So who gets your write-in vote for The Biggest Loser?

Koli

Or Daris?

It’s hard. They’re both similar. They both say, ”I want to be there when the confetti falls,” so much that I think they’re under the impression that “confetti” is the prize for winning The Biggest Loser. You do know there’s money inolved, right guys?

I’m voting for Daris based on the most depressing bio I’ve ever read on the Biggest Loser site:

He has never had a girlfriend, even though the girls give him plenty of attention because of his big curly hair and his funny t-shirts. He loves being the center of attention and making people laugh, but he has low confidence with women due to his weight. Daris wants to lose weight and prove to himself that he deserves one of those beautiful women that keep coming up and playing with his hair.

Ok, we get it, Daris needs some poontang. Geez, that’s all he’s got going on? And now that he got his hair cut what are the girls going to play with?  Daris, as someone who has been over 300 pounds and still dated beautiful women, let me suggest you try developing a personality. It’s so much easier. You might be thinking, “I have a personality. I’m the guy who wears funny t-shirts.” That’s doesn’t mean you have a personality, that means your t-shirt does.

I have to say that I loved his excuse for gaining weight while he was home for 30 days which was, “I was training for a marathon.” Of course! You all remember those chubby Kenyans who win the marathons every year.

It’s over.

• Congratulations to Danny on winning the whole thing.
• Congratulations to Amanda for winning America’s vote for a 2nd time.
• Congratulations to Antoine and Alexandra for getting engaged on TV during the Biggest Loser finale. Just like every little girl’s dream! And congratulations to Antoine on resisting the pressure from NBC to insert a little product placement and say, “You know, Alexandra, they say every kiss begins with Kay. Will you accept my proposal by accepting this ring from Kay Jeweler’s? Since 1916 America’s #1 jewelry store, Kay Jewelers.”
• Congratulations to Rebecca for winning the at-home competition and proving me eerily prescient when I said in the first post on this series that she was going to be the hot one come finale time. Although the blond hair is a mis-step.
• Congratulations to Tracey for still seeming disturbing and crazy despite her success losing the weight.
• Congratulations to Sean on the birth of his daughter who he named after Jillian. Much better choice than naming her Dr. Huizenga.

Apparently there was an episode last week, but my DVR didn’t record it, so as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t exist.  We only have one episode left. Do you have your votes in for who you want to be the third finalist? Seriously? Well, that’s admirable. I would have a hard time putting a vote in for that given that I didn’t vote in the last presidential election. My apathy has to be consistent.

About this episode:

• It was the homecoming episode which I’m sure local poster-board manufacturers look forward to all year long. I’m not sure it’s necessary to hold up a sign when you’re one of 18 people in a crowd. I feel like you could just pass your well-wishes along verbally. My favorite is when they have a sign that says, “Michael is our Biggest Loser!” because outside of the context of winning this show (which the person clearly didn’t), that’s an insult.
• While I was watching this episode I began to wonder if this show is predictable or if human beings are predictable, because the time spent at home for each contestant seemed to follow the same pattern: Excited to be home, tears for how much they’ve changed, talk about giving up, strain on the relationship, etc.  Everyone seems surprised that they can’t find 6 hours a day to work-out.
• We were overwhelmed with product placement this week. We heard about: Extra Polar Ice Gum, The Biggest Loser Wii game, Jennie-O Turkey, The Biggest Loser Resort, Biggest Loser protein by Designer Whey, and Subway party platters (which Bob suggests you bring with you to any party you’re invited to so you’ll have something to eat). And really, what says to your hostess, “I appreciate the weeks of planning and days of cooking that you put into this party,” more than showing up with the world’s most mediocre sandwiches because you’re too scared to eat her food.
• I will also count the return of “celebrity chef” Curtis Stone as product placement, because he brings nothing to the program.
• Are we supposed to be left with the impression that Liz and her bountifully mustachioed husband aren’t going to be together much longer? Because that’s certainly what it seemed like. She was much happier to see some of the returning contestants from last season than she was her husband along the marathon route.
• Speaking of, I know it’s supposed to be a testament to the contestants will and commitment that they can run a marathon with little training, but it ends up just making me think, “Oh, I guess running a marathon isn’t that difficult.” I’m horrible.

I’ll pulling for Amanda in the finale, just because she seems like the biggest underdog, but I will put my money on Rudy.

