Was anyone else a bit miffed at this quote from today's show?

I am sorry, but not EVERYONE can lose 100lbs in 10 months. It isn't impossible, but even when I was eating only 1000 calories (I know, not good), I still only lost about 70lbs in a year.

When Rudy said that, I asked my husband (who is 180 pounds) which legs or arms he wouldn't need if he wanted to lose 100 pounds in 10 months!

I think Rudy has a valid point about a person with 150-250 lbs excess weight being able to lose 100 pounds in 10 months. The key is proper nutrition and exercise. The contestants have a whole medical team to monitor this but a regular person can do it with a lot of diet discipline.

Sure "anyone" can lose 100 pounds in 10 months. Didn't Rudy lose 100 pounds at home? Isn't that why he's on the show? No? Then shut the fu-- up, Rudy!!

100 Pounds in 10 months
10 Pounds per month
2.5 pounds per week

If you are 300+ this really should not be an issue.

To lose 10lbs a month your deficit of calories consumed vs calories burned needs to be 35,000 (3,500 calories equal 1lb.

A 25 year old male at 300lbs burns about 2,300 calories a days at rest. Add to that a 700 calorie burn by exercise and you are burning 3,000 calories a day. Eat 1,800 calories and you have a deficit of 1,200 calories a day.

1,200 x 30 = 36,000 Calorie deficit for the month = 10lbs gone.

I'm not saying it is going to be a breeze because burning 700 calories requires some effort.

A 300 pound person on an elliptical machne for 30 minutes burns 773 calories. 30 minutes a day.
walking 3.0mph for 75 minutes burns 742 calories
jumping rope for 30 min burns 798
Raking Leaves for 40 min burns 702

This is a great website for calculating calorie burn during exercise
http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

Ooooh, I love math.

When you do strength training, you can get a significant metabolic afterburn for hours and hours after the workout. I don't know if there is a way to calculate it, but I believe adding strength training is what finally got me over a weight loss plateau.

Strength Training is a great addition. I started using Kettlebells.
I also bought one of those Bodybuggs that they use on TBL...

http://www.bodybugg.com/

I little pricey, but it keeps me honest on the calorie burn and steps side. If you aren't moving the calories just burn really slow, but if you pick up the pace the calories tick off pretty quick.
I currently weigh 225, down from 270. My at rest burn is about 1800, so I shoot for 2700 per day (use various machines - elliptical, treadmill, stairmaster, cycling). My intake is limited to 1700 per day, so I am looking at a deficit of 1000 per day (2lbs a week / 8 per month).
Is there "slipping", sure, but you get right back up and keep going.

The plastic surgeons would enjoy that. Yay, loose skin removal time.

Just adding to TBL's problem of creating unrealistic expectations in the masses...

Rapid weight loss may mean rapid weight regain. The strictness required to lose weight at 100 pounds in 10 months requires a lifestyle commitment that very few people would be able to maintain forever. Losing seems to be a much smaller issue than maintaining.

I think anyone who is 150 pounds overweight would prefer loose skin over staying the same weight!

Sure, but if you lose weight at a moderate rate, your body can keep up with you and your skin tightens naturally (in most cases). So you can have the best of both worlds, if you take a little longer to do it.

Plus, I agree with the other poster that extremely rapid weight loss is not the best idea for the average person, bc they are more likely to gain it back. Slower weight loss is not only easier to commit to in your daily life (less restrictive), but is also easier to transition into maintenance mode.

Look everyone, he is trying to motivate people. Yes it is easier to lose weight on the ranch with trainers, good food, and less distractions. 100 pounds in 10 months is possible for a good portion of people if they eat right and exercise enough. And ok, so he didn't do it at home. But a lot of us have. And should you let his excuses of not doing it a home prevent you from trying it on your own? People need to realize the chances of them getting on the show is slim. So they are going to have to do it on their own. Instead of Jillian and Bob yelling at you to motivate you, your going to have to motivate yourself. Think about what more you can do with your kids, grandkids, friends or pets if you lost some weight. Think about how nice it will be when your able to walk into a normal store and actually find clothes that fit. That is what motivated me because I never watched a episode of TBL until about a few weeks after I started to lose all this weight. But I was also further motivated at least once a week by the people on TBL. From my heaviest, to my current weight the contestants motivated me to push harder. It didn't matter if they were heavier than me or way lighter than me. They did it and I could too.

