Rachel Frederickson astounded television audiences when she won The Biggest Loser competition in 2014.
The contestant had gone from 260lbs to a very slim 105lbs – that is an amazing 155lb weight loss.
Now the show is being revisited in season one of the Netflix series Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser which kicked off on August 15.
It is a three-part documentary that is taking a closer look at how the series worked.
Part of the series has focused on Frederickson’s shocking weight loss. Fans went wild over her ‘after’ image because they thought she was ‘underweight.’
The Netflix show also explored how trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels were put off by the drastic weight loss. ‘Rachel came out, and she had lost so much weight, it was … shocking,’ Harper said. ‘Jillian and I were just in horror.’
Rachel Frederickson astounded television audiences when she won The Biggest Loser competition in 2014. The contestant had gone from 260lbs to a very slim 105lbs – that is an amazing 155lb weight loss
The television show, which ran from 2004-2016 on NBC, and had a one year reboot in 2020, came under fire for what some consider extreme methods used to help contestants shed weight.
It was claimed that some behind-the-scenes people wanted contestants to consume only 800 calories a day while working out eight hours a day.
Turns out Frederickson – who was a favorite on the series – is doing very well these days.
She’s currently a customer insights and analytics manager for Land O’Lakes.
Before the gig, she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Logistics, Materials and Supply Chain Management from the University of Minnesota in 2020.
Frederickson, 35, qualified for The Biggest Loser by tipping the scales at 260 lbs., but was soon showing a loss at each weekly weigh in.
The former high school swimming champ shared in a 2014 Today essay after her victory that she had gained the weight after falling in love and moving to Germany with a foreign exchange student.
‘Fast forward to a lonely, overweight girl,’ Frederickson, who was working as a voice actor at the time wrote.
Attending three to four exercise classes a day, including Zumba and spin, helped her win the $250,000 prize, Frederickson told People at the time
The competition show has since come under controversy for what some consider extreme methods to help the contestants lose weight
Frederickson said she lost the weight by sticking to a strict 1600 calorie diet
Read More
Former Biggest Loser contestant details her embarrassment at outrageous treatment
‘I spent most days alone working from my home vocal studio. A job I loved, but loneliness I hated. I made a decision to start fighting for myself again.’
Frederickson has shared she lost 155 pounds, 56-percent of her body weight, by following a strict 1600 calorie a day diet.
Attending three to four exercise classes a day, including Zumba and spin, helped her win the $250,000 prize Frederickson told People at the time.
Frederickson’s big reveal created a lot of online controversy, with many viewers commenting she had become too thin.
In an appearance on Thomas DeLauer’s podcast in 2024, former The Biggest Loser trainer Jillian Michaels spoke out about her decision to leave the show.
‘She was unhealthily thin, to say the least,’ Michaels said.
‘When Rachel Frederickson walked down that stage looking dangerously unhealthy, I quit permanently.’
In her post-win essay for Today, Frederickson had a different take.
‘When I stood on stage at the live finale, I had never felt stronger,’ she explained.
‘I had accomplished everything I wanted to do. I was extremely proud of myself.’
However, those feelings soon disappeared due to the comments over her weight loss controversy. ‘People tried to bring me down and (privately) succeeded,’ she said.
‘When I stood on stage at the live finale, I had never felt stronger,’ she explained. ‘I had accomplished everything I wanted to do. I was extremely proud of myself’
Comments that she had lost too much weight hurt her. ‘People tried to bring me down and (privately) succeeded,’ she said, adding, ‘I found strength in this struggle and I am listening to my own voice again!’; Pictured in 2014
Frederickson concluded her 2014 essay with, ‘There will always be other voices in life. The trouble comes when you stop listening to your own… I found strength in this struggle and I am listening to my own voice again!’
Jillian Michaels, one of The Biggest Loser trainers, said Frederickson looked ‘dangerously unhealthy’; seen last week
In 2016 and 2017, The New York Times ran several articles reporting on how difficult it was for The Biggest Loser contestants to maintain their weigh loss after returning to their regular lives.
According to Dr. Kevin Hall, who was a metabolism at the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the time, studied the after effects, and found the body’s metabolism slows down a lot during weight loss as it fights to maintain the status quo.
‘It is frightening and amazing,’ he told the publication. ‘I am just blown away.’
In a paper published in 2017, Hall found that following a diet and 80 minutes a day of moderate exercise such as walking or 35 minutes of vigorous exercise such as running would keep the weight from creeping back on.
It is unclear if Frederickson has maintained her weight loss.
She is not on social media and her LinkedIn profile does not include a photo of herself.
The voice actor left the business and started a T-shirt business in 2015, and went on to get a degree in logistics, materials and supply chain management from the University of Minnesota in 2020.
According to her bio, she currently works for Land O’Lakes.