Reality Weight-Loss TV Meets Medical Skeptics Over Exercise

You learn something new everyday. For example, I did not know that the word "Huizenga" meant s**t for brains.

Super intensive exercise-based weight-loss programs shed pounds and reduce the risk for diabetes and other cardiovascular risk factors, but the medical community resists this approach, according to the medical advisor on reality TV's Biggest Loser.

"We have to teach people what exercise is. We have to teach doctors what exercise is because, unfortunately, there's a bias in doctors against vigorous exercise," said Robert Huizenga, MD, during a press conference here at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists 21st Annual Meeting and Clinical Congress. Dr. Huizenga runs a private internal medicine practice in Beverly Hills, California, and is associate clinical professor of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles.

"If we get away from dumbed-down exercise recommendations, we could see a whole new paradigm for treating type 2 diabetes," he said later during the scientific session.

In a retrospective analysis of 35 contestants, Dr. Huizenga showed how an "exercise-centric" program with only minor dietary restrictions resulted in a mean weight loss of 51.8 kg (36% of body weight) at 29 weeks, and mean reduction in body mass index of 17.1 kg/m² (from a mean baseline of 46.4 kg/m²).

"We had some radical ideas when I was asked in 2003 what to do with a weight-loss show," said Dr. Huizenga. "The preponderance of experts in this country recommend an "attainable" [weight loss] goal of 5% to 10%. We don't believe that."

Dr. Huizenga and his team also do not believe that following current exercise guidelines is helpful. Morbidly obese contestants entering the show are gaining an average of 15 pounds per year doing the recommended 20 minutes of exercise a day, he said. The Biggest Loser program boosts their workouts to 3.7 hours daily — "2 hours vigorous and 2 hours moderate — which is walking," he explained.

Dietary interventions are moderate, he told Medscape Medical News. We aim for calories at 80% of their calculated resting daily energy expenditure, a mix of 30% protein, 25% fat, and 45% of calories as low-glycemic carbohydrates."

Wanna bet how many people would do this crap without the 100s of Ks worth of dollars.

Not to mention the real bucks the IMHO corrupt docs make/charge to oversee this stuff and the staff to implement/impose the torture.