“The Biggest Loser” has a history and a tendency to throw curveballs at us. But last night they took things to extremes. First, host Allison Sweeney started off live by telling us there would be a weigh in at the end of the episode, but not of a current contestant. Instead, it would be a viewer of the show who has been inspired to lose a lot of weight. Then, the nine contestants were ushered into the gym, where they would be congratulated for getting this far, and given their individual colors back since there would be no more blue team vs. black team.

Then things got really interesting. All of the contestants this season who have been eliminated were brought back in, and one of them would be allowed back into the game. Here we go again, right? Well, it was even crazier than you may have thought. Each eliminated contestant weighed in, but the weight wouldn’t get them back….instead, the remaining contestants on the ranch would vote for who they wanted to come back.

Darrell has lost 104 pounds….Sherry 62 pounds, Miggy 49, Vicky 73, Melissa 51, Lance 91, Cheryl 51, John 85, Patti 46, Maria 57, James 72 and Cherita 47. Each one got to plead their case and they each did, except for Cherita who pleaded for her daughter Vicky to have a chance on the ranch. You may remember they were sent home the first day, and then again when the yellow team beat them at the chance to return a month later. So while Vicky had a sympathy vote, John was a friend and favorite of many of those remaining. It was close, and aside from Darrell and James each garnering one vote, Vicky had four votes to John’s three. Vicky was back in!

But wait, there’s more. The rest of the eliminated contestants would have a challenge to determine one more that could return. Come on, already! The challenge was who could do 1000 steps the fastest. Melissa was determined to win from the start, with Miggy also being competitive. But let’s face it…..we know the producers were just looking for a way to get Melissa back on the ranch since there had been a lack of gameplay in recent weeks. To accentuate that fact, Melissa and Vicky had immunity this week. Then came more drama….Ashley accused Stephanie of throwing a recent weigh in to send Ashley’s mom, Sherry, home. This seemed a bit far-fetched but there is something sneaky about Stephanie.

Then after TiVo’ing through the last chance workouts, it was time for the weigh in. Vicky was first and lost 2 pounds, and Melissa lost 4. For the moment, Melissa wasn’t playing the game, and both of them were immune, so wiped off the board.

O’Neal was next and lost 4 pounds, followed by Ashley who lost 5. Michael lost 8, Koli 6 and Drea 5. Daris lost 7, and then Sam lost 2. Uh-oh. Sunshine, who kept claiming she would be going to the Final 4, lost 6, putting her money where her mouth was. Stephanie lost 1 pound, putting her and Sam below the yellow line. This was sort of inevitable, because Sam lost 14 pounds the previous week while Stephanie had lost 9.

But let’s face it, Stephanie has dodged a bullet a few times recently, and Sam is a bit too popular to be sent home now. So after Koli voted for Stephanie and Melissa voted for Sam, Stephanie received the next four votes and was sent home. I think that was the right way to go, and it was time for Stephanie to go home and begin vying for the $100K at-home prize. That is, unless they bring her back again (note sarcasm).

Then it was time to bring home the inspired home viewer, Wayne. Wayne began his journey at a whopping 674 pounds, and he stepped on the scale looking like a shell of his former self. He now weighs 256, down an unbelievable 418 total pounds. Wow. Of course, Mrs. Mike noted that Allison was overly dramatic about the whole thing.

Okay, so now we’ve gone from 9 finalists to 11 and then back to 10. And Melissa is back. Ugh. I can’t stand how almost every season the producers of this show try hard to make it about gameplay. I know the show helps people lose weight, get healthy and get their lives back on track. But sometimes they throw so many curveballs that it gets difficult to keep track of without a calculator.

Regardless, it’s gonna be exciting over the next two months to see how it all shakes out. What do you think? Are you annoyed by the curves too? Let me know and then we’ll meet back here next week!

Last night’s episode of “The Biggest Loser” was a cliffhanger, and purposely set up that way because we’ll now have a three week hiatus due to the Winter Olympics. But it also had a few more twists and turns. First of all, at the weigh in, there would be a red line, and the person who fell below that with the lowest percentage of weight loss would be going home. Then, there would be the standard yellow line, which two more contestants would fall under and one of them would be going home.