You can really burn off a lot of weight when your first starting off at say 300lbs for sure. I know now I am starting to slow down since I am closer to my target weight.

Here is part of what I did in my plan.

We know 3,500 calories is a pound.

So everyday from exercise I tried to burn at least 1000 calories through exercise. So over a week....

1000 X 7 = 7000
7000 divided by 3500 is 2 pounds a week.

That just makes it simple. At least 2 pounds a week through exercise and not counting how much you lose from eating right and your body burning calories at rest. And as I said the goal was at "least 1000". That would allow me more weight loss a week or days off. 100 pounds in 10 months is very possible.

Yes, it is possible. It takes tons of discipline. I lost 50 lbs in 2 months after college and got down to 13% body fat. But I did not eat ANYTHING that my trainer said I should not eat and worked out 7 days a week. Oh, and as for the "time" excuse people use, I was working full-time and going to grad school taking double credit loads. I had straight A's too. It's a matter of deciding you are tired of being fat and working for it. I LOVE JILLIAN!!!

I loved that comment.

It would have been much better if he had expressed that thought as a percentage of weight or had qualified it with some meaningful information like "Any morbidly obese person can lose 100 pounds in 10 months." But what he was saying was great

Clearly Lindsay Lohan couldn't lose 100 pounds in 10 months without being cremated so the comment was technically inaccurate but completely true in it's spirit.

Provided you don't succumb to a major injury, which in a ten month period is completely preventable by a sensible progression of work over time. He realized that his accomplishments in 7 weeks were not attainable by all and he really nailed it with a completely realistic and accurate doable goal.

Ten lbs a month is not so rapid that your skin can't "catch up."

"Rapid" weight loss would be liposuction of an area and taking out enough fat where the skin now becomes an instant empty pocket. Even that will tighten up, IF you have good skin elasticity. If not, it will remain somewhat loose, or really loose. it all depends. Many PS will not even do lipo after age 45...or take it on a case by case basis according to the skin health.

It all comes down to your skin elasticity. Not how fast or slow you lose weight.

That said, it also comes down to how much you lost. How big you were. How much your skin stretched. Anybody who loses 150 lbs is going to have loose skin...but...those with better skin elasticity will fare better.

So many factors determine skin elasticity. Someone 25 years old may have poor skin elasticity if they have abused their skin in the sun, and eaten poorly for years. Poor nutrition has a bad effect on skin elasticity. Yet, someone 50 may have better skin quality if they took care of themselves and stayed out of the sun.

Usually people with fair, thin skin are at the most risk for having poor skin elasticity. Any abuse and their skin quality will decline faster than someone else.

Just too many factors to go into , but no, ten lbs a month is not so fast that the skin can't catch up. The same person will have the same amount of loose skin in the end, no matter what.

Not everyone can, but it is doable and not even as hard as you might think.

I did it with no personal trainers, no surgery, no special foods or supplements, and no help (unless you count Jillian's fitness DVDs as help). I didn't even start watching The Biggest Loser until this season so I didn't have that helping me out either.

Since I reached 100 pounds lost (which took 10.5 months), I have lost 22 more for a total loss of 122 lbs in 16 months. I went from 257 lbs/BMI 41.5 to 135 lbs/BMI 21.8. I started out at a size 22 and now wear a size 4-6 in most things.

So...yes, it can be done. Oh, and did I mention the whole time this was going on, I was going through the breakup of a committed relationship and an insane project at work that ate up a lot of my spare time?

Nice job--congratulations. The comments here just go to show that we are all different. A global statement should not be made. Not everyone can do it because maybe there are undiagnosed conditions involved (such as food allergies). Sometimes it is more than willpower.

Sometimes it is, but usually not. Metabolic diseases that completely prevent weight loss are unusual. Some medications have "weight gain" as a side effect, but a lot of them, such as birth control pills, do not actually make you gain weight. They increase your appetite which, if you listen to that false signal, causes you to eat more and gain weight as a consequence of the increased appetite.

