Community Chat

[Say Nay]

I wonder what will happen since she broke her contract that forbids contestants from speaking badly about the show.

From NYPost:

"She had always struggled with her weight, but in January of 2006, Kai Hibbard was in real trouble: At just 26 years old, her 5-foot-6 frame carried 265 pounds.

Her best friend staged a mini-intervention. “She said, ‘Hey, I love you, but you’re super-fat right now,’?” Hibbard recalls. The pal encouraged Hibbard to try out for the smash NBC reality show “The Biggest Loser.”

“So I made a videotape,” Hibbard says, “and the next thing I know, I’m on a reality TV show.”

Hibbard had never seen “The Biggest Loser.” She had no idea what she was in for."

...

“You just think you’re so lucky to be there,” Hibbard says, “that you don’t think to question or complain about anything.”

Contestants are made to sign contracts giving away rights to their own story lines and forbidding them to speak badly about the show.

Once selected, Hibbard was flown to LA. When she got to her hotel, she was greeted by a production assistant, who checked her in and took away her key card. When not filming, she was to stay in her room at all times.

“The hotel will report to them if you leave your room,” Hibbard says. “They assume you’re going to talk to other contestants.”

Another competitor, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity, says that when she first checked in, a production assistant also took her cellphone and laptop for 24 hours. She suspects her computer was bugged.

“The camera light on my MacBook would sometimes come on when I hadn’t checked in,” she says. “It was like Big Brother was always watching you.” The sequestration lasts five days.

After an initial winnowing process, 14 of 50 finalists are taken to “the ranch,” where they live, work out and suffer in seclusion. (The remaining 36 are sent home to lose weight on their own, and return later in the season.)

Those who remain, Hibbard says, are not allowed to call home. “You might give away show secrets,” she says. After six weeks, contestants get to make a five-minute call, monitored by production.

“I know that one of the contestants’ children became very ill and was in the ICU,” Hibbard says. “He was allowed to talk to his family — but he didn’t want to leave, because the show would have been done with him.”

Once at the ranch, contestants are given a medical exam, then start working out immediately, for dangerous lengths of time — from five to eight hours straight.

“There was no easing into it,” Hibbard says. “That doesn’t make for good TV. My feet were bleeding through my shoes for the first three weeks.”

“My first workout was four hours long,” says the other contestant. She came on to the show a few years ago at more than 300 pounds. On her first day, she was put through this regimen:

• Rowing

• Body-weight work

• Kettle bells

• Cool-down on treadmill

• Interval training

• Stairmaster

• Outside work with tires

At one point, she collapsed. “I thought I was going to die,” she says. “I couldn’t take any more.”

Her trainer yelled, “Get up!” then made a comment about a sick and overweight relative.

“I got up,” she says. “You’re just in shock. Your body’s in shock. All the contestants would say to each other, ‘What the f-?-- just happened?'

The trainers, she says, took satisfaction in bringing their charges to physical and mental collapse. “They’d get a sick pleasure out of it,” she says. “They’d say, ‘It’s because you’re fat. Look at all the fat you have on you.’ And that was our fault, so this was our punishment.”

Hibbard had the same experience. “They would say things to contestants like, ‘You’re going die before your children grow up.’ ‘You’re going to die, just like your mother.’ ‘We’ve picked out your fat-person coffin’ — that was in a text message. One production assistant told a contestant to take up smoking because it would cut her appetite in half.”

Meanwhile, their calories were severely restricted. The recommended daily intake for a person of average height and weight is 1,200 to 1,600 calories per day. The contestants were ingesting far less than 1,000 per day.

Hibbard says the bulk of food on her season was provided by sponsors and had little to no nutritional value.

“Your grocery list is approved by your trainer,” she says. “My season had a lot of Franken-foods: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray, Kraft fat-free cheese, Rockstar Energy Drinks, Jell-O.”

At one point, Hibbard says, production did bloodwork on all the contestants, and the show’s doctor prescribed electrolyte drinks. “And the trainer said, ‘Don’t drink that — it’ll put weight on you. You’ll lose your last chance to save your life.’

Such extreme, daily workouts and calorie restriction result in steep weight losses — up to 30 pounds lost in one week.

