The Big Fat Truth: The Behind-the-scenes Secret to Weight Loss (19 page)

There are two reasons for this. One is accountability. Knowing that there are people watching how much you’re eating, how much you’re exercising, and how many pounds are dropping off you makes it much harder to cheat, to quit, or to fail. The people you tell are going to check in on you, and you have to give them the right answer (“Yep, no dessert this week, 60 minutes on the treadmill every day”). I always know when one of our contestants has fallen off the wagon if they’re no longer posting pictures of themselves on Facebook. Once you go public, you can’t hide, even if it seems like you can. And it works. Statistics from 75 million users of the online weight-loss tool MyFitnessTool show that people lose three times as much weight when they share their food diary with friends. Use examples like this to play the odds and increase your chances for success!

The second reason for shouting your goals from the rooftops is pride. It’s embarrassing to admit that you can’t do something that you said you could. When you take on the job of changing your life, it’s like standing on a cliff. A television camera watching makes it a very high cliff—you’re not going to want to jump off your new habits; it’s too dangerous. But when you’re doing it all alone, and nobody is watching, that cliff is a lot closer to the ground. It’s no big deal to jump off. So don’t do it alone. Spread the word about what you’re doing, and it will be as effective as living your life on live TV.

Here’s What Happens When You Enlist Someone to Check Up on You . . .

Hey JD,

Okay, so I had just gotten home and had decided to put my hike off until tomorrow (like I tend to do these days), and my phone pinged with an email . . . um, it was from you, and I kid you not, I jumped up right then and put my tennis shoes on, loaded my dog up, and went!

Thank you thank you thank you for checking in on me because I feel
great
—although I was huffing and puffing on that hike! I wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t gotten your email! I feel proud and, of course, I don’t want to let you down. Zumba tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m.!

—Ashley,
The Biggest Loser
contestant, via email

The next day, I heard from Ashley again . . .

Hey JD,

So got up this morning and went to my first Zumba class! [She sent me a picture to prove it.] Wow! Kicked my ass, but I made it, and it felt good. I went to the car when it was over and almost left without buying more classes, but I got out and went back in and bought a card, so now I have to go back! Still fighting that voice saying, “that’s too hard, you can’t do it.” So far negative voice 0, pink ninja 2!

—Ashley, via email

As you probably know, we have thousands of people who try out for our shows, and some of them keep coming back year after year. (Bruce, for instance, tried out for
The Biggest Loser
seven times and
Extreme Weight Loss
twice before making it onto the show.) I always wonder why, if they want it so badly, they don’t go home and do it on their own? You really don’t need cameras to succeed. One of our cast members, for instance, beat out almost six thousand people for a spot on
Extreme Weight Loss
only to then get cut from the show. Since she had made it to the finals, she did get to go through the first week of Boot Camp. To her credit, she took the knowledge she gained during those eight days of nutrition and diet education, went home and lost 50 pounds on her own without any cameras (or trainers or diet specialists pushing her to succeed) before getting a call back. A little bit of knowledge—and telling many of the people in your life that you’ve committed to a goal—can go a long way.

Sadly, though, most people leave their auditions, go home, and live life as they always have. We had one guy who tried to get on the show three years in a row. The third year, he made it to finals week, and we really liked him. He owned a pizza shop and was a real character, but he couldn’t pass the medical exam. He did get to go to Boot Camp for a week and learn all about what he needed to do to lose weight. But he was angry about not getting on the show, and it defeated all the good he was starting to achieve. He went home and decided not to put all the information he’d gathered to work. Three months later, at age 50, he died of a heart attack. I felt bad that he fell through the cracks, but I also can’t help but wonder what would have happened if after that first year of trying out for the show, he went home and lost the weight on his own. Would he still be alive today? Would his daughter have a father to walk her down the aisle? Would his wife have grown old with the husband she loved? Chances are, yes. What could have been fills me with sadness.

So what are some ways that you can go about working “cameras”—that is, other people—into your weight-loss plan? First, figure out what kind of support is going to work best for you. You can zero in on a few people or tell the world via whatever social media platform you use. Post a “before” picture of yourself on Facebook. It might not be millions who’ll see you make a promise, but even if it’s only 50 people, you have, in effect, scattered the pixie dust. To avoid embarrassment, you have to keep going. And I guarantee you are inspiring others. Remember when I talked about the best backup plan being no backup plan? This is the same thing. You will have one choice, and one choice only. Don’t play it safe and say, “Oh, I am not that kind of person who can do this publicly.” Get out of your comfort zone. Take a risk. Don’t be afraid of embarrassment or losing friends; be afraid of living lies and half truths.

If you’re telling just those special few, think about who’s going to hold you accountable in the most effective way. Find someone who knows how to push the right buttons for you. If you respond best to gentle encouragement, get people that you know will be kind but firm on board (if, however, they’re going to give you a pass, and act all sympathetic when you pig out at a party, you’re relying on the wrong pals). If you know yourself to be best motivated by the drill-sergeant type, get your best no-BS friends and relatives to be your go-to people.

