Dear Suzy...

The Biggest Loser is back. This is one of those shows that I both love and hate. The new season begins next week, but this week they had a "Did they keep the weight off" show. 8 previous contestants were brought back to weigh in one more time to see if they kept the weight off. While it was great to see these people again, and to see if they did in fact keep off the weight, I found a few problems with the show.

First off, my biggest pet peeve about the entire show is that they only pay attention to how much weight the contestants lose. Yes, weight loss is a big part of it, but they totally ignore body fat percentage. One contestant could lose less poundage than another, but have lost more fat and in fact gained muscle weight. To me, that is the person who deserves to win the show. I don't want to hear that muscle weighs more than fat. That is bullshit. A pound of muscle and a pound of fat both weigh the same. Muscle is DENSER than fat, so the same volume of muscle weighs more than an equal volume of fat. That said, a contestant could even gain weight and still have lost more fat than anyone else. I am not knocking the weight loss, it is truly amazing, but I wish they would factor in body fat percentages.

The best part of the "did they keep the weight off" special was not seeing the past contestants (and yes, they all kept the weight off...but we only saw their starting weight, not the weight when they left the ranch or even at the end of the season), but rather was seeing Suzy. Suzy cried during every episode of the second season. If I were starved and worked out like they do at the ranch, I would cry too. During this special episode, we saw Matt and Suzy, they met during season two, started dating and got married. They were not part of this show's weigh-in, but were filmed at home with their new son Rex. Suzy looks great, and she did not disappoint. She cried!!!!

This upcoming season has the potential to be one yet. Jillian is back and intense as ever. Instead of the usual 2 teams, there will be 3 teams: Bob's blue team, and Jillian's black team. However, Jillian's return is not the biggest change this season. The biggest change is that Caroline Rhea is no longer hosting the show. Allison Sweeney, of Days of Out Lives, is now the host. Perhaps they realized that having an overweight host was not a good idea. I like Caroline Rhea, but she was not a good choice for this show. When you are hosting a show with people competing to lose weight, you should also lose some weight...definitely not gain.