I also have life-threatening food allergies. Luckily I am not allergic to very common ingredients in Western food like soy, milk, nuts, wheat, etc. However, my food allergy does not cause me to gain weight. It causes me to break out into hives and my throat to close up...and when that happens, eating is the last thing on my mind, so I don't see how a classic food allergy per se could cause someone to gain weight.

The type of "allergy" that can cause bloating and water retention (and hence weight gain) to me is more appropriately called an "intolerance." I have some food intolerances that have that side effect; corn is one of them. I bloat up and put on about a pound when I consume a decent amount of anything containing mostly corn. But I don't itch, wheeze, break out into hives, or have any other classic allergic symptoms.

Even if someone has a food intolerance, you can modify your diet to avoid that particular ingredient. It is excessively rare for an adult to be allergic to a wide range of food products, so I don't see that as being a big factor in this country's obesity problem.

Getting back to metabolic problems...some of them can make it more difficult to lose weight but it's not impossible. I have known type II diabetics and metabolic syndrome sufferers who were able to lose weight despite their conditions. And a lot of the front-line drugs used to treat type II diabetes do not actually cause weight gain. I have heard a lot of type II diabetics on Metformin complain that it's making them gain weight when actually many patients report the opposite effect. Who knows. Maybe the type II diabetics on Metformin think that because they're taking a drug, they can eat all the white rice they want.

Getting back to my point...for the overwhelming majority of people, it IS about willpower and little to nothing more. Very few people have the types of disorders that make it almost impossible to lose weight, and even if you are on medications that promote weight gain, you can work with your physician to come up with a treatment plan that will prevent or reverse the weight gain in a lot of cases. And people with metabolic problems might need more help with nutrition because certain macronutrients have a different effect on their metabolism and endocrine systems than those macronutrients would have on someone whose body chemistry is within a normal range. But it is doable.

Honestly, most people in this country who are obese are that way because they eat too much. No other reason. Once I stopped eating so much, the weight dropped off. It was pretty easy. This is the case with the vast majority of people. And I don't intend to sound unsympathetic. I know exactly what obese people are going through because I used to be one of them, and I think I still have some areas of "obese brain" that trigger occasional but intense cravings for fried foods, pizza, etc. I am pretty well practiced at ignoring these cravings but I know how easy it is to give in. Believe me. I know. However, I feel like I would be lying if I blamed my own obesity on anything other than a combination of overeating and a sedentary lifestyle. This is the case for most obese Americans. Sorry.

Let's not impose our personal opinions, successes, or failures on everyone. We are all different. Our bodies react differently, based on many factors. This post was a bit long to read (so I didn't), but I got the gist of what you were saying in the first paragraph. Again, congrats on your success.

Congratulations on the weight loss. Like you, I think, I was exercising before I started to watch TBL. I started sometime during the last season. Not sure of the date. I am glad to see some other people chime in. It is possible to lose 100 in 10 months. Or at least it is possible to try and lose that much. It can't hurt to try! Yes there might be people with issues that can't do it. But I think many people can if they want it bad enough.

And oh yeah, I hope your enjoying your new clothes. I know one of the big reasons I decided to lose weight was it was so hard to find clothes that fit good and didn't make me look even fatter. It was also hard to finds stuff in styles I like because most stores stock less of the really big sizes and really small sizes.

Well said. Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth. The number one cause of obesity is lifestyle. That is the ONE thing we all have control over. Due to various factors, it is harder for some to lose weight than it is for others. But there are very few people who are actually doomed to obesity due to factors beyond their control. Not everyone can be a size 4, but most of us can attain a healthy weight by manipulating our lifestyle choices.

I agree. I think too many people are completely unwilling to take personal responsibility for their own choices/actions.

For me, it was not until I accepted full responsibility for making myself obese that I was able to do something about it. At the end of the day, I chose to put those unhealthy foods into my body all those years. Nobody held a gun to my head and made me eat unhealthy foods, or forced me to be sedentary.

I don't buy the "not enough time to exercise" argument. You may have to stop doing something else (like chatting on the internet or reading a magazine for 20 minutes) but you can always find the time to exercise if you make it a priority. I also don't buy the "not enough time to cook" argument. It's ridiculous. Of course you have time to cook. You just might have to give up something else in order to do it. You have to prioritize healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. If it's not worth even prioritizing it, how do you expect to succeed? And how can you complain about the consequences if you're not willing to sacrifice in order to change it?