Reflections from watching Biggest Loser Season 8 week 2

• Stress doesn't help anything
  
• It is all about calories in and calories out
  
• Find your "sweet spot" where you are burning calories before you hit the gymn and then burning calories at the gymn
  
• Plan ahead
  
• 1200 calories per day
  
• Use make ahead meals with Ziploc bags
  
• Journal out food and calories
  
• Write the calories on the make ahead meals so it is easy
  
• Wear a monitor of calories burned
  
• Accountability helps
  
• It also has to be a personal choice to make it happen
  
• Protein after a workout
  
• Build the muscle up right after you work out cause the work out breaks them down
  
• When you cannot exercise for various reasons, keep a close check on nutrition
  
• Use whey protein powder (Biggest loser brand is 40 calories per scoop per 8 oz and supposedly tastes goods.)
  
• Huge challenge towards teamwork the combined group must lose 150 lbs and all stay another week at the ranch, but if they don't make 150 lbs then two people go home
  
• Food tips from Chef Curtis Stone
  
  • Portion size
    
  • Weigh your portion size
    
  • Fats and oils
    
  • Minimize oils and fats by how you cook and using spices to improve taste rather than salt or butter, etc.
    
  • Ways of cooking
    
    • Baked chicken breast
      
    • Poached shrimp
      
    • Steam salmon
      
    • Grill on non-stick grill
      
    • Broil pork loin
      
  • Fast food salads are caked with fat – not really healthy at all
    
  • No loading it with dressing, croutons or loads of cheese
    
  • Replace 50% of pasta with a vegetable like zucchini
    
  • Give up soda pop it is WAY too much sugar
    
  • Protein: build muscles, maintains fullness and helps blood sugar levels
    
  • Healthy snacks
    
  • Have a couple of snacks a day so you are eating fairly often
    
  • Three meals and two snacks = five opportunities to eat right
    
• Biggest Loser Quiz (worth 15 lbs advantage at weigh in)
  
  • Serving size of meat: how much is the right amount for a family of four? (answer: the amount for a family of four fit on a saucer)
    
  • Cooking without oil: Curtis named 5 now your name 3 of them? (answer: baked, broiled, steamed)
    
  • Fast Food and eating out salads: guess how many calories are in this popular chain restaurant's popular chicken Caesar salad with Caesar dressing? (answer: 1010)
    
  • Starch (substitute zucchini for pasta) how many fewer calories are there in one serving? (answer: 248)
    
  • Soda: How many calories would you consume if you had one 16 oz glass of soda with 3 refills? (answer: 747)
    
  • Which of these desserts is less than 150 calories? (answer: 1 cup fresh raspberries with ½ oz of dark chocolate dipping sauce, not the parfait with plain yogurt, blueberries and sliced almonds or the 1 cup plain vanilla ice cream)
    
  • Snacking: Curtis mentioned three specific reasons why it is important to add a protein to any/every snack, I need you to tell me two of them? (answer: makes you feel fuller and gives your muscles more to work on)
    
  • Curtis Stone approved dessert: Pineapple grilled kabobs, served with natural yogurt (low fat, low calorie), tasty dessert that is fairly good for you
    
• Biggest Loser Challenge
  
  • Four rafts in a lake with balance beams between them. The group must get the whole group past all the balance beams to the end.
    
  • Everyone must move as a group, so everyone must make it to one raft before they can move on to the next. Meaning everyone must be on the balance beam at once before they continue on to the next platform.
    
  • If someone falls in the water, this challenge is over for every single one of the group
    
  • Each balance beam is smaller than the one before
    
  • Prizes at each stage of the challenge
    
    • 1^st raft = 5 lb advantage
      
    • 2^nd raft = 5 lbs
      
    • 3^rd raft = phone calls from home
      
    • 4^th raft = satisfaction of teamwork and 10 more lbs
      
    • So the entire challenge is worth 20 lbs and phone calls home
      
  • The last beam is 6 inches wide.
    
  • On each beam one person's movements had the ability to shake the whole beam.
    
  • For an obese person to trust a piece of metal like that is really hard. Let alone put 15 obese people on the same piece of metal at once.
    
  • It was HARD but they made it, especially by working as a team!
    
  • They received their phone calls home.
    
  • They were reminded of why they came to the ranch and started this journey.
    
  • They miss family but they have chosen that being away from them for this season is the best thing for their families in the long run.
    
  • Danny's daughter once said, "daddy, I want to grow a big belly, just like you" so now when he is at the gymn he has motivation to shrink that belly
    
• Bob and Jillian's reaction to finding out the team now must lose 115 lbs instead of 150 lbs
  
  • Jillian is glad but not relieved or confident
    
  • Bob reminds them this is week two, they have seen people gain weight on week two and be working just as hard as week one.
    
  • Jillian is glad it is not 150 but don't be over confident and ride high
    
  • Don't feel comfortable at 115 lbs it is still a huge amount to lose
    
  • Jillian said, "We could hit it hard and take a hit on week three or . . . "
    
  • Jillian said, "When your body drops a huge amount of weight in a short amount of time, it puts the body into survival mode."
    
  • "It puts your metabolism on hold."
    
