The Biggest Loser had more twists and turns then a Hitchcock thriller last night. First of all Shane from the black team “selected” the one box in three that would allow Selena back in the game.

I suspect him picking that box were the same odds as Excess Baggage contestants finding a parcel with their name on as they stumbled around the outback.

Also I am not sure the prize of getting Selena back into the game is the advantage they thought they were winning in the physical challenge the episode before. She also gets immunity from the next elimination.

Margie was predictably not happy about the news and said it was pathetic. Lydia was also displeased.

After a run on the beach where Tiffiny revealed her philosophy on training saying “that’s the way it should be every workout, feeling sick from it.”

We also found out the lovely Michelle suffers from anxiety, and Hamish’s father had raced in the Tour De France. I think Hamish’s parents have to take responsibility for some of his obesity.

Also it was sad that Belinda had been unable to lose weight to do IVF and her inaction on this important meant her husband went and had a family with someone else. Something I don’t think he should be vilified for.

Then it was in to the Sydney town hall for temptation. The person eating the most calories would win $30,000 in gold bullion. James was smart and ate his daily calorie intake, as did Lisa who thought 70 calories might just get her over the line. It was a good strategy.

Not sure why Luke was so peeved at James, if he does not eat for the rest of the day he won’t put on weight, nor will Lisa. Clearly they must be meant to starve themselves.

However any of them would know from last year that there is a twist with this, which I think is underhand. After after James is told he won he is told there are conditions now attached to him taking the prize. If he takes it he must leave the house and it the $30,000 will also be subtracted from the $250,000. I am surprised he didn’t have to sit through a time-share presentation either….

The viewer has to wait for the decision. I doubt he will take it.

Is The Biggest Loser still a four night a week show? Monday’s elimination show episode was fast paced, but last night it was back to being more drawn out.

Also I have noticed the big difference between the two fat busting shows is the over acting of the trainers on The Biggest Loser. And they do it so badly. Tiffiny trout pout is making her looked permanently shocked. Because Michelle’s forehead does not move because of the botox she has to use has mouth to express what she is feeling so always a lot of jaw on the floor looks.

The first new scene of the episode was the teams sitting on the couches and the four trainers walk in to do the mock shock of who has been eliminated. This week it was 20 year-old Selena.

However the hack acting job continued when it was revealed that there was no need for Selena to have been eliminated.

This was the cue for all the trainers to have a crack at Margie who was the culprit of this dastardly deed. Margie tried to defend her decision that Selena wasn’t taking it seriously or trying hard enough so she basically this was the consequence of her actions.

Obviously Margie finally had it imprinted into her brain that maybe she had done the wrong thing.

Actually for the first time in a few seasons I thought Shannon Ponton said something that made sense, saying that the he knows that the contestants on the show and his outside clients are untruthful to him about what they have been up to, but he does not give up  on them.

Margie in the end stormed out after a tongue-lashing (no double entendre) from Commando.

And then it was onto the individual challenge and hallelujah it was completed in the one episode.

One person from each team was to go head to head in an elimination type scenario. Does anyone else think that the girls are at a disadvantage in these challenges. Do they get a lighter medicine ball to carry?

Michelle, Lydia, Shane and Luke represented their teams. Michelle was serene in the medicine ball challenge, but was eliminated in the balancing the egg challenge. Lydia was the first to go and collapsed on the floor crying because she felt she had failed. She also ran out of the shed, with Margie close behind.

In the end Shane won, and he will get some sort of advantage for his team. Shane also revealed that his sister had died of morbid obesity at the age of 32, and that was one of his motivators for being on the show, as well as getting healthy for his 2 year old son who suffers from autism.

The Biggest Loser continues tonight at 7.00pm.

Well Margie just turned herself into the villain of The Biggest Loser by being the first one to cast a vote when in fact she didn’t have to and no one would have been eliminated. Was it tactical or was she just too thick to comprehend what Hayley had been telling her?

Hayley Lewis looked shocked like Margie had gone AWOL on The Biggest Loser script.

Tonight it was weigh-in and elimination night, and this resulted both the under 30 year-old teams members up for elimination. In fact this was interesting in itself as considering the younger ones have a faster metabolism.