Also, this week the contestants would be training in Colorado with the Olympic hopefuls. The first Olympic-related thing they did was to carry a torch replica along with para-Olympic contestant Allison Jones. Then they learned how the Olympic athletes ate, with all of their food having a “fuel” purpose. Then Koli from the gray team whined for about five minutes about feeling guilty that John went home last week and not him, that John deserved to be there more. Easy, dude!

Then the contestants got to work out with two Olympic skiiers, Julia Mancuso and Speedy Peterson. After that, speedskater JR Celski showed them how to work out on a slide board, which the speedskaters train on every day. They had a friendly competition to see who reached 500 “slides” first, and those three winners would have an advantage at the main challenge. Sam came in first, followed by Melissa and Sunshine.

Then for the main challenge, biathlete Kelly Underkofler led them in a challenge in which they had to run a lap (outdoors at gorgeous Garden of the Gods park) and then “shoot” at a target that represented another contestant. There were five targets next to each contestant’s name, and when all five were hit, that person was out. The winners of the previous challenge got a head start on shooting at the others’ targets. Everyone was quick to eliminate Lance, followed by Melissa, Miggy and Daris. The winner would be decided between O’Neal and Darrell, who chugged their lap and then had to shoot the other one off….O’Neal won, and what do you know? First prize AGAIN was immunity. Seriously, producers, can you quit giving this out like it’s candy? Mrs. Mike pointed out that this is unfair when there is a red line, and I agree.

Then, after a last chance workout with figure skater Rock Brubaker leading a boot camp, it was time to weigh in. They would be doing so this week as individuals, which meant one thing….an agonizingly long time to weigh them all in. Thank goodness for TiVo.

O’Neal went first and lost 8 pounds, but either way he had immunity. Michael was next, and lost 11 pounds, bringing him down to 432 when he had begun at 526. Stephanie lost 4, Sunshine 6, Koli 9, Andrea 7, Darrell 5 and Sam 12. So as of now, Darrell was in last place. Sherry was next and lost 3 pounds, followed by Ashley with 6. Daris lost 9 and has the highest percentage of weight loss among them all so far. Cheryl lost 3, which put her near the bottom with Darrell. Miggy was next and lost 7 pounds, bringing her down to 199, the first time she’s been below 200 in quite some time….Lance went next and lost 9 pounds. So it was now down to Melissa. Amazingly, Melissa GAINED a pound and automatically fell below the red line. I immediately thought, ” no gameplay this time,” but Mrs. Mike pointed out that her speech about wanting to go home and see her kids was quite well-rehearsed. Hmmmm. Bob and Jillian were mum, but I wonder what they were thinking.

So below the yellow line then was Cheryl and Darrell. But Alison announced that they would not be voted on by the others this week.
Instead, they would have an elimination, head-to-head challenge to determine who stayed. Their challenge was to balance a torch stem on their head while squatting. It looked to be excruciating, but both knew what was at stake. And then….that dreaded “To Be Continued” came across the screen. Which means we won’t know who went home until after the Olympics.

As for Melissa, she started the show at 233 and now weighs 175, down 58 pounds. Good for her, but I still wanna know if she threw this weigh in too.

So that’s it…we’ll see you back here after the Olympics!

Every season on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” the producers have a way of changing things up to the point of having us all scratch our heads. Last night there was more of that, though some of the curves came from natural causes. The first of those was at the start of the episode when Miggy had to call 911 in the middle of the night due to abdominal pain, and was rushed to the hospital.

Then came the return of the blue and yellow teams, who would weigh in to determine which team was coming back to the ranch. The other contestants had no idea that one team would return after 30 days, so they were all surprised and kind of nervous. Host Allison Sweeney instructed the blue and yellow teams to go and weigh in, but instead they were met in the gym by Bob and Jillian, who put them through a last chance workout.

Before they weighed in, Allison announced that not only would the winning team come back to the ranch, but that they would also have immunity the first week. To make things more interesting, they would also have the only elimination vote at the main weigh in. Wow, now that’s a curveball, and one that really made everyone else worried.

