Balance of Food

Welcome to the debut of the weekly update TBL2 blog. Don't forget to follow the path of the contestants as they shed those pounds. Here are a few off-the-cuff remarks:

Where was the RuPaul song? That song got me in the mood to lose weight. The new one is more sappy and less motivational. The human element was played up. It must be hard for Jeff, a doctor, to be on this show. But we know doctors and nurses who smoke and are fat. Proves we're human. And sadly, that makes for compelling TV. I think Caroline Rhea looks great as is. Though a key point in her stand-up is her struggle with her weight. It is nice that she can relate to their struggles to lose weight, except she doesn't actually convey that sentiment. Every contestant has seen the original TBL. That's not good. They now realize they're on TV. Yet... they eat the food sitting there in the room when they shouldn't. Their decadence laid out before them, and they couldn't resist. Last time, only Ryan did it (though he ended up winning). Jen called it the "farewell dinner." Matt and Shannon put it well when they wondered why they ate so much (there and otherwise). The contestants seemed to blur together. And there are too many of them. Last time, we had 12, and that was too many. Now we have 14. Suzy stands out because of her glasses. Matt stands out because he cries and has odd hair. (Editor's note: I have virtually no hair, so I can't really talk.) There definitely is no Maurice to stand out. Men vs. women really works. They deal with weight loss in different ways. And matching Bob with the women and Jillian with the men is brilliant. They will probably lose more weight in separate gender-specific teams than with co-ed teams. Sex is a motivator to lose weight. Having a trainer of the opposite gender is helpful, and yet not having the distraction of gender from your teammates also helps. Goodbye to Ruben. Fair to say, you won't be missed. You're not as cute as Dana and you were much bigger.

I confess I'm new to reality shows. So this may be the way they work to be more dazzling. I will watch next week, but I want to be more impressed to care about these people. I'm not there yet. The program returns to the 60-minute format on Tuesdays on NBC in the United States and CH in Canada at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific.