After watching the finale of “The Biggest Loser” last night, and feeling all those heartwarming feelings for the winner and everyone else who lost a LOT of weight, reality set in this morning when I crunched the numbers. Let’s recap….oh but first, make sure to check out my review of The Biggest Loser Meal Plans by eDiets on my food blog, Mikey’s Kitchen.

First, host Alison Sweeney brought out the two contestants vying for the final spot to compete for the title, Ada and Elizabeth. Ada had been nicknamed “The Terminator” by her fellow contestants and as expected, she won the final spot in landslide over Elizabeth, who had been below the yellow line multiple times this season. So Elizabeth was escorted backstage where she would compete for the $100K “at-home” prize. They then introduced the trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels, and told them they would have two more trainers in Season 11 that they would also be competing against. How awesome is that?

Then they brought out the first round of contestants to weigh in.
Adam lost 182 pounds, or 45.27%. Nice way to start, and dude looks really good. Allie lost 74 pounds, or 22.98%. Sorry, but I barely remember her! Tina lost 72 pounds, or 27.38%; and Elizabeth lost 71 pounds, for 29.1%. Even she looked pretty good.

Next up was Brendan, who lost 117 pounds, for 32.32%. Sophia, who could have gone far but was sent home I believe in Week 1, lost just 65 pounds for 23.90%. Lisa lost 97 pounds, down from 288 to 191, but she didn’t look like a 191-pound woman at all. She must be like 6’3″ is all I can think of. Anyway, that was good for 33.68 %, so Adam still had a big lead.

The next group came out–Anna lost 109 pounds, or 33.03%; Jesse lost 166 pounds, down from 369 to 203. Wow! But he was one pound shy of passing Adam, at 44.99%. Burgandy was next and lost 64 pounds, or 27.7%.

Then came Rick, who unexpectedly knocked Adam out of the top spot by losing 165 pounds, or 47.14%. Good for him! Jessica was next and lost 92 pounds, or 32.62%; and Aaron lost 172 pounds, good for 36.75% (he started at a whopping 468, and got down to 296).

Finally there was just one more at-home contestant to weigh in–Mark. Do the producers think we’re stupid? Why would one person weigh in by himself? Why not pair Elizabeth with him? Well, because they already knew he won. Mark lost 213 pounds, down from 421 to 208, for 50.59%! Wow, now that’s awesome. So Mark won the $100K.

Then it was time to bring Ada back out, but first some promo for the new season that begins January 4….only 3 weeks away. This show must be raking in the advertising money, becasue how else would you explain just two Tuesdays off between seasons? Anyway, Ada was joined by fellow finalists Frado and Patrick, aka “The Alliance” along with Brendan.

Frado was the biggest loser on the ranch, so he got to choose the order. He wanted to go first, followed by Ada and Patrick. Frado lost 162 pounds, down from 367 to 205. Frado, of course, is a great story because he is off all of his diabetes meds. Really great for him. He lost 44.14%, making it difficult right off the bat for Ada and Patrick. Ada lost 99 pounds, down from 258 to 159, for just 38.37%. That, incidentally, was much better than Elizabeth’s 29.1%. Good job, America. It also was nice to see that Ada has reconciled with her family.

Finally, it was Patrick’s turn. Everyone could look at him and know that he won, which he did…..Patrick went from 400 to 219, a 181 pound weight loss, or 45.25%. So not only did Patrick win the show, he also got a job as an instructor at a “weight loss” camp in South Carolina, plus he won the $250K grand prize. Now that’s a great story and a happy ending.

But wait, I just went to the video replay booth. Remember a few weeks back, when Frado could have been eliminated but Mark instead sent Lisa home? Mark claimed he wanted to compete against the best. Frado, Brendan and Patrick chuckled at that afterward, joking about how their Alliance was all-powerful and Mark played into their game-playing hands. So the next week when Mark was up for elimination against Elizabeth, Patrick blew Mark away by sending him home.

And last night, Mark won the “at-home” prize, but Mark also lost 5% more than Patrick did. Folks, do not think for a minute that gameplay doesn’t enter in. For that matter, Rick and Adam both lost more weight than Patrick did. But they were both sent home weeks ago in gameplay maneuvers. So there you have it. I’m happy as heck for Patrick, but Mark deserved to win this.

Thanks for reading everyone, and see you in three weeks. Happy holidays!

