At the beginning of February, Biggest Loser contestant Rachel Frederickson won the competition with an astonishing 155 pound weight loss. Frederickson lost the highest percentage of her bodyweight in the show’s history and was the only finalist to be underweight at the finale. The media buzzed about Frederickson’s frail frame, and there was a lot of concern trolling over whether she had gone too far. Frederickson admitted that during the interim between leaving the ranch and the final weigh-in she was exercising up to six hours a day and eating just 1,600 calories. Many people said that she was just doing what she had to do to win the competition, particularly one where the odds are stacked against women.
When we saw Frederickson again at the end of the February she had gained some much-needed weight back and looked very slender but healthier. Now, about two months after she won, Frederickson told US Weekly that she’s gained 20 pounds and is at the perfect weight. Good for her!
Biggest Loser winner Rachel Frederickson has found her happy medium. Nearly two months after she shocked viewers of NBC’s weight loss competition with her 155-pound slimdown, the 24-year-old voice actress is 20 pounds heavier — and thrilled. In the new issue of Us Weekly, she opens up about life after The Biggest Loser, maintaining her health, and indulging in the occasional Oreo.
“I’ve gone up about 20 pounds,” the now-125-pound Frederickson tells Us. “I think I’m at my perfect weight!”
Frederickson, a former athlete, received criticism back in February when she appeared on the season 15 finale of The Biggest Loser weighing just 105 pounds. She won the competition, but many thought she had gone too far with her hours-long workouts and super-strict diet. These days, she’s a little more relaxed with her routine.“I work out an hour, six days a week. I love classes like SoulCycle,” she shares. “I also loosely count calories, but sometimes I might eat an Oreo. It’s not the end of the world…
Frederickson has come a long way from the 260-pound girl she was when she started the show, and she has no regrets about anything that’s happened since. Even the backlash was “a gift,” she says. “It started a discussion about body image,” she tells Us. “That’s huge.”
I’ve been nothing but impressed with the way that Frederickson has handled the press since winning the show. I do think she went too far, but she won and then she gained weight back until she felt comfortable. She looks great and much healthier to me. She also looks younger now. Imagine, though, if she had kept this very low weight. Biggest Loser producers would be in some serious hot water. I do hope that they change the rules to discourage this type of ultra fast weight loss, but that seems impossible given the show’s formula.
Photo credit: PRPHotos and NBC
The 20 lbs makes her look years younger. As most expected she went extreme to win a game show and lots of money.
Yes. I think the backlash was more for the unknown. Would she maintain her low weight and unhealthy routine? Does the show warp minds with unrealistic body images?
Her gaining the extra weight has put those unknowns to rest. And she looks great!
Some extra weight on her face really does make her look younger.
I think because the average person is now overweight, their knee-jerk reaction to anyone slim is “underweight!!!! MUST gain weight NOW OR ELSE”.
It’s hard to maintain a slim to normal weight in a world of overweight people. Rachel obviously just caved into public pressure and gained. Society now demands you to be slightly chubby and hounds you if you are slim.
Annie, in a lot of cases, I can see that. But the girl didn’t LOOK healthy. Maybe she didn’t need to gain 20 pounds, but the weight she was at at the wrap of the show she looked way too thin.
I think it’s more of a case of she won, and now she doesn’t have to keep up the scary 8 hours of exercise a day that she was doing. She got back into a somewhat normal routine and that weight wasn’t able to be maintained.
I think people are starting to readjust their expectations a bit. For 20 or 30 years at least, we have been idealizing thinness and not health, and by that I mean associating thiness with health. Now we are in the backlash because that was a standard few people could achieve naturally. The pendulum has swung and we’re still not on the right track. some people are thin and healthy, some people are chubby and healthy. but, to be clear, it is better to be overweight that is to be underweight, and thats not my opinion, its quantitativy supported. Underweight puts a lot of stress on your heart and other organs. but if a person is just naturally thin, your body is probably going to be okay with being g thint. The problem is when people who do not have naturally slim physiquestake measures such as underfeeding or exercising to achieve a weight or a shape which is unhealthy for them.
I don’t believe in criticizing women for their bodies, whether they are thin or overweight. but trust me, as a fat person,we get crap about our bodies all the time.usually not to my face, but trust me, it’s there.
@ Erinn, I think she looked DEHYDRATED not “too thin” as in lacking fatty tissue. And yet again, we are sooo used to seeing overweight people everywhere, that people who are a healthy weight may now look “underweight”.
We do NOT idealize underweight. We CRITICIZE and flame those who are even at the lower end or normal no end and call them “too skinny’. Look at the comments on any woman who is slimmer than average on this site. 99% of the comments will be along the lines of “too thin, needs meat on her bones” etc. How is skinny/slender idealized? Worshiped?? It is criticized and ONLY criticized so far as I see.
No, we do not, idealize “fat” but what we do idealize is voluptuous, on the higher end of normal – slightly overweight “relateable” sized. Being truly skinny is social death.
I’m 34 and it’s been around the same my whole life, but getting worse and worse.
@Annie, I disagree. While I agree that on gossip sites there can be a lot of backlash at skinny, as a society, we absolutely idealize underweight. The bigger picture of what famous looks like, what models look like, what we see on billboard and advertisements represents more accurately what our society idealizes. I rarely in real life meet someone who says they are too skinny.
She may have been dehydrated. But her head was disproportionate to the rest of her body. You don’t really lose head size so when the rest of your body is underweight, it looks weird. Now she doesn’t have that bobblehead look anymore.
As a society, we are absolutely overweight and have real problems with that. But we aren’t making fat a goal. We just don’t take much responsibility for it when it happens.
