Three Fat Brides

Decided to watch the Gillian McKeith programme on Channel 4 yesterday and it was probably as bad as I was expecting it to be. Which is quite spectacular as I was expecting it to be pretty awful.

Three brides - one a born again Christian saving herself for her wedding night, one a second timer after a brief first marriage, and a Welsh lass who was marrying a footballer - all competed to see who had lost the most weight and the most number of inches around their waistline in the eight week McKeith challenge.

Now, I'm not a dietitian or a psychologist (nor do I play one on TV) but I'm fairly sure I could have pointed out a few things that would have improved the lives of the "contestants" and I wouldn't have been quite as irritating as McKeith while doing it, nor would I have been as interested in their stool samples.

Bride One basically lived on takeaways and had a very low level of self-esteem (which is probably why she became a born again Christian). If this programme had been about saving money, then stopping her and her husband-to-be from eating takeaways every night of the week would have also been the main thrust of the improvement process. Getting her to appreciate that people liked her would probably have been more helpful than having McKeith shouting at her.

Bride Two loved butter. On everything. Digestives mainly, but pretty much on everything. She was in her 40s and seemed to have the most normal personality (apart from wanting to be on TV, natch) and funnily enough was the strongest mentally when listening to her fellow Scot, McKeith. Medically, she really needed to do something as she was very likely to get diabetes, so had quite a large impetus to take part.

Bride Three just drank too much. Then craved crap food after her binge drinking session. She didn't stay on the McKeith wagon, but unusually didn't fall off for a night of binge drinking (and I would drink heavily if I had to have McKeith in my life for 8 weeks) but for some pizza and some trifle. She was ratted out by Bride Two to McKeith who showed her a wedding dress in a coffin and then poured trifle on it. Seriously.

All three brides lost about 28 pounds in 8 weeks of the McKeith regime. Which is quite a spectacular amount. Not entirely sure it's healthy to lose that much weight that quickly, but then again, I'm not sure McKeith knows that either. Seeing as she's not medically trained or anything.

Bride Two won the dress, by the way. But did have to suffer having McKeith turn up on her wedding day. So not really "winning" in the traditional sense of the word.