More on Weight Loss Television Shows

Before and after pictures of two participants of Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition (ABC)

I continue to be inspired by watching other very obese people access their inner athlete and transform themselves into healthy, smaller people. I'm still amazed at how capable the obese body is at becoming athletic. I still challenge my own perceptions of what I am currently capable of when I watch these shows. And I continue to be counselled by seeing the common emotional dysfunction I share with each of these people. Last night I jogged a bit, only because I saw other people heavier than me doing it. And I can do it. It's just going to happen slowly, but I never would have tried if I weren't inspired by watching others on TV.

The current obesity weight loss show that is on the air is Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. Super-obese subjects spend a year transforming themselves with the help of trainer Chris Powell. He claims to live with the subjects for the first three months, changing their eating habits and teaching them how to work out (for five hours per day!). However, I don't know how that's possible from a TV production standpoint. (He'd have to spend a year with just four subjects and there are eight in this current season.)

The show only lightly touches on how they do the transformations. All of fifteen seconds of an episode is devoted to a nutritionist cooking up a healthy alternative to the subject's favourite unhealthy meal. Through one of the subject's public Facebook page, I came across an interview with the nutritionist who works with the obese people on the series.

Paullette Lambert (right) teaches an EMWLE client how to make a healthy meal

What struck me were her comments about many of the subjects not being able to cook their own food. As a result they weren't getting healthy vegetables in their meals. That's something I identify with and see as a problem I have.

She also said not to drink your calories, something I've long been aware of and have stopped doing years ago in spite of my ever-increasing weight. But some people drink the equivalent of a five pound bag of sugar in a week through pop or fruit drinks.

Fast food is also a common problem: too high a calorie count in relatively small volumes of food, and no vegetables or fruit included. Fast food is a huge issue for me. I'm making healthier choices when I go there now, and I'm including a side salad with my meals, but I'm still hooked on going to the damned places.

The subjects of Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition were allowed the calories that a normal adult needs (approx 1600 for woman and 2000 or so for men.) But the subjects exercised for five hours per day and their caloric needs were upwards of 6000 because of their large size. A 3500 calorie deficit is a pound of fat loss. Some were losing a pound or more per day in the first few months. The nutritionist for the show recommends a normal caloric intake and doing an hour of exercise per day, but less is also very beneficial and would achieve weigh loss.

I have a hard time doing much more than a half hour of exercise per day before my joints get sore, but it's working for me. Four months ago I was, for all intents and purposes, disabled. Today I'm a new man, doing things I never thought I would do again.

The night before last I pulled my three-year-old daughter in a bike trailer. For the last six years I watched my wife take the kids in that thing and never even imagined I would one day be capable of doing it. Even when I started to improve my physical capabilities this spring, I didn't foresee something like this happening this summer.

Discovering I am capable of jogging, and riding a bike--something I've loved all my life--has been a huge emotional boost for me. It's broken down the perception I had of myself and what is possible for me in my future.