The blue team of Cherita and Vicky went first and they lost 24 and 39 pounds, respectively, for a total of 63 pounds, or 9.92%. Damn. So next was the yellow team of Sunshine and O’Neal. Gotta love that someone named Sunshine is on the yellow team, huh? Anyway, they lost 25 and 51 pounds, respectively, for a whopping 76 pounds or 11.45%. Good for them, but sad for the blue team, who took the loss in stride.

During regular workouts, Bob was really pushing Melissa, and Jillian was pushing Daris through some self-esteem issues. Then they had product placement with Jennie-O turkey, as Bob cooked them all some chili.

After that came the main challenge, and since it’s Super Bowl week in real time, the task would be to push a tackling machine back and forth, and the first player to push 1000 times won. The teams with two players would have to choose one to participate and one to be a cheerleader. But this was a valuable challenge to win, because the prize was immunity. Yikes…that makes two teams immune this week. Also, the team that came in last would have a 2-pound disadvantage at the weigh in. Well, after the red and gray teams battled, Michael of the white team cranked it up and put all of his almost 500 pounds behind it and came away with the victory. The losing team was the pink team.

Then Miggy returned, and announced that she had her appendix taken out, as well as a huge cyst in her abdomen. Yikes. And Dr. H told Miggy she could only walk for exercise, and also that they injected her body with salt water, which would put about 8-9 extra pounds on her. Not good.

Meanwhile, John, who had been working out mostly in a pool, finally worked out in the gym with everyone else and was happy to do so. Then Jillan was shown pushing Ashley harder than ever, and found out that Ashley was holding in some baggage about her dad that passed away when she was young.

After the last chance workout, it was time to weigh in. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell NBC how pissed I am that they ran half of last week’s episode at 7pm CST, opposite “American Idol.” Since I blog Idol too, I couldn’t watch Loser on TiVo delay….I had to watch it with all the commercials, making the 45 minute weigh-in just agonizing. Thanks NBC, thanks for nothing!

So the yellow team and Michael went first, since all three of them were immune. Sunshine and O’Neal each lost 5 pounds. Not great, but not bad. Michael lost 13 pounds, and has now lost 83 pounds in 5 weeks. If he reaches 100 pounds next week, he will break Rudy’s record of 100 pounds in 7 weeks set last seaon. Good for him.

Then the pink team went, and lost 15 pounds total, and 13 with the 2 pound penalty. That was good for 2.54%. The red team of Melissa and Lance lost 5 and 4 pounds, respectively, for 9 pounds total and 1.73%. That made the pink team safe and made the red team very nervous. Orange was next, and while Cheryl lost just 3 pounds, Daris dropped 12, giving them 15 pounds lost and 3.05%.

Next up was Stephanie of the purple team, who lost 5 pounds, or 2.17%. The gray team of Sam and Koli lost 10 and 6 pounds, or 2.42%. But Koli was bummed he only lost 6 when he expects double digits each week. Easy, dude! The black team of Andrea and Darrell weighed in with 5 and 8 pounds lost, or 13 total and 2.10%. All that remained to weigh in were Miggy and John, and the red team was still facing possible elimination.

Miggy, who has been walking like crazy, lost 5 pounds, or 2.37%, to remain on the ranch. Mrs. Mike and I both felt they should have given her a pass this week, but I’m glad she was able to drop 5 pounds and stay on campus. Finally it was John of the brown team. John had to lose 7 pounds, and Bob had announced in the gym that he expected the time in said gym to translate to a big number. Well, no, it didn’t…John lost just 6 pounds, and while he has lost 63 pounds off his 400-pound plus frame, it wasn’t enough this week. And since he was the only remaining brown team member, John was instantly eliminated without the yellow team having to make a decision.

It really does suck that someone that heavy who needs to be there went home at this stage, but that’s how the game is played…and the producers continually remind us that this surely is a game. But for John, it’s been good at home…he’s gone from 484 pounds down to 380, so he’s lost 104 pounds all told so far. I have a feeling either he or his brother James will win the $100K at-home prize.

So that’s it…..weird things happening at the ranch, and if you asked me who I thought might win it all, I don’t think I could tell you at this point. It’s really pretty much wide open. What do you think? Let me know in the space below, and thanks for reading!

