(09:19):
cardio and weight training. There's just different ways to do
it that you're not killing the person along the way
literally almost literally.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
And it's a surprising thing that they did have a
doctor on the show, and the doctor wasn't saying anything like, hey,
you know, this should be a year long process where
we start these people out on just maybe walking an
extra couple of blocks per day and a slight calorie reduction,
and maybe we follow them in their home with cameras,
(09:51):
because there were plenty of shows by that period of time,
the real world Jersey Shore where people got followed with cameras, right,
Johnny Kate plus eight, all those things. Follow them with
cameras for the first couple months, and let them ease
into a program, and then we can start dialing things
up as time goes on, and then the end of
the show can be this extreme period where when they're
in decent shape, if they want to know further that
(10:14):
they can spend three months in this boot camp place
where they then lose the rest of it and get
down to a weight that they've always wanted to be at,
or a weight that they feel comfortable at.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And the weight loss in that boot camp period should
probably not be more than twenty twenty five pounds.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, if it's a three month period, I would say
maybe eight pounds a month. Yeah, because that's the healthiest.
And that's what I've done two pounds steady. And I'll
tell you too, after two years of two pounds steady
per week, my body is tired of that. My body
does not want to lose two pounds a week. Now,
it's just like it's it's like you're gonna get injured lifting.
The activity level is either going to drop or something's
(10:51):
going to drop with this calorie deficit.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, something that that I encountered recently in losing weight
is and I haven't had this tested, but I know
that as I have lost weight, it is harder to
continue to lose to lose weight. Yeah, and part of that.
They touch on this a little bit, but they but
(11:14):
they really there's no definitive word on it. In the
course of this documentary about metabolism sewing down, so basically
you're you're resting metabolic rate slowing down over time. But
there are studies that show that just a straight calorie
restriction will do that. And one that I read that
sort of inspired me is that a calorie cycling diet
(11:36):
doesn't slow down your your resting metabolic rate. So you can,
like you have your higher calorie days and your lower
calorie days, but on on the average, on a week,
you're still in a deficit.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, which I have heard really good things about too.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, it just I mean, I'm on a week end
of this process, so I don't really know for sure
how it's how it's going to work out.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
But I feel like even though that they had the
doctor available to them who was on the show, they
didn't decide to incorporate any of these strategies or look
at these things.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
No.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I think he just did straight calorie restriction and extreme
amounts of cardiovascular exercise and extreme amounts of some calisthenic exercises.
There was no science behind this, even though they had
a sports medicine doctor who had been a doctor for
the Raiders for many years as their doctor for most
of the season.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And like he says, well, I tried to tell them
this and they didn't listen to me. That was just
his whole thing. It's like, well, okay, so but your
ethics let you keep.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Taking the money. Yeah, And they made a ton of
money from that show. Yeah, where there was so many
things that were branded the Biggest Loser. Yeah, we're selling
so much. And it was very poignant to me. I
think they had a woman that was making commentary about
like society and your value versus you know, and the
point of the show wasn't to show, oh, we took
(12:56):
this person to the healthiest weight that they could sustainably
keep off. What they did was we made this person
lose as much weight as possible, which tells you that
the true value to anybody is how thin you are
or how in shape you are. It's not that you
got healthy, you enjoyed the process of getting healthy. Your
(13:18):
body is now healthier, it's how you look. And there's
been so many times throughout this journey that I've had
to remind myself, Hey, I want to be a nationally
ring powerlifter. I don't want to be ripped. I don't
want to be super thin. And I need to stop
focusing so much on what's going on the scale that
I step on, and I need to focus on what's
going on the bar. And it's just a it's a
(13:40):
hard thing to do sometimes because my coworkers, my family,
old friends, so many people they make comments and they say,
you look so great, you look so great, you look
so great. But that's not why I did this. I
didn't do this to be accepted by society. I didn't
do this to have people tell me how I look
and that I look great. I did this because I
wanted to feel strong again after feeling well for a
long period of time and I think that's the big
(14:02):
message that I took home from this documentary that I
