60 Percent Weight Loss From A Contest Can’t Be Healthy, Experts Reveal

Rachel Fredrickson is a winner of a popular show called The Biggest Loser and she lost an amazing 155 weight. This incredible drop of body weight turned a lot of heads but not for an acceptable reason. 24 year old Fredrickson around 60% of her body weight during the entire course of the show and later won about 250 thousand dollars. She started as a heavy weight 260 pounds and closed the show now having 105 pounds in her body. It just took seven months.

Of course, a lot of audiences bowed and applauded to this. However there were critics who pointed out that her weight loss efforts may just have gone too far. With her new weight, Fredrickson who stands 5 foot 5 inches tall according to NBC would then have a BMI or body mass index of 17.5 which automatically classify her as an underweight. In comparison, Milan and Madrid are banning fashion models that have BMI of below 18.5.

“She’s actually pretty significantly underweight,” says Kelly Hogan, a clinical dietician at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. “I am all concerned about her [Fredrickson] losing weight in a relatively short period of time. A healthy weight loss should be at least 1 to 2 pounds a week.”

“Anything that severe or that quick is risky… Especially in this case of 5 to 6 hour workouts and severely restricted caloric intake, there can also be electrolyte disturbances, cardiovascular problems and issues cognitively in the brain. If you aren’t getting enough energy in the form of carbohydrates, it’s hard to think clearly,” says Hogan.

However, Kylene Guevarra, a nutritionist who also does weight management at the Cleveland Clinic said that it’s quite difficult to say if Fredrickson really is unhealthy or not. Though BMI may indicate a person being underweight, other factors like genetics and hear level of physical activities are also playing a huge role in determining a healthy weight level.

To confirm that she [Fredrickson] is actually having a healthy size, we have to do a body composition test. A person can have a BMI of 18 but if she has a healthy fat composition of 20%, she’s not actually losing that much weight in a short period of time. In that case, it could be okay.

Fast weight loss could also be affected by the person’s previous level of diet and exercise. If she was eating 3k to 4k calories per day and does not exercise, it would then make sense that she lost more weight than the recommended rate. Looking at her background, she was a high school swimmer which could have put her mindset to succeed as compared to other contestants.

Rapid weight loss could also be affected by a person’s previous diet and exercise levels. Guerra said that if Fredrickson was eating 3,000 to 4,000 calories a day and not exercising, it would make sense she lost more weight than the recommended rate after being put on a healthy, calorie restricted diet and an extreme exercise routine. The fact that she was a high school swimmer could also have “put her mindset (to succeed) in a completely different place than other contestants.”

“We really don’t know what she was doing before she came on the show,” says Guevarra. “If it’s done in the correct way with supervision, it could be okay.”

“Any rapid weight loss, there’s always a problem where the dieter would end up gaining the weight back,” says Eszter Barsanics from fitness classes Toronto. “A lot of biggest loser contestants are all experiencing this after the show ended.”

There’s a need to make a permanent lifestyle changes to make the weight loss run for a long term. A good solution is to make small changes first than doing huge ones. For instance, a person can make a food diary to make things clear and monitor if a person is overeating. With this, you can adjust your meals and eventually avoid problems.