Annie, I’m not a psychiatrist, and I don’t know you, and I’m not trying to be disrespectful or argumentative, but I think you must see “normal,” “chubby,” “overweight” and “underweight” in a way that other people don’t. Because the fact that a woman is voluptuous doesn’t mean she’s overweight, and the fact is, many actresses and models ARE underweight. And, as Lucinda says so well, our society most certainly values underweight women unless it’s very extreme. Your assessment of societal beliefs about weight are simply not reality.
Without getting too into this… I see more underweight people than overweight. Maybe overall in population it’s true, but my personal experience is more people look dangerously underweight than dangerously over. And I don’t live anywhere mythical.
I also find myself more judgy of underweight than over. Probably triggered when I see them not eat, smoke, or just go about being very unhealthy with low energy. And the “overweight” people I see are often passing me on a running trail. So my opinion might be skewed.
I would also guess that for the finale show she was super dehydrated and had been fasting (a la the Victoria’s Secret Show diet), which wouldn’t exactly help her appearance.
I agree that she looks younger. She looks fit and healthy.
Absolutely! There is a softness to her that is still very fit and healthy. Very glad to see this!
That blue dress is hideous, but she looks 20 years younger now at a normal weight.
Amen to everything you said
Ohmygod that dress is the WORST.
Ugh I agree. I couldn’t stop looking at how wrong that dress is for her body. The weight gain wasn’t even hitting my radar.
Much better. Her face and arms look a million times better.
Wow, she is SO pretty in her newest photos! It’s amazing how lovely her face looks just a little filled out.
Also, I am so happy that she gained a little of the weight back. I don’t watch the show. But, I was nervous when I saw those pictures at the time of her win.
Wow she looks great! It’s not concern trolling to mention she looked sickly before in her efforts to win the prize by exercising several hours a day.
She looks so much better now with the additional weight gain.
I don’t blame her for going full throttle to win this thing – and she deserved to. So happy she gained a little weight, she looks GREAT now. Congratulations to her. I hope she works hard to maintain the weight loss in a healthy manner and lives a long happy life.
So, she lost a ton of weight in an unhealthy amount of time, and now she has gained 20 pounds (not an insignificant amount) in a couple of months. Absolutely NONE of that sounds healthy to me.
Perhaps not; but in comparison to the weight she was carrying around and the potential dangers of same, she’s in a much better situation health wise. The perils of rapid weight loss are actually quite debatable.
For perspective, she gained 20lbs from the absolute lowest she could get her weight. Considering her dedication in the months after she left the ranch, it wouldn’t be put of line to guess that she spent the last days leading up to the final weigh in sweating as much weight out and fasting. She could have easily made a difference of at least 5 extra lbs, if not even more. Healthy? Of course not. But for a lot of money on the line understandable.
She was probably very dehydrated when she was weighed so it is not that extreme.
It’s not healthy at all. She was starving herself to win biggest loser & now it’s over she’s probably bingeing due to deprivation. It’s really difficult to put on 20 pounds in that little amount of time if your eating healthily & working out 6 days a week like she claims. If that is really the case & she’s not bingeing then that’s even worse cos that shows her metabolism is f***** & she can’t eat normally without gaining a large amount of weight. A 10 pound gain would of been fine in that space of time. I estimate she’ll be back to her original weight within 1-2 yrs.
No, it isn’t difficult at all. Part of the routine on the show is to purposely dehydrate. I would guess that close to half of the weight she put back on was simply due to rehydrating herself, leaving approximately 10 pounds of actual weight, which you, yourself, agree would have been just fine within this time frame.
It’s an experience I had, myself, when I lost a great deal of weight and wanted to reach a “magic number”. You can consciously find a better weight than your lowest one without gaining it all back.
Simply easing up on her super extreme exercising alone would make her gain weight. What she was doing before was beyond brutal. Exercising 8 hours a day every day? wow.
She looks fabulous. Way to go, Rachel!
She looks great. Her leveling out process was quicker than I expected.
I was REALLY critical of her weight loss on the finale, mostly by thinking she totally went ana. But I’m glad to see that it really was just to win the money.
She looks SO beautiful, healthy and happy. Good for her!
I still think the weight loss has aged her. However, she looks really cute now that’s she’s gained a little weight back.
Just my opinion, but her heavier weight to me I read her face as “middle aged mom” her lighter weight as more “ageless/age hard to place, hard to put a number on her age”. I think she looks more like a celeb at the lighter weight and less like an average person who has had a tough life. Just one person’s perspective though, so don’t read to much into it. At the heavier the looks like normal, at the lighter she looks like something more exiting, more higher energy than normal.
IMO she looks better heavier. She’s still very cute either way. I think can both agree on that.
Yep, she’s a cute gal and I prefer her face at the lighter weight. I think she looks less average and momsy that way. I’m entitled to that opinion ain’t I?
I watched the show and was pulling for her, once I saw her the night she won I was sure this biggest loser experience had giving her a life threaten eatting disorder. So glad that doesn’t seem to be the case. Good for her she looks amazing except that dress.
I felt the same. Glad to see her happy and healthy.
She looks great now. For $250k I’d have done it too. Oh and I love the dress.
Stunning!
BRAVO!
She looks great
She looks great, and I agree she’s handled the media and criticism very well. She seems to have found a healthy routine now, hope she is able to stick with it and be an inspiration to others.
She looked like she was starving. So much better now. Dress is awful though.
Being much skinnier than one’s frame or one’s natural size rarely (never?) looks good. Plus, the up keep is nearly impossible to sustain for any length of time.
[*That works for all sizes – naturally small to naturally large*]
Much better. She looks fantastic.