love the most is that we as a society, we
look at people and we judge them immediately by how
they look, But those people might actually be healthy for
the weight that they're at. And many of the people
who didn't gain a considerable amount of weight back from
their time on The Biggest Loser but gained you know,
maybe twenty to thirty pounds and still look a little
(14:24):
thick or whatever adjective you want to use. They still
look good and they're still healthy. So it's really hard to,
you know, rectify what the message of the show was,
especially when they talked about in that last episode, one
of the second to last seasons, the girl who had
been a nationally ranked swimmer, she lost so much weight
(14:45):
that the commentary online and in the news and even
by the trainers was, wow, she took this too far.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
And yeah, she looked she looked innarexic.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, and she didn't look good. She looked innerrexic. Yeah,
and so but that was the woman who followed up
on the documentary. I said, but that was the message
of the show. The more weight that you lose, the
more that you win this competition, and she decided she
wanted to win the competition.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, the the gamification of it is was is really
the downfall and that they put money in the final
episode that the one of the producers said, if I
if I was doing it today, there would be no.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Money like that.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That your reward is that you're you're healthier, you know,
and that really should be enough. I my experience with
with reality shows from the production side is that in
the the super Training days, we went through three or
(15:48):
four different rounds of potentially doing a powerlifting gym based
reality show. And I can tell you that working with
producers and working with network, they are one hundred percent worth.
I don't know what it's like now. I'm sure, I'm
sure it's the same. But back then, while because Lusure
(16:10):
was on while we were doing this, there is pushed
to do the most outrageous thing. Yeah, pushed to have
the most conflict. Yeah, And that's the unfortunate part of it.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
That the message of the show getting healthier, which is
why I took that comment with a grain of salt.
I wouldn't give any money. Getting healthier is the point.
But that's not what you did. And you know that
that wouldn't sell. Yeah, I would never sell. That would
never get the ratings even in today's day, and agent
wouldn't get the ratings. And I think that's a big
message here that was told was excuse me that this
(16:47):
wasn't really about people getting healthier, even though the show
tried to make it about that. This was really about
showing people that it was okay to fact change because
there was fat shange.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, there's definitely fat shaming. That was part of the quote,
you know, tough tough love or as I always a
tough exploitation of it.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And that's why I hate things like that and my
six hundred pound life, because there's not a lot of
things that talk about, hey, there's a reason why this
happened to this person, and they have food addiction. They
don't have you know, they're not just lazy, they're.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Not just it's not moral failing.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yes, they look at you and.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
They think they think you're a bad person because you're
of weight. And I've had that judgment so many times,
especially as a nurse. I've walked into jobs when I've
been thirty to forty pounds overweight, not even as overweight
as I was before. I lost the weight recently, and
I was immediately judged as being poor, a poor nurse, lazy,
all these things that were just completely not true. And
received promotions in my career because of my work ethic
(17:47):
and my abilities. And every time I've walked into a
job being overweight, I've always been judged, and just in society,
I've always been judged. I've noticed that i've lost weight,
people are friendly. They talk to me more now, they
smile at me, me more, now, they're willing to just
bring up random conversation with me now And the ostracization
that you receive from being obese in the first place,
(18:10):
that they didn't, you know, talk about it all on
the show. Hey, I got this way and now I'm
ostracized and it makes me feel worse, so I eat more,
and it's just this terrible cycle I can't get out of.
So let's change the stigma. Let's talk about this. Let's
say that this is unacceptable and that we should look
at food addiction as an addiction like it is to
gambling and shopping and drugs. You know, That's why I
(18:30):
really appreciated the show Intervention. They talked a lot about
the trauma that preceded a lot of the people on
the show Intervention's addiction, and they didn't touch upon that
in the Biggest Loser, and even on My six hundred
Pound Life, with those people who are severely overweight, the
clips that I see on that show are of that
(18:51):
doctor looking at them incredulously and saying something borderline insulting
to them about weight loss and stopping eating and those things.
