Biggest Loser Talk at Work

Bill Germanakos, the 4th Season Winner of NBC's Biggest Loser Contest spoke at my work today regarding his experiences with weight loss and being on the show. He lost 164 pounds (49.1% of his body weight) in 34 weeks!

It was an extremely interesting talk. He was an excellent speaker. He talked about numerous events in his life - being unable to ride a roller coaster at Six Flags in front of his daughter, being unable to fit into a booth at a restaurant - and how they weren't even enough to motivate him to change. His true pre-cursor to change was when one of his friends died, and he saw his friend's daughter at the funeral and thought how unfair it was that she would never have her dad be able to walk her down the aisle. He thought his own daughter and how he would be damned if he would kill himself by being unhealthy and deprive her of that experience if he could help it.

I got to hear about a bunch of different insider type information about his experience on the show. He said that they calculated their calories based on 7 times their body weight minus 25%, which for him was about 2400 calories when he started. But, one day a week (Monday for them) was a high calorie day. But, not just a couple hundered calories extra. 2500 calories extra! Enough that he had a dominoe's pizza for his extra calories every Monday on the show.

Applying the formula to me (7 * 118) - 25% = 619 calories. So, perhaps this formula only works with obese people. I don't think that 619 calories/day is a good idea. And, then the extra calories would probably be about 833 (since my body weight is about 1/3 of his starting weight, I took 2500/3 = 833). So, the high calorie day for me would be 1452. Like I said, I have a feeling this formula only really would work for obese people. The idea of a high calorie day once a week is interesting, though. I don't really do that. Of course, I don't really have too much weight left to lose. So, I'm not sure that I need to worry about this now.

He said that there were 3 key things to his success on the Biggest Loser:
1. He prepared for it. He went to the gym before the show started and did lots of weights. This helped him not have the complete body shock that a lot of the other contestants had.
2. He put the control into the experts hands. He listened to what they said. He followed their advice. And, he never complained.
3. He was determined to work harder than anyone else. The other contestants were in the gym 5-6 hours a day. He was in the gym 8-9 hours a day.

Some other things that he said were that he gave up drinking beer. He hasn't had beer since before the show. He also hasn't had any bread (except for Subway) since before the show. He hasn't had any white bread or pasta since before the show.

Bill said that his journey isn't over yet. He hasn't met his goal yet. His goal is to be alive and healthy to walk his daughter down the aisle. So, it's a long term goal.

He also spoke to the fact that telling people what to do (e.g. saying, you need to lose weight, or "do you really need to take another trip up to the buffet?") will only backfire. He said to instead research and get the information of a certified dietitian, and give it to someone. That might actually help them.

Overall, it was an awesome talk, and I'm very glad to have heard him speak.