Maybe I'm just a skeptic....

[Tri Girl]

AMC ooops- I meant A&E. I do that ALL the time.
I will record Heavy tomorrow and watch it. I've been intrigued. I think dealing with the emotions is FAR more important than just creating new habits because if you don't deal with that- you're not going to be able to sustain any permanent changes and it's too easy to fall back into old habits IMO (says the woman who went to therapy and didn't like uncovering things so stopped going ).

[malkin]

I re-read the earlier threads just now and see that you are a speech pathologist.

How does one abuse their voice? Practicing the 'command' voice where they lose their voice, then get it back in a deeper, and scratchier, version of what they used to have?

It can lead to cancer? OMG!

Yes.
On all counts.

The cancer connection is not well established, especially in comparison to the big obvious cancer risks like tobacco use.

Cancer aside, imagine Jillian as a trainer in a noisy gym---but aphonic, that is, completely unable to make a sound from her voice! Bummer!

But straining pitch up or down, or pushing volume or simple over use can cause damage. It really isn't surprising when you remember that the vocal folds are really pretty tiny little bits of tissue performing a remarkable function.

More info here: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/voice.htm

[indysteel]

I'm in the middle of the latest episode of Heavy (I can get it on demand), and the format is slightly different. Different facility; different trainers, and they're spending an extended period at the facility. I have to say I don't like it as well. I think the longer they're "quarantined, the harder it will be to extend these changes to their real life. Plus, I think it just makes viewers feel like "well, I can't afford that; it's not realistic.".

Maybe it's just a one-off. I'll have to see what next week's show is like. It's not that the changes ruin the show; I just don't like it as well.

[malkin]

I always wonder what the people eat and what else they do.

We see them for about an hour each week, and they work out and eat fiber cereal and processed turkey, but it doesn't seem any more real than an episode of the Brady Bunch.

I'd love to go and spend six weeks at "the ranch," wouldn't you? Maybe a bunch of us could go; we'd ride bikes and swim and work out and go for hikes and ignore the trainers and make great food and have a ton of fun. (We might have to smuggle in the beer.)

I'd even weigh in with the rest of 'em, and I'd be sad when I had to go home, but only because it was fun there.