The Biggest Loser Season 8, episode 7: the willpower to stop eating

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Why didn’t Shay just eat less? Why in the world did she have to get to 476 lbs to realize her situation wasn’t normal?

I think those are questions that one could ask in a very judgmental way when you look at a woman who used to weigh almost 500 lbs.

I mean it’s quite easy to sit back and judge her overeating, especially when it’s done anonymously in the comfort of your own home. I mean you’d think that Shay would have the willpower to stop eating when she felt full. It really doesn’t take a genius to figure that out … or does it?

Where is her personal responsibility in how fat she is?

Before I answer that question, there was recently an interesting article in the New York Times “In TV Series, Some Reality on Weight” that talks about the new show “Drop Dead Diva” which offers a different outlook on weight loss, weight gain, being skinny, being fat, being a skinny woman trapped in a fat person’s body and how women deal with their body/weight issues.

The show’s creator, Josh Berman, says he wanted the series to make a statement about diet, weight and beauty.

“I don’t believe it’s about willpower”!

In fact, researchers agree that when it comes to obesity and fighting obesity, willpower doesn’t really come into play, it’s has more to do with the fact that metabolic differences really determine how well you can control your weight and how well you control your appetite. Studies suggest that an imbalance of brain chemicals and hormones, including cortisol, ghrelin, leptin and serotonin, can increase cravings and make certain foods difficult to resist.

>>> What about emotional eating?

Emotions and emotional eating is also another important factor that plays when it comes to weight gain.

During The Biggest Loser season 8, episode 7 Jillian pushed Shay in revealing a few things that startled me.

Shay’s extreme weight gain has to do with these facts:

* She’s never felt that she could ever get her mother (a heroin addict) to lover her enough.

* She’s been stuffed in closets of hotel rooms while her mother was with men to pay for her habit.

* Shay’s has been consumed with fear her entire life at the idea she might become a heroin addict … just like her mother.

* Shay chose food as her drug of choice in order to avoid becoming a heroin addict.

* Since no one in her life has ever really loved her … why would she love herself?

It’s impossible to watch The Biggest Loser season 8, episode 7 and not come to the conclusion that when it comes to weigh gain it’s far deeper than “why don’t you put that fourth doughnut down”. Obesity is so complex and so emotional and I think it’s a good thing that The Biggest Loser is also featuring that angle in their show and it’s not only about insane challenges and intense competition.

Now, in closing I should also point out that another reason why some people deal with a long history of constant weight struggle has to do with what David Kessler author of The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite has revealed in his best-selling book. As a former FDA commissioner, Kessler is well versed in what goes on in the food industry and it’s no surprise to me that in his new book he describes how food companies systematically engineer foods to overeaten (including designing foods that can be swallowed quicker so we can consume more and more of these addictive foods in one sitting). These are tested, refined, and optimized processes, not mere accidents (so the addiction to processed foods is a reality and not just fluff).

Losing weight has to do with behavioural and lifestyle changes. Yes, The Biggest Loser is EXTREMELY out there and no one can lose all that weight and make so many lifestyle changes in such a short period of time (I mean Rudy broke a new The Biggest Loser record by becoming the first contestant to lose 100 lbs in only 7 weeks … this is not possible in the real world), but The Biggest Loser not only offers ways/tips of making changes, but most importantly which events brought these contestants to a show that exposes the emotional issues that brought them to the point where they could be labeled “morbidly obese”.

The bottom line is simple, if you believe people overeat because of a lack of willpower, you’re simplistically ignoring decades of research and you’re ideologically misleading yourself.
>>>> Here are some of the best moments of The Biggest Loser season 8, episode 7:
The Biggest Loser season 8, episode main highlights:

1) Dane’s Sabotage: Dane makes one last attempt to sabotage Rudy.