On this, a very special episode, the Losers go to Washington, D.C. to make a difference! Or, as Danny said, “We gotta get the word out that being obese is not the way to go.” Well, if you say so, Danny. I’m not quite ready to take that polarizing stance myself. But I guess that’s why they brought them to DC: to hold a mirror up to society. Or to hold their fat-pants up to senators (I’m going to start travelling around with a super larger pair of pants to hold up to senators and other people when I meet them and say, “These used to be my pants.”)

Also:

• I really thought (read: hoped) that when Tracey got the boot she was going to pull out an uzi and spray everyone with bullets. I could see it behind her eyes. I loved her logic behind screwing everyone over which was, “I had to make those moves to stay in the game.” Listen, bitch, you left halfway through because you made yourself a target early on. You were the least threatening (because you had the least weight to lose) and could have floated to the end. I’m fine with you being crazy, just stop trying to justify it.
• JetBlue, Subway, and Extra Sugar-Free Gum, all got in on the product-placement this week.  My favorite is always the Extra gum one. At this point they seem to be willing to imbue this gum with any magical properties they want. On this episode the claim was that it made a good ice-cream substitute. That was seriously their position. My hope is that next week they say, “You know, Thanksgiving is right around the corner. A lot of people are going to be filling up on turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pies. But just one stick of Extra Sugar-Free Gum….”
• “We’re going to the White House (where we won’t see the president).” The biggest pump-fake of the season next to, “Here’s Derek Jeter (on the jumbo-tron).”
• During the challenge they played this god-awful, corny song by Miley Cyrus. I like when singers or bands decide to write “inspirational songs.” It’s such a clearly calculated move. It’s like when Aerosmith is like, “Ok guys, I guess we should write a prom theme.” Do people really get inspired by a song that’s blatantly telling them to get inspired? If so, I’m going to get into the inspirational song-writing business. Here’s my first single:

Take Flight

Verse 1
There’s that thing you want to do
But you don’t know if you can
You question yourself and your abilities
Well here’s your new plan

Verse 2
Believe in yourself and believe in your dreams
And nobody can stop you
Have faith and take a look in your heart
Can’t nobody top you!

Chorus:
This bird has a broken wing
But it’s still gonna fly
To the to the tippy top of the tree
Surrounded by angels and possibility!

Verse 3
They say life’s a struggle
There’s just pain then you’re done
But you know life is a camping trip
And you’re in a sleeping bag of fun

Chorus:
This bird has a broken wing
But it’s still gonna fly
To the to the tippy top of the tree
Surrounded by angels and possibility!

Bridge:
Fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, flap those wings
Soar, soar, soar, soar, soar angels sing
Achieve, Achieve, Achieve your dreams

Chorus:
This bird has a broken wing
But it’s still gonna fly
To the to the tippy top of the tree
Surrounded by angels and possibility!

Spoken word section:
Hey baby, I know you got dreams. And you’re gonna achieve those dreams because you’re a bird with one wing but you’re still gonna fly. Fly high little bird. This world is yours. Because you know how to persevere. You’re like Thomas Edison when he made all those light bulbs that didn’t work. But then he made the one that did work. And it glowed so bright. Just like you, sweet baby. You’re like Thomas Edison and I’m gonna make love to yoooouuuuuuuuuu.

Chorus:
This bird has a broken wing
But it’s still gonna fly
To the to the tippy top of the tree
Surrounded by angels and possibility!

(repeat and fade)

Yesterday’s show came down to a decision between good and evil. Coach Mo, one of the gentlest seeming people you’ve ever seen on TV (so gentle he reminds me of my friend’s grandfather who, when asked about  being a black man living in the segregated south of the 40′s said, “Oh, it wasn’t so bad. People were still pretty friendly.”) and crazy Tracey who always has a look on her face like she’s just opened the door at her own surprise party. Tracey won the power to make new teams and she split up as many as she possibly could (while keeping her and Mo together), pissing off everyone in the process. But in the end her team chose to save her, after talking a big game about how they were going to boot her ass out. Way to follow-through on things, Team Blue!