Selena and Hamish were sent in to be voted out by the red and black team, however Hayley after whipping up hysteria revealed that if they did not want to vote anyone out this week they did not have to but the decision needs to be unanimous.  Lydia had previously been bitch slapping Selena about her lack of effort, and Margie who I think has a little crush on her was backing her in.

So Alex starts the vote and says he is abstaining, and then Margie votes for Selena. Quite frankly understandably everyone was stunned.  Hayley even asked her if Margie was playing the game and she denied this. She also said Selena needed to be there, and Hayley responded with an incredulous “she could have stayed”!

Also I suspect this manoeuvre by her will make her a pariah with her house mates and put a target on her back.

I truly believe she was just stupid. Anyway this meant Selena ended up being eliminated. Which was a pity as I don’t think she will have the motivation once she is outside the house.

Anyway it was the first weigh-in and as expected there were big numbers dropping. Interesting that some of the contestants can drop 10 kilos and not feel the difference.

The red team were the first to weigh in:

• Margie was first up and she lost 8.4 kgs so was down to 150.7 kgs;
• Brenda lost 7.7 kgs and now weighs 113 kgs;
• Lisa lost 6 kg is now 98.2 kg;
• Lydia 131.6kgs and lost 10.3 kgs.

Team has a total weight loss percentage of 6.16%

The White team (under 30 girls):

• Kasey weighed in at 125.9kg and lost 6.9 kgs;
• Michelle weighed in at 102.4 kgs which is a loss of 8 kgs;
• Bek – lost 5.3 kgs and now weighs 121.0 kgs;
• Selena weighed 158 kgs and lost 4.8 kgs.

Team weight loss percentage was 4.69%.

Selena was upset that she only lost a small amount and Hayley reassures her that she has lost nearly 5 kgs. It is a pity that Selena didn’t point out that the show places high expectations on contestants to drop big numbers.

Blue Team (under 30 boys):

• Luke weighed in at 137.3kgs and lost 7.9 kgs;
• Hamish weighed in at 143.8 kgs and lost 4.9 kgs;
• Ryan weighed in at 228.4kgs and has dropped 12.6 kgs;
• James weighed in at 126.4 kg lost 9.9 kgs.

Percentage of weight loss is  5.26 %.

Black team weigh in:

• Graham lost 11.3 kgs and now weighs 198kgs;
• Shane has lost 10.1 kgs and now weighs 154.7 kgs;
• Simon lost 9.9 kgs now weighs 154 kgs;
• Alex lost 10.7 kgs and now weighs 150kgs.

And with the extra 2 kgs they had a weight lost percentage of 6.29 kgs.

The two youngest people in the house, Hamish and Selena, were the two that lost the least and were put up for elimination. Did you think Margie do the right thing by voting or should she have abstained?

How well timed to have a ferry race on The Biggest Loser race screen on Australia Day, in real life there was a result for today’s race on Sydney Harbour but viewers of the show will have to wait until Monday to see  who won. Very frustrating.

Some quick thoughts on tonight’s episode:

• It was interesting how Commando took no responsibility for Alex’s ruptured achilles tendon which had him on bed rest. Commando said his injury occurred because of years of neglect, poor diet and lack of physical activity. No mention that maybe he had been over-trained too fast…
• Over the last two episodes the viewer had to watch for ten minutes scenes on whether a contestant would take on the immunity challenge, no one did. Why bother showing it?
• I wonder how Brenda’s ex-fiancee is feeling about her saying she has lost the love of her life,
• How many times did they have to tell us that the ferry was 110 tons – it was entrenched in our memories after the third time;
• Commando got to row for his team because of Alex’s injury, however they did have the liability of having to tug him as well.
• Tiffiny was getting cranky about her team not being able to get their oars moving together. But wasn’t that her responsibility as she was the one who was the cox-man.  Michelle Bridges was yelling out the stroke and her team of over 30 year old women were leading at one point.
• Hamish the 20 year old appears to struggling with snacking and not working out hard enough;
• Looking at the previews for next week, none of the trainers are ever going to win a best actor Oscar.

Best line of the night was from James when he said “If I thought the first training session was bad the second one was armageddon”

This week The Biggest Loser is struggling in the ratings, and maybe the reason is now that it is in the 7pm time slot people would be still eating dinner and they don’t want to see people puking in buckets. Also dumping a whole truck of fat probably doesn’t help either.

