Extreme Makover: Weight Loss Edition. New Series Premiere Inspires

Last Monday the series premiere of Extreme Makeover: Weight-Loss Edition really caught my eye. There's something I have always liked about catching the first episode of a new series. Even if it sucks, it seems historical to me. Plus, the topic of the show really caught my eye. The premise behind the show is a trainer, Chris Powell, follows an obese person throughout a year as they lose major weight. Although the time period is over a year, the show is compacted into an hour.

Compared to Biggest Loser, I really like to see the difference in the person within the same episode because I am not going to follow a show like Biggest Loser religiously. The first contestant was a 21-year-old woman named Rachel. Suprisingly, she is a grade school PE teacher. That has got to be embarrasing. She was trying to instruct her students how to do jumping jacks but all she could do was raise her arms most the way. If I was a kid, I wouldn't really listen to a PE instructor that was that obese. But if I look back on it, most of my PE teachers were definitely overweight - actually all of them.

So, once the Powell surprises Rachel at her job, they head off to the California Health & Longevity Institute. The facility shows you how to cook, exercise, and become healthier essentially. The first weigh-in they don't even have a scale for it. So, powell makes her step on a freight scale. Rachel was holding some emotions back when they told her that. It was interesting to hear her reaction after the weigh-in. She made a comment about being too big for The Biggest Loser.

What Powell  does it breaks it up into three different goals for each of the weigh-ins. She intially told her 55 pounds by the first 3 month weigh-in, and then 35. She meets the first weigh-in goal at exactly 55 pounds. Each goal she meets she is given a prize. The second weigh-in she misses the 35 pounds and only loses 3! I was shocked 3 pounds in 3 months?! I didn't even see it coming. It was almost comforting in a way though because it seems like these weight loss shows live on some magical plane where no one has failures - ie everyone loses a lot of weight quickly. The goal was that she would get skin loss surgery but she got it anyway even though she missed her goal.

I love the format of following someone for an entire year. I also love that the person is expected to lose the weight in their own environment. Powell says that you need to learn to be healthy in the same environment that you learned to become overweight.

Rachel by the end of the show has everyone there for her final weight in. She loses hundreds of pounds from 365 to 161. It really was an awesome moment.

This is an extreme makeover and I wouldn't be able to afford skin reduction surgery. I still would rather lose it slow and steady. That way I may not need any surgery allowing my body to adjust to its new weight gradually, and so I can learn the habits over a long period of time. Nothing was more disappointing to see the chapmpion of the Biggest Loser regain ALL of his weight the year after.

So, here's to slow and steady.

Watch the episode here.