So it just becomes this whole process, this whole circus
of look at this fat person trying to lose weight.
Look at this fat person trying to lose weight. We
should call them a fatty and tell them to lose weight.
And I think that was one of the things about
(19:12):
the show that the producers never really talked about.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
No, I think that that's true. And I mean a
little bit of it is like how kids used to
be taught to swim. You used to throw them in
the deep end, right, you know, And and that was
it was a definitely kind of a deep end philosophy
where they just like throw you in and see if
you survive. And that's you know, survived the game. And
(19:38):
as you know, it's a reality game show, it was
a game show wasn't a weight loss show. It was
a game show. Was always a game show. They could
have been building fricking cars. It's like, you know, and
in trying to make the fastest car and not the
and and working crazy hours twenty four hours a day,
and you know, some of the some of those shows existed.
(19:58):
It's just a game. It was a and they didn't
really respect the contestants in any appreciable way, and you
can get that from the people that they talked to.
I would like for them to have had a bit
more balance around around experience about former contestine talking about experience.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, I would have liked them to have a little
more balance around experience. And you know that it did
benefit some people, and don't get me wrong, it benefited.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
A lot of people.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
And they did have a couple that there was a
two women who were sisters who lost a lot of
weight and they said, the biggest loser was the best
thing that ever happened to me in my life. And
you know, I can't see how this could be a
bad thing. And that's great that that's definitely their experience.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
But it was just those two.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
It was just those two. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And then and then the guy who lost the most
weight put it all back on and then some and
he was the one talking about how he reached out
to producers and said, hey, can we get some follow
up after the show is over kind of aftercare, some
kind of aftercare gym memberships, personal trainers or you know,
psychology treatment, psychological treatment. And I think that's the biggest
thing that they should have hammered home that to sustain this,
(21:11):
they definitely needed some sort of treatment, mental health treatment.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's difficult. I mean, unless you
have unless you have some kind of disorder that that
causes you to gain weight. There's definitely a psychological component
to weight.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Gain, Yes, definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
And if you're not addressing that then then what are
you doing? And they, as the documentary points out, that
there were no no mental health professionals involved with the
show at all, and they subbed in the trainers for
that part of it. And essentially it was like, you know,
it was carrot and stick, yeah, and sometimes you know,
(21:52):
sometimes it was like even food as a as both
a carrot or a static.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
They had some challenges in there, that's that were temptations
quote unquote, and part of the challenge was to win
an added like advantage for that week's weight loss. You
had to pig out on something that was your favorite food.
So I can't see how this could ever be something
that was healthy for them to do, because that just
reinforces the whole thing of binge in restriction binge and
(22:21):
restriction good foods versus bad foods and putting morals on foods,
which is the right way to sabotage any sort of
weight loss.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, the the more than one of them, I think afterwards,
basically said not so many words always, but that they
developed eating disorders that they didn't have before. Yeah, during
the you know, during their time on the show and
after the show, and and you know, that's obviously that's
(22:54):
a that's that's that's doing harm in the in the
process of trying to theoretically trying to do good. It
is worth talking about the trainer's approach and the personalities
involved there. I was to say up front that Jen
Wiederstrom is a friend, and she was on the show
(23:16):
toward the end of the run in part I think
I think she stepped in for Bob when he had
his heart attack, but it may have happened after that
after maybe after Gillian left. I'm not sure exactly what
her run was in it, but like, Jenny is somebody
that has a lot of respect for and I know
she cares for people, and I know that she you know,
her approach is not like what we see here.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
So there's that.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Bob Harper participated in this documentary, and I think it
was I think he was I think he was being honest,
but I think it was also a pr move on
his and his partner, his you know, his representation or whatever,
whereas Jillian Michaels did not, and so they were free
(24:05):
to just shit all over her.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Oh yeah, and it you know, you.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Only know so much, but it seems justified.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It does seem justified.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And I think too, from what little I did watch
of the show, she was the really hard trainer on everybody,
but that you know, they did have moments where she did,
like we said, there was some psychological care provided by
the trainers, and I did see in the show when
I did watch it a couple times that I did
that she would speak to her team and talk to
