'Biggest Loser' producer hopeful of show's success!

Thursday, June 07, 2007

The 'Biggest Loser Jeetega', is a reality show that has 16 contestants who will compete with each other to lose weight. The one who loses the maximum weight will be the proud winner and will take home prize money worth Rs. 1 lakh per Kg weight he/she reduces.

In fact, each of the contestants is a winner as every one will be on the path to healthy living. All these contestants are here for different reasons, but with a single aim.

The 16 contestants have been divided in to two teams. One is Blue Team comprising Nirmal Soni, Ravinder Singh Sahni, Hiren Bhawsar, Gracious D'costa, Hemangini Marchant, Priyanka Bhayana, Muna Aleem and Sharmila Joshi, while the other team Red Team has Sandeep Sachdev, Neeraj Paul, Ajay Nagrath, Kiran Jethwani, Dr. Rizwan Ahmed Qureshi, Samirah Ahmad, and Robin Soloman.

The contest will last 18 weeks and overall each team has to lose maximum weight within a week. The team which loses the most weight will be the winner for that particular week. And the other team - the loser - will eliminate one of their teammates with their own consent.

The producer of the show Rahul Aggarwal has already produced movies like 'Manoranjan', 'Khamosh - Khouf Ki Raat', 'Love In Nepal' 'Bharata Bhagya Vidhata' and others. Recently, when he was in New Delhi we caught him at Hotel Le Meridien to bring some interesting facts about this show. Here is the excerpt.
According to Rahul, this is an inspirational reality show unlike 'Big Boss' and 'Big Brother', but there is no celebrity here as all the participants are common office going people like all of us. When these contestants lose their excess weight, the people around them will get inspiration form them and will also try to lose their excess weights.

When asked about the idea behind the show and the selection criteria of the contestants, Rahul said, "As every one knows, these days people in India are becoming more health conscious and as a result we can see a number of gyms and fitness centers at each and every nook and corner. We want to bring a revolutionary change in India. Actually, we were looking for a concept that will have something to prove and we found this concept. We went abroad to buy the rights of this show and observed certain tapes of this reality show. This show has already been successful in 22 countries and India is the 23rd country where the show is being introduced. We decided on Suniel Shetty as the host of this show because he has been a fitness icon for many individuals. Besides, he not only preaches about fitness, but also practices it in his real life."

Rahul went on to say, "We did auditions with a team of doctors in different States keeping some parameters such as control over blood pressure and other ailments. The age criterion is between 18 to 42 years and the minimum weight of a participant in this show is 97 Kgs. We have contestants from 97 Kgs to 196 Kgs. in this series. We did proper medical tests of the contestants in order to assure that they are fit for the exercise regime that they will be asked to under go".

A team comprising health and fitness director Andrew Leipus, the former physiotherapist of Indian cricket team, and trainers Deepika Mehta and Yusuf I Khan, who have already trained many Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Bachchan and Bipasha Basu, will monitor the health of the participants. In addition there will be culinary nutritionist Varun Shivdasani cardiologist Dr. Ajit Desai and psychiatrist Sameer Parekh to scrutinize the status of the contestants.

Bollywood action star Suniel Shetty makes his debut on small screen as the host with this reality show.