At-home Contestants
I just updated my Stats Page to reflect the latest info. Although I weigh in weekly and keep all kinds of records, charts, and graphs, I think for this blog it’ll be enough to let you guys in on the changes from month to month.
From the Happy Accidents Department: this season of The Biggest Loser actually started just after my first week on the Wow!Rx program. It’s a little extra Tuesday night motivation to feel like I’m going neck-and-neck with the contestants. I was hopeful that they would have at-home players this season, and they did!
Two pairs were sent home during the first episode, with the promise of returning 30 days later for a weigh-in and progress report. Awesome. An even better yardstick by which to measure my progress. At-home teams!
From everything I can tell, at-home contestants follow the Wow!Rx, except that those who can afford it do seem to hire trainers. Wow!Rx doesn’t require trainers (and in fact the first batch of at-home contestants were forbidden from using them). I also think that most of the contestants follow this plan after they get voted off and return home, giving us our beloved “transformation moment” at the end of each episode. This last episode (which Jen does a great job of recapping here) brought back the two expelled teams to see if the Blue team or the Yellow team would return as Ranch contestants.
Season 3 was the first time that at-home contestants followed the Wow!Rx and were given a chance to return to the Ranch. I’ll never forget watching the episode from Season 3 when the top at-home contestants came back and weighed in. I shared the “Ranch” contestants’ reactions when the top 6 at-home contestants all clocked in with a weight loss percentage higher than the lowest Ranch contestant, and the two that were invited to stay in the house had the highest percentage of all contestants.
Jaron had lost 23.2%, Adrian had 23.3%, while Brian was the top Ranch dude and had lost 22.1%. The Ranch contestants moped around. “What are we even doing here, if people can follow a program at home and lose even MORE weight than we can!?”
Well, that wasn’t exactly repeated this week, but the blue team lost a respectable 9.92% and the yellow team lost 11.45%. Without the benefit of a male on my team, you’ll note that my first month percentage is closer to 9% but still. Not bad.
Soon, I’ll post a breakdown of the month because there were definitely some surprises.
February 9th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Phenomenal. I was curious to see how you were doing. I have Dr. H’s book and am thinking of using his strength training routine — just have to go buy the equipment.
February 9th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Thanks, Jen. In the next few weeks, I’ll be doing a post about exercise equipment and making the strength training program work.
February 9th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
If I remember correctly Adrian absolutely couldn’t adjust to being at the ranch. She either lost very little or maybe even gained and then went home rather quickly. I can’t remember what happened with her after she went home again. She had her own routine and had a hard time emotionally. I suspect that the emotional part was why she had a hard time with her weight. I think our bodies sort of ‘clutch’ when we are upset.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Yeah, they both were a bit snitty when they returned. Honestly, I think it’d be hard not to cling to the program that had worked so well for them. But, ultimately they both sort of gave in to the program.
Adrian was also very young and seemed somewhat immature to me. She had been a runner in high school, so had a very recent muscle-memory for athletic endeavors. I’m sure this helped her to achieve such good numbers.