Maybe I'm just a skeptic....

[Susan]

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.

I would love to do that maybe we should ask
My husband and I are always so envious of the great training facilities they have on TBL. (I would even take the trainers.)

To be honest, I always love to watch the show. I know it's just reality TV, not realistic and sometimes stupid. Still I love to see the "Last chance workout", sweating contestants, screaming trainers while I work out at home.
It has been motivating for me when I first started out to see that you can get moving no matter how heavy you are. Of course I was never nearly as heavy as the contestants and I see that it's dubious if someone so heavy should be working out that hard. Also, it takes me about a year to lose the weight some of the contestants seem to lose in one week.
But we are all grown up and know that it's "just TV and not real"

[Zenn]

I have never watched an entire season of BL but there is one that stands out in my head. It was the first episode where the contestants had to play for their place. It was all couples. They were all put on exercise bikes and had to pedal 42 miles. Both bikes (per couple) contributed to the distance - so not 42 miles per person, it was 42 miles per couple. But even still!!! That is a flipping long way for the mobidly obese! Ask me i know!

I am obese and am trying flipping hard to lose it. This month i have completed two 65km cycle races and it was HARD GOING but i did it. But i have been cycling for 8 months and i spin 4x per week. And Jillian thinks its ok to put people of that size onto bikes and pedal 42 miles? It is absurd. And downright dangerous as far as i am concerned.

Jillian is a complete fraud. She now has shakes and diet pills out there on the market. Various other supplements too. Whilst i may be morbidly obese myself (260lbs), there is NO quick fix nor is there a replacement for good exercise and good food. Yet she comes out with all this quick fix stuff? Whatever is the woman thinking? She is starting to do more harm than good as far as i am concerned.

Eat clean, exercise and stay off the pills and crap should be the message she sends out, not all this other gungho rubbish.

Grrrrrrrrr......

[Susan]

The sad thing about the TBL trainers is that they absolutely know what they are talking about, and when you look at things contestants are eating they seem to learn how to eat clean and healthy. Then there are those product placements that promote products that aren't clean AT ALL and sell them to overweight people watching the show.
Jillians weight loss book Master you Metabolism makes complete sense to me and IS about eating clean and working out etc. She seems to take this really serious. And still she sells that crap you described.

I know it's about the money. But there is a huge conflict of interests between promoting a clean healthy lifestyle and selling shakes and diet pills and the advertisement of breakfast cereals, fastfood and chewing gum etc.

[zoom-zoom]

Don't forget about that guy who ran the marathon and cheated, either. BL had him hop into a van and skip several miles of the course, dumping him out close to the finish. I've never watched the show, but that story pretty much killed any degree of validity they ever hoped to have, IMO.