“Safe weight loss is one to two pounds per week, and most people find that hard,” says Lynn Darby, a professor of exercise science at Bowling Green State University. “If you reduce your calories to less than 800-1,000 a day, your metabolism will shut down. Add five to eight hours of exercise a day — that’s like running a marathon, in poor shape, five days a week. I’m surprised that no one’s ­really been injured on the show.”

In fact, contestants have been seriously injured, but it’s not often shown. The first-ever “Biggest Loser,” Ryan Benson, went from 330 pounds to 208 — but after the show, he said he was so malnourished he was uri*nating blood. “That’s a sign of kidney damage, if not failure,” Darby says. Benson later gained back all the weight and was disowned by the show.

In 2009, two contestants were hospitalized — one via airlift. And 2014’s Biggest Loser, Rachel Frederickson, became the first winner to generate concern that she had lost too much weight, dropping 155 pounds in months. She appeared on the cover of People with the headline “Too Thin, Too Fast?” Frederickson (5-foot-4, 105 pounds) admitted to working out four times a day, and within one month of the finale had gained back 20 pounds…"

Read more here: http://nypost.com/2015/01/18/contestant-reveals-the-brutal-secrets-of-the-biggest-loser/

[brii]

I never liked that show. You can just tell it was a very unhealthy way to lose weight - too extreme.

I'm not surprised by her comments.

[Suziepeach]

Wow, Smaug... thanks for posting this information- I often wondered how strict they were on the contestants- and now we know. Hoping nothing will be done with the beans spilled.

Off topic a wee bit, I went to a Weight Watchers group ONCE, near our home. The Leader had lost a ton of weight and her talk was all about her, literally all about her and then she started making fun of people in my beautiful East Tennessee for being so over weight & how she described certain ones at a buffet.. She almost got nasty and was so all about HER and not those of us there so I said, "That's enough and left." My next leader was the most wonderful, personable person ever. Sorry, just had to share.

[bikerbabe]

I detest this show. It should be banned from airing.

[Say Nay]

On 1/18/2015 SuzzieQ said:

Wow, Smaug... thanks for posting this information- I often wondered how strict they were on the contestants- and now we know. Hoping nothing will be done with the beans spilled.

Off topic a wee bit, I went to a Weight Watchers group ONCE, near our home. The Leader had lost a ton of weight and her talk was all about her, literally all about her and then she started making fun of people in my beautiful East Tennessee for being so over weight & how she described certain ones at a buffet.. She almost got nasty and was so all about HER and not those of us there so I said, "That's enough and left." My next leader was the most wonderful, personable person ever. Sorry, just had to share.

Good for you for leaving. Sad she had to make fun of others because she should have remembered how it felt to be on the receiving end of mean comments.

But it turned out well. Great you found a nice person to work with!

I watched the first two BL. My friend was a local competitor and lost quite a bit. I thought it was great that the show helped people lose so much weight but then the trainers got abusive and snarky. It was painful to watch.

[LilacTree]

I never trusted nor watched this awful show. I hope it is cancelled.

[sidsmom]

Unfortunately, it's a big money-maker...cancellation really isn't an option. Ethically, it should be cancelled, but we call know TV & ethics never mix.

OT: Another weight loss bit:

The Before/Afters for those supplements, exercise commercials, etc. The producers will find a super fit individual (for the 'After') & pay them to gain weight (for the 'Before'). It's the same individual, but of course, in different order. Smart, huh?!

[Pqfan]

I never liked this show either. I know it is popular but it seems dangerous for people so heavy to work out so hard,plus they can't keep that extreme regimen up forever. I wonder if they gained it back when they left?

[missy1]

I read about the show, awhile back.An average person can't lose 30 pounds in a week..

[Say Nay]

On 1/18/2015 sidsmom said:

Unfortunately, it's a big money-maker...cancellation really isn't an option. Ethically, it should be cancelled, but we call know TV & ethics never mix.

OT: Another weight loss bit:

The Before/Afters for those supplements, exercise commercials, etc. The producers will find a super fit individual (for the 'After') & pay them to gain weight (for the 'Before'). It's the same individual, but of course, in different order. Smart, huh?!

Interesting. No wonder the afters look good, too good.