It’s one of the most natural desires a woman can have – to start a family. And when Sarah Nitta experienced multiple miscarriages, it forced her to look at the reasons why, with her weight being a primary culprit. Her starting weight on Biggest Loser season 11 was 261 pounds, a lot for her small 5-foot-six-inch frame to carry. “My goal going into this was to get myself healthy enough to have a child,” she said in a post-elimination interview. Focused on getting to her finale weight goal, she said after that her first goal is to “try to carry a healthy pregnancy.”
Like most women, she has concerns about the pregnancy weight gain, but is already educating herself on the best way to go about that, citing the recommended amount of weight a woman can healthily gain for a pregnancy (about 35 pounds). She has spoken with her trainers and Biggest Loser’s Dr. Huizenga and they tell her “exercise is such an important part of pregnancy.” She also hopes to have more success in losing the weight and maintaing her new-found healthy habits after her pregnancy. “If I can’t get pregnant, then I’ve done my part [losing the weight], and we’ll try other options,” she said.
Listen now to our post-elimination interview with Sarah. She opens up about the perceived retaliation by her black team in sending her home and inadvertently being responsible for Arthur’s elimination in week 10. “I was very surprised at the decision” she says. She’s also working out at the Tapout gym in Las Vegas, with the same trainer who prepped Koli Palau and Mark Pinhasovich for the at-home prize wins. “That’s exactly what I’m shooting for,” she says of her decision to train with Robert McMullen.
Having trained on both teams this season, Sarah was able to pick and choose the workout style she preferred when she went home, which is how she ended up at Tapout which specializes in the MMA and boxing workouts she enjoys. “It’s nothing I ever thought I could do before.”
This is why she celebrates her most important lesson from Biggest Loser: believing in herself. Sarah says sure, the exercise and diet were important, but that confidence in herself is proving to be the most rewarding. She’s no longer living under the control of the crippling fear she dealt with for so long, that even prevented her from fully embracing her potential at the ranch. Sarah says “fear controlled my entire life.”
In addition to adjusting to life at home, she’s staying connected with her mom and teammate, Deni Hill. Deni sacrificed her position on the ranch in week nine in an effort to protect Sarah and the other “kids” on the team. She says the team promised to keep Sarah safe, but then turned around and eliminated her anyway, going as far as to reveal that Deni “felt very, very betrayed by the black team.” For Deni, it was a “slap in the face.” But Sarah didn’t feel that way. She didn’t think the elimination vote was a retaliatory move against her, and isn’t even upset by the decision. She was surprised though, and thought that the pull Marci had as the team leader would have moved forward her “definite thought” that Jen would be the one going home, having lost only a single pound.
