Not as disgusting as I used to be

NBC's The Biggest Loser is back for its . . . let's say 26th edition and the fact that I know this makes me sad. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the people losing weight and generally making their lives better. I'm just not thrilled that it happens on my television each Tuesday.

You see, my wife works at a gym on a college campus. She's also a personal trainer and has designed and implemented her own Biggest Loser programs for students and faculty, so the allure of the show is too much for her to pass up. So for two hours each week, I get to watch people exercise. Actually, that's not entirely true, we get to watch people exercise for about an hour, spend a good 15 minutes doing various product placement advertisements within the show, and another 45 minutes watching people stand on an apparently broken scale. (What kind of digital scale fluctuates between losing 35 pounds and gaining 54 before settling on what actually happened?)

What it ultimately boils down to is that I'm far too much like the Seinfeld characters than I'd like to admit. If you recall, in the series finale, the four make fun of a fat guy getting robbed.

Jerry: Well, there goes the money for the lipo.

Elaine: See, the great thing about robbing a fat guy is it's an easy getaway. You know? They can't really chase ya!

George: He's actually doing him a favor. It's less money for him to buy food.

Yeah, that's me when I watch The Biggest Loser. I know I should feel bad, and I'd never actually say things like that in a group of people  (at least not a group of people I didn't know well), but when contestants on the show say things like "I left a large part of me at home," I can't help but think to myself "you know, if you left a large part of yourself at home, you wouldn't need to be on this show."

However, I do find myself watching for one reason . . . I want to be able to cheer for the woman who is going to be the hottest when they finally do lose the weight. (You can call me shallow, but I think we've pretty well established that fact in the paragraph above.) Were I a single guy, I'd definitely want to date someone who goes on that show because you know she'd be hot when she finished (well, maybe not as hot as Alison Sweeney, but still probably pretty hot.)

So for the next three months, I get to watch a bunch of overweight people slowly become less overweight, then (as John Kruk said on a NutriSystem commercial) less disgusting then they used to be, then . . . well, eventually they get to the attractive/hot stage.