Also:

• I’m glad Tracey is still there. She’s my favorite type of person: the kind who treats everyone poorly and acts like a bitch all the time and then gets upset that she has no friends.
• Liz passed out on the treadmill (but didn’t seem too worse for the wear). How long until someone dies on this show? I’m not saying I want it to happen. I’m just curious how it would be dealt with.  I’m guessing Bob and Jillian would take the opportunity at the wake to inform people how to make healthy meal choices when you’re at a party.
• In the videos from home, check out the artwork on Tracey’s wall. Classy!
• After last weeks subtle gum product placement, we were beat over the head this week with in-show ads for 24-Hour Fitness, The BodyBugg, and Jennie-O Turkey which Bob used to have the world’s most depressing picnic.
• Coach Mo claims he didn’t know there was a prize involved in this show. Which seems to suggest he was willing to devote up to 3 months of his life to go on a show he had never seen before. I actually kind of believe it.
• The biggest loser has about 25 minutes of content to spread across two hours. The way this manifests itself is that last night we spent at least 5 minutes watching one contestant attempt to jump on a 6 inch stool.
• It’s good that we have the Bob vs. Jillian story back in play. Watching them work together was interesting for an episode or so, but this show can be pretty damn boring sometimes so it’s nice to have that bit of drama there. I’m not sure what was to be gained by having them work together — is decreasingthe drama really a big goal for NBC? Hey, I have a great idea. This year on Law and Order: SVU let’s just have the rapists and pedophiles work with Detectives Benson and Stabler to help control their urges and channel that energy into something more productive like working on a community garden.

Why Did They Chain the Cupboard That Just Had Ziploc Bags In It?

The Biggest Loser busted out one of my favorite cliches this week when we were told that “this is a marathon, not a sprint.” You hear that a lot on reality shows when someone screws up and is trying to downplay it. One place you will not hear that phrase is in the reality show I’m pitching to NBC for next summer, America’s Next Top Sprinter.

Does something seem odd about this season of The Biggest Loser? Maybe it’s because there is one contestant who is medically not allowed to work out at all. And yet she is still in the game with her partner, Coach. I like that a guy nicknamed “Coach” was like, “F this, I’m out of here,” when things started getting difficult. That’s a trait you want in a coach.

Also:

• The contestants were forced to order take-out for all their meals this week. It didn’t seem like they were ordering from an actual restaurant. I’m sure they were just calling the shows caterers. What was interesting to me was when Shay said something along the lines of, “We don’t know what they’re doing with the food. We don’t know if they slipped up and put salt in it.” And then later when the contestants were at the restaurant they were worried that a dish might have salt in it. Listen, I know it’s not great to consume a ton of salt. But going out of your way to eliminate salt from your diet is not a way to shed real weight. It’s a way to lose a lot of water weight quickly. It’s great if you’re trying to fit in a bridesmaid’s dress this weekend, but for long-term weight loss you’re just setting yourself up for a rebound (which is what happens to nearly all the Biggest Loser contestants once they’re off the show). You and I, who are not on TV and not trying to win a game show, are better off losing real weight. You don’t want to be in a situation where you gain 5 pounds after eating 4 ounces of potato chips.
• Jillian claims that mashed cauliflower is just as good as mashed potatoes. Hmmm… this gives me a new idea for a set of posts, “Lies I Heard on The Biggest Loser.”
• Very subtle and un-Biggest Loser-like product placement this week. All we saw was a contestant popping a piece of Extra Sugar-Free Gum. No talk about how it will kill your cravings or how it’s just as good as chocolate cake for dessert. Interesting.
• I loved watching the contestants go out to eat at a Mexican restaurant with Bob and Jillian. I loved all the feigned disgust when the guy put salsa and chips on their table. Have you ever seen a more grim group of people eating out at a restaurant? It was hilarious. They weren’t allowed to have any of the things that makes Mexican food delicious. It was all sad faces saying, “I’ll have a steamed tortilla filled with corn husks, please.” Bob and Jillian came off as aliens who only understood that this was a building and there was food in it, but beyond that they seemed to know nothing about the point of going to a restaurant. I was expecting them to say, “A great idea is to bring rice-cakes in your purse and just eat them with water provided by the restaurant.”

All For One

So autumn started a couple days ago and yet today it’s 80 degrees and humid in New York City. What the F, Mother Nature? Listen, biznatch, I want to break out my hooded sweatshirts so let’s crank down the thermostat.

It was the second episode of The Biggest Loser and I have to say it was a pretty boring one this week without many highlights. Here are some things that are boring to watch: fat people taking a food quiz, fat people getting calls from home after being gone for just a week, fat people walking on a balance beam over a lake and not falling in.

Thoughts:

- It was week two, which is notoriously difficult week. Or at least that’s what we were told over and over again. In the end it didn’t prove to be that difficult as the contestants reached their team weight-loss goal of 150 pounds and nobody was sent home. Boring.

- How fucking excited were you guys when they revealed that he food quiz would feature  ”world class celebrity chef Curtis Stone”! And by “excited” I mean “confused because you had no idea who this person was.” Apparently he’s famous in Australia. Why couldn’t we have some American celebrity chef appearing on the show. Oh… because they’re all fat. I don’t care. I think it would be fun to have Mario Batali or Paul Prudhomme roll in their and lecture people about their soda intake.

