WILD DUNK TANK-LIKE CHALLENGE LEAVES ONE TEAM WITHOUT A TRAINER

“EPISODE 6″ – In this season of “no excuses,” this week’s challenge addresses the excuse “I can’t lose weight on my own.” Trainers Bob Harper and Dolvett Quince are suspended over water in a wild dunk tank-like challenge in which the red and black teams have to use their strength to keep a weight from landing their trainer in the pool. The losing team has to do without their trainer all week until the last chance workout. Once the losing team is determine, one contestant admirably steps up to lead their group while their trainer is away, with none of them aware that he is secretly watching how they do in his absence. Later, a very heated elimination sends another player home after a tense weigh-in to see how both teams did this week. Watch a sneak peek from tonight’s episode:

AQUA TEAM RETURNS TO THE RANCH

“EPISODE 5″ – A lively challenge that involves bouncing medicine balls on a trampoline to get them over a wall tests the speed and coordination of both the black and red teams as they vie for a valuable prize – the ability to choose which player’s weight won’t count at this week’s weigh-in. Then it’s a blast from the past when aqua team siblings Adrian and Daphne, who were eliminated before they even got to the ranch in episode one, come back to weigh-in and reveal whether they’ve lost enough weight to return to the competition. And a few personality clashes add tension in the house before the players decide which contestant will go home this week. Watch a sneak peek from tonight’s episode:

Alison Sweeney hosts the series, and trainers Bob Harper and Dolvett Quince also star.

It was an easy win for the red team, since their opponents got every single question wrong. Oh, Bob is not going to be happy about that.The aqua team is just one week away from weighing in at the ranch, so Dolvett pays them a visit to check their progress and give them a workout.

Chris is having a tough time following her loss at the challenge. She won’t let cameras around and locks herself in the bathroom, crying and swearing to Roy and saying she wants to go home. She gets no sympathy from Conda but did you expect anything else? Bob is called in and talks her down off the ledge. Turns out she just doesn’t wanna open up.Whether they have the gym or not, it seems many people aren’t in the mood for burning calories tonight.

Gail cries to Bob and Nancy shoots Dolvett an attitude while he tries to coach her on the treadmill. Conda is so difficult to work with that Dolvett sends her right out of the gym! So Conda ends up being the big surprise of the night and the red team wins, despite a fantastic showing from the black team.

With a tie between Gail and Chris, Emily casts the deciding vote to send Gail home. Here’s hoping she can successfully continue her weight loss journey at home. So far, so good. She’s lost 56 pounds to date!

The Biggest Loser Now Excuses week four aired in the United States on BBC on January 24, 2012.

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

RED AND BLACK TEAMS COMPETE TO WIN EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE GYM

“EPISODE 4″ – The stakes are high this week as the red and black teams compete in a fierce battering ram challenge that will give one team exclusive rights to the gym, while the losing team has to find other creative ways to burn calories. Both trainers – Bob Harper and Dolvett Quince – struggle with certain contestants who they feel aren’t giving it their all, making it tougher for both teams to get the weigh-in win each one wants. Watch a sneak peek from tonight’s episode:

Alison Sweeney hosts the series.

The teams are faced with a temptation challenge in which each team has a chance to eat as much Panda Express food as they can in 5 minutes. The team that consumes the most calories would earn the right to choose the pairings for match-up week, along with gaining a 2 pound advantage that they could distribute however they wanted. Cassandra is the only player to take part, eating two fortune cookies for a total of 60 calories.

Ultimately, being away from his family gets the best of Joe and he decides to withdraw from the competition and returns home. He is already back home in New York when Bob finds out and receives a phone call from his trainer expressing disappointment with Joe’s decision.

Tempers run high as players compete head-to-head in the gym and on the scale. Emily and Roy go 500 meters on the rowing machine and Dolvett arranges a challenge between Conda and Cassandra with the balance ball. Cassandra wins and although Conda believes Cassandra cheated, holds her end of the bargain and buys Cassandra lunch from Subway.

