Biggest Loser 2013: Meaner and Screamier Than Ever!
The Biggest Loser (also known as "my very favorite show to watch while on the treadmill) is back, and I feel like Jillian Michaels is screamier than ever. Is it just me, or does that show get meaner and more dramatic every season, with the screaming, and the crying, and the high-stakes dramatic stories of how badly those people need to lose weight? On the second episode, Dr. Huizenga actually took a vile of one of the contestant’s blood, held it up to the light, and said “I can’t see the serum in your blood because it’s FILLED WITH FAT.” Wow.
The good doctor also told one of the contestants that he had the carotid arteries of a 79-year old man. That’ll make you think before you eat another chicken wing, for sure. He even equated being overweight like that to having lymphoma, got in a guy’s face, and said “would you go to chemotherapy two hours a day if you had cancer? Then why can’t you go to the gym to save yourself?”
Harsh!
On the other hand, when you see the contestants crying, screaming, and puking during the first workout, you almost want to join in with the harshing on them, like “What did you think was going to happen when you signed up for the Biggest Loser?”
Seriously—do people not watch the show before going on it? You have to know that the first time you work out there, that is going to be the most painful workout of your entire life, right? That first workout—the one where they haven’t worked out once in your 38 or 40 or whatever years and they are carrying 150 extra pounds, has got to be the worst, most God-awful pain they’ve ever experienced in their lives. Do people just underestimate how much it’s going to hurt, I wonder? I guess it’s one of those things you can’t get your head around until you get there and Jillian Michaels has flung her tiny body on your back and is screaming in your ear and you’re like “I should have just sucked it up and lost the weight on my own at home, because holy sh$t, my legs are going to fall off.” Have you noticed that lots of them fall down on the floor of the gym? How are they not dead from the germiness of that situation?
All kidding aside, I am actually wondering when one of those out of shape contestants is going to drop dead from that first workout, the eight hour a day workouts they have to do, OR the “Last Chance Workout” that looks like it would kill even an athletic person. I’m sure they make the contestants sign a billion waivers saying they won’t sue the show if they die during filming, wouldn’t you think? I’m kind of scared for them.
Here’s some footage of the first workout.. Please try not to be distracted by the insane back muscles on trainer Dolvett Quince.
To be clear—working out hurts, even if you do it all the time. Training for a big event (like a marathon or triathlon) hurts even worse than that. In fact, Mr. Marathon Stephan Cox tells me that when you’re training for an event, you just get used to the fact that some part of your body always just hurts, and you’re kind of ok with it. I do not believe the people who go on the Biggest Loser have mentally prepared for that kind of pain. These guys go from sitting on the couch eating Cheetos to working out like Olympic athletes and eating 1,100 calories a day. Can you imagine how cranky they must be? I’m surprised one of them hasn’t just lost their sh$t and smacked Jillian. Also, Stephan adds: “Those contestants are used to feeling pain and quashing it down with a bag of Ho Hos, so the pain they’re feeling is probably even worse, because they have nowhere to hide.”
Also, what was with the gay kid who couldn’t stop throwing up in the first two episodes? Was he nervous? Was he pregnant? Is he just a puker? Are they ever going to tell us? And finally, were they not allowed to work out in the junk room before Bob came up with that idea? What was going on there?