How Can You Not Watch?
I’ve been asked, time and time again, and my answer has not faltered. “Are you going to watch the new season of The Biggest Loser?” My answer? “No!”
What the?!
How can your answer be no when the show did a laundry list of great things for you? (not including all this stuff)
- I still workout 2-3 hours a day
- I am much much happier and healthier
- I am way more positive in every aspect of my life
- I have a new founded confidence
- I am 105 steps/pounds closer to my dream body
- From a 50” waist to a 34-35” waist
- From a XXXL shirt to a L shirt
- I can not just walk up 5 flights of stairs to my office, but I can run up them and not be sucking for air!
- Amanda and I teach a fitness bootcamp at night, 5 days a week, been doing it for months now
- I get up at 5:30am everyday to hit the gym for over an hour
- I regularly ride my bike to work, instead of driving my car
- We met and became very close with and still keep in touch with, Curtis & Mal and greenteam Jenny.
Then Why?
Here’s the deal. That was one of the worst few weeks of my life. WORST! BUT, it caused some of the best changes in my life. I admit, we went into the show as unprepared and unknowing as we could. Sure, we had watched every season of the show, but watching it does not prepare you for:
- being away from all my friends and family, missing our son so much we cried about it almost daily
- looooooooooooooooooooooooong stressful days
- working out at least 8 hours a day
- exercising, which was a completely foreign thing for me
- in a strange place, bed, city, house, etc.
- with people that some you like and others you cannot stand, but, have to be around them all day long
- being yelled at constantly
- no access to the outside world, no tv, no internet, no newspapers, nothing
- having gone cold turkey from soda (from a 12 pack a day, to none) and no caffine at all
- eating strange foods
- being sick to my stomach for the first week, throwing up regularly
- barely able to walk due to shin splints in both legs, but being forced to run/jump/squat/etc.
- being told where to be at all times, but not knowing what’s going to happen at any given time (I am a planner, so not knowing what I was going to be doing all day throws my world into weird place)
So watching the show only brings back some of the feelings I had when we were there.
Not to mention, I was not seen as the most productive person on campus. This is true, I will not deny this at all. I was not as motivated as I wish I would have been in hindsight. I cannot change that, however, once we got home and in a place we could be comfortable… I excelled. Still working out 5-6 hours a day, while working a fulltime job, being the best father and husband I could be. I did not lose quite as much weight as some of the others come the finale, but that comes back to us going to the campus for one and only one reason, to get healthy! Not to lose weight to win money. I could care less about money, Amanda and I make enough money to live a very comfortable life, a life we were cutting short being as unhealthy as we had been. We did everything the best we could…and still do!
Since the wrap up of the show I have lost an additional 15 pounds, andput on an unknown amount of muscle. I still have more to go, but the change in lifestyle and mindset was not just for the duration of the show… it was a LIFE CHANGE. So much of a life change that Amanda and I both run a bootcamp teaching people how they can also make this change in their life and health.
In Conclusion
I am a very very emotional person. I wear my emotions on my sleeve and things affect me more than I should let them sometimes, it’s for this reason and this reason alone I am not going to be able to watch the show without those feelings surfacing. (Trust me, I tried watching the teasers and it’s been hard!)
I am hoping by next season I have worked thru these painful feelings and move past it and am in a better place.
