Biggest Loser Tip: Retrain Tastebuds
Many of the contestants on NBC’s The Biggest Loser say living on the ranch for 12 weeks is their last chance to do something about the pounds they need to shed. 
Isolated from family, pizza delivery and fridges stocked with soda, life on the Biggest Loser ranch means forced dieting. You can’t cheat unless you’re put in a temptation challenge on purpose.
As new trainer Brett Hoebel said it, there’s no secret to weight loss. It’s a science. He knows personally because he was overweight as a child. Diet and exercise, together, create weight loss.
But what happens to contestants when they leave the show? They head home to their families who may or may not be changing the way they eat. Eating properly becomes a daily choice.
To help contestants be successful, the show’s producers have hired Australian Chef Curtis Stone to teach them how to cook healthy meals that also taste delicious.
He knows what he’s up against. We have to reeducate their diets and palates, he said on a recent episode. Contestants are used to lots of salt and fat, which he admits, can be flavorful.
The first step is to make homemade meals. It’s the only way to know what’s in them. The second step is to choose your foods based on nutritional content.
For last week’s show, Stone used halibut for the entree over quinoa – an easy-to-cook seed packed with protein. His salad was equally inspiring. Baked acorn squash over a bed of arugula. The salad dressing? Homemade with olive oil, vinegar and shallots.
“Arugula is your friend,” he said during an episode that featured cooking. “Eat as much as you like.” That’s because the amount of calories you burn while chewing the greens, Stone said, is equivalent to their caloric value.
For dessert, Stone poached a pear and covered it in a greek yogurt sauce with orange zest and toasted almonds.
Yummy!
Total calorie count for the meal: 572.
Stone said contestants start the show having a bad relationship with food. His goal is to help them develop a good relationship by the time they go home.
Otherwise, he said, they will go back to the same unhealthy foods they used to eat.
Try out Stone’s recipes:
Roasted Acorn Squash, Pomegranate and Arugula Salad
Learn about Bon Secours Nutrition and Weight Loss Programs