Is America really so jaded that no one can believe that I am speaking up because it is the right thing to do?
I received a message from someone, not hate mail and not complimentary either, but it made me think. The most important thing that she asked me was what was the point of my coming forward with all of this was and I realized that even though I am not saying anything that I haven’t been saying for the past 3 almost 4 years since that experience, that this time someone is actually listening. This FB page and my Blog are my forums, so if you might indulge me, this is what I want to say and why I am putting my family at risk of being sued and enduring hate mail:
1. I only speak for me and I respect those contestants that came before and after me and had a positive experience.
2. I am more than just “Kai from The Biggest Loser” this battle is not my whole life. I am a Mommy, a military wife, a student and I have a job, bills and responsibilities. Please forgive me if I do not give every interview or answer every message or if I let you down in some way. I am a human being and I am doing the best I can.
3. I am very grateful to have inspired people, if that show and my behavior inspired you, then I am obviously not talking to you, I am talking to the people on the same long hard road I am on that I discouraged. If I accept credit for being an inspiration, then I must too accept responsibility for being a detrimental force in the lives of the people that are discouraged by the false weight loss numbers on The Biggest Loser. We had more than a week between weigh-ins and we did unsafe things like dehydrating every week to lose big numbers, it was both subtly and not-so-subtly encouraged by production. I learned how to crash diet and dehydrate on The Biggest Loser Ranch. I apologize to all of those people I did a disservice to by participating in this false image of weight loss, talking about it is my small way of trying to make it up to you.
4. My family is at financial risk because I do talk about this. I am not going to lie, I’m not that brave, every interview I give I am scared shitless. I was literally shaking after the clip on CBS. I signed a ridiculous contract that apparently says I can never talk about what happened to me there without the threat of being sued for anywhere from $100,000.00 to $1,000,000.00. If the show is so wonderful why does my contract seem to indicate that I am never allowed to talk about it?
5. I have turned down money for interviews; I feel it would take away from the legitimacy of what I have to say.
6. Fame sucks. Fame with no money and no power are even worse. To say that I speak out about what it was like for fame or because I am a “fame-whore” is too ridiculous to imagine. My level of fame leaves me open for complete strangers who do things like see me in the grocery store 3 weeks after I had my son and tell me, “You look terrible, how could you let yourself go like that?!!?” or “Hi! I hated you on TV, what do you weigh now? You look fatter.” Yes, those events really happened, the latter very recently. Granted I also get a lot of inspiring kind words, but people who want to bring you down seem more eager to talk to you for some reason. Even better the “fame” I get after interviews about what it was really like subjects my family to things like hearing what an ungrateful bitch I am, how I am ugly, fat, stupid, whiney, etc. You tell me if this sounds like something you would be willing to endure to be “famous?” I do this because it’s the right thing to do and I should have done it sooner.
7. Just because going on The Biggest Loser made me look better to society on the outside it does NOT mean that I am healthier on the inside.
8. If a contestant tried to protest about how we were being treated, because we were being treated as though we were not human beings, or that we were severely injured, and couldn’t do as production wanted us to (please know a lot of us were, there were broken bones, torn muscles and permanent injuries from that show) we were portrayed as bitchy, uncooperative or just lazy. The best example I can give is Heather Hansen from my season. Heather is one of the most amazing, caring, beautiful individuals on the planet, but if you watch my season there is a fight between her and Kim near the end where she looks lazy and uncooperative. What you don’t see is that Heather was told by the medic on our season that she was suffering from bursitis in both knees and a torn calf muscle. Production did not care and wanted her to run anyway, when she protested she was edited poorly.
9. I am exactly as I appear on that show, I cannot complain about editing. I can however be embarrassed that I agreed to things I never should have, like filming a scene where I am supposed to be “hung over,” where in actuality it was about 5 in the afternoon and I wasn’t hung over. You agree to crazy things out of fear of letting anyone down. I take responsibility, I wish I had been stronger and I apologize to those I deceived.
10. I did represent a nutritional supplement; I have also represented a gym I love in Alaska. I believe in a healthy lifestyle that includes supplements and exercise. I have nothing to hide and am not selling anything. I believe in taking vitamins and supplements and in fact LOVE my Omega-3’s right now with all the stress I am putting on my joints by training. The supplement I agreed to represent advocated an overall healthy lifestyle change and weight loss, their marketing has changed and I no longer represent them.
11. I did NOT gain 70 pounds after the show. I gained back the 19 I dehydrated off and then some right after the show because I got very sick, by March my health and weight stabilized. I stayed at my happy weight- 163 pounds and anywhere from 17%-20% body fat (it varied based on who measured it). I stayed this way until I got pregnant with my son. I gained 70 pounds with him, lost it all by the time he was 10 months old. I have gained back 13 of that (a stress fracture in my foot and my lack of training because I was discouraged helped with this). Eat it E! Network.
