So is The Biggest Loser officially done?

Well again, you seem to be supposing a lot. I don't think the article gives us enough information to know what did, or did not, go into the study the determine each contestant's metabolism.

Like I said, all but one contestant admitted to falling into bad eating habits. It's not me making a guess that they weren't on medically supervised diets.
 
Like I said, all but one contestant admitted to falling into bad eating habits. It's not me making a guess that they weren't on medically supervised diets.

Posted the study above for you.
 
Losing weight and keeping the weight off is very very hard work. It doesn't surprise me that the people who needed to be on the biggest loser in the first place to lose weight didn't have the ability to keep that kind of pace and work load to keep that weight off.
 
Let me ask you this, just hypothetically:

You already have a shitty metabolism. So what if you put body and health into the hands of supposedly qualified medical professionals and personal trainers, and as a direct result of the shit they had you do, your already shitty metabolism became even shittier?

For the purposes of this discussion, let's say that actually happened. Would you be pissed about it or would you just go, "Well, that's life!"

In no shape or form is signing up for a reality show to lose weight as quickly as possible putting your health in the hands of "qualified medical practitioners". It's pretty much the opposite of that.

When you go from your body requiring vast amounts of calories to sustain it to not needing those calories at all because you're much smaller, it's expected that your metabolism is going to go way down. There are ways to increase it. Staying active and making exercise a regular part of your life. Building muscle. Muscles eat up calories and increase your metabolism. It doesn't sound like these people did that and reverted back to their old ways.

I think part of the problem is the test group for this study are massively obese people who lack willpower. They are really bad choices to study if you are trying to figure out what happens to the average person.
 
In no shape or form is signing up for a reality show to lose weight as quickly as possible putting your health in the hands of "qualified medical practitioners". It's pretty much the opposite of that.

When you go from your body requiring vast amounts of calories to sustain it to not needing those calories at all because you're much smaller, it's expected that your metabolism is going to go way down. There are ways to increase it. Staying active and making exercise a regular part of your life. Building muscle. Muscles eat up calories and increase your metabolism. It doesn't sound like these people did that and reverted back to their old ways.

That doesn't answer my question.

Also, I don't think it's unreasonable for a show on a network like NBC to have qualified professionals working on the show, and to have proper safeguards in place for each contestant's safety.
 
That doesn't answer my question.

Also, I don't think it's unreasonable for a show on a network like NBC to have qualified professionals working on the show, and to have proper safeguards in place for each contestant's safety.

I've never met a doctor who would recommend anything like that.
 
Here you go @BEER, I found it for you. I hope you have some kind of appropriate medical or scientific background to make heads or tails out of all this.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full

The actual study debunks the article pretty hard:

Rapid weight loss, such as that experienced by “The Biggest Loser” participants, is sometimes claimed to increase the risk of weight regain, but recent studies have failed to support this idea since weight loss rate per se was not observed to affect long-term weight regain.

...it is likely that the public nature of “The Biggest Loser” competition may have subjected its former participants to a degree of external accountability that contributed to their relative success at maintaining significant weight loss over the long term. Of course, the extreme and public nature of this weight loss intervention makes it difficult to translate our results to more typical weight loss programs.

In conclusion, we found that “The Biggest Loser” participants regained a substantial amount of their lost weight in the 6 years since the competition but overall were quite successful at long-term weight loss compared with other lifestyle interventions. Despite substantial weight regain, a large persistent metabolic adaptation was detected. Contrary to expectations, the degree of metabolic adaptation at the end of the competition was not associated with weight regain, but those with greater long-term weight loss also had greater ongoing metabolic slowing. Therefore, long-term weight loss requires vigilant combat against persistent metabolic adaptation that acts to proportionally counter ongoing efforts to reduce body weight.

So, the study isn't garbage. The article simply misrepresents the study pretty ridiculously.
 
I've never met a doctor who would recommend anything like that.

And yeah, there WAS a licensed doctor who NBC employed to make sure that everything was under control and that the contestants were operating within healthy parameters.

This asshole, Robert Huizenga:


357
 
The actual study debunks the article pretty hard:

So, the study isn't garbage. The article simply misrepresents the study pretty ridiculously.

What about the part that says this:

We found that despite substantial weight regain in the 6 years following participation in “The Biggest Loser”, RMR remained suppressed at the same average level as at the end of the weight loss competition. Mean RMR after 6 years was ∼500 kcal/day lower than expected based on the measured body composition changes and the increased age of the subjects.

