Celebrity Fit Club is a reality TV show in which eight celebrity contestants compete against one another to lose weight. At the show’s opening the participants are split into two teams, and everyone is weighed to find out their current weight and to determine what their target weight will be, based upon a consultation with a panel of judges. The present panel members of the US version are Harvey Walden IV – personal trainer, Dr. Ian Smith – the diet/health expert, and Stacy Kaiser – the psychologist, with the host being the comedian Ant.
In between weekly weigh-ins the teams are given various physical challenges, as well as strict nutritional menus to help them lose weight, and once again are weighed to see how much they have lost. During the show, each team and its members are constantly monitored by the judges. These physical challenges in addition to helping them lose weight, are meant to motivate and lift the team’s spirits, while encouraging each member to overcome their physical and mental demons. Celebrity Fit Club originated as a UK TV series in 2002 and its US clone began in 2005.
While watching previous seasons of both the UK and US versions of the show, it becomes painfully clear that at least a few of the celebrities, have either messed up dietary habits, suffer from alcoholism, or have a tinge of underlying psychological issues that have contributed to their current weight issues. This is where the relevance of the expertise of the panelists comes into play. In fact, it appears that setting the panel to consist of a psychologist, a nutritionist, and a fitness trainer has been done deliberately to help these troubled celebrities to get out of their shells and return back to a normal life, or at least a healthy life. The many previous contestants now leading a healthier life, without gaining weight back, is itself testimony to the usefulness of the panel.
While participating on Celebrity Fit Club there are a number of physical and motivational challenges the contestants are subjected to. There are daily workouts in the gym, as directed by the physical trainer, for each contestant, followed by some outdoor activities such as competing in some sort of race, and in the second or third week, from the start of the show, the exact scheduling can vary, there will be some sort of a team challenge in which each team has to successfully carry out a mission, to reach some preset destination. The journey requires the contestants to beat obstacles along the way, figure out from a maze of different routes, most of which can be misleading, the exact route to their destination, and above all, stave off the challenge from the opposing team as each team tries simultaneously to outsmart each other. There is no real fixed schedule for there could be more team efforts as well as individual activities included throughout the season.
Given the workout schedule and diet plans, most of the contestants will lose weight each week, even though there are exceptions as well, after every weigh-in, but, the big question is whether those who have successfully shed enough pounds from around their waist are able to maintain the achieved weight loss after finishing their stint on Celebrity Fit Club?
If to consider the present weight of some of the participants who have successfully shed many pounds on the show, it becomes clear that not everyone have successfully managed to keep their weight down. There are a few who have gone back to their old eating habits and put on weight since their time on the show. To express in percentage, at least 30% of the contestants went back to their old ways of poor eating habits and not exercising and have put on more pounds than ever before.
This trend points to an interesting fact: the dietary/eating habits are more or less mind driven, and until or unless one’s mind is not taught to trudge the right direction regarding eating healthy, one is bound to go back to unbridled diets yet again. It is all in the mind! So before you decide that the eating and exercising principles taught on Celebrity Fit Club is gospel and that all of those celebrities who lost weight are now healthier and more fit than before, do your research, but most importantly remember that there are no quick fixes. People who tend to lose weight quickly by using extreme measures are much more likely to gain it back.
