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.