them about their weight loss journey. But you have to remember,
(24:39):
these are trainers. They're not qualified to talk to them
about in their their psychiatric or mental health issues.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
And remember that anytime the camera's on, anything that goes
on is performative.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yes, like ridiculously performative. And so there was probably just
that conversation and that care in that moment for that
moment on the screen right right, and then afterwards it
was just hey, listen, if you want to win this,
you gotta lose weight. So drop the calories to a
very unhealthy amount to lose fifteen pounds. Some of these
people were losing fifteen pounds per week.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
That is so insane.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
That is insane. There is no calorie deficit that is
healthy that way. Even if you if you put them
on ideal body weight calories for their height, that would
be dropping their calories so dangerously low that it's basically
starvation mode for them. So of course they're dropping fourteen
to fifteen pounds per week.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, she Okay. Here's my experience with Julian Michaels
is not a personal experience with her, but with her
podcast back in the old days with the Power Cast,
were we would bounce around, you know, in the top
five with her and she would be like number one
(25:52):
and maybe number two. There were was a week or
two somewhere along the line that we were actually above her,
and it was a huge vic because that bitch anyway,
you know, just the competitive feeling about it, you know,
like we felt like what we were doing was more
authentic than what she could possibly be doing. I don't know,
(26:14):
I don't you know, I haven't really tracked her that closely.
I know she's kind of a big She's into politics
now in ways that I think are really not.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Caring at all, which seems to be the playbook. It's like,
when you lose relevancy, just get on TV and start
saying and that things that'll bring you back to relevant
to a certain demographics.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And I mean that's actually kind of a point because
this show lasted for you know, it was for what
sixteen seasons something like that, so there are multiple seasons
per year, but so actually in production it was like
eight nine years something like that. It is difficult to
keep your show in this geist for that period of time.
(27:04):
You have to keep reinventing it in increasingly uncomfortable ways,
I think, at least increasingly desperate looking ways. Having had
an incredibly popular podcast and then shifting gears to this
(27:25):
show and doing it differently and not chasing that. I
can just tell you even even to be able to
continue to produce content, you have to keep reinventing. And like,
we've never really chased the kind of thing that was
that was going on in the previous show, especially toward
the end, where you're bringing on controversial figures just to
(27:50):
be controversial because they are trending at the moment whatever.
It's just like, I can't imagine that, but they definitely did.
They did. They did kind of stunt casting kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
They did.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
They did all manner of things to try to keep
going because they were all making money and they want
to make money. And a question that I have is, okay,
so that the top price was a quarter million dollars,
what are the other ones get paid.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
For being on the show and drawing in all that revenue?
Because at points it was one of the biggest shows
in the United States.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So I feel like they were probably getting a day rate.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
They had to have been getting a day rate. There
was just so much money being made from the brand
from the show. From I remember Jillian Michaels had her
own brand and she was selling things and she was selling,
putting her name on you know, fitness bands and videos
and all these things. So all the money that was
just generated from the show, did the contestants see any
(28:48):
of that and didn't make their life easier to lose
weight because, you know, without the stress of finances, which
obesity also is a socioeconomic thing that we don't look at,
right because I will say the having a trainer, going
to a gym like this is a lot higher than
going to a planet fitness where nobody there is gonna
you know, see you and encourage you along the journey
(29:10):
like it's been here at Third Street.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
And also the there's also the food quality issue.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
The food quality issue to buy things that cost you,
you know a little bit more to get better quality food.
It's just it's just such a socioeconomic and psychological issue,
and he just attacked it from this viewpoint of all
you have to do is separate yourself from society for.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Six months and you two can lose this weight.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, yeah, remove all the other extraneous you know, circumstances,
and you can lose two hundred and forty pounds in
six months.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, that's that's just it's pure insanity. Yeah, I did
find that. I you know, I had a lot of
empathy for the people that participated in the documentary, but
at the same time, they refamed themselves a little bit
by doing that, and it's it's not it's not a
(30:08):
pure it's not a pure endeavor to be involved in
something that's kind of going to put you in the
public eye again.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, it brought them back into the public arena. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
I the one guy, the guy who lost the most weight.