Stay open to anyone who offers help. You may find that you actually need a different kind of mentoring than you think you do. I remember one of
The Biggest Loser
contestants told me that she needed a soft touch to help her lose weight so, of our two top trainers, she wanted to work with Bob Harper. I gave her Jillian, maybe the least gentle trainer on Earth. Yet the contestant actually responded really well to Jillian’s tough-love approach, probably better than she would have to the Zen-like Bob. She didn’t know it was possible, but tough love brought out the best in her.

What’s really critical is finding someone who believes in you, not just someone who can offer advice or accountability. Find someone you don’t want to disappoint. To be honest, I think a lot of our shows’ participants stay on track because they don’t want to let me down. I remember one, in particular, who worked very hard not to disappoint me. Initially, everyone on the casting team except me voted to drop him from the pool of potential candidates. I argued for him and, eventually, we put him on the show (being the boss has its advantages). But I didn’t let this little bit of behind-the-scenes maneuvering go unnoticed. I told him point blank that nobody wanted him on the show, including the network, but that I owned the production company, and I was choosing him. My neck was on the line; if he failed, I failed. Sounds cruel, but I happened to know that this was the exact button to push. And it turned out I was right. This was not a guy who liked to disappoint anyone.

He was elated not just because he made it into the cast, but because, finally, somebody believed in him. Someone fought for him and took a risk on his behalf. Later, when I saw him on the field going through a brutal workout, he yelled out to me, “You’ve just made the best damn investment in your life!”

“I know I did,” I called back. That cast member was Bruce.

There’s another element to this shout-it-from-the-rooftops thing. Tell people what you’re doing; get the inspiration of all eyes on you in place. But also ask people for help. It’s a must. You have to do it. It’s very, very hard to lose weight without help. Ask someone to literally check in with you a few times a week to see how you’re doing. Ask a friend who is a paragon of dietary virtue for some food ideas. Maybe he or she will even give you a cooking class. Find people who have already lost weight and kept it off, and ask them for advice and even to be your mentor. People who’ve been through it want to help you—they know how good you’re going to feel when you totally make over your life. If it’s someone you don’t know but have seen at the gym, get the story. How did she do it (people love to talk about the ins and outs of how they lost weight)? Would he be willing to be an accountability partner or mentor? You are asking for people’s time, which is big, bigger probably than asking for people’s money. But I can assure you that there are multiple people out there that will be happy to give it. It will surprise you.

A lot of our cast members have been blown away by how supportive family and friends turned out to be. While she was in Boot Camp, Amber’s mom got up at 4:30 every morning to walk Amber’s dog three miles, then her stepdad would ride his bike with the dog along for another three (if only Amber had been working out as much as her dog!). Her mom would then exercise with a personal trainer for an hour (whom she hired after being inspired by her daughter’s efforts), drive the dog back to Amber’s house, go to work, then drop back by the house to pick up the dog again. She did all that for the three months Amber was in Boot Camp. Amber’s mom also helped get her daughter’s house in order so she could create a gym in the garage and be ready to cook healthy meals when she returned from Boot Camp. Now, that’s love.

Amber:
Before

Amber:
After

One reason I speak so passionately about depending on other people to help reinforce your healthy lifestyle habits is that I do it myself. I know what I’m not good at, and one of those things is running alone. I am a runner, and I love it. For the last 20 years, I’ve run 30 to 35 miles a week. But I can count the number of times I’ve run alone in the past 10 years on one hand. I don’t like to run alone. Okay, I hate it. Each mile feels like 10, but when I run with my guys, each 10 miles feels like one. So I took control over it by organizing a running group. Everyone shows up at my house at 5:30 a.m., and we go. Notice I said that we meet at my house. That means I have to go. Imagine if I just decided to bag it. These guys would be banging at my door at 5:30 a.m. without hesitation!

The group has been together for more than ten years and has evolved. People in the neighborhood know us as “the guys that are always running.” It has become not only my social time with these friends but something more. It’s crazy how you will open up to a guy on a ten-mile run, telling him things you would never tell anyone else. That’s why I’m such a big advocate of workout buddies. It not only keeps you accountable, it can provide you with a particular and very special kind of friendship. Now not only do the members of my running group help each other stay fit but we meet for dinners and breakfasts and read a book together every year. It is social time that doesn’t require an unhealthy intake of alcohol, chicken wings, and fried cheese sticks, but serves the same gratifying purpose.

This is something you can do. It doesn’t have to be a running group. It could be a walking group or a share-healthy-recipes group. Anything. One thing you have to get over if you’re going to do this thing right is any shyness you might have. I know—you don’t want to be a burden to anyone. Asking for help isn’t your style. Make it your style. Put yourself out there, and be vulnerable; people will respond. And membership, as they say, has its privileges. In this case, it’s the privilege of staying accountable and, maybe, if you’re lucky, making an incredible connection with someone else.

I swear by the buddy system because of my own experience and because I’ve seen how integral camaraderie is to our cast members’ success. But don’t take my word for it: There is plenty of science to back it up. Just recently, researchers in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University took a look at how much of an influence “friending” had on people signed up for an online weight-loss program. The number of friends a person had in the website’s online community was directly proportional to the amount of weight he or she lost. Users who did not connect with others lost about five percent of their body weight over six months, and those with a few friends—two to nine—lost almost seven percent. The social butterflies (those with more than ten friends), however, lost more than eight percent.