The challenge is a water relay with obstacles. Alison announces that the Black team must forfeit Joe’s match-up since he left voluntarily. The Black team is frustrated because a plus match-up for them turned into a loss without a weigh-in.

As the challenge gets going, the Black team starts to come unraveled, with Megan in particular struggling to pump water and transfer it into a spinning water wheel. After a switch, the Black team regains their momentum and starts making up ground on the Red team. Ultimately they come up just short and the Red team wins video chats with their families.

Several of the Red team members give up their prize to their loved ones, including Mark giving his to his son. Unexpectedly, Buddy gives his prize to Mark so that he and Chism can both enjoy a chat with their family together. Everyone takes their chats with their family to reaffirm their reasons for being at the ranch.

After the chats, we get an update from the Aqua team, who are a week away from being able to try and earn their chance to get back on the ranch! Bob surprises Adrian and Daphne and takes them to Planet Fitness to work them out hard. After Joe withdrew, Bob notes the desire that the Aqua team has to earn a spot on the ranch.

Dolvett arranges a rematch between Conda and Cassandra at the last chance workout and despite Conda’s continued trash-talking, Cassandra wins fair and square once again. After the fun, Bob and Dolvett ramp up the intensity of the Last Chance Workout. They emphasize the head-to-head matchups and preach hard work while some players wonder how Cassandra will use the red team’s two-pound advantage. Mark pushes himself on the treadmill while Chism and Jeremy intensify their workouts.

The Black team heads to the weigh-in a little uneasy because of their one point deficit. Cassandra divides her two pound advantage by giving a pound to Megan and a pound to Gail. Nancy loses only 2 pounds but wins because of Joe’s departure giving the Red Team an early 1-0 lead.

Buddy goes up against Megan, with Buddy announcing himself as the favorite. His confidence was unfounded however and Megan wins the weigh-in without even needing the one pound advantage. Up next are Kimmy and Gail and again, the Black team doesn’t need the advantage and takes a 2-1 lead.

Lauren and Jeremy go nose-to-nose and after Lauren loses 3 pounds, Jeremy drops 11 pounds and picks up the Black team’s third point. Roy and Emily take to the scale next and the 63-year old Santa Claus doppelgänger matches up against the former Olympian. Roy loses 9 pounds which is just enough to edge out Emily and pull the red team back within one point. Emily expresses some frustration over how far she has fallen from her Olympic days.

With three more pairings to go, Mark and Chris take to the scale. Mark loses 8 pounds which is enough to beat Chris and knot the score at three. Kim and Chism head up to weigh in, with Kim expressing how much she hates to lose. She loses six pounds which forces Chism to lose more than 8 pounds to win. He loses 9 and secures no worse than a tie for the Black team. Kim is visibly upset and calls Chism a “baby”.

Just as it did all week, things come down to in-house rivals, Conda and Cassandra. Conda expresses confidence in her ability to win, but Cassandra brushes off the trash-talk and the ladies take to the scale. And just like the rest of the week, Cassandra blows Conda out of the water, losing 8 pounds to Conda’s three.

Cassandra is the biggest loser for the week and her win gives the Black team a victory and sends the Red team to the elimination room. Dolvett calls out Conda’s work ethic and dedication while she simply scoffs at the criticism. Roy is the Red team’s biggest loser and cannot be eliminated as they head to the elimination.

Nancy garners two of the first three votes, but Lauren receives the next four of the next five votes and is eliminated. Conda, the Red team’s most polarizing member and with the team’s second lowest weight loss, does not garner a single vote. Lauren is surprised by the turn of events but vows to prove the team right and succeed at home.

Lauren has lost 53 pounds and is running a half-marathon, which she hopes to finish in under three hours. She reflects on her past as an athlete and starts to remember that the athlete has been inside of her all along.

This was week three of The Biggest Loser: No Excuses and was broadcast on NBC Network January 17, 2012.

