My Biggest Loser Blog

This week’s excuse on the Biggest Loser? Exercise is Boring

On this week’s episode, March 27, 2012, we saw some season 12 contestants return to the Biggest Loser. Becky, Vinny and Antoine.

Why have they returned to the Biggest Loser Ranch? Well,  they will be judging the contestants’ dishes in this week’s cooking challenge which was a little later in the show.

To start we learn that 1 in 6 Americans struggle with hunger.

and more than 16 million kids do not have enough food to nourish their growing minds and body. These are sad statistics that I don’t think that many people realize.

Since 1982 Paul Newman and Newman’s Own has given over $330 Million to thousands of charities.

Having been there and done that I understand more than many how awful it is to not only go to bed hungry but to spend the day that way too.

Luckily that was a long time ago but once you have been in a situation like that the memory lingers on. This has caused me to have issues with not having enough food in the house in case of emergencies and I am sure that it has something to do with my weight issues. Once you know that deep hunger you never forget it and you never want o go through it again.

Ok, now it is time for the pop challenge.

The contestants have to load 150 boxes each of food on trucks. Half are 15 pounds and half are 20 pounds.

The first player to do it will be lucky enough to have 30,749 pounds of food donated to their local food bank. That equals 1 pound of food for every pound of weight ever lost on the Biggest Loser.

The contestant that loads all of their boxes first will also win a one pound advantage. This is a wonderful challenge with winners all around. Not only does the winner get the 1 pound advantage but their local community benefits too.

We’d like to thank Newman’s Own for supplying the food that is to be donated and for all of the food that they have donated to help to feed the hungry.

It didn’t take long to see that this challenge was really a competition between Kim and Mark with Kim in the lead for most of it. Shortly into this competition Kim had loaded half her boxes already but a miss-step in her strategy was her downfall.

Kim had chosen to load the lighter weight boxes first which WAS quicker but left her loading the heavier boxes once she was already starting to get tired.

Mark’s strategy just the opposite and that was what won him the 1 pound advantage. The winner of this challenge was Mark though Kim put up a good fight and it was pretty close up until the last.

After Mark loaded all of his boxes we learned that if the other players finished the challenge that everybody’s hometown would get a truck full of food too.

So, Mark asked if he could help and Alison said “Yes” and he went over and started helping Jeremy. Once his boxes were all loaded then they all helped Chris, Kim and so on until everyone’s truck was loaded.

I liked how everyone was helping everyone. It was a very touching part of this week’s Biggest Loser. How much nicer than all the drama that we were seeing for so long this season.

Bob gives Megan a video camera so she can produce a video diary of what she does this week when he is not on the ranch.

Bob takes his contestants on a bike ride. Conda complained the whole time but Megan showed us what she can do and she did a great job!

Dolvet decided to spice things up a bit, and show everyone that exercise need not be boring, by taking his contestants to a Zumba class. The contestants found that it made exercise seem more like fun than exercise.

We saw a whole new side to Buddy. I got such a kick out of him. He just seemed to bloom and this became one of my favorite parts of this week’s episode.

Then Dolvett announced each contestant’s starting weight and had them tell their current weight. Everyone in the class was amazed at how much weight the Biggest Loser contestants had all lost.

Then it was off to the grocery store for the contestants to start their next challenge. They had to come up with a recipe for the upcoming cooking challenge and they only had 7 minutes to get all the ingredients to create their chosen recipe.

7 minutes in an unfamiliar store is not a lot of time which the contestants found out. Chris especially had a hard time with this when she was unable to find the honey easily. She finally managed to locate it though.

Now Jeremy was a story all his own JLOL. He decided to make French toast which I guess is about the extent of his culinary ability. He got bread, bananas and some other items. Time was running out but he made it across the finish line with just seconds to spare only to discover that he was missing a key ingredient……

EGGS!

What to do? What to do? You can’t make French toast without eggs. The other contestants ribbed Jeremy a bit. You only need 2 ingredients to make French toast and Jeremy forgot one of them.  

Ok so when they get back at the ranch, Alison reminds them that they will have 20 minutes to cook their meals and the winner gets $1,000 per pound that they lose this week.

 Here is a breakdown of who is cooking what:

Chris is cooking Broccoli & Cheese stuffed Chicken with Orange Honey Dipping Sauce. 

Buddy is making Tropical Grilled Chicken Salad.  

 Kim is making Teriyaki Beef on a Portobello Mushroom – which she has never cooked before.

Megan is making Seared Tilapia on Grilled Vegetables. 

Conda is making Spicy Cabbage Stew with Ground Turkey.

And Jeremy? In trying to find a way to use his French toast ingredients, minus the crucial eggs, Jeremy decided to cook his bananas and took the last large burner which was what Chris needed to cook her Broccoli & Cheese stuffed Chicken.

