This issue came to a head in the 4/21/09 episode where Trainer Bob was surprised by how poorly his team was eating. He finally had his team videologue what they were eating. Bob was astounded at the poor choices they made. They weren't eating enough calories and they weren't eating enough nutrients for the amount of exercise they endured each day.

I was personally astounded that Bob was astounded.

First, look at the team. They have dark circles under their eyes. They look tired and washed out. That comes from not eating enough and enough of the right things. If you want to know how your body starts to shutdown after not getting enough calories take a look at Threat 2. The Power of Starvation Threat.

For those not familiar with Bob's teams over the years, they usually lose despite Bob being an obviously great guy and inspiring trainer. I wonder if the lack of applied nutritional training is one of the reasons why? Your body won't let you lose weight if you aren't eating enough. The starvation response will kick in and every spare calorie will be saved for survival. You must must eat enough calories to lose weight.

Second, how would his team know what to eat? The show pushes relentless exercise like a Sunday preacher saving damned souls. In the real world you won't ever exercise that hard and eating properly becomes far more important than exercise. A 100 times more important.

Maybe nutrition isn't visually exciting enough for the show so they choose not to cover it? Few of the contestants seemed to know about starvation mode, or that protein is needed to build muscles, or that muscle continually burns calories, or that each of them has a target calorie budget they need to reach or they would crash.

When the contestants get home the ability to monitor their calories is the single biggest skill they need to learn and they aren't learning it on the show. But I'm here to help. Here are some of the skills--other than working their behind off in the gym--that contestants will need to control their weight in the real world:

1. Chapter 1: Why is Losing Weight So Hard?
2. Chapter 4: The Threats—Why Your Diet Fails
3. Chapter 2: The 10 Designer Principles for Controlling Your Weight
4. Chapter 16: Weight-Proof Your Life
5. Strategy 4. How Extreme Do You Need to Be?
6. Strategy 5. Design Your Weight Loss Plan
7. Strategy 6. What Do You Do if Your Plan Isn’t Working
8. Strategy 8. Why Do You Really Want to Stay on Your Diet?
9. Strategy 10. How Many Calories are You Really Eating?
10. Strategy 11. Understand the Pound
11. Strategy 13. How Much Do You Want to Lose in a Spin?
12. Strategy 14. How Many Calories Can You Eat Each Day?
13. Strategy 15. Use Feedback to Control Your Weight–Know When to Take Action
14. Strategy 18. How to Eat Joyfully in Different Situations

There are many more practical every day strategies for controlling your weight in the real-word in Your Designer Diet, but I thought I would stop there :-) They boil down to you can control your weight once you learn these simple steps:

• How to work with your nature as a human, your nature as an individual, and the nature of the world you live in.
• Identify the threats that force you off your diet.
• Discover your strategies for defeating the threats.

Master these steps and you can control your weight no matter what life throws at you. Have you noticed how the show doesn't talk about how successful contestants are in controlling their weight after the show is over? They don't talk about, but that's the real trick. And that's what Your Designer Diet teaches you how to do.

I'll continue watching The Biggest Loser because it's a great and inspiring show. I just wish they would cover some these issues a little better.

The New York Times has a great article describing the use of treadmills while working at your desk. Research shows that without breaking a sweat you can burn an estimated 100 to 130 calories an hour at speeds slower than two miles an hour. The advantage of this approach is you can sleep in and ditch getting up early to hit the gym. Keep in mind such low intensity exercise works for weight loss, but doesn't work to help your heart.

Some other useful links:

Office Walkers - A Ning Social Network for "people experimenting with the treadmill desk and the idea of walking while working, developed by Dr. Levine at Mayo Clinic." 

Treadmill Desk  and Treadmill Workstation - Blogs about slowly walking on a treadmill while working.

Strategy 51. Just Don't Sit, Site Actively -  You can burn up to 350 calories a day by changing how you sit.

Vitamin D Deficiency Causes Weight Gain in Girls

A recent study found a lack of Vitamin D causes weight gain and stunts growth in girls: The researchers examined 90 Caucasian and Hispanic girls and discovered that young women with normal vitamin D levels were on average taller than peers deficient in vitamin D. 

This seems a no brainer to get checked. See your doctor, get the blood test, and if you are deficient see what it would take to bring your levels up to normal. Like most things, this is a relatively easy problem to solve once you know it's a problem.

More Information 

• Dr. William Davis in his The Heart Scan Blog has many good sources of information on Vitamin D.

Genetics has about the same effect on your weight as it does on your height.

Update:  6 new genes suggest obesity is in your head, not your gut - New research suggests that genes that predispose people to obesity act in the brain and that perhaps some people are simply hardwired to overeat.

 BOB - Screen Time Manager - Manage Your TV Time

One of the key ideas in YDD is Weight Proofing your life by creating Safe Zones. TV is a five star danger zone because it's so easy just to sit in front of the TV and do nothing except eat. And that's the danger of TV watching. You aren't burning calories and you are eating excess calories at the same time. A deadly combination for you and your family.

So the idea is to create an environment around you in which you have a better chance of succeeding at controlling your weight. To do that you need to limit your (and that of your partner, kids, pets, etc) TV viewing.

One way to limit your TV viewing is a device like BOB: BOB helps parents monitor and manage the time their children spend using in-home media. BOB is an easy to use, small device that sits next to a TV, video-game system or computer.

Set a limit and the TV will automatically turn off. Nobody has to remember to do it. And nobody has to be the bad guy for turning off the TV because BOB did it. And when you aren't waching TV you'll probably Be Less Inactive which will help you burn more calories and control your weight. 

Choosing to install a device like BOB (or somehing similar) now is an example of using your rational mind when you are strongest to a prevent a problem later when you are weakest. When you are watching TV the chances are you won't stop. It's just smart and creative thinking to install a mechanism when you are strongest to stop watching TV when you are at your weakest. This is the core of creating Safe Zones. It's not weakness. It's just realizing how we humans work and then using our strengths to overcome our weaknesses.

If BOB isn't for you then try to come up with another createative strategy for controlling the amount of TV you watch.

 From FuturePundit:

You might want to calculate your calories burned per mile walking at different speeds if you are having trouble fighting your weight. If you've got the wrong copy of a gene called FTO one solution is to become an Amish farmer to get the exercise you need to control your weight.

Reading a book with an overweight main character who learns how to lose weight helps the reader lose weight too.

When doctors urge overweight kids to pick up more activities, reading probably isn't what they have in mind. Yet a new study by obesity researchers at Duke University finds that the simple act of reading — depending on the choice of material — can spur weight loss in tween-age girls.

 Childhood ear infections may damage the nerve for taste, leading to obesity

From Scientific American:

Middle-ear infections—the most common illness in young children—afflict three out of every four kids before the age of three. Now research suggests that these bacterial infections cause more than just pain. They may lead to taste impairment, putting children at an increased risk of becoming obese.