Food & TV

This week I have had a few ideas of what to write about and share with you, the beautiful reader. I thought about discussing the benefit of Core Training or maybe different training methods like MAF which I’ve touched on before. But with much consideration, it has to go back to my first love, food!


I’ve been engrossed by a couple of programmes recently to do with food and being overweight.  Sky One's 'The Biggest Loser USA' and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution USA. Now, I’m not picking on the US, because I am positive we here in the UK face many of the same problems they do.

Let’s start with the Biggest Loser, who had contestants weighing in at 445pounds, that’s over 200kg and nearly 32st, WOW! These guys were in desperate need of help because they wouldn’t live another 10 years. Two Personal Trainers and 3 or 4 months later, some of them had lost over 50% of their body weight.

The Americans do reality TV very well and this is no exception - but what stood out for me and I’ve had this feeling for a while is that their weight problem had arisen due to emotional issues. You can look at obese people and say they’re fat because they’re lazy and don’t know any better then pizza and cheeseburgers. Although un-educated in the pleasures of food which I’ll touch on with Jamie’s programme, something has triggered this whether it be a death in the family or just feeling desperately unhappy with life they turn to food as comfort, their friend.

I do this - I eat when I’m having a bad day and not actually hungry. This is your brain telling you to eat and not your stomach. People eat due to habit and not when they are hungry, and this is one technique I have started myself, only to eat when I’m hungry. It’s worked for me - If I think I’m hungry, I give it 5 minutes or have a glass of water, if I’m still hungry after that. I eat. I have started listening to my body more and this is a great way to learn how to do that.

I am a big fan of Jamie’s, although someone has to tell him nobody is wearing those trucker caps anymore. So Jamie’s sets off to save the world, he visits the most obese City, in the most obese State, in the most obese Country in the World. Hello, Huntingdon, West Virginia, USA this is Jamie’s Food Revolution. He starts off working in the Elementary School where they eat Pizza for breakfast, they are meant to have 2 portions of vegetables at Lunch and French Fries count as a vegetable. He battles with the dinner ladies to change from processed food to cooking fresh, some don’t like this because it is extra work and take a straight dislike to the Englishmen telling them what to do.





What made my heart drop is when he went into a Class of 8 year olds who had to guess the vegetable. How could this go wrong? Picked up the Potato, nothing. Tomato, nothing. Well I could go on put you can guess where I’m going. The kids didn’t know what these vegetables where. ‘This is the First Generation of kids that is meant to live a shorter life than their parents’.

If you are overweight, why? Why do you over eat, listening to your emotions and brain rather than your stomach? What do you eat? Processed foods? If so think about fresh produce and cooking from scratch. I’ve talked about this before How to Eat: Small Changes, Big Difference.