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

ONE PLAYER STUNS EVERYONE WITH A SHOCKING DECISION

“EPISODE 3″ – This week kicks off with a Chinese buffet temptation that will give the winner complete control of how contestants will be matched up for a face-off challenge in the gym – and also give them a two-pound advantage to use or give away. Later, trainers Bob Harper and Dolvett Quince coach the contestants through a wild water-transfer challenge that will reward the winning team with the most coveted prize of all – video chats home. And one player makes a shocking decision that stuns everyone before another contestant is sent packing following the weigh-in. Alison Sweeney hosts the series.

CONTESTANTS TRY TO GAMBLE THEIR WAY TO A WEIGH-IN WIN WITH POKER POP CHALLENGE

“EPISODE 2″ – The stakes are high this week when representatives of each team bid on the percentage of weight they think their team will lose at the weigh-in. The highest bidder gets a five-pound advantage if they hit their number at weigh-in – or lose the advantage to the other team if they don’t hit their mark. “The Biggest Loser” nutritionist teaches the contestants how to shop for healthy food, and the black and red teams square off in a fast-paced challenge in which they have to turn an anchor wheel to retrieve puzzle pieces and then race against the clock to put the puzzle together. And later, the players get a sobering wake-up call when Dr. Huizenga reveals their real “inner ages, ” before the weigh-in leads to another player going home. Watch a sneak peek from tonight’s episode:

UNIVERSAL CITY, California – “The Biggest Loser” returns with a bang for season 13 on Tuesday, January 3 (8-10 p.m. ET) when the contestants arrive at the ranch and get one of the biggest surprises ever in the series’ history. They arrive in teams of two – including mother/daughter, father/son, brother/sister and husband/wife, all eager to change their lives together. But they’re shocked to discover that they will not only be split up – they will also be competing against the person they came with. They’ll be pushed out of their comfort zones in a way they have never been before – and one team won’t even make it on to the ranch — as the season of “No Excuses” begins.

All of the contestants have the same goal: losing weight and getting healthy. But they all have different excuses for why they never lost the weight before, ranging from being too busy, not knowing how to eat right, being emotional eaters, knowing they could always start a weight loss program “tomorrow,” and more. So the season of “no partners” will also be a season of “no excuses” – as week in and week out, all the typical reasons for not getting in shape will be addressed.

The contestants will hit the ground running with a three-part challenge as soon as they arrive, and though 18 of the 20 contestants come to the ranch with loved ones, two will initially be paired as strangers. Once divided, the two groups of players will be trained by Bob Harper and Dolvett Quince, both fiercely competitive and determined to whip their contestants into shape, and deliver the season’s $250,000 grand prize winner.

Hosted by Alison Sweeney, “The Biggest Loser” will feature new contestants that include Nancy Rajala, who has 13 children and 55 grandchildren and didn’t gain weight until she became a widow at 52, Kim Nielsen, a former professional wrestler and single mother of three whose career ended when she broke her back in a wrestling match, and Roy Pickler, a Santa Claus and scout leader who wants to get in shape so he can continue taking scout troops on adventures as he has for almost 25 years.

Also competing this season will be former Junior Olympic weight lifter Emily Joy, music producer Adrian Dortch, who has been a background vocalist for artists like Seal and David Foster, Ben Shuh, a father of nine children with a 10th on the way, and Cassandra Sturos, whose weight has held her back from pursuing her dream to move to New York and be a writer.

The new contestants competing for the $250,000 grand prize will be:

PARENT AND ADULT CHILD TEAMS:

Gail Lee (Realtor), 57, and her daughter, Lauren Lee (Exercise physiologist), 26, Poolesville, Maryland.

Mark Cornelison (Youth pastor), 43, and his son, Isaac “Chism” Cornelison (Student), 19, Magnolia, Texas.

Kim Stone (Registered nurse), 48, and her daughter, Megan Stone (Student and support staff for organization that assists disabled adults), 21, Dittmer, Missouri.

