No white flour. No white sugar. No butter. Those are the three really basic rules of eating at the Biggest Loser ranch, where contestants must prepare their own meals. “There’s no chef whipping up spa cuisine,” said Ed Brantley to the New York Times, in a story featuring the Biggest Loser diet.
Biggest Loser's Ed and Vicky (center) try healthy recipes prepared by fellow contestants.
If you watch the show regularly, you know that what the contestants eat isn’t as much a part of the storyline as is the drama unfolding on the ranch. This story really shows what it’s like for the contestants to immediately go from eating anything they want at home, primarily greasy and sweet foods, to extreme workouts and a healthy, clean diet. “The food that you’re used to, you can’t have, and the food you can have, you do not want,” Vicky Vilcan of Biggest Loser 6 told the Times.
The story also points out that an underlying cause of obesity in America is our habit of dining out. It’s in that setting that we cannot control the fat or calories in our food, where preparing meals at home gives us complete control. Since 1965, women have gone from spending 13 hours per week cooking meals to the meager 30 minutes per day now, and in that time the number of overweight women has more than doubled, to 65 percent. Biggest Loser cookbooks author Devin Alexander pointed out that “Twenty minutes in the kitchen will save you three hours on the StairMaster.”
During last week’s episode of Biggest Loser, Ed and Heba prepared Thai Turkey Wraps as a thank you for their trainer, Bob Harper. It looked so good, and Bob’s reaction to the scrumptious dish made all of you hungry for the recipe. So, a big shout out and gracious thank you to Ed Brantley for sharing his personal recipe with all of us at DietsInReview.com.
Ingredients
1 package ground turkey
1 clove of chopped garlic
1 tsp. of minced fresh ginger
2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
1 carrot, peeled and minced
6 scallions, finely chopped
7 sprigs cilantro chopped
4 limes, juiced
Sriacha chili sauce (can be purchased at a local Asian market or international food section in the grocery)
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 red bell pepper finely diced
1 cucumber, peeled, de-seeded and julienned
1 head Boston lettuce
1/4 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts
Instructions
Brown turkey, place in refrigerator to cool.
Once cool, mix all ingredients (except: pepper, cucumber, lettuce and peanuts) in a bowl.
Allow to marinate overnight, or 3-4 hours for best taste.
Serve mixture in lettuce cups with cucumber, pepper and peanuts for garnish.
If there were ever a love story viewers would want to follow on Biggest Loser, this was it. The great love of Heba and Ed, season 6’s orange team! Ed Brantley’s elimination during Week 4 was hard to watch for the viewers and not an “easy thing to do” according to Ed. He says he didn’t get any updates on Heba’s progress after he left, and hoped he wouldn’t see her for at least two months, meaning that she just kept pushing through. When he and Heba did finally reunite (since all the current contestants have all gone home), he says “you would not even believe it!” When all of us finally get the chance to watch, Ed said “you’ll be up in a chair screaming, doing back flips!”
Since leaving the ranch in mid-May, Ed has lost 90 pounds, and currently weighs 245 pounds (down from his starting weight of 335). He had set a goal for a 32″ pant size, and he is currently wearing a 34″ in shorts. Speaking with Ed, there is no doubt that he’s as dedicated to his weight loss as much as he was during his time on Biggest Loser, if not more so. “I had to bring the ranch home,” Ed explained about instilling the mindsite of complete discipline at home that he had at the ranch. He often remembers “what would Bob think,” or that Heba would remind him not to stop.
Due to the presidential debate last night, episode 4 of the Biggest Loser was cut short, however tonight the wonderful folks over at NBC aired the second hour of the show. The second half of the show proved to be worth the wait! In the second part of episode 4, we saw Jillian really get tough and rightfully so, her teams weren’t doing the homework that she was assigning, which on the Biggest Loser is just as bad as sneaking snack cakes in the middle of the night!
We also saw Bob take his team to SUBWAY for a quick bite to eat, which is good because trying to find a place to eat on the go in the “real world” isn’t easy. I love the fact that the show is sharing information with viewers about how to make smart choices when eating out.
At the weigh-in, we saw the orange team Ed and Heba fall below the dreaded yellow line. The orange team was then forced to decide who was going home amongst themselves. In the end, Ed wound up going home leaving Heba to continue on her own.
During his at home follow-up, Ed looked Great! I wish him continued success at home and consider him a real contender for this year’s At-Home prize.
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