One thing I do like about this year is a lot of the contestants, they seem a bit more articulate then the previous series, particularly the girls.

Tonight Hayley got the contestants together for a group therapy session where they had to talk about their heartache of being alone. There were tears and it was sad when Lisa was talking about losing her son Brayden, and Simon marriage breaking down.
However I think Luke who wants “the ideal wife” needs to realise there is not one, and he will be disappointed if there is. Again James gave Michelle a look when she was talking about never having been kissed.

Tonight it was all about telling them finding out their biological age and on average they were about 15 years older then their real age. Alex who is 50 was told his biological age was 71 which must have been quite a shock.

However I did think Dr Norman was a bit insensitive about talking about Brenda’s infertility and how her weight had effected this. “How long have you been trying to have a baby?” he boomed. She broke down and said seven years. At forty she would know that even after she loses the weight that it will still be very difficult to get pregnant.

Then it was off to their trainers and Tiffiny again made her girls feel like shit by say ”Twenties are the best years of my life”. I am not sure how she can be an authority on this topic as she is only 27 herself.

Also the blue team of under 30 boys appear to be slackers they were up later then 6.00am and Ryan’s only exercise appeared to be rolling around like a beach ball on the lounge room floor.

Then it was onto the immunity challenge, I am not sure why none of them were not going for it. No use taking the higher moral ground and risk of getting eliminated. It appeared the whole group had made a pact not to go for immunity which quite frankly takes the tension out of the show. Also the plate with the highest number of calories was a ham and cheese sandwich, so if you spun it just don’t have dinner. No big deal.

Oh and where is Commando we have barely seen him, except for his cameo tonight handing the nicorette patches over to Shane in a very obvious product placement moment.

What do you think of The Biggest Loser? Has it done enough this week to keep you watching?

After K-Fed collapsed on the set of Excess Baggage, A Current Affair, did a story on whether reality weight loss shows push their contestants to far.

Here is the link to the video.

Excess Baggage producers and Channel Nine must be loving that The Biggest Loser ratings are sitting in the 800,000 viewer mark. Clearly the early start for Loser is not working at the moment.

Are Michelle and James the pair that get together on the show? Or is that all too obvious? There was the camera pan to his face with a twinkle in his eye when she went to get weighed. Then there is the obvious love of music they both have. He even declared he felt a tingle all over.

It would be surprising if TEN gave the game away this early in the series, considering they have been tantalising the viewer with the rumour.

If the point of the show is to build up the contestants, Tiffany was ensuring the only person with a smidgen of self esteem Bek was having it busted out of her. Tiffany thought she was going to give her trouble because when she looked in the mirror Bek saw the inner person not the fat person.

Tiffany spat out “No one THAT overweight can be happy”.  How appalling is that? There would be some people of that size who are perfectly content about the way they look.

Tonight the episode continued with the weigh ins in front of their family and friends.

Alex who is 50 weighed in at 161.6 kgs and he said he was on the show to find love and to be loved.

Simon who is 40 weighed in at 164.3 kgs and is a father of two sons he will look good once he loses weight if his photos of his young self are anything to go by. He said one of the reasons his marriage broke down was because he was overweight.

Shane is 38 and is 164.8 kgs and it was touching his mother left the house for him as she was overweight as well and does not like to go out.

Graham is 36 years of age and 209.3 kgs. He has never had a girlfriend. He dreams of being a family man.

Michelle, 24, weighs 110.4 kgs. She can’t remember she felt beautiful or pretty. Not only did she have to strip into her bra and pants in front of strangers, but they made her sing. Her voice was quite good.

Kasey is 26 and 132.8kgs and she has never had a boyfriend, she has not been getting much air time so this must mean her back story is not as interesting as the others.

Bek is 26 and 126.3 kgs – Her sense of self is higher then the other contestants as she sees a beautiful person staring back at her and she doesn’t see the weight. However she does see her weight as a limitation.

Selena is 22 and weighs in at 163.5 k she  has profound deafness in on ear. She just seems lovely.

Luke is 26 and 145.2 kgs his philosophy was it was easy to reject then be rejected.

Hamish is 20 and 148.7 kgs He is a cutie but again he has not had much air time.

James is 22 and weighs in 136.3 – he has had a girlfriend but not for awhile.