Chris is complaining that Jeremy has a large burner and all that is left are small burners that don’t put out enough heat. 

Jeremy finally takes his fried bananas off the heat and Chris moves in, but as time runs out, she finds her chicken is still pink inside.  Time runs out and Chris tells us she is mortified that the chicken is not completely cooked. 

Alison then introduces Vinnie, Antone and Becky from Season 12 who will judge their meals.  

They all look fantastic! 
Jeremy is first to take his dish in to the judges. He serves them his ‘Jeremy’s Banana Surprise’ -a whole grain bread covered with lowfat cream cheese and strawberry jam and then topped with cooked banana and apples.

Total calories of 208, total fat 2g and sodium 417 mg. 

The judges couldn’t believe it took Jeremy the whole 20 minutes to prepare his dish.

Then Megan served her tilapia

Total 430 calories, fat 21g and 859 mg sodium.  The judges are impressed up until they saw the sodium content of her dish.

Conda  served her cabbage stew

Total 305 calories, 8g fat, 517mg sodium.  Vinnie loved it.  Conda returns to the kitchen and tells them “Done, See ya…. Winning”

Chris goes in to serve her broccoli stuffed chicken breast – 393 calories, 15g fat, 551mg sodium.  She does not want to serve it because the chicken is not completely cooked.   Antone noticed that Chris’s chicken is not done. Chris tells them she knew it was a risk, but she is not on a cooking show, she is on a weight-loss show and they should have given her more time. 

I think that she should have mentioned that she only had a small burner to cook her chicken.

Antone was not impressed to hear Chris giving an excuse in the ‘season of no excuses’.

Mark served his Marinated Chicken

Total 446 calories, 24g fat, 599 mg sodium.  Antone told Becky and Vinnie that adding feta cheese raised the calories and fat content and was not necessary for flavor

Buddy serves his tropical chicken

Total 432 calories, 28g fat, 316mg sodium.  All three judges are appalled to find out Buddy used real mayo and felt that he should have used low fat mayo instead.

Kim brings in her Teriyake beef – 330 calories, 17g fat, 468mg sodium.  Antone says the dish was fantastic.

Kim walks back into the kitchen and says “They said that they like Jeremy’s better”

Megan said “They did not!” and everyone chuckled.

The judges came in and announced Kim as the winner.

Antone called Chris on her raw chicken in front of everyone. I felt bad for her. How was she to know that she would end up with a small burner? Who would expect Jeremy to cook bananas? And it seems to me that Chris is a bit of a shy person. She was so quiet when she first came on the Biggest Loser and has finally stared to open up and really shine lately.

Antone bringing up her mistake in front of everyone embarrassed her. I can understand that. But when all was said and done it turned out that this awful calamity for Chris was an opportunity for her learn.

How many of us need to use our awful moments as opportunities to learn? Probably many of us.

I love Bob’s outfit that he wore for the last chance workout. Too cute when Bob walked in wearing his striped t-shirt thinking it looks like he is a referee and Chris says to him “I’m trying to figure out if this outfit has anything to do with our workout today”

I think that it was Conda that said “It’s a referee. He’s a referee”

Then Chris pipes up with “Or jail!” And everyone laughed.

Bob chuckled and said about workouts don’t need to be boring and neither do your workout clothes J

The weigh in:

Kim   171 to 164  -7  4.09%  (and wins $7000)
Conda  217 to 210  -7  3.23%
Chris  174 to 170  -4  2.30%
Jeremy 266 to 260  -6  2.26%
Buddy  275 to 269  -6  2.18%

Megan  195 to 191  -4  2.05%
Mark   200 to 200  -0  with one pound advantage .5%

Megan and Mark are below the yellow line and up for elimination.  Alison congratulates Kim for winning $7000 and being the Biggest Loser of the week.

So it ends up with Mark and Megan being below the yellow line. Considering that Mark didn’t lose any weight at all I think that he should be the one to go home this week.

Alas, it was Megan who was sent home. But she seems to be doing great at home and is now engaged to be married. It seems that her boyfriend will be supportive of her in her weight loss goals as he has lost weight since Megan has been on the Biggest Loser Ranch.

***UPDATE*** It seems that not only is Megan getting married but that Conda is going to be one of her bridesmaids. Hmmm, Conda voted Megan off the ranch yet she gets to be a bridesmaid? Either Megan is VERY forgiving or else there is a lot that goes on at the Biggest Loser Ranch that we don’t see and maybe Conda isn’t quite as bad as we all thought? Then again, she DID say and do all of those things or else Biggest Loser couldn’t have videotaped them.

What are your thoughts on this?

Now don’t forget that Biggest Loser will only be 1 hour April 3, 2012

Chuckle for the day?

‘I want to get a dog and name her Naked so I can tell people that I need to go walk naked down the street’ LOL