Every season on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” seems to out-do the season before. The hit reality show returned for its ninth season last night, and as you might suspect, the contestants were larger than last season. So much so, that trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels agreed that they were intimidated by the fact that they had to whip this bunch into shape, literally.

The theme this season is families, and this time as each pair of contestants were notified that they were selected to be on the show, they also had to have their initial weigh in in public, in front of their families, friends, and entire towns. Yikes.

The biggest pair were twin brothers James and John, weighing in at 485 and 484 total almost half a ton. The biggest individual was Michael, from Chicago, who was selected with his mom, Maria. Michael weighed in at a svelte 526 pounds, the largest contestant on the show to date and naturally a tremendous challenge for himself and the trainers.

After the teams arrived at the Biggest Loser ranch, they were presented with their first challenge by host Alison Sweeney, which was to get on stationery bikes and pedal the equivalent of a marathon, 26.2 miles. Biking that distance might be akin to running or jogging 5 miles or so, something this group has probably not done in years, if ever. Anyway, the first nine teams (out of 11) to finish would get to stay, and the last two teams would be going home…already. The winner of the race would have immunity at this week’s weigh in.

As they were pedaling, I kept thinking that I hoped the two large brothers, and Michael, would not be sent home so soon. Well, the blue team’s Cherita was having bad stomach cramps and needed assistance from Dr. Huizenga, and could not continue. Her daughter finished, but the blue team, well as the yellow team of O’Neal and Sunshine, finished last. The green team of Migdalia and Miggy won the immunity.

So the two teams that lost had to hop back in the limos that brought them to the ranch, but as they began to drive away Bob and Jillian stopped the cars. They wouldn’ be staying, but they would be going home for 30 days, and then the team which lost the highest percentage of weight during that time would get to come back to the ranch.

The first morning on the ranch, Bob and Jillian turned on the fire alarm to wake everyone up and get them into the gym, where they proceeded to push the crap out of the contestants. Jillian managed to take mild-mannered Cheryl from the orange team, and bring out her inner “badass.” After the last chance workout, it was time for the weigh in.

The green team, with immunity, went first and Migdalia lost 16 pounds while Miggy lost 13, giving them 29 pounds of weight loss. Not bad at all. Then the Gray team of Sam and Koli (who, by the way, are of the same descent as Filipe and Sione, and are also cousins!) lost 18 and 29 pounds for a total of 47. Orange was next, and Cheryl lost 14 while her son Daris lost 29 for a total of 43. Daris is a cross betwen Matt Hoover from Season 2 and Justin Guarini.

The brown team of Andrea and Darrell was next and lost 14 and 30 pounds, respectively, for 44 total pounds lost. Then the brown team of James and John, and not surprisingly, they lost the exact same amount, 23 pounds each. But based on their total weight, it was a low percentage. Uh-oh. Next was the red (hillbilly) team of Melissa and Lance, who lost 19 and 21 pounds for 40 total. Mrs. Mike and I have already tabbed Melissa as the most annoying contestant this season.

Then the purple team of Patti and daughter Stephanie, and they lost 23 and 18 pounds for 41 total. Patti’s 23 pounds was the most in a single week by any female on the show, ever. Next was the pink team of Ashley and Sherry, who, with their blonde hair and pink shirts reminded us of Helen and Shannon from a few seasons back. Anyway, they lost 21 and 17 pounds for 38 total. Finally, it was Michael and Maria. Maria went first and lost 13, so Michael was told he had to have lost 25 pounds to stay on the ranch. He crushed it, losing a whopping 34 pounds, and then joking, “Are my abs showing?” Ha! So they were staying, which meant James and John had to face the prospect that one of them would be voted off the ranch.

That sucks, because those two guys both needed to be there. But that’s how they play this game. So how do you vote in this case? Well, James has a bad knee and is limited as to what he can do with workouts. John has a family and a job he would have to return to if he went home, while James was not working and could devote entire days to the gym as well as a pool at his home. After one vote for John, the next five votes went to send James home, and that’s what happened.

They showed James at home and he had lost an astounding 100 pounds in just two months. Good for him! I wonder if John was able to mirror James’ weight loss on the ranch.

So here we go folks, Season 9 is already underway, and it once again promises to be a good one. Thanks for reading and see you all next week!