Jillian Michaels.Photo: Gary Gershoff/Getty Images
After 12 seasons as a trainer onThe Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels is happy with some of her methods from the show — and has some regrets.
In the years sinceshe last appeared as a trainer on the show, in 2013, Michaels has thought about what she would have changed.
“Nobody should have been eliminated. That was my No. 1 issue with the show,” Michaels, 47,toldToday. “But the producers gamified weight loss. It was weight loss on a ticking clock.”
“The Biggest Loserneeded a mental health professional,” she said. “I think there was some random guy they could talk to if they needed, but these people needed deep work. When you have someone that weighs 400 lbs., that’s not just an individual who likes pizza. There’s a whole lot going on there emotionally.”
PEOPLE has reached out to NBC Universal for comment.
With people working to overcome their body issues, “you need to deal with the demons,” Michaels added. “Otherwise you’re just gonna gain the weight back.”
“The ones I yelled at are the ones that kept it off,” she said. “You need them to feel the pain of the way they’ve been living. You need them to have a rock bottom moment where they’re like, ‘I can’t take one more moment.’ "
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And Michaels believes that the diet the contestants followed on the show, which she said allowed for 1,200 calories a day, plus unlimited green salads, was effective. TheFood and Drug Administration recommendsthat adult men consume around 2,200 to 2,400 calories a day, and women take in about 1,800.
“The diet worked amazing. You eat less, you move more, and there you go,” she said. “The contestants who were unsuccessful when they went home, they had unresolved issues with food.”
In the years sinceThe Biggest Loseraired, some contestants havespoken out about regaining weightsince appearing on the show and a large study claimed that theextreme dieting let to damage to their metabolisms. Former contestant Joelle Gwynn also alleged in 2016 thatthey were provided with drugs to lose weight.
In 2017,former executive producer ofThe Biggest LoserJD Roth told PEOPLEthat he was sorry the program didn’t work for everyone.
“I feel badly that some people from the show went back to some bad decision making patterns and gained the weight back, and felt ashamed,” Roth said. “Here they are, they won the lottery and got on the show and lost all the weight and then gained it back.”
Roth also dismissed the theory presented in the study, published inThe New York Times, that the contestants had permanently damaged their metabolisms.
“I cancelled my subscription that day. Not only did they not call the creator of the show [Roth], but they also never compared the people who gained the weight back on The Biggest Loser with the ones who kept it off,” he said. “If they had shown the science, that the metabolism of the people who kept the weight off, has the same issue as the people who gained the weight back, that would be interesting.”
source: people.com
