The 6 Month Road to Victory–Congrats to the Biggest Loser, Biggest Winners

Congratulations to Patrick House,  last night’s Biggest Loser and hence, Biggest Winner on the Season 10 finale of MY favorite show.  The 28 year old husband and father of 2 young boys, lost 181 pounds, 45.25% of his starting body weight, beating out Ada and his alliance buddy, Frado, to take home the grand prize of $250,000.00!  Going from 400 to 219 pounds in about 6 months is just mind blowing and I am so happy he was able to do such a great job continuing his journey, once home.  He seems to have a supportive wife and at 28  he is probably old enough to “get it,” and young enough to change his entire life!  On top of a new life, and a quarter of a million bucks, he also emerged with a job offer at an academy in South Carolina that specializes in helping overweight teens.  While I was all about Frado, from week one, I was actually really happy to see Patrick win, and my gut tells me, Frado, “a class act,” as Mitch described him last night, was also elated and maybe even had a role in making sure Patrick won.  It wouldn’t surprise me at all after watching others “allow” Patrick to win the car during the season.  My hope is that he is able to maintain his weight loss, something we all know is really the hardest.  With that said, congratulations, also, to my friend Carol who watched with us last night.  Not only did she lose 80 pounds, in about 15 months, following Weight Watchers, but she has managed to keep those pounds off for the past 5 years.  While Patrick may be a role model to the masses, Carol is definitely a role model and inspiration to those that know her.

Watching all the contestants from the season come back and weigh in (some hoping to win the $100,000.00 second prize) most did NOT wow me.  Many still had much weight to lose, and I wonder how that will work for them now that the season is over.  I am not sure who picks out their clothes for the finale, but most of them were dressed horribly in my humble opinion.  What was up with all the shiny dresses?  It was hard to find ANYONE who’s clothing did anything to flatter them.  There were, however, a couple of exceptions.  Lisa, gorgeous from day 1, wore a flattering black halter dress and donned a new darker, shorter hairstyle, looking like a model.  Aaron looked fantastic–like a studly athlete.  Adam and Jesse (I still can’t really ever remember who is who as they remind me very much of one another) both came back looking like new people and were very, very close in how much weight they lost.  But in the end, it was Mark Pinkhasovich,  who really wowed me (and the rest of the world, I am sure!).  This adorable guy from New Jersey lost 213 pounds, over HALF his body weight, and took away the $100,000, at home prize.

With a 3 week break, BL will return on January 4 and the theme is couples.  We got a peak at some of the contestants including one time Olympic gold medalist, Rulon Gardner.  The hardest news to swallow is learning we will be meeting new trainers.  Nothing in life stays the same.  We will have season 11 to get to know the new ones, while Jillian and Bob are still on the ranch and then I am certain Jillian is leaving, and think Bob, too, though I cannot find confirmation about him on line, this morning.  I already predicted his leaving earlier this season for reasons that I might be 100% wrong about…Having converted to a vegan diet, I wonder about what kind of conflict he may have, as I believe his idea of what is a “healthy diet,” might be very different than what they are asked to encourage the contestants to eat as well as what they ask him to do product placement for (like Jennie O turkey breast and yogurt and other animal products).   Then again, I may be reading too deeply into the situation.  I say this because I once heard that Jillian does NOT really let the contestants eat the Subway sandwiches they promote for advertising reasons.  Maybe its just time for the now infamous trainers to say goodbye while they are on top.  As my mother-in-law always said, its not a bad idea to “leave while they are still asking you to dance.”