His name is just giving Danny Danny Cahill. At the
end of the documentary, he's saying, well, my wife and
I feel like now we need to do this for
ourselves and actually lose weight again. And you know, a
(30:42):
game show is the last place that he would do that.
I'm curious because, I mean, this is probably filmed over
the last couple of years and it's probably been in
the can for a minute. I wonder, I wonder where
he is with that now, like what he's managed to accomplish,
or if it was just something he said because it
(31:03):
puts a put kapper on the show.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, because I know that.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
I mean, this kind of documentary and a reality show
are almost the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, they're all sensation.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
The Venn diagram is damn near a circle, and a
lot of documentaries, you know your fed lines. In one
hundred percent of reality shows your fed lines.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Or like with reality shows, they will record hours upon
hours upon hours of content, and then even for a
three part documentary that was three I want to say,
forty five minute episodes episode, they only use maybe twenty
minutes total. But you know, of course, because they're showing
two minutes here, two minutes here, two minutes here, it
looks like a considerable or just one one hour interview,
(31:52):
but what they probably did was more of like close
to three to four hours of content of him talking,
and they took and then they took the highlights from that.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, And the one thing I will say is that
they obviously did one long interview with each one of them,
and then all the other interview stuff was archival from
Biggest Loser and it was pretty Christine quality, which leads
me to believe that they actually got access to the
Biggest Loser tapes themselves and not or maybe they got
(32:24):
it from you. It was NBC, right, maybe they got
from there. Often with documentaries, you're taking a YouTube video
and you're converting it to whatever you know system you're
currently using, and then you just get clearance. You know,
you work on getting clearance, just you had to pay
(32:45):
for it. Other times it's just you know, fair use
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I wonder.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Part of me wonder is how they got all of
that footage because they couldn't and made it look so good. Yeah,
there's no way that they could have done this with
out all that footage.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
And I think that this brings up a good point
that is, if we see the Biggest Loser make it
come back in a couple of years here, we'll know
exactly why they made this documentary.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, like they're basically revisionist, cleaning it up, you.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Know, or saying, hey, we did it wrong the first time. Yeah,
now we're bringing it back. Because you know, there is.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
With social media and fitness influencers, a lot of this
fitness stuff is back front and center in the social zeitgeist.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, and with the the GOLP one receptor agonists available
now waitless, it's a totally different kind of experience for
some people.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Now you know where they just like, you know, it's
basically attacking their appetite and so they're not gonna they're
just not gonna eat as much and then they're gonna
lose weight. And you don't necessarily have to take the
crazy exercise approach to keep like whittling these people down
to shadows of or their former selves. Yeah, he could
(34:04):
definitely be like a you know, we'll take the hits
on on the criticism what we did before, but we're
going to do better.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Yeah, We're going to do better this time around. It's
a totally different production team. You know, the Biggest Loser
sponsored by Ozempic. And your trainers are you know who's
who's really big in the fitness influencer world out there
in Instagram, Like one of the most popular ones Joe Rogan.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
No, he already did his reality show turn. He doesn't
need that money anymore.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
The trainers are these fitness influencers that you see all
over YouTube or Instagram or TikTok and and it's sponsored
by ozempic. And now this is the Biggest Loser. You know,
we're going to get you not only we're going to
get you into being thin, but you're going to be
as jacked as you know, a bodybuilder. And it's going
to happen in six months. You know, there's there's there's
(34:55):
that thing.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
That yeah, that's crazy, and it's like possible, and it's possible.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Yeah, up right, And that's what a lot of fitness
influencers who are big and who also sell coaching try
to sell you. They do it, they show you their results,
and then they try to show you, Oh, I did it,
Now you can do it.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
All you have to do is follow my plan. Is it?
