Staying on a diet is hard for the same reason watching every episode of The Biggest Loser is hard: eventually you get bored.
When the current season of The Biggest Loser began, I said that I was going to watch the entire season in an effort to better understand its appeal. Here we are, some five or six weeks in, and I’m bored. I want to watch anything but The Biggest Loser. It’s a lot like trying to stay on a diet. You want to eat anything but a carrot.
I fast-forwarded through much of this week’s episode. Last week I was struck by something host Alison Sweeney said about the prize one team would receive for winning a challenge that involved running around downtown Los Angeles and guessing calorie counts. Sweeney said the winner would receive “40 weeks worth of The Biggest Loser Meal Plan for each member of the winning team.”
She went on to say, “You will have delicious and nutritious meals delivered to your door every single day so you won’t have to even think or worry about what you’re eating.”
RED FLAG, my friends, RED FLAG. We are supposed to think about what we’re eating. We should worry about what we’re eating. Maybe if we thought and worried a little more about what we’re eating, we wouldn’t have an obesity crisis in this country.
Cutaway to one of the contestants saying, “To not have to worry about calories and shopping and preparing up my own food and all that, you know, extra work would be awesome when I go back.”
I get that some of these prepackaged meal plans make things easy for people who want to lose weight, but then what? Do you stay on them forever? At some point, your 40 weeks are up and there you are, without a clue about calories, shopping, and preparing your own food.
Like I said, sticking to a diet can get boring. Eating prepackaged meals for 40 weeks must get boring too. The challenge we face when it comes to eating well is the same challenge we face when it comes to our sex lives: how do you stick to your commitment and not get bored?
You spice it up, folks!
I will continue to fast-forward through upcoming episodes of The Biggest Loser, but I’m going to fast-forward faster, so that I can bring you some well-spiced, low-calorie, easy-to-prepare foods to make at home.
Coming soon!