The food challenges are always interesting on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” Contestants can indulge (or not) to obtain some sort of prize that will give them an advantage in the game. This week it was cupcakes, but the prize was the biggest potentially in the history of the show. Finding the one-pound advantage card under the cupcake would be one thing, but then they could hold it over and let the card appreciate in value, giving that person two pounds next week, three pounds the following week, and up to eight pounds. Wow. But as some of the contestants pointed out, doing so would also put a target on that person’s back. Very true. So most of them didn’t even attempt it, but Adam and Rick did as well as Elizabeth, and Adam won, but not after ingesting about 1300 calories worth of cakes.

Then host Alison Sweeney introduced celebrity chef Curtis Stone, who lo and behold had made some of the cupcakes–100-calorie versions of higher calorie cakes. Most of the women were swooning over Curtis as they do every season. Then they showed Aaron buddying up to Adam, and that’s good for Adam who will now need all the friends he can get.

Then Alison announced that this week there would be both a yellow and a red line. Whoever fell under the red line would go home automatically, and those under the yellow would compete in a challenge again. When the contestants then told this to Bob and Jillian, as well as tell them about the cupcakes, they were both surprisingly calm. In previous seasons, the thought of anyone indulging like that would set these two off, but not now…they have come to accept the “game,” but then again…were they holding their anger back for the gym for Adam and the rest of the cupcake eaters?

During the workout, Elizabeth kept using her asthma as an excuse with Jillian, and Jillian would have none of that. Then they showed Frado keeping a low profile in the gym, until Bob found him and started working him even harder. And Mark wrenched his back.

Then (big surprise) came the middle of the week weigh-in again. Here were the results:

Mark -8
Elizabeth -6
Patrick -10
Lisa -7
Aaron -12
Rick -9
Jesse -8
Burgandy -5
Ada -10
Jessica -7
Brendan -11
Frado -20 (remember he had immunity last week and lost just 3)
Adam -10
Sophia -2

But as Sophia was crying the whole time she was weighing in, it was almost like she threw herself under the bus to go home on purpose. And so home she went, falling below the red line and keeping Mark on the ranch.

There were six below the line then: Mark, Elizabeth, Lisa, Jesse, Burgandy and Jessica. Mostly women again! But Frado, with the highest percentage of weight loss, was able to save one of them this week.

Jillian pulled Ada aside, because despite losing 10 pounds and just killing it on the scale each week, she kept considering those losses to be failures. Turns out her parents telling her she was a failure most of her life contributed greatly to this. Then Bob invited the six below the line to his house for a vegan dinner, prepared in all likelihood by Bob’s private chef.

After that, Dr. H was working with Burgandy and it turns out she has tendinitis in her leg, and has to wear a brace. That means only walking as far as working out. Yikes. Frado then used his save with Jessica, who was the closest one to being above the yellow line.
And with Burgandy not being able to compete in the challenge, she was automatically up for elimination. Fair? Not really, but oh well.

So the competition was between Mark, Elizabeth, Lisa and Jesse. They had to roll giant rolls of carpet across a big open space, and then run back and hit a bell to win. Hmmm….not exactly fair to Lisa and Elizabeth with those big beasts in Mark and Jesse…though Jesse is the smallest dude and Mark has a bad back. But big surprise…Mark was first and Jesse second, leaving it between Elizabeth and Lisa. Lisa was third, putting Elizabeth up for elimination.

So it was between Burgandy and Elizabeth, and after splitting the first two votes, Burgandy received three in a row and was sent home. So this week Sophia and Burgandy went home, and Sophia has gone from 272 pound to 225; and Burgandy from 231 to 180. Not bad!

But they are dropping like flies now, and down to 12. And it’s only October 13. Aha…..but someone will be entering the ranch next week….remember those contestants from the first episode who lost those challenges? They will be back, or at least compete again to earn a spot on campus.

Well, they sure have succeeded at making this season interesting, haven’t they? Thanks for reading folks, and see you next week….

I am digging this new format on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” Let’s fact it, the show was beginning to grow stale, as some of these reality shows do, but the producers decided to make it so that the contestants have no margin to slack from week to week. Everyone is in danger of being eliminated every week, and that’s how it should be. But they have taken things a few steps further, and it makes for a much more intriguing and enjoyable watch right now.

So last night, the episode began with Tina saying to all of her co-contestants that she changed her mind, and that she was going to ask if she could go home and leave the show. Say what? Yeah, the other 14 said the same thing. Well, 13, because Lisa also said she was going to go home…not to take care of her own family, but to take care of Allie, the person who was eliminated last week and lives 10 miles away from her. Um, okay. This of course infuriated everyone else. For all that you have to go through to get onto that campus, to say you want to exit after a week on it is ridiculous and, in Tina’s case, horribly unfair to Allie. Frado called them “selfish” and Brendan said, in his New England accent, that it was “GAH-bage.” Exactly.

