Heather and I finally were able to watch the three episodes of “Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser” the other day, the documentary on the Biggest Loser released by Netflix this past month. You can watch the trailer for it at the end of this post.
The most important question? Am I in it? Yes, in the first and third episodes, in blink and you might miss it moments, I’m on screen. Kinda fun, but still not as cool as that time I was briefly on screen on the Oprah Winfrey show when she interviewed our season three winner, Eric Chopin.
For those new to the conversation, yes, I was on the Biggest Loser. Specifically four episodes of season three (episodes 1, 7, 8, and the finale). I came in second place out of the people sent home the first day, which means I didn’t win any money but Heather and I did get to party in Beverly Hills. And all this happened 19 years ago, so it increasingly feels like a lifetime ago!
Here are my reactions to the documentary …
I have nothing but respect for the Biggest Loser alumni who shared their hearts on the documentary and opened themselves back up to public scrutiny. People can be incredibly harsh and it’s a risk to get in front of camera.
I loved seeing Jen Kerns on the documentary! She was part of my season before joining Dr. H’s practice and working for the show. It was so fun to see her really in her element.
Seeing Dr. Huizenga play a big role in the documentary was good. He truly cares first and foremost for the contestants – he spent more money throwing us a party at the end of our season than the show paid him to be on it! He’s flown us out in the years since and still continues to respond to us immediately if we reach out. When the handful of us were headed back to the ranch partway through my season he was the one who warned us to ignore the trainers if they told us to do anything that contradicted his advice; he was the only one to tell us we didn’t have to do what the trainers said to do or suggested that they didn’t always have our best interests at heart. I’ve never for a moment doubted that Dr. H was and is primarily interested in our health.
I do wonder about Dr. H’s disagreement with the study that demonstrated former contestants have ruined metabolisms. So much about the results of that study made my health experiences in the years since the show make sense. I don’t know enough to say one way or the other, but my own personal experience would seem to indicate that my metabolism is worse than it was.
JD Roth was the one that gave me the idea to dehydrate before weigh-ins, inspiration that almost landed three of us in the hospital before the season finale weigh-in. I dropped 20 lbs to weigh in at 190lbs by spending the night going in and out of a sauna and ultimately blacking out in the gym changing room. Because they locked in the weight for the finale a couple days before it filmed, I was back to 210 lbs for the photo above. His commentary on wanting contestants to be healthy rang hollow for me. He is an incredible entertainer, has a knack for reality tv, and I enjoyed being around him on the few occasions I was, but his first priority was to create a hit reality show. Us losing weight in the most dramatic way was the key to his success.
I respect that Bob participated in the documentary, and I think he did have some reflective moments, but mostly I was reminded that he is first and foremost a brand, an entertainer.
Regarding the documentary itself, I wish they had interviewed more contestants. I think they also missed some of the biggest lies behind the show; they focused on the ways we were mocked as overweight people and in some of the ways it was unhealthy, but I feel like the biggest lie of the show was the idea that that kind of weight could be lost at that speed. It can’t. Not even on the Biggest Loser Ranch.
Our initial weigh-ins were always going to be massive; every contestant with an ounce of strategy drank water like they were headed to the desert before locking in a starting weight. I managed to weigh in 16 lbs heavier than I was when I flew out there – I’ve never had to pee so bad in my life. The game is about losing weight; it was just good strategy.
More significantly, the weeks on camera were not always weeks in real life; ever notice how the biggest weight loss always happens during sweeps week episodes (when viewer numbers determine advertising rates)? It’s because some of those “weeks” were actually as many as fourteen days long … because they needed big losses on the scale and it’s just not humanly possible unless you give it more time. Over and over I’ve spoken to people who felt like a failure because they couldn’t lose weight at the rate they saw on Biggest Loser … and the reality is, neither could we. We lost the weight, but the timeline was manipulated for ratings.
Ultimately, I’m glad I did the show. I had a good experience unlike some. I never had any illusions as to whether or not the show cared about me in the long term so there was no disappointment or disillusionment there. For crying out loud, there was an entire page in the book-length contract I signed committed to all the different ways they could lie to us and manipulate footage to tell the story they wanted to tell regardless of actual circumstances. I made friends I will treasure for life, was deeply impacted by Dr. H and Cheryl Forberg (show nutritionist), and have nothing but positive things to say about the immediate producers responsible for us while we were at home during the season’s duration.
So all that to say, I enjoyed the documentary. I thought it was pretty accurate for what it did tell, but it didn’t come close to exposing the full reality of the Biggest Loser.
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