That's EXACTLY what the article is saying, that the contestants' metabolic rate did not rebound to the expected levels after coming off the show and remains suppressed--apparently about 500 calories per day on average--below the expected levels based on their body composition.
 
What was some of the criticism towards the show? I actually watched this show almost every season. It was a good show, first I've heard of issues from contestants on it. I knew some of the shit was extreme, but didn't think it affected them negatively in the long run.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/22/biggest-loser-fed-us-illicit-drugs-to-lose-weight-ex-contestants/

If these allegations are true it's not wonder these people suffered severe physiological abnormalities over the course of the show. Of course there's two sides to every story and I have no doubt that many of these people stopped exercising and started gorging themselves again. 7 or 8 years ago they went to visit a contestant from season 1 or 2 and he had lost 150-200 Lbs on the show. When they showed up at his door he had regained all of it except for 12 Lbs. He said he uncontrollable cravings to stuff his face with absurd amounts of food and he couldn't stop himself.

Lots of negative shit in this thread so far and the big issue was a two-pronged attack on some of these peoples bodies : they weren't actually taught how to eat to maintain a normal and healthy life style, and secondly they were cut off from the world and took drugs which physiologically destroyed their bodies mechanism for converting food into energy. Mind you this is what's in the study and I find it quite interesting that so many people are so vehemently denying the study because they still believe the human body is a perfect machine where calories in / calories out is the complete picture.
 
Mind you this is what's in the study and I find it quite interesting that so many people are so vehemently denying the study because they still believe the human body is a perfect machine where calories in / calories out is the complete picture.

The vehement antagonism toward even the possibility that the study could be correct really is quite strange. It seems to be an almost religious zeal toward only a single way of thinking about these kinds of things.
 
The vehement antagonism toward even the possibility that the study could be correct really is quite strange. It seems to be an almost religious zeal toward only a single way of thinking about these kinds of things.

People like to hate on fat people and that's what it's really all about. Also, I think people who have never had a problem like obesity or depression have no real concept or method for understanding the physiological implications of those problems. The same people in this thread talking about "fuck these fat fucks" are the same people who tell clinically depressed people to "stop being so fucking sad about everything, you fucking pussy." No matter what the medical evidence shows, their bro-science knowledge from 10 weeks at the gym outweighs every single thing medical doctors have learned in their entire life as doctors.

I'm fully on board with most of these people letting themselves get dragged back into their old habits... eating like shit, not sleeping well, not working out properly, etc... but as you kept on bringing up these people were having to work substantially harder than other people to maintain a healthy weight due to their metabolic issues. If the study is correct and this massive crash diet permanently altered their physiology and their bodies metabolic rate then it's no wonder they have regained that weight. Who the hell wants to have to starve to keep a healthy weight?
 
Dr Jason Fung has a good video on why the Biggest Loser model for weight loss will continue to fail.
 
People like to hate on fat people and that's what it's really all about. Also, I think people who have never had a problem like obesity or depression have no real concept or method for understanding the physiological implications of those problems. The same people in this thread talking about "fuck these fat fucks" are the same people who tell clinically depressed people to "stop being so fucking sad about everything, you fucking pussy." No matter what the medical evidence shows, their bro-science knowledge from 10 weeks at the gym outweighs every single thing medical doctors have learned in their entire life as doctors.

I'm fully on board with most of these people letting themselves get dragged back into their old habits... eating like shit, not sleeping well, not working out properly, etc... but as you kept on bringing up these people were having to work substantially harder than other people to maintain a healthy weight due to their metabolic issues. If the study is correct and this massive crash diet permanently altered their physiology and their bodies metabolic rate then it's no wonder they have regained that weight. Who the hell wants to have to starve to keep a healthy weight?

You make a good point in equating it with depression/mental illness. Like you say, people who have never had to deal with that shit really don't get it.

And your point about wanting to starve to keep a healthy weight is something I tried to touch on earlier. I mentioned that one time when I was go through a fat loss period I had to do a two week stretch at only 1200 calories. This was at the very end, when I was trying to shed those last few pounds. It fucked SUCKED and I was miserable. I managed it for two weeks, but I couldn't imagine making a lifestyle out of that and if that's what was required of me to be lean then I guess I'd just have to not be lean.

What's also funny about some of the people around here who make fun of fat people for "being unhealthy" is that they probably do unhealthy shit too like drink themselves into a coma.

Not that I think obese people should just get a pass. Like you say, a lot of it really does come down to them just not following through on a reasonable diet and exercise program.
 
Surely they could learn something from their ability to not lose weight while eating less than similar sized people. Efficiency is generally a good thing.

But sucks if its true for the people involved.
 
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