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Longevity Clinics HRT clinics also.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Like it's huge, it's huge money, and it's always been
huge money. Yeah, yeah, And that's the reason why they
push the shame of it, the shame of being overweight
on you so much, because they know that you would
be willing to take a shot that you have to
pretty much pay for out of pocket, right because insurance
isn't covering a lot of GLP ones unless you absolutely
need them.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, it does for some people, but it's not as universal.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
And then now there's clinics where you can go and
pay five hundred dollars a month to get the muscles
you want or five hundred dollars a month to lose
the weight that you want.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And now it's even bigger business these days.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think of anything else
that really occurred to me while while watching this. It
I just just in terms of the production, if you
take the point of view out of it and talk
purely about the production, the production was really well done.
And in general, a three parter will have a lot
(36:12):
of fat that you think about top fat that could
be cut, and this didn't have a lot of that.
To me, it was it was a relatively you know,
straightforward production. Each episode flowed from one to the next.
Each episode sort of had its own identity, and it's
(36:33):
all the same people all the whole time. From that perspective,
it was well done well what they were trying to do.
I think they did a good job of accomplishing it.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
They did, and I think it was a little bit
more fair at the end of the day, where there
were people who said, hey, this benefited me and was
good to my life, and then there were a couple
of people out there who said this was the worst
thing for me. And I didn't really lose as much
weight as I wanted to, or I didn't keep it off,
and I did stay healthy. I think they were a
(37:03):
little they were a little sensationalized about saying how bad
it was, but I think some of it was accurate,
because again, the message wasn't getting these people into a
healthy weight for them and getting rid of their health
issues and starting them on a healthy path towards, you know,
being healthier in their body in their minds. It was
lose as much weight as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Actually, that reminds me of something that I was going
to say. There's a lot of dialogue online about o
zembic face. So people either face looks a particular way
after they've been on ozepic, and like people try to
lay it off on ozembic. And there were people who
(37:45):
had lost a lot of weight in this show who
totally had ozepic face. Yeah, and it was just because
it's just weight loss. It's just rapid weight loss.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
It looks a particular way it does, and if you
don't want that effect, you got to slow it down. Yeah,
you got to play the long game. You got to
lose one pound week or less for however long you
need to lose that for it to get to the way.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
You want to go to.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
And just as an aside too, if you're over forty.
Your face is constantly refashioning itself. Yes, the bones in
your face replace those cells are replaced over time, and
when they refashion they have errors, and so you're gonna
(38:27):
look different anyway. But yeah, the rapid weight loss face
is you know, distinct, It's very distinct. Yeah, I was like,
I was shocked by that, all right. Traditionally we rate
to these things on a scale that I come up with,
and then they're all individual. There's no usually no relationship
(38:51):
from one rating to another about quality. It's just within
the show. And I usually pick a thing to rate
on and I would say this time that I want
to rate it on tubes of Gillian Michael's lip filler,
(39:15):
going one through five, five being best, one being worst.
You can, uh, let's let's say, let's split it up.
We'll say one rating for production and another for for
quality of the message.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
For production, i'd definitely give it a five.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would too, And then for quality
of the message, I'd give it a three and a half.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, yeah, I would say, yeah, probably probably three three
and a half for me too. It's it, you know,
if you take any thought of alterior motive out of it,
it's it's definitely a net positive.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
If if you think that there's alterior motive like we suspect,
then it's a little less but but it's worth watching
for sure. I mean people, if you people who hated
Biggest Loser, hate watched Biggest Loser, or we're actual fans,
(40:17):
I think that there's something for everyone in those groups
in this documentary series.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Well, thanks for coming on, Josh. Where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You can find me at Amazing j rab at Instagram.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I am at the j McDonald of these social media.
This show is fifty percent facts for a percentage of
the word and fifty sus numbers fifty percent facts as
a speak upon podcast associated with that heart media.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
On the obscuer.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
So if net or fun not fucking misord
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Oh,
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