GRANDPARENT AND GRANDCHILD TEAM:

Nancy Rajala (Retired), 63, and her granddaughter, Cassandra Sturos (In-home senior caregiver), 25, Fowlerville, Michigan.

SIBLINGS:

Conda Britt (Nutrition health services tech), 24, and her brother, Jeremy Britt (Banker), 22, Rockford, Michigan.

Adrian Dortch (Music producer and community activist), 34, and his sister, Daphne Dortch (Paralegal/Kids activity team member), 37, Evanston, Illinois.

Joe Messina (Truck driver), 38, Auburn, New York, and his brother, Mike Messina (Cook), 41, Oakland, California.

Allen “Buddy” Shuh (Pastor), 42, Wayne, Michigan and his brother, Ben Shuh (Retail store manager), 34, Howell, Michigan.

SPOUSES:

Christine Pickler (self-employed), 42, and her husband, Roy Pickler (Self-employed/Santa Claus), 63, Middlebury, Indiana.

STRANGERS:

Emily Joy (Teacher), 29, Huntersville, North Carolina, and Kim Nielsen (Former professional wrestler), 38, Roswell, Georgia.

“The Biggest Loser” is a production of Reveille, 25/7 Productions and 3 Ball Productions. Ben Silverman, Dave Broome, JD Roth, Todd A. Nelson, Todd Lubin and Alex Katz are the executive producers.

Source: NBC Press Release

Former NFL player Antone Davis Named Runner Up, and Jennifer Rumple, a 39-Year-Old Television Producer, Wins “At Home” Prize of $100,000 Among Eliminated Contestants

UNIVERSAL CITY, California – John Rhode, a 41-year-old special education teacher and football coach from Mesa, Arizona, became “The Biggest Loser” and won $250,000 at tonight’s live season finale of NBC’s popular series. John began season 12 weighing 445 lbs. and lost 220 lbs. He weighed in at finale at 225 lbs. and lost 49.44% of his body weight. Contestants were divided by age for this season’s “Battle of the Ages” theme: the youngest players — all under 30, the middle players – ages 30-49, and the older players – ages 50 and over.

The runner up among the three finalists was Antone Davis (Knoxville, Tennessee), a 44-year-old restaurant manager and former NFL player for the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons. He began the show at 447 pounds and weighed 245 lbs. at the finale. Antone lost 202 pounds and 45.19% of his body weight. Coming in third place was Ramon Medeiros, a 27-year-old tattoo artist from Florence, Colorado, who lost 154 lbs. and 43.38% of his body weight. He started the show at 355 lbs. and weighed 201 lbs. at finale.

The winner of this season’s $100,000 “at home” prize among eliminated contestants went to 39-year-old Jennifer Rumple, a television producer from Alameda, California. She started the show at 330 lbs. and ended at 185 lbs. Jennifer lost 145 lbs. and 43.94% of her body weight.

In addition to seeing a special performance by Grammy Award-winning band Train of their “Biggest Loser” theme song “Brand New Book,” finale viewers also got to see a sneak preview of season 13 of “The Biggest Loser,” which will premiere Tuesday, January 3 (8-10 p.m. ET) on NBC.

“The Biggest Loser” is a production of Reveille, 25/7 Productions and 3 Ball Productions. Ben Silverman, Dave Broome, JD Roth, Todd A. Nelson and Todd Lubin are the executive producers.

Source: NBC Press Release

“THE BIGGEST LOSER” REVEALED IN EXCITING SEASON FINALE

“EPISODE 13″ – In this must-see, exciting live finale, the contestants from this season return for a special reunion and a chance to weigh in one last time – and show America how much weight they’ve all lost since beginning their weight-loss journeys. Those who have been eliminated will compete for the $100,000 “at home” prize. Then it’s the moment viewers have been waiting for, when one of the three finalists will be named this season’s “Biggest Loser” and win the coveted grand prize of $250,000! Watch a sneak peek from tonight’s episode:

Alison Sweeney hosts the series, and trainers Bob Harper, Anna Kournikova and Dolvett Quince also star.