Ryan is 29 and weighs 241 kgs which made him the biggest contestant in biggest loser history. This means he has to lose over 100 kgs. Walking must be near impossible.

Hopefully the teams won’t play tactics and boot out Ryan too early because he really does need to be there. In the training session Lisa was the first one to hit the spew bucket with Brenda not far behind.

So it is now game on on The Biggest Loser.

Clearly The Biggest Loser has the same script writer as last year as it was the same cliches being mouthed by host Hayley Lewis and the four trainers, Michelle Bridges, Commando, Tiffany and Shannon.

Though to be fair how many ways can you say how sad their lives are, and the trainers are here to transform them. However I think what makes the contestant’s feel so ashamed is the look that the shows cast give them – it is a barely disguised look of disgust mixed with pity.

And the torture did not end there.

When Hayley said you won’t be facing the scales alone you thought maybe they were weighing in as teams. Hell no they were bringing in your friends and family so they can be humiliated in front of them whilst they were weighed in lycra.

The only bright spot for the contestants was the announcement that first prize had been increased to $250,000.

At the beginning of the episode they all had to stand around in the rain whilst all the trainers with their teams ran in. Michelle was training the over 30 women, Tiffany the under 30 women, Commando the over 30 men who all looked overweight, and Shannon had the under 30 men.

And their stories were all different but came back to common thread of low self esteem and self loathing. In fact there were some who admitted they had never had a girlfriend or boyfriend. However what is good is there is going to be some amazing transformations. Michelle is going to be stunning as she is gorgeous now. I thought her and James, the budding musician from Adelaide would make a cute couple. Also Brenda whose love of her life left her because of the struggle to fall pregnant will turn into a swan. For the guys I thought Simon has hottness potential.

However I hopefully when Graham Pilson loses all his fat it might reveal some personality as he was a little monotone, but he did seem like a genuine guy.

Tonight after all the introductions they only had time to weigh the over 3o females.

Lydia who is 34  was 141.9 kgs. I really like her and I get she has “given up” but I do wish she had washed and brushed her hair before weigh in.

Lisa was 42  and weighed in at 104.2 kgs. She is a single mum and wants to lose weight to find someone. She has not had a partner for 10 yesrs. Her mantra is it is time for me.

Margie is 34 but looked older weighed in at 159.1 kgs. She is an openly gay contestant and said she found Michelle Bridges pervalicious, which made me question her taste in women!

Brenda was 40 and weighed in at 120.9 kgs – She lost the love of her life because she struggled to get pregnant. He now has had kids with someone else.

Tomorrow night we see the rest of them hit the scales and we already know Ryan Preuss will weigh in at 240kgs which makes him the heaviest contestant to take part in the show. (Source: Sunday Telegraph)

It is the reality fat busting shows going hammer and tongs in the publicity department with first The Biggest Loser team saying they kicked a contestant of the show for boozing, and now Excess Baggage have returned fire with K-Fed being taken to hospital today with chest pain.

The SMH is reporting that K-Fed was training with AFL team Greater Western Giants, and he complained of chest pain. He was taken to Mt Druitt hospital where he is reported to have not had a heart attack, but he will be kept in for observation.

Mt Druitt hospital staff must be very excited as I doubt they have ever had a celebrity as big as K-Fed wheeled through the doors.

Excess Baggage premieres on Monday 30 January at 7.00pm on Channel Nine, and The Biggest Loser starts tonight at 7.00pm on Network TEN.

The Biggest Loser continues its media campaign to retain viewers even before the TV series has started. Today in the Daily Telegraph it is reported that a Biggest Loser contestant thinks he is in the Big Brother household and brought in booze and was instantly and “humiliatingly” eliminated.

Personally I don’t know what the whole drama is, if he wants to have his calories in booze rather than carrot sticks that is his issue. Also if they want the fatties to get it on, I think alcohol can only facilitate that process.

Apparently all this drama occurs around week six – which is code don’t switch your channels to that other fat busting show Excess Baggage.

Also they are still talking up The Biggest Loser romance. Michelle Bridges says to look for the pair that always walking together. Now let us not assume that it is a hetero relationship as that could be the twist.

The Biggest Loser – Singles starts tonight on Channel Ten at 7.00pm