The Fitness Guru

By now, if you haven’t seen, you have, at the very least, heard all about it at the water cooler. And this week, The Biggest Loser, NBC’s juggernaut prime time TV “reality” show, will be hosting a reunion show for many of the people who have played their game.

Now, before I launch, full disclosure is necessary: of the 68 prime time hours of television that are filled with TBL episodes every year, year after year, I have watched only a few select episodes and additional clips on Hulu and YouTube ( and wrote a little something about one of the clips.) I spend my days in a reality show of weight loss called “My Life.” I meet hundreds of people day after day, year after year, who come to my studio looking for health and fitness answers. Maybe they have put on weight, maybe they aren’t as active as they would like to be, maybe they just want to feel a little better. And, in the midst of their quests, they have all the responsibilities that they have to fulfill: kids and jobs and mortgages and spouses and dogs and cats and friends and more kids and on and on and on. And these people fight to find a balance between healthy living and the craziness that occasionally overwhelms living life. And, with some help and some support, they do it. They balance and their quality of life improves.

My problem with The Biggest Loser has always been that the TV execs are removing people from the natural environment and placing them in this artificial reality of a “reality show.” I have heard many people complain of the show, “sure, send me away to a resort for 5 months where all I have to do is eat right and exercise and just watch how much weight I lose!” And I agree. It’s not practical and I always figured that the weight would come back when the contestants returned to their outside lives. Hopefully, some people do find it inspiring and get their own acts together.

This morning, unfortunately not to my surprise, The New York Times had a big story on The Biggest Loser, the reunion show and some pretty bad stories that are coming down the pike about what happens when the cameras are off. Ryan Benson, the winner of the very first competition, will not be in attendance. Mr. Benson thinks that the producers are avoiding him because a) he is back up to over 300 pounds, his starting weight before the show and b) he admitted to dehydrating himself to the point where he was urinating blood in order to lose weight. I’m not a doctor but urinating blood doesn’t sound quite right. Dehydration, starvation and over-exercise seem to be rampant primarily because, though it is a “reality” show, TBL is actually a game show where the person who loses the most weight wins a giant pot of money. So why not risk you life to drop a couple extra, right? But we’re not talking about a few extra minutes on the elliptical machine, we’re talking about STARVATION AND DEHYDRATION. For entertainment. Our entertainment.

JD Roth, producer of TBL, as quoted in the Times: “(The show) needs to be extreme in my opinion. For some of these people this is their last chance, and in a country right now that is wrestling with health care issues and the billions of dollars that are spent on obesity issues per year, in a way what a public service to have a show that inspires people to be healthier.” Nicely done, JD. But, for that matter, what about the grocery bills? Starvation is great for saving at the supermarket.

Ryan Benson is back to his original weight, taxing his body, his heart and his psyche in ways that he probably hadn’t experienced prior to his Biggest Loss. As much as we all want that silver bullet, that divine answer, we all know that weight loss and physical fitness takes time and PATIENCE. No TV exec would ever green light a healthy weight loss show because there is no drama in it. Someone wants to lose 100 pounds AND keep it off? You’re looking at a year of patient work at the very least. Faster weight loss leads to yo-yoing. And this is especially true when the goal is something external like a financial prize.

In the end, is a “reality” show like this much different than the gladiator spectacle in the Colosseum? Sure, the gladiators might kill the lions and emerge victorious. But they may also be ripped to shreds (no, not that kind of ripped to shreds.) And that sells tickets. There’s no business like show business.