The Biggest Loser,which debuted on NBCin 2004, was the OG of weight-loss reality television.
Additionally, after contestants returned home, they discovered some surprising changes in their bodies and not good ones.
So what exactly happened on the set ofThe Biggest Loserthat you didn’t know about?
And what are the things you always believed about the show that turned out to be totally false?
Read on to find out!
Those are some good skills to have!
And Dina Mercado, who went from 248 to 173 pounds now weighs about 206 pounds.
Clearly, then, it’s not easy to maintain that weight loss.
Well, you wouldthinkso.
That’s certainly a lot less weight than they were losing on the ranch!
That way you could maximize your weight loss by becoming more educated about your diet.
“In the beginning, thetrainersdecided what they wanted in the fridge and the freezer,” she recalled.
“And we were like, ‘That’s good,’ or, ‘That’s gross.’
Eventually [we] figured out what we liked and what we didn’t.
And they would buy us that.”
She added that she had no idea how much the foods she was eating cost, either.
That… doesn’t sound like the best diet advice out there.
However, the diets that contestants onThe Biggest Loserconsumed were definitely not healthy, at least by those standards.
Would beans andricereally be so bad?
“These entertaining scenarios make for great television,” he shared in an interview withThe Guardian.
“But it’s not for someone who is concerned with making people healthy.”
Pushing people until they vomit isn’t healthy either.
“Once, ‘a week’ was actually three weeks because of the shooting schedule.”
So that explains why those big drops would sometimes happen!
Um, that’s not even close to weekly.
“There was no easing into it,” she recalled in an interview with theNew York Post.
“That doesn’t make for good TV.
My feet were bleeding through my shoes for the first three weeks.”
That’s just one example, too.
And in 2009, two contestants had to be hospitalized, including one via airlift.
Many of those injuries have caused lifelong issues for contestants, according to Hibbard.
The contestants on The Biggest Loser don’t use drugs on the show
According to Dr.
So naturally, you wouldn’t suspect that any drug use was going on.
Huizenga has since filed a defamation lawsuit against theNew York Postfor printing these claims, according toThe Hollywood Reporter.
But that backfired, when the show’s editors made her look like she was just beinglazyinstead.
“I felt like maybe I’d be able to preserve a little dignity bynotrunning,” she continued.
“But in retaliation, they acted like I was justtoo fat and exhausted to finish.”
That shouldn’t wreak too much havoc, right?
That is just 100 percent unfair, especially after all of the hard work and effort they put forth.
Rather, they were permanently altered, which was a total surprise to everyone.
“It is frightening and amazing,” metabolism expert Dr. Kevin Hall told the newspaper.
“I am just blown away.”
While the science proved this to be true, the show’s Dr.
Rob Huizenga questioned if thestudy’sresults were legitimate.
Specifically, researchers found that theleptinlevels of contestants had plummeted dramatically, according toHarvard Medical School.
