“Caring for Others Makes You Fat” and other Weight Loss Tips

Any fan of The Biggest Loser knows it is a combination of weight loss tips, will power, and psychological breakthroughs.  Far from simply being two hours of people running on the treadmill, straining under the pressure of kettle bells, and lunging their way to a better physique,  Jillian (the former fatty turned rock ribbed trainer) is always looking for “the moment” – the point during which the tearful contestant finally admits an unbearable pain they’ve suffered in life.  Inspirational, emotional music plays in the background, as Jillian morphs from trainer to therapist, encouraging players to dig deep and find why they eat so darn much.  Once a contestant confessed her addict mom turned tricks while the kid is in the hotel closet, a mom explained that her entire family – including her infant son -- was killed in an auto accident, a man explained that his sister died when they were young and he’s struggled with weight ever since.

While not all of the contestants have such tragic stories, they have a hole in their hearts that need to be filled – and no longer with glazed, chocolate covered Krispy Kremes.

So how exactly do Bob and Jillian advise contestants deal with their pain and addictions?

Let’s say it all together.  “You’ve got to start putting yourself first.”

If it were a drinking game, you’d be way past your daily caloric intake just from the whiskey by the first commercial break.

Popular types of contestant usages:

“When I get home, I need to remember to quit taking care of everyone else.”

“I got this way because I care so deeply about my kids that I put their needs before my own.”

And “I’m voting you out because I finally realize I shouldn’t be so concerned for anyone else’s feelings and need to put myself first.”

Which seems kind of true, since many of our pop culture advice givers – from Oprah to the Today Show – stress the importance of “me time” and making time for yourself. However, last week’s challenge revealed the practical implications this kind of advice. The task’s winner got to divide the entire group up into blue and black teams which would later compete against each other.

When Mike, the heaviest contestant ever to participate in the Biggest Loser, won the challenge, he decided to simply make it awful for everyone else at the ranch. He split up a mom and son team, as well as a cousin team.  Then he also stacked one team with muscle men who shed weight faster than their female counterparts.  He put himself squarely on the heavily (pun not intended) favored team, giving him several strategic advantages.

That’s when the sparks flew.

Jillian came into the room to find the most unbalanced, inequitable distribution of contestants in the history of the show:

''This is, like, the most f---ed-up thing I've ever seen.''

“Don’t make me out to be the bad guy,” Mike protested.

“You are the bad guy!  Look at this!”  Jillian explained that she wanted the people to win or lose based on how much weight they lost, not on some sort of manipulative game-play.

That’s when Mike looked straight at Bob and said, “You always told me to put myself first.  That’s all I’m doing.”

To his credit, Bob didn’t try to address the natural progression of the “I gotta take care of myself” arm chair philosophy the show espouses every week.  He just looked absolutely befuddled.  Jillian even relented. “You’re right. The underdog thing brings out, you know, the loser fat kid in me from junior high.”

Then the camera pans to a one-on-one conversation with Mike, who said:

“By nature, my instinct is to care for others more than I care about myself, but I finally learned to put myself first.”

That’s when my daughter, who’s 11 and going through systematic religious training in Sunday School, wrinkled her nose.  “That doesn’t fit with what our catechisms teach us about human nature. One catechism asks, ‘how sinful are you by nature?’ and the answer is ‘I am corrupt in every part of my being.’”  Larry David, in Woody Allen’s movie “Whatever Works,” echoed my daughter’s sentiments, but not because of he’d been learning his catechisms. He was convinced of the corruption of man by observation: "They've had to install automatic toilets in public restrooms because people can't be entrusted to flush — they can't even flush a toilet!"

And they’re on to something.

You’d think by watching the Biggest Loser that the defining characteristic of the morbidly obese is their incredible selflessness. In fact, “caring for others” seems to be as bad for your thighs as upsizing your Value Meal.

A word you never hear on the show (or anywhere, come to think of it) is “gluttony,” though one trip to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet will demonstrate its hold on American eaters. Derived from the Latin gluttire, it literally means to gulp down or swallow food to the point of – as in the case of Mike – 526 pounds. Instead of labeling the contestants’ weakness with this old-fashioned term, however, the show makes their eating problems sound downright virtuous, like they got so caught up making fruit baskets for the elderly that they woke up one morning and couldn’t see their feet.

If the contestants on The Biggest Loser were able to come on the show and just admit, “I’ve selfishly put my own desire for misguided comfort and self-indulgence over my kids’ need for an active parent or my spouse’s need for a healthy partner, and I’m sorry,” it’d be so refreshing.  In fact, I think all of us could relate.  Another might say, “I’ve selfishly decided to make as much money as I can, instead of being thankful for what we have, and it’s made me ignore family problems I should’ve dealt with.” Or, as Tom’s article points out, “I’ve gotten too enamored with technology and ignored you while you were telling me about your day, and I’m sorry.”

There are many ways to selfishly overindulge, and it’s time we all simply admit it instead of covering it with a thin veil of self-righteousness.

All it would mean is that we’d have to swallow one more – rather unpalatable -- thing.

Our pride.

(But relax, there aren’t any calories!)