dingoRUE

Ever wonder what happened to people after they leave The Biggest Loser? Fact is that most of them gain some of the weight back. Some of them even gain all of the weight back and then some. At least there are more success stories than The Bachelor can claim, though. After eight seasons and 206 contestants, tonight, in a special Wednesday edition of The Biggest Loser, we visit more than 40 former contestants, some loved and some hated, to find out where they are now.

Jerry Skeabeck from season 6 was Dr. H’s biggest surprise throughout all the seasons. He wasn’t sure he could make it through this alive. Today, Jerry is down from his starting weight of 380 pounds to 262 pounds now. His rude awakening came the day he found out his internal age is 76.

Mallory Bray from season 5 started at 217 pounds, a heavy weight but pretty tame by contrast to many of the contestants. For over a year, Mallory has been a personal trainer.

Pete Thomas from season 2 started at 401 pounds. Now, he weighs 238 pounds. He wants to pay it forward and has developed a local 10 week series of classes.

Drea from season 1 is down from her starting weight of 215 pounds to 160 pounds today. She is now the director of Healthworks Fitness Center for Women and Children, a non-profit organization that works with inner city women who may not otherwise be able to afford this kind of a program.

Mark Kruger from season 5 is down 100 pounds from his starting weight of 285 pounds. His brother Jay is down from 293 pounds to 207 pounds today.

At the start of this post, I mentioned The Bachelor. Yeah, we all know about how Trista and Ryan are still together and, well, that’s about all the news there is from that show every single season. By comparison, The Biggest Loser has had more marriages than any other reality show.

Those couples include Matt and Suzy from season 2. He is down from 339 pounds to 237 pounds now. She is down from 227 to 175 now, after having had two kids. They have gained some of their weight back, but they intend to change things so that their kids never end up having to work at losing weight.

Nicole and Damien from season 7 came to the show looking to lose their weight as they prepared for their wedding. Damien is down from 381 pounds to 253 pounds; Nicole is down from 269 pounds to 155 pounds. They are now fitness instructors at 24 Hour Fitness.

Nicole Michalik from season 4 started off at 279 pounds but has kept all the weight off since then (105 pounds). She suggests good music, a hard workout, and hot trainers.

Jerry Hayes from season 7 started off by collapsing on day 1. From there, he went on to beat all the younger people and take the at home prize. He currently weighs 193 pounds, down from 369 pounds. His message is that it’s never too late.

Mike and Ron Morelli wanted to inspire the younger brother Max to follow in their footsteps. In addition Ron’s weight loss (430 pounds to 251) and Mike’s weight loss (388 pounds to 230 pounds), Max has dropped from 405 pounds at the finale down to 300 pounds now after he went to Fitness Ridge, The Biggest Loser Resort.

Tara Costa from season 7 won more challenges than any player in Biggest Loser history. She’s down from her starting weight of 294 pounds to 165 pounds. Since the finale, she has decided to do something for the community, so she planned a health fair and run.

Jaron, the at home winner from season 3, is making his dream of being a triathlete a reality. He’s down from 323 pounds to 200 pounds and decided to do an ironman triathlon (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile biking, and 26.2 mile run). Likewise, Matt from season 2 also did an ironman.

Julie Hadden from season 4 was unable to have more children due to her weight. Now she’s down from 218 pounds to 128 (only 7 pounds above her finale weight). It all comes down to wanting it. “I don’t have the time” is an excuse, not a reality. She’s willing to put in the 1-1.5 hours to workout 5-6 days a week. Rather than having another baby, she and her husband have decided instead to adopt.

Vicky Vilcan from season 6 was quite possibly the most hated contestant ever. Most people hoped she would fall flat on her face. So far, that has not yet happened. She’s down from 246 pounds to 150 now. She does have a message to future contestants: keep your mouth shut. Had she been sitting at home, she would have hated herself, too.

Filipe Fa and his cousin Sione are still determined to change the Tongan community. Filipe is down from 364 pounds to 242 pounds; Sione is down from 372 pounds to 239. They have a weekly exercise class where they invite everyone from their community.

Dan Evans and his mom Jackie from season 5 are taking on the country music world. Jackie is down from 246 pounds to 160, up only slightly from her finale weight. Dan is down from 310 pounds to 194.

Michelle Aguilar, winner of season 6, is working to get a bill passed to redefine physical education in the state of Texas.

Ali Vincent, the first female winner ever, remains the poster child for The Biggest Loser success. She’s down from her starting weight of 234 pounds to 125 pounds now. Her mom Bette-Sue has actually improved over her finale numbers, having dropped to 160 pounds from her starting weight of 261.

Twins Bill and Jim Germanakos won both the grand prize and the at home prize. Bill is down from 334 pounds to 209 pounds; Jim is down from 361 pounds to 223 pounds. They have become certified spinning instructors.

Bernie Salazar, the at home winner from season 5, is down from 283 pounds to 160 pounds. He hopes to help with the problem of childhood obesity and has put out a book for kids to try to get them active.

Carla Triplett, previously the heaviest woman ever, is down from 379 pounds to 251. Renee Wilson (Michelle Aguilar’s mom) is down from 267 pounds to 175. They participate in a half marathon with other contestants, including Helen from season 7, Amy and Shellay, Pete from season 2, Damien and Nicole, and Coleen from season 6.

