The Biggest Loser

I’m sure I’m not the only one blogging about this today.  My take may be a little different than others.  I’ll admit, I haven’t watched this show in a few seasons.  After embarking on my own weight loss journey and studying exercise science, I just felt it was too out there and a bigger detriment to viewers than a help.  

 

If you haven’t yet seen what the winner looked like, here is a clip on Yahoo that shows her final weight, figure and trainer reactions. 

 

I’m on the fence. At 5′ 4″, which is her reported height, she is 3 pounds under her “ideal weight”. To me, not really something to be concerned about. She could have been stressed out the last couple days with the finale coming up, had the shits, couldn’t eat, whatever. I know my weight can fluctuate 4+ lbs in any given day in either direction. Even if she is at a good weight for her height, that is still A LOT of weight to lose in an extremely short amount of time. 

But that’s what this show promotes. Extreme, UNREALISTIC weight loss. And now people are in an uproar because she took it too far? You cannot have it both ways. None of this would have happened in the real world. Sticking to a severely restricted 1200 calorie per day diet and exercising multiple times a day? That’s not real life. Real life is convincing yourself not to have the large order of fries, or having a nonfat latte from Starbucks instead of whole milk.  It’s researching nutrition via Google.  Real life is carving an hour out of your day to get in some semblance of a workout.  It’s not having your fridge pre-stocked with dietitian recommended food and being shoved into a barn full of exercise equipment multiple times a day.

It’s also important to remember that she lost the final 40-45 pounds at home, away from the ranch and trainers.  

Shame on everyone skinny shaming her. It’s as bad as fat shaming. You don’t know her body fat, her training program or how she feels. If she feels amazing and is happy and her body composition is good then good on her. If she can maintain it, even better. People cannot preach body acceptance out of one side of the mouth and bash someone for her weight loss without ANY knowledge of her life out the other side. 

I will say this. Weight loss is a slippery damn slope. Once you get that ball rolling and you start losing, you’re in a routine and everything is going well, it is DAMNED hard to change your mindset that you should at some point maintain your weight and not lose any more. You get used to seeing those numbers on the scale go down and don’t understand when they don’t or when they tip back up a few pounds on some days. She could be a perfect example of someone that just hasn’t quite gotten a handle of how to just maintain. Who knows. 

Anyone that is outraged for her extreme weight loss is forgetting the point of this show. $250,000 to lose the greatest percentage of weight loss. And now you’re surprised that someone may have taken it too far? Please.

Balancing Act

No secret here, when I start training for a race, I go all out.  I run all the time.  Every day or just about every day.  Even though I know it’s important to keep variety in my training and my life, I sacrifice so much else to be able to get my miles in.  More miles than I even NEED.  This ends one of two ways after the race.  I keep the excitement for a little while after and continue running hard until I hit a wall and lose all motivation or I wind up injured.

 

This time around, I’m trying to do differently.  I’ve been working a lot on my strength training.  It’s important to me and I love to lift heavy weights.  It makes me feel strong.  I don’t want to lose what I’ve worked hard to gain.  I’ve also started attending hot yoga, which makes me feel grounded and in touch with my body. These are two things that I love.  But I’ve already noticed how quickly I will go to sacrificing them if running comes up.  

 

Yesterday was the first day I took a long hard listen to my body and actually put running down for a minute.  I went and lifted instead.  And it felt good.  No, it felt great.  Before, I would’ve tried to push that training run even though I knew my legs felt dead tired.  Now?  I’m more committed than ever to listening to what my body needs.  

 

I don’t have to run 6 days a week, 4+ miles each day plus a long run in order to be well trained.  Seeing how well my 11 miler last week went proved to me that I don’t.  I need the variety.  My body needs the variety.  Some people do it differently and that’s ok.  We all need to remember that the only voice we need to listen to is our own.  Your body will tell you what you need.