Trainer Bob Harper agreed, but said he thought that after the first elimination, it made the other contestants a bit crazy. Then he proceeded to work them out, hard. He said that because he didn’t know when to expect a weigh-in, that every workout had to be a Last Chance Workout. Yikes.

Then Jillian pulled aside all of the women, saying that she was somewhat annoyed that seven women wound up below the yellow line the night before, and that they all needed to fight harder to stay on campus.

After that, host Alison Sweeney introduced tennis star Anna Kournikova, who took part in a tennis-based workout and made some of the guys googly-eyed. After this came a tennis ball-based pop challenge, in which they contestants had to clean up tennis balls from the court and put them in bins assigned to each other. The first to 25 balls was out, and so on until one person remained, and that person would have immunity this week. Tina was the first one out, big surprise. But it came down to three guys who were quickly forming an alliance–Brendan, Frado and Patrick. And Frado won…then they showed the three of them in a room later confirming the alliance. Oh, but first Alison told them they would be weighing in the following day, another pop weigh in and another way the producers are not letting anyone slack.

There would be another split yellow line this week, meaning with Frado having immunity, seven would be above the line and seven below. Awesome! Frado weighed in first and lost 3 pounds, and after Jillian said she didn’t suspect him of gameplay, Frado basically admitted he was playing the game and that he would have been stupid not to–his words!

Then the weigh in went like this:
Burgandy -1
Tina -4
Sophia -6
Ada -6
Lisa -5
Aaron -7
Adam -12
Elizabeth -3
Rick -8
Mark -11
Jessica -7
Jesse -10
Patrick -12
Brendan -5

Adam had the highest percentage of weight loss and was able to save one person the way that Rick did last week. Meanwhile, below the line were Burgandy, Tina, Sophia, Lisa, Aaron, Elizabeth and Brendan. Five women and two men. Jillian worked out Aaron harder than everyone else, and then after them showing Burgandy and Aaron pleading their cases to Adam, Adam wound up saving Aaron.

So now you had five women and Brendan to compete in the challenge. This is another area of this season that is better. They don’t make the entire cast compete, only those below the line. But this one was different than last week. They showed four piles of sand, and had to dig through to find a giant brass ring, four of them. Whoever did not grab a ring would be up for elimination. Easy enough, right? Wrong. They also had four dump trucks that dumped tonnage of sand on each box, making it 100 times more diifficult to dig through. Yikes.

The first one to grab a ring was Elizabeth, and then while Brendan uncovered the next one, Sophia grabbed it before he could. Ouch. But then Brendan found his own, and Burgandy grabbed the last one. So it was down to Tina and Lisa. Hmmm, interesting. The two people who claimed they wanted to go home (and that since changed their tune) were up for elimination. Oh, but it’s worth noting that during their little “interviews” they did during the sand box challenge, the contestants were cliche-ing the crap out of us, using terms like “do or die” and “hell or high water.” Nicely done.

At the elimination, it was a clean sweep to send Tina home, and it was clear that everyone was so bitter about her announcement earlier about wanting to go home. So she ultimately got that wish. But Tina showed that her situation was a bit different…her and her daughter had applied for the show together, but Tina made it and her daughter didn’t, and the daughter was the one pushing to get on in the first place. So she went home to continue the journey and do it with her daughter. And so far, she has gone from 263 down to 205, and her daughter has lost a whopping 85 pounds. Good for them!

Okay, down to 14…and next week they are showing a red line as well as a high yellow. The producers are absolutely not messing around this season, making for a much more riveting show. So I thank them for that, and will see you all next week!

The producers of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” are not messing around this season. Any chance contestants thought they had to skate through for half the season are gone, and I gotta be honest–I like it. More on that in a bit.

But first, let’s start with the individuals at the ranch and realizing that Aaron, the 400 pound guy who lost the 500-step competition last week, was let in to the ranch by Bob Harper. Somehow the first part of the show was cut off on my DVR, but I’m so glad that they did this. They also had a soft spot for Elizabeth, who had collapsed during the competition last week. But the honeymoon was over in a hurry when they were escorted to the Biggest Loser gym. Bob and Jillian worked them over like crazy, and there was a lot of puking and passing out. 58 year old Tina fell off the treadmill and 54-year old Rick, who is a physical therapist, kept passing out.

