Biggest Loser 2012 – Week 14

The Biggest Loser Australia – Mon-Fri 7pm, Ch10
http://thebiggestloser.com.au/

As we crawl our way inexorably to the end of yet another series of Biggest Loser, we can begin to look back on some of the highlights.

Moving right along, this week started on a Sunday and with a weigh-in/elimination burger combo. Kasey went first and managed to lose weight and keep immunity. Bek and Brenda both lost similar proportions, just below 2% each, giving them a nervous wait after Alex and Margie pulled higher numbers. Yet they needn’t have worried, as Lydia, the cupcake queen, and Graham, the king of cupcake queens and Lydia’s secret admirer both fell below the yellow line.

On the scales, Graham expressed his disappointment, because in fact he’d had a great week at camp, with Commando agreeing. His cousin’s children, Diesel and Auto Gas had been, according to Graham, “exercising along with me every time they see me exercising on the television”, and so had completed about 40 minutes of exercise this year.

In the elimination room, Graham suggested that both he and Lydia were threats, but in different ways. “For Lids” he said “she’s a freat because she’s the fittest person in the game, but I’m a freat because I’ve still got a lot of weight to lose. I have one more goal” he continued. “My one goal is to get to my goal weight, fall in love, get married, fly to the moon, see if the moon is made out of cheese, discover it’s not, fly back from the moon, and have babies. I imagine having babies will be quite difficult because I’m just a country bloke and that, but I’m sure the scienticians can work something out for me.”

And Graham’s plea worked because all but Margie voted for Lydia, and so Lydia was forced to leave. Graham was sad to see her go, and suggested that she was the kind of girl he wanted on the outside, what with her being 40 and not actually a girl anymore. Lydia thanked him for his kind words and backed out of the room oh so slowly, never breaking eye contact.

With Lydia gone, the competition was now wide open, as the contestants entered “face your fears week”. This year, “face your fears week” took place in Switzerland. The irony of Hamish, who is terrified of Switzerland because of its principled or unprincipled (depending on your point of view) stance on not becoming involved in armed conflicts, not being there, was lost on everybody. But even without Hamish there were plenty of fears to explore.

All the contestants were taken to the highest karaoke bar in the world, in a place called Jungfraujoch. The view was stunning and Alex shared his deep knowledge of art history when he described the view from atop the mountains as “a Picasso”, but his faux passé could be forgiven when it was revealed that he was wearing special ‘cubist’ glasses.

First up, Kasey, Bek and Brenda all had to face their fear of jumping out of a helicopter in the Swiss Alps, a fear shared by 90% of the world’s population because it’s not actually a fear but a rational decision made after considering all the available evidence and coming to the inescapable conclusion that it’s F**KING NUTS! Next up, Margie and Alex had to face their fear of canyon swings, which is unsurprisingly a swing suspended over a canyon. Alex, after some internal debate let go of his fears and took the plunge.

While Margie was having a battle over her fears, Graham had not been allowed to face his own fears because the fears of the safety staff, that a still dangerously overweight man might break the canyon swing whilst it was halfway through a swing over a 200 foot drop, overruled all other fears. Instead, Graham was allowed to undertake a nice easy 90 metre lowering down a cliff face, which was misleadingly described as an abseil. While this was going on, Margie was having an interminable dialogue with herself, arguing about whether she would or wouldn’t face near death or just go back to being the same old fearful individual she had always been. (What’s wrong with fear, I ask? Stops us walking out in front of buses! ) And of course, we all know how this ends. This wouldn’t be Biggest Loser if someone didn’t conquer their fears, and of course Margie did conquer her fear of canyon swings, a fear she probably never knew she had.

With a bag full of fears or safely conquered, rugged up and put to bed for the night, it was then time for the obligatory reflection hike, where the contestants walk backwards gaining the weight they lost on a weekly basis until someone cries “uncle”. Graham looked back to when he returned to his home town of Carcoar, and put on a show for friends and family which was achingly similar to a Man Power show in all but substance and style. Bek recalled how distraught she felt when she was eliminated by the backstabbing shenanigans of Michelle and Kasey, but felt that in retrospect she had been lucky because for the most part she had avoided the stomach churning romance developing between Michelle and Hamish.

Brenda reminisced about the disappointment she felt being eliminated so early in week 3, but thought that worked to her advantage because it is likely she would have fallen in love with Graham if she’d been there the whole time, plus it gave her a chance to work on her comedy routine. Kasey became angry with herself as she thought about all the times she’d given up on love when in fact she should’ve given up on eating. Meanwhile, Margie looked back fondly on the brief yet passionate love affair she’d had with a cheese sandwich way back near the start of the series. Although she was aware at the time the short lived dalliance was doomed to failure and was detrimental to her growth as a person, she still felt that it was better to have loved and eaten a cheese sandwich than never to have loved a cheese sandwich at all.

With regrets and unhealthy memories out of the way, it was time for the contestants to take a bath. Thoughts of a nice warm bath in the hotel were dashed when Shannan informed the contestants that the bath they were taking was to be accessed via a hole cut in the ice atop a freezing lake. Graham began to strip off before Shannan said he could have the bath in his thermal underwear, and Graham continued to strip off before Shannan said that he MUST have the bath in his thermal underwear. Alex was filled with dread when he thought that his already tiny penis would shrink further upon contact with the cold water, and Margie held similar fears.

The final challenge of the week was an important one, as at the end of it one contestant was eliminated and sent home on some kind of an aircraft, but a different aircraft than that which took the other five contestants home. The challenge involved a race using tradition Swiss modes of transport such as walking, running, climbing down things, climbing up things, getting in a kayak, getting out of a kayak, riding a bike and sledge riding. At the end of the race there were six tradition Swiss delicacies with varying amounts of calories, with the contestant winning the race having first choice of delicacy and so on.

Margie took an early lead in the race but was soon overtaken by Brenda, Kasey and Bek when she lost her shoe and sock in an unfortunate shoe and sock losing incident in the snow, which slowed her considerably. Meanwhile, Graham and Alex battled it out for last place. Once Margie regained her shoe and sock, she began to make up some lost ground. Brenda and Kasey both found riding the bike up the hill difficult, so instead walked their bikes, which gave Margie an excellent chance to gain ground. Meanwhile, Alex and Graham battled it out for last place. Margie’s fear of heights caused her to delay the bridge rappelling section, so much so that Bek, Brenda and Kasey all gained ground on her, though she still held a slender lead when it came to the kayaking. Meanwhile, Graham and Alex battled it out for last place. All the girls found the kayaking particularly difficult and to such an extent that Graham began to make up ground on Brenda. Meanwhile, Alex battled it out with Alex for last place. Margie got in first and chose the raspberries, while Bek was second and took the hot chocolate. Kasey came in third and after much indecision took the bratwurst, while Brenda grabbed the Swiss cheese. Graham came in fifth and had a difficult time trying to choose between the potato rosti and the Swiss chocolate, but eventually took the chocolate. Meanwhile, Alex came in last place, and was left with the rosti.

Unfortunately for Graham, the Swiss chocolate was the highest calorie food and was the architect of his downfall, as on so many occasions past. Though devastated to be going, Graham was positive about the new challenges facing him and promised to be 110 kilograms by the time of the finale. Feeling like a new man, he walked off into the sunset, only partially blocking it this time.