- Seriously, I was praying for them to fall off that balance beam into the lake. Ideally when they were all on it at the same time holding hands. I wanted one to fall and pull the rest in like a string of buoys. No such luck.

- This week’s product placement was for Ziploc EZ Zipper plastic bags. Their attempt to make it seem that this product has something to do with weight-loss was noble and ridiculous. You can take all the potato chips out the main bag and then put them into individual servings! Well, that’s great and all, but here’s the thing — as a human, you should  want to be able to eat a handful of potato chips and put the bag away without the forced portion control. You want to be able to stop on your own because, guess what, there are going to be times when you’ll be around a bag of potato chips that hasn’t been portioned out into smaller bags. And then what? Are you just going to swallow the whole thing because all you know is eating everything that’s in a bag? I hope not. Practice like you play, folks.

- The breasts on many of the male contestants this year are particularly disturbing.

AKA Season Ate

So the Biggest Loser started on Tuesday and this season is going to be a doozy. Here are my thoughts on episode number one.

• I had considered tracking all the times people cried this year, but two minutes into the program, when people were already crying about nothing I realized that wouldn’t work.  I swear that half the weight lost on this first episode was through tears.
• As they introduced the contestants we would see flashbacks to their lives back home, which apparently consisted only of activities to accentuate how fat they were. So we see them squirting chocolate syrup straight from the bottle into their mouth or trying to squeeze their ass into a bumper car. Real subtle, NBC. I’m not sure why they didn’t just show them splitting their pants, shattering chairs, and busting holes into trampolines.
• You would think this show would inspire you to lose weight, but it just made me feel better about myself. “These bitches can’t walk a mile without being medevaced off the beach? Damn, I’m not looking too shabby now.” It’s the good part of the season where everyone is fatter than you and you can be very self-righteous.
• Dan from last season returned this year. He is built like the Liberty Bell. And the greeting he got was comically intense. It was like he was the Beatles. Or at least the Monkees.
• I hope Tracey is okay. Because I can’t wait to laugh at her crawling towards the finish line and refusing help with a clear conscience.
• Speaking of that incident, when she fell and everyone went to help her up to cross the finish line, Antoine said he, “never saw anything like that in [his] life.” Apparently Antoine is unfamiliar with this commercial.
• When you’re casting a show like this, you have to make sure you’re going to have some people who are going to look pretty good once they lose the weight. You don’t want any trolls who are going to be equally unappealing fat or skinny. This season’s knockout-to-be is Rebecca.
• Poor Abby lost her entire family in a car accident. We learned this as the cast was sitting around getting to know one another and talking about their weight and how it has affected them. In the show, Abby’s story of losing her husband and two kids went last. I pray that’s the way it occurred in real life. Because if she told that heartbreaking story and it was followed up by Rebecca bawling and saying, “People say I have a pretty face!” That would have been awkward.
• Shay really shocked Bob when she stepped on the scale and weighed in at 470-something pounds. I wasn’t shocked by that. I was however, shocked that she had a mother who was 300 pounds and a heroin addict. If you can’t stay under 3 bills while you’re on heroin you’ve got a rough genetic hand, so this could prove to be a very tough journey for Shay.
• Bob and Jillian are two of my favorite people on TV. And this year they seem to be swearing at the people a lot more, which I heartily approve of.
• My favorite part of any Biggest Loser season is all the product placement. This week’s was for the Bodybugg which analyzes your calorie input and output throughout the day. That was easy enough to work into the episode. I look forward to later episodes when the products become less weight-related. Last year we learned how Ziploc storage containers help you to lose weight because you can put small amounts in them or something. And Marley and Me on DVD can help you to lose weight because…uhm… aww fuck it, just watch the stupid DVD.
• When Dr. Rob Huizenga comes in and tells you that you have the body of a 45-year old, when you’re only 30, what does that mean? I have the body of a healthy 45-year old? I have the body of a fat 45-year old? I have the body of the average 45-year old? That can’t be true, because the average 45-year old isn’t 200 pounds overweight. What is he saying? Is he saying that my life expectancy is 15 years shorter than a healthy person at my weight? If so, why doesn’t he just say that?
• This season’s cast is the biggest ever. I’m not sure how much longer this trend can go on. At some point you’re getting into “couch bound, washing with a sponge on a stick” territory. Reel it in a little, Biggest Loser.