  • "If we push it in week two, we will pay in week three"
    
  • Jillian asked Bob, "Who ya gonna go for?" and Bob answered almost immediately, "Julio". Jillian was thrilled. She is sure Julio is not doing the work. Every time the trainer turns her/his back, Julio stops moving. Jillian told Bob to "Kill him" which really means, work him hard.
    
  • Bob and Jillian take the challenge as their own and say, "There is 115 lbs, we have got to get off. The pressure is on."
    
• Last Chance Workout
  
  • Julio must have tunnel vision. Nobody else is here just Julio and Bob. Even though Jillian is busy working out all the rest.
    
  • Jillian has them doing squats with heavy weights, down along the body and then rip it up.
    
  • "Ten more, last chance. Ten more, what are you gonna do with it?"
    
  • "What are you gonna do with your last chance?"
    
  • Answer: I'm gonna take advantage of it!!
    
  • "Afterwards I'll love you, but right now I wanna kill you." Julio's statement to Bob.
    
  • Bob's response, "Good. I'm glad. I like that."
    
  • Jillian was pushing hard.
    
  • "I don't care what you lost last week. You are nowhere. I'm gonna push you as hard as I can."
    
  • Tug of war: Jillian weighing 115 lbs and Rudy weighing over 400 lbs
    
  • "We are doing last chance workout together. It is Bob and Jillian against all of you people."
    
  • All Bob could think about was "Jillian, I'm coming over there."
    
  • Now it is Rudy against Bob and Jillian playing tug of war
    
  • The team is cheering Rudy on and Bob and Jillian are reminding him of why he is there
    
  • "Last chance workout let's go"
    
  • Last chance means, this is your last chance before the weigh in, push it until you really cannot push anymore, "anymore."
    
  • "Do not quit, finish it" "Keep going"
    
  • Jillian said, "The gymn is like a truth serum. The trainers beat on them, beat on them, beat on them, until all their defenses are down. Then everything they have been stuffing down comes flooding up."
    
  • What are you gonna get out of this? Shay wants to be happy. Bob asked, "how long have you been unhappy?" And Shay's response is 30 years. With her mom being a heroin addict for 29 years and it taking her life. Shay must let go of the burden.
    
  • Shay said, "A lot of these pounds are wounds."
    
  • "Times that people have said things or done things or not done things. Broken promises."
    
  • Bob said, "this is your life what are you gonna do with it?"
    
  • The people are faced with reality and it is okay to break down and cry. Bob is not scolding Shay for crying, he is comforting her. She needs to heal and that is okay.
    
  • 24 hour fitness and the Biggest Loser – is it the best gymn or just the gymn that won the contract?
    
• Preparing for the Weigh In
  
  • The trainers actually want these people to succeed. Even Jillian even though she is tough and "mean" she cares.
    
  • Julio feels a person was sacrificed for him to be able to stay and he feels the rift that has remained because he stayed, now he wants them to be glad they made the choice and had him stay.
    
  • Bob has seen people work hard, really hard and still gain 3 lbs on week two. 115lbs is really a lot, especially for week 2.
    
  • People are scared. Partly because they don't want to let the team down.
    
  • They all want to stay longer, because they know the ranch is the best place for them to be right now.
    
  • The people are trying so hard for something and they keep getting low weight loss results so it feels like they are not getting what they are trying/working for.
    
  • Tracey has been walking, swimming and eating right, she felt like she wasn't participating. Yet, she lost 10 lbs and they may be crucial in reaching the challenge.
    
  • "No predictability" "The whole time I'm thinking, I hope I did enough." – Abby
    
  • "Watching your diet, counting your calories, moving, it works!" – Abby 26 lbs in two weeks
    
  • Bob said "I was shocked. Jillian and I pulled out all the stops. We knew we had to make this happen and we were making it happen."
    
  • In previous seasons, so many people have such little results, these numbers are phenomenal
    
  • Rudy has lost 42 lbs in two weeks and as happy as he is, he is also thinking what would another few minutes of workout achieved?
    
  • People are shocked at Julio's results. They were convinced he was not working and at least this week, he lost 19 lbs. WOW!
    
  • Bob was glad they reached the 115 lbs challenge, but then he wanted them to reach the 150 lbs goal.
    
  • So, just like a trainer, Bob wants to train like you can't reach the goal, make it and then set the next goal above and beyond.
    
  • As a group they lost 155 lbs in week two. WOW!
    
  • "Week two is a myth, we conquered it and blew it away." – one of the contestants
    
  • WOW! What an episode.
    
• What have I been thinking?
  
  • I have been doing wimpy workouts, barely sweating or hurting
    
  • I thought I was trying and giving my all, but was I really? REALLY?
    
  • Sure, I lose my breath, but eventually it comes back
    
  • I should be working out more.
    
  • Plus, 1200 calories for an entire day, wow. I could eat that in one meal right now.
    
  • How am I gonna get down to 1200 calories?
    
  • Well, I need to log my eating and log my burning
    
  • I need to follow all of this advice
    
  • Eat veggies and fish,
    
  • stock up on protein,
    
  • eat whole grains
    
  • be willing to be uncomfortable
    
  • eat with no oils or fats other than spray and maybe olive oil
    
  • Stock up on spices and learn which spices taste best on certain things
    
  • When I eat, eat right
    
  • When I burn, burn hard
    
  • When I sleep, rest good
    
  • Somehow I need to make this work, because I am dying right now and I want to live.