Last night the Biggest Loser contestants took a field trip to the USOlympic training site in Park City, Utah. During their visit they worked out in the Olympic Village, received a pep talk from 8-time medalist, Apolo Ohno, played a high-stakes game of curling and ran a foot-race around the bobsled track that solidified to everyone, Rachel is in-it-to-friggin-win-it, so watch out.
In the end, even though he’s already lost an impressive 104 pounds on the show, the remaining contestants chose to oust Gentleman Jay and his signature black cowboy hat from the village.
Today we talked to Jay about his tremendous weight loss, his plans for the finale, and whether he thought Bobby’s cry for help was genuine, or a clever ploy to stay on the show.
DIR: You looked great when you left the Olympic Village last night. Since returning home, what have you done to maintain your weight loss?
JAY: You know, really it’s just been the fact that I’m back to the everyday grind. Life with work and the kids. Getting kids ready for school, then working and running them around to all their activities, it’s a time management thing because I don’t get to work out for 6-8 hours a day like I could on the ranch. Right now I exercise before work and then again in the evening.
DIR:Do you think Bobby’s speech was genuine or was there a little bit of manipulative game-play involved?
JAY: Oh, there was definitely a little bit of game-play involved but hey, that’s part of the game. I knew when I hit my goal weight that my time would be coming but I think it was kind of a dumb move for the contestants to vote me off. I didn’t have enough weight to lose to be the Biggest Loser winner. In that way, Bobby is the bigger threat.
Last night, The Biggest Loser returned from a long holiday break. We noticed Bob is still proudly sporting his porn ‘stache, and we finally learned which contestant earned a spot back on the ranch – Bobby! Unfortunately, the dreaded yellow line also appeared for the first time this season, pitting Tonya against Tumi. Ultimately, the players decided it was Tumi Oguntala’s time to leave.
How did she feel about her former teammates voting her out, and how is she getting ready for the upcoming Biggest Loser finale? We spoke with Tumi this afternoon and asked a few questions about her departure.
DIR: How Did you feel about the yellow line coming in to play, pitting you against Tanya, and your former teammates’ decision to vote you off?
Tumi: “Well – pause – to be honest, I was hoping for a little team solidarity. I’m disappointed but there are no hard feelings. Let’s just say, what happens on the ranch stays on the ranch.” (more…)
It looked the white team would be in trouble again, but instead it was Bob’s blue team members that went up for elimination. In a heartbreaking moment for Bob, Holley Mangold’s 3-pound weight loss dropped her below the red line and she was eliminated.
This was the first week with the trainer saves out of the picture, and Holley’s elimination came as a visible blow to Bob. We spoke with Holley about her feelings about not being saved, and what her plans are now that she’s off the ranch.
“I’m very much planning on going to Rio [Summer Olympics 2024],” she said. “That was my whole reason for going on the show…to have a chance at getting a medal.”
Last night on the The Biggest Loser, an unlucky roll of the die put Jillian’s White Team in jeopardy for the second week in a row, and Fernanda took the fall. We spoke to her about her short time on the ranch, what Dr. H. had to say about her overall health, and how much weight she’s lost since the elimination.
Nobody likes week 2 on The Biggest Loser ranch. Some even talk about the week 2 curse. Fernanda isn’t superstitious but wishes she’d had one more week to show what she could do. “Now that I’ve been home, my weight loss fluctuates high one week, then low the next,” she explained. “One week I’ll lose 10 pounds, the next week I’ll lose 2. Everybody’s body is different.”
During the first week, Fernanda lost an encouraging 12 pounds but at last night’s weigh-in, the scale only budged by two pounds.
This may be the second episode of Season 15, but Fernanda is actually the first contestant eliminated. In a new season twist, trainers are allowed to save one eliminated contestant and Jillian used hers right out of the gate on Craig, the warehouse supervisor from North Carolina. We asked Fernanda how she felt about Craig receiving the save. “I was totally fine with it,” she replied. “I was so concerned about working hard to save the team in case my number came up that I didn’t think about it. He deserves to be here. I was happy for him.”
Few people leave Biggest Loser with as little drama as Jennifer Jacobs did in season 11’s week 13. With a weight loss of zero, and one of only two people on her team (lead by trainer Brett Hoebel), Jennifer was automatically eliminated from the game. She changed team shirts six times this season, she guesses more than anyone else ever has, and said when it came time for her to go home she wanted to be “tested based on merit.” When that option arose last night, that’s how she exited.
We spoke to Jenn following her elimination, and she shared with us a desire to pursue a music career. “Music is a big part of my life,” she told us, and she made it clear that in the coming months we should expect to see an album. She also told us about the new person she’s become thanks to her time at Biggest Loser. The outside now matches how she feels on the inside. Hear our entire interview now, and read on to learn more about Jenn’s journey.
It took Justin Pope a while to reconcile himself to being “obese.” He says he knew he was overweight, or even fat, but obese felt like a label that belonged to someone else. A starting weight of 365 pounds on Biggest Loser season 11 made Justin face that fact, as well as some of the things that just weren’t working in his life.