Dr. Huizenga met with each contestant and they all had horrible blood sugar and fat content levels and cholesterol. Then Bob and Jillian had a nutrition counseling meeting with everyone, and some of them talked about their favorite sandwiches with names like “The Grave Digger.” Then as they were working out, big Brendan said to Bob, “Are we almost done?” Uh, not good. Bob worked him over until Brendan literally had snot pouring out of his nose. Awesome. Then those aforementioned sandwiches were flown in for Bob and Jillian to analyze. Yikes. Prime rib and french fries on a whole loaf of Italian bread? Double cheeseburger with double bacon and double mayo? Holy crap. Brendan said he would regularly pound one of those burgers with large fries and 2 liters of soda. I am kind of at a loss for words.

Anyway, after two days of working out, Alison threw a curve ball. They would all be weighing in. Now, consider that while they were on the ranch two days, it had been two weeks since they had those initial competitions in various cities. But wait, there is more. With 16 spots on the board, the yellow line was placed in the middle. So 8 would be safe, and 8 would face elimination. No skating!

Ironically, there were 7 guys and 1 woman above the line, with Patrick and 7 women below the line. Here is how it broke down in pounds lost:

Mark 41; Tina 16; Patrick 22; Rick 36 (leader); Allie 17; Frado 27; Sophia 14; Ada 18; Burgandy 12; Jesse 30; Jessica 14; Adam 34; Lisa 16; Brendan 31; Elizabeth 12; and Aaron 30.

Rick then was asked to choose one player from below the line to be safe and he chose Patrick. I’m sure that couldn’t have pleased the ladies, but he lost 22 pounds, down from 400 to 378.

Then, the remaining 7 had to have sprint races, in which the winner grabbed a flag at the end. They would do these sprints until there were 2 contestants remaining, and those two would face a vote for elimination by those who were above the yellow line. Sophia was the first to win, followed by Elizabeth, Burgandy (after almost throwing punches at Jessica for cutting her off), Lisa and Jessica. That left Tina and Allie, the oldest and youngest, respectively.

Tina had expressed to everyone that she wasn’t sure she wanted to be there, but in the end she had 2 votes for elimination while Allie had 5, so Allie went home. She was kind of scared and her fears were re-affirmed by the fact that her mom didn’t want to support her in her weight loss. So Allie reached out to Danny from Season 8, who was at the event last week in which Allie made her way onto the show. Danny coached her and she has lost 60 pounds so far, down from 322 to 262. Good for her!

So now we’re down to 15 and it’s a long season ahead! I like the twists this time though….keep these people on their toes! And I think I’m pulling for Aaron, though it’s early. Hard not to like that guy.

Okay, thanks for reading and see you back here next week!

One thing you can say about NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” they do like to shake things up and keep viewers interested. Last night’s Season 10 premiere was no exception, as they changed the way that they choose contestants. The theme this season is “pay it forward,” so they had various contestants from past seasons involved as host Alison Sweeney and trainers Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper traveled to seven different cities to choose their players this season.

The first stop was in Michigan, and a crowd of people gathered to have Bob work them out, and then the three potential contestants were introduced, but they were from different areas–Minnesota, Illinois and Ohio. I’m not sure how they figured this out, but there you have it. Anyway, these contestants were Jesse, Sophia and Aaron. They each weighed in–at 369, 272, and 468, respectively, and told their stories. Then they were told they had to race to do 500 step-ups, and the first two to 500 would be going to the Biggest Loser ranch. Say what? You mean to tell me a 468 pound dude has a chance in that race? Of course not. Jesse and Sophia were headed to the ranch and Aaron was not…for now at least.

This was duplicated in six other cities, with the step up competition being held in three of them and a 1-mile race in the others. Seriously, they had 400 pound people running a mile, and Bob telling us TV viewers that everyone should be able to do that. Really, dude? You don’t see the danger in that? Sure enough, 391 pound Corey fell twice near the finish line and needed oxygen. And 244 pound Elizabeth collapsed doing the step ups. There were positive stories though, like 400 pound Patrick winning his 1-mile race.

So the 14 contestants headed to the ranch–Jesse, Sophia, Adam, Ada, Burgandy, Tina, Rick, Patrick, Jessica, Mark, Allie, Lisa, Alfrado, and Brendan–will get there only to have more twists thrown their way. There were preview clips of a yellow line the first week that had more contestants below the yellow line than above it. And they showed Bob with Aaron and some of the other “eliminated” contestants. Surely, all of them will be back on the ranch or have a chance to get there. I am kind of happy about that, because guys like Aaron need to be there.

Other than that, it’s kind of hard to tell what will happen. There are no families this year, so no alliances between contestants just yet. There are whiners and criers and cancer survivors and lots of man boobs. And next week, we should have a better idea of how this season intends to play itself out.

So let’s get on board and enjoy the ride this season!