Question: when it comes to weight loss, why are we generally immune to before and after pictures? Answer: because they are used to advertise diet pills, and most people seem to know that they are usually fake.

This picture, of course, is different. Take a good look at it again. Is that even the same person?

The story of this year’s “Biggest Loser� – Erik Chopin, who said he was “morbidly obese�, felt hopeless and admitted to considering a gastric band surgery to lose weight – has to be one of the most inspiring weigh-loss transformations of 2006.

At the start of “The Biggest Loser�, Chopin’s weight was 407 pounds and if that was not enough, he was diagnosed with diabetes. But that did not stop him from shedding 214 pounds to win “The Biggest Loser� this year.

“I felt like I needed to go for the surgery but, really, I’m so glad I didn’t. … I knew the whole time, I honestly knew, I was copping out, I was quitting,” he says. How did he manage to lose all that weight? He did not give up!