“I’m educated now,” says Justin. “I know what I need to do to make myself better.” He says he found himself during his 12 weeks on the Biggest Loser Ranch, a self he had lost. He also discovered the joy he gets out of helping others.
In our post-elimination interview with Justin, he talks to us about the “Justin Callout Shirts,” something he started to help motivate some friends. They workout together at 5am and 8am, and he introduces them to self-confidence, better dietary habits and a fitness regimen. He also talks to us about the key differences between training with the new trainers, Brett and Cara, versus the tried-and-true regimen of Bob and Jillian.
One of the major success stories of The Biggest Loser season 11, Marci Crozier was actually able to reach her goal weight before being eliminated in week 11. Besides her daughter, many on the ranch saw Marci as a motivator and surrogate mom. However, she did not let her compassion for others sidetrack her from reaching her own goals, and attributes this success in part to her earlier life as a collegiate athlete.
At the ranch, one of the most important lessons that Marci says she learned is the importance of motivation. She says that for her, losing weight was about more than just food and exercise, but also about finding a balance between mind, body and faith. Marci says her faith has also been a big part of helping her find the strength to reach her goals.
It’s one of the most natural desires a woman can have – to start a family. And when Sarah Nittaexperienced 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.
It’s been a very long time since we’ve seen such a heart wrenching episode of Biggest Loser. We haven’t missed a show since season five began and this will undoubtedly go down as one of the most unforgettable episodes. There were few dry eyes as we watched Arthur Wornumwalk in to the gym wearing a red shirt, a symbol that he’d been traded to the other team where he had no alliances; and should he end-up in the elimination room everyone knew he’d be sent home.
“I feel like I’m being dressed for my funeral” said a tearful Arthur as he walked on the scale one last time. Jillian Michaels was crying, “his girls” were crying on the black team, and most of us at home were crying big ‘ole alligator tears. And after last night’s elimination, Bob Harpersent Arthur a text message saying “I’m still in tears.”
However, you can’t cry for Arthur for too long. He’s resilient, and exudes a positivity and optimism that we wish was fully contagious like a virus. You’ll hear his high spirits in our post-elimination interview below. He tells us he has no animosity toward the red team, and knows he was victim to the “us v. them” mentality. He also shares how trainers Bob and Jillian have kept in touch since he left the ranch.
You can credit Bob and Jillian with a lot of Arthur’s success, but in the end it all goes to him. He lost 117 pounds, off of a starting weight of 507 pounds, while at the ranch. Working out six to eight hours a day at home, he’s now within 100 pounds of his goal.
“This isn’t to win the at-home prize, that’s the icing on the cake, this is to win my life back,” says Arthur about his weight loss. “For the first time in a long time, it’s within reach.” So close in fact that he’s confident that the at-home prize of $100,000 could very well be his. Don’t let a starting weight of 507 fool you, last year’s “heaviest contestant ever,” Michael Ventrella, became season 9’s Biggest Loser champ.
Arthur’s not taking the easy road. Part of that eight-hour-a-day workout, which he calls “my daily job,” is walking the five miles to the gym, and five miles home. In an interview with his loudest cheerleader, father and teammate, Jesse Wornum, he told us that Arthur has a tremendous support network at home, including his wife, mother, aunts, uncles and friends.
We have no doubt we’re going to see Arthur take this one all the way. And maybe even a little bit further!
With the elimination ofJaquin “Q” Allenfrom Biggest Loser this week, the red team is officially out of this game. During week five he was confronted by teammates for not fulling committing to being there, and his wife Larialmy‘s request to send her home bought him one more week. For whatever reason, Q still didn’t meet his teammates’ expectations and with the lift of those silver tray lids, he went back to South Carolina.
Watch our exclusive one-on-one interview with Q, sponsored by MultiGrainCheerios, in which we see this funny’s guy personality, hear a lot about the Biggest Loser Resort experience, and how his on-show training prepared him to workout at home.
After spending one week apart, the longest the couple had ever been separated, Q says his wife was waiting with open arms and “didn’t shun me.”
We spoke with Q following his elimination and he talks about how the couple has grown as a result of their shared Biggest Loser experience. He says things have only gotten better, and they’ve learned to stop being each others enabler. Plus, Q talks about what life was like for the Unknowns at the new Malibu location for Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge, a place he calls “Disney World for fat people.” Listen now:
Five weeks in to a season of Biggest Loser and we usually think we know all we can about the contestants. Not true for Larialmy Allen (pronounced Lair-Uh-Me). She was fortunate to have four weeks of immunity as a member of the “Unknowns” team, training at the Biggest Loser Resort in Malibu with new trainers Brett Hoebel and Cara Castronuova. She was eliminated at the end of week five, the first week all contestants were reunited back at the ranch. (more…)
Published content is provided from businesses that have been compensated by this website. This can potentially affect the appearance of the stated products. Not all companies or products are represented, but efforts are made to offer full transparency. Any and all published editorial content is offered without any sort of influence.
It’s one of the most natural desires a woman can have – to start a family. And when 
It’s been a very long time since we’ve seen such a heart wrenching episode of 
