Discovery Health : Jonathan Ross

January 02, 2010

The text below is from a conversation I had with Erik Chopin, best known as the season 3 winner of "The Biggest Loser." In the subsequent years, Erik has regained a lot of the weight and is now resuming his mission to get healthy again. His story is featured in "Confessions of a Reality Show Loser," airing on January, 6, 2010 @ 9 PM on Discovery Health. Erik shares his thoughts because he cares enough about anyone who struggles with obesity to let you into his everyday life and be honest about his experiences.

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(Jonathan) Q: What made you realize that you were losing control of your health after returning from the show? And what was your emotional response/thought/action in response to that realization?

(Erik)

After returning from the show, I was able to maintain a majority of my weight loss for approximately a year and a half. But there were signs that I was going to have a problem almost immediately after returning home. I was following a plan of eating poorly for a few days and skipping the gym followed by a few days of an extremely low calorie intake and hard core gym sessions, 90 minute spin classes in the morning and additional cardio at night. I realized that I may have a problem someday real soon if I didn’t get hard core after those “free for all” days [JR1]. This scared the hell out of me I certainly knew in my heart I never wanted to return to that starting weight of 407 lbs, I knew that would be devastating. So at the time this crazy and irrational plan of binging while relaxing, followed by starving with hardcore boot camp sessions was going to be my life. [JR2]

(Additional Comments from Jonathan)

[JR1]This sets the stage for the development of the “exercise is the punishment for bad nutrition” mindset that is so destructive. Instead of hitting the gym harder to make up for a few bad eating days, why not simply return to normal healthy eating patterns and normal exercise patterns? A few days of slippage doesn’t completely wreck a fitness plan – just like a few days of doing things right doesn’t bring complete success.

[JR2]The stress and the worry made you “feel bad” – physically, emotionally. And a quick hit of calories, fat, and sugar, spikes the “feel good” brain chemicals. It’s simply biology in action and not your willpower – recognize this and you can change it, but it takes determination to not be a victim of cravings and altered thought patterns. This is the hard part as they are often learned and can be harder to change. But, I know you can do it because you’ve already done harder things in your life.

Be sure to watch the preview now and catch "Confessions of a Reality Show Loser" on Discovery Health January 6, 2010 @ 9 PM, and get ready for even more of my interview with Erik!

Jonathan Ross
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