Hi Albert,
You said, "it is impossible to build muscle and lose weight at the same time." That was a thought-provoking statement... I'm positive that it is not correct. Think about it this way: contestants start the show in very poor physical condition, they work out several hours each day for many weeks, and most of them lose weight every single week. They emerge having lost a lot of weight and with the ability to run longer distances and lift heavier weight than they previously could. Given their newfound strength, and the fact that you can see the muscles popping on many of the contestants, I think that the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that they built muscle and lost weight at the same time.You're right, they are burning a lot of calories, and they are not eating many calories. They're burning a lot of stored body fat--and building muscle at the same time.   See 13 other replies

I hate to break it to you but you are completely wrong about everything you said, these contestants are required to burn something like 6000 calories a day while on a diet of less then 2000, and anyone who knows anything about working out can tell you that it is impossible to build muscle while losing weight. in fact without proper nuitrition and protein intake, most of these contestants would lose muscle as well as fat. let me repeat myself: it is impossible to build muscle and lose weight at the same time   See 13 other replies

I totally remember than ep. Julian actually called it BS. It was season 6 or 7. I think teh girl was on the yellow team. She had short brown hair.   See 13 other replies

if you notice, the women are in tank tops now and not the sports bras....i don't know why they never have the women in t-shirts.....i know that they always switch to the tanks on the women after so long, but i'm not sure why   See 4 other replies

Oh yeah, that is a really good idea, at least for the finals. I'll bet that would make it safer for the contestants--I imagine that in the last week before the finals, many of them do some unhealthy stuff to take off pounds.   See 13 other replies

Why with all the technology they could have access to they don't just do a measurement for body fat and eliminate all the water loading and stuff is beyond me. It would be more technical and lose some of the "drama" of the weigh ins, but it would be more fair. Some of these guys, Allen specifically comes to mind, could not lose enough fat to have a legit chance of winning. He would actually have to lose some muscle mass also, and I don't think that is safe or healthy.   See 13 other replies

I wasn't aware that men's and women's skin retract differently from weight loss; I'd be interested in seeing a scientific reference for that.Oh, what you're saying about the producers makes a lot of sense. This is a "before and after" kind of show, and they want people to look worse before, and better after. Showing us more skin before, and less skin later, seems like a bit of a dirty trick, though! :-) But it's fine with me--it's just a TV show, and it adds to the "feel good" factor in the end.   See 4 other replies