Phil Parham from season 6 is down to 195 pounds from 331. His wife Amy is down to 137 pounds from 229.

Bob outed Erik from season 3 last year. Erik, who dropped from 407 pounds to 193 to win the third season, has since gained back over 175 pounds, almost all the weight he lost. Now Bob has the task of confronting him. He suggests finding some balance between the excess of the show and the excess of the eating whatever you want. He invites him to weigh in at the season 9 finale and see how far he’s able to get in that time.

David Griffin is down from 368 pounds to 224, a slight improvement over his finale weight. He’s helped train 5 people to cross the 100 pound lost mark.

Neil from season 4 started at 421 pounds and is now at 228 pounds. He has taken the next step with his girlfriend and finally gotten married, which he didn’t want to do when he had so many health problems.

Rebecca was the next member of the young person alliance to be sent packing in The Biggest Loser Season 8 Episode 10.

That leaves Amanda all alone. She backed a weak alliance, and now she’s left without them.

Jillian wants Rudy to admit that he voted Rebecca out because she’s his biggest threat. He doesn’t want to admit that because it’s not true. She probably was a bigger threat than Liz, but ultimately she was on the wrong side of the house and played the game as hard as she accused everybody else of playing.

Suze Orman, someone from the financial world, is the special guest. Uh. Huh? Her message is that obesity is a very expensive disease. Valid point, although I’m still not seeing why Suze Orman’s on a weight loss show. Ultimately, it turns out that the competition is to answer questions while on a treadmill. For every question they get right, $1,000 will be deposited into an account at TD Ameritrade. For every question wrong, the treadmill will get one level faster and one level higher.

Research shows that obese employees earn less money than their fellow workers. On average, how much less do they make?
$7,000. Everybody is right.

If a family of four swapped one meal at a restaurant for one meal at home every day for a year, how much money would they save?
$8,760. Rudy, Danny, Allen, and Liz are correct. Amanda is incorrect.

How much do Americans spend on gastric bypass surgery every year?
$4.4 billion. Allen is the only one correct. 220,000 people get the surgery each year at a cost of approximately $20,000 each.

How much do Americans spend on obesity-related health issues every year?
$147 billion. Everybody is right. If only the government could find a way to wipe that out instead of rushing to dump trillions of dollars into a health care overhaul. By comparison, cancer spending is $90 billion.

How much money will you save over 40 years by going from obese to an ideal weight?
$1 million. Everybody but Allen is right.

Everybody ends up with an extra few thousand dollars, and that’s about all there is to that. Yeah, this all still seems pretty pointless to me. Apparently, the point of this was to promote Suze Orman’s show on CNBC. They do know that The Apprentice is coming in midseason?

Once we get through the portion of the episode where everybody’s saying goodbye to everyone, they head to the football field for a challenge. They will carry their lost weight one last time. They will be harnessed to barrels filled with 10 footballs. Each of those footballs represents the amount of weight they’ve lost each week. With each trip down the field, they will drop off the ball that represents the weight they lost for the corresponding week. The winner will get a vacation package for two to the 2010 NFL Pro Bowl. The special guest is Rod Woodson, who was a pro football player at some point. He is there on behalf of NFL Play 60, which will donate $5,000 of athletic equipment to the school of the winner’s choice.

Allen starts off in the lead. Amanda and Rudy are behind him. As the challenge progresses, it’s looking like this is how things will remain. Allen eventually extends his lead to a field length over Rudy. Allen wins the challenge.

Going into the weigh-in, Amanda feels as if she’s got to stay above the yellow line in order to remain in the game. I’m not so sure about that. She is a lot less threatening than any of the guys, which would be a good reason to drop this young/old thing now that there’s only one younger person left.

The winner of the weigh-in will get Curtis Stone to come to their house and show them how to cook healthy meals.

Liz: 198 pounds (-5, 2.46%)

Rudy: 296 pounds (-12, 3.90%)

Allen: 230 pounds (-8, 3.36%)

Danny: 288 pounds (-16, 5.26%)

With that, Danny has set a new record, losing in the double digits seven weeks in a row.

Amanda: 186 pounds (-7, 3.63%)

As the biggest loser of the night, Danny will be getting a visit from Curtis Stone.

Allen and Liz have fallen below the yellow line. The choice here is obvious. Allen’s the clear threat. However, Allen suggests to Amanda, the person likely to decide the outcome here, that he’s not going to be able to get down to the percentage needed to win this whole thing, despite the fact that he’s lost a higher percentage than Liz thus far 29% to 25%. I’d say he’ll have an easier run down to 170 than Liz would have to 140. Granted, either of them would have trouble keeping up with Danny or Rudy, who keep tossing up double digit numbers.

Votes
Danny: Allen
Rudy: Liz
Amanda: Allen

Amanda says she kept Liz, who’s fallen below the yellow line four times now, around for the challenge. With two votes, Allen is not The Biggest Loser. Having won the football challenge, he gives the check to his daughter’s school. He has also gotten 275 people at his gym to start a Biggest Loser competition, and they have lost 2368 pounds in six weeks.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Biggest Loser 8 Episode 12, which airs Tuesday at 8/7c on NBC.