There is so much negative debate about Rachel Frederickson’s weight loss results on the Biggest Loser and I think the main reason is that these results kind of woke people up and made them re-think if losing too much weight is actually the best way to go. But at the same time how can we be surprised? After all the whole point of the show is to lose as much weight as possible and win a lot of money.
Rachel Frederickson lost 155 pounds throughout her time on the show and after she left before the final weight in. These results are certainly a lot bigger than what we’re used to seeing, not just from the contestants, but from average dieters. So when Rachel showed up, while a lot of people were happy for her, there was still the lingering feeling that something may not be right.
A number of things Rachel said she did was eat small portioned meals 5 times a day for a total of less than 2,000 calories daily + exercise. But these kinds of results make me wonder if there was something more.
While Rachel’s will power is without a doubt admirable, I think the whole sense of competing to lose as much weight as possible takes the focus away from the actual weight loss and more on the money. I’ve been seeing a lot of people want the show to change it’s tune to make sure weight loss results are safe from now on.
But what is safe? Well there’s a lot of people who claim you shouldn’t/can’t lose more than 2 pounds of fat per week, otherwise it may lead to health issues. I have my doubts with that because that claim is really across the board and doesn’t go into detail on how the person is going about losing weight.
There’s a difference between hardcore dieting and smart dieting. Hardcore dieting which is what I’m completely against such as starving yourself, severely restricting caloric intake and working yourself to the point of exhaustion are all ingredients for disaster and too many times people try to implement all 3 of these things together. It’s just wrong!
What about smart dieting? Well that’s another story. Smart dieting involves understanding your limitations, taking things one step at a time and not going beyond the limit. For example:
If you’re going to workout, you absolutely need proper nutrition before/after a workout to ensure maximum results. Plus you need to consume more calories especially if you’re doing difficult workouts like P90X.
But a lot of people make the mistake of dieting and working themselves beyond their limits and when they body craves food to restore itself, people don’t oblige thinking it’ll ruin their results when in fact not eating more is going to cause you more harm in the short/long run.
What about severely restricting calories? Well what happens when someone who is used to eating a lot suddenly goes on one of these types of diets? Their body is NOT used to it and suddenly putting your body through this ordeal may lead to results initially, but eventually there will be a backwards effect and the body will let you know it can’t do it, thus the weight/cravings return and yo-yo dieting begins.
What I’m getting at here is 2 things:
1. There’s always people who claim one thing works above all. This confuses people and leaves them at a crossroad. If anything does work, it’s gradually easing into a lifestyle which involves healthy eating and gradually increasing workout difficulty. The keyword being gradual change.
2. That people see results from people like Rachel and want to get it too and while there are smart ways to do that, dieters want fast results. Fast results doesn’t mean smart results and thus they go through these hardcore ways of dieting and wonder why their health suffers afterwards.
Not taking anything away from Rachel. We don’t know what she did/didn’t do. All we can do is speculate, but if you’re going to try to mimic what she did, I would strongly recommend you follow the smart approach. It all begins with understanding your body’s limitations and gradually going about your weight loss crusade.
I would recommend starting here as it’ll help give you unusual and SMART ways to begin doing this. There’s certainly options afterwards you can follow which you’ll find out about, but if nothing else, understand that going beyond your limits when dieting is not the smartest move. It is also the quickest way to fail. Diet smart and you’ll see fast/long term results.