12. I regret to this day that I did not have the courage or guts to tell the world at that finale just how sick I was from the weight loss methods on that show and fully admit that part of it was I had been out of work for 7 months to tape the show and needed the money I knew I had won. I was a coward. I replay that moment in my head over and over and this time in my head I tell Caroline Rhea when she asks how I am that I am “sick, hungry, sleep deprived and dehydrated” then I tell them all to go to hell, go to my family and I go the fuck home. I wish I had been brave enough. I am only human and I do what I can now and have been since the first interview I gave after that show.
13. I could have conceivably left at anytime, however I (like all the contestants) was isolated from people who genuinely had my best interest and health at heart (including the doctor and dietician) and surrounded by people who told me that I better not be ungrateful and that I was lucky every single day. No matter how someone is treating you if you are being told you are lucky to be treated this way on a daily basis you begin to believe. You may be stronger or smarter or better than me and maybe it wouldn’t have affected you, it did me. When you are surrounded by people who dehydrate and starve themselves every single day, and production who encourages you to do it, it becomes the normal accepted behavior whether you know intellectually it is wrong or not. I pushed myself to do all that was asked of me for fear that I would appear ungrateful for what everyone keeps telling you is a fabulous gift, being treated sub-human in the name of good TV and weight loss is not a gift. I realized that too late.
14. When things got really bad (hard to believe they got worse than on the Ranch, but they did) during the “at home portion” of the show I was not checked on by a Dr or psychologist as the show claims on TV. I did ask for help from production when I realized because my hair was falling out, my period had stopped, I was covered in bruises and only sleeping 3 hours a night, that I might be in trouble. I was told both to “suck it up and get back on the treadmill” and to “save it for the camera.”
15. My family, husband and best friend staged an intervention October of 2006 before the finale and started me on the right road again; I say started because I was still so messed up in the head that I dehydrated off 19 pounds in the last two weeks before the finale. After this point I did finally hear from the doctor, I told him what had happened and he told me that I was on the right track, to remember that I was just a money making tool for production and to forget about the show, to focus on my health now. I just wish he had contacted me sooner, maybe while I was on the Ranch.
16. Doctors all over this country say that weight loss at the rate we were doing it and in the manner we were doing it on that show isn’t safe, I am not sure why people think I am such a bitch for saying the same thing. My ultimate message is that weight loss should be healthy and slow. I believe that the advice that the show gives (other than the countless product placements) is good advice, I just want people to know that what the show is advising and what we were actually doing on the Ranch were not the same thing.
17. I concede that under some people’s definition I may have had an eating disorder before the show, if the definition of eating disorder is weighing what I did. But, I looked at definitions of eating disorders and this is what I found: “An eating disorder is an illness that permeates all aspects of each sufferer's life.” I was fat before the Biggest Loser, but eating and food were not my sole focus in life, I didn’t eat to fill a void or stuff emotions. I have never been diagnosed and may have misspoke if I ever said the words “I blame TBL for an eating disorder,” I do believe from all the therapy I have had, that I have issues with food and body image that I never had before the show.
18. JD Roth claims that The Biggest Loser is a “public service,” I don’t believe that a 100 million dollar business that exploits the health of its participants and deceives its viewers is a public service.
19. People claim that I speak out because I am bitter I didn’t win, I knew from the point where my family staged that intervention and I started on a road to recovery that I wasn’t going to win. For that I am grateful. Every. Single. Day.
In an ideal world The Biggest Loser as I know it would cease to exist, but instead be replaced with an inspiring show about healthy body image with safe, sustainable weight loss and health. If I can’t get that I would settle for:
· TBL would make sure viewers at home realize not only is it not realistic to lose weight in the way and at the rate of contestants it is NOT SAFE. So basically they would stop unhealthy weight loss techniques altogether.
· Production would allow the nutritionist to actually make the diets for the contestants.
· Production would have a doctor/medic on set to monitor things as closely as need be, and production would LISTEN to this person when he/she says someone is injured or something is too dangerous.
· Production would extend the shooting schedule so that the contestants can lose at what doctors in the nation say is a safe rate of weight loss.
· Production would have a psychologist actually on hand during the whole process to help with the pressure, including the “at home” portion and to deal with the issues that got us there in the first place.
· Production would actually check on the contestants when they are still in the “at-home” portion of filming.
· NBC would pay the actors on this show (because we ALL had to re-shoot scenes and pretend, so we WERE actors) at a level that actors are paid at for the hours of work we did.
· NBC would stop exploiting vulnerable people for the sake of drama and money. Other reality shows last two weeks and ostensibly don’t put you in as psychologically vulnerable a spot for months on end as The Biggest Loser does, there is a moral and ethical obligation that is being ignored her for the sake of money.
· Production would stop putting human beings in dangerous situations during challenges for the sake of money and ratings.
· Production would show all the injuries we suffered on TV, and stop making it look like people who were seriously injured and couldn’t do anymore are just combative or lazy
· The Ranch would teach the contestants a healthy lifestyle NOT just how to crash diet.
· NBC would explain to people honestly what they are signing up for when they agree to participate in this show.
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