The Biggest Loser certainly doesn’t know how to rip the proverbial bandaid off an uncomfortable situation quickly and painlessly. No, they like to let the pain linger. For Darrell Hough, his elimination wasn’t a dramatic five-minute segment at the end of the episode, instead, it was a dramatic five-minute segment that segued into a two-week cliffhanger that wrapped with another five-minute segment.
In one of those fateful twists of play Biggest Loser is known for, Darrell and Cheryl George fell below the yellow line, and then had to face-off in an awkward and painful final challenge to see who would stay and who would go. Last a little longer than six minutes balancing a torch on his head while maintaining a squat position, the pain got the best of him and Darrell was eliminated. He shared a tearful goodbye with his daughter and teammate Andrea Hough, but in speaking with him today there were no signs of the self-disappointment he expressed at the time. Instead, Darrell sounds confident and proud of the progress he’s making on his own.
We asked Darrell what it’s been like to lose weight as a male, a “sport,” if you will, that’s typically been reserved for women. He says the only weight loss successes he’s ever really seen have come from women, and he usually only sees guys gain instead of lose. But now, in light of his own success, he says “guys are coming out of the woodwork,” talking about a subject they just don’t talk about. He gets asked about his workouts, calorie intake and handling other weight-related situations. He says it’s been positive reinforcement.
So what is he responding to those questions from his peers? Well, he credits his now 140-pound weight loss with maintaing the Biggest Loser diet. He says “my diet mirrors what we were taught at the ranch.” That means he’s eating four meals each day and finding variety by using recipes from the Biggest Loser Cookbooks.
Being that he’s back at work, running a printing press in a large print facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Darrell says that he doesn’t have near the time to dedicate to working out as he did at the ranch, but that’s not an excuse. Instead, Darrell says his workouts are just much more intense, so he can squeeze in a greater calorie burn into a shorter amount of time. And he squeezes in exercise where he can get it. For instance, at work, he walks about 20,000 steps each day (double the average recommendation). If he needs to get from point A to point B, he picks up the pace so he’s walking with higher intensity and says he walks everywhere “as fast as I can.”
Darrell admits he never recognized the impact of his “couch potato body” until he arrived at the ranch. There’s no doubt that couch potato lifestyle has been left far behind as he continues his remarkable weight loss journey at home.