The Biggest Loser Special Edition: Restaurant Families, Episode 1 – Maid-Rite vs. Emilia’s

A little later, Bob tells us that both teams are having trouble with their workouts and they are all called outside for a meeting. As a surprise, in walks Gary Deckman from the first season for some inspirational support. Gary tells them that they need to use their family as strength to get through what is ahead. Gary has another surprise for them – they’re going for makeovers! I’m surprised too - are glamour makeovers now part of the show?

Kelly tells us her mom “definitely needed a makeover.” And sure enough, her gray hair is dyed and cut. Scott’s moustache is sacrificed, and everyone gets better haircuts. Toni, Daniela, and Kelly have much nicer hair. Well, let’s hope it washes up nice, because Jillian and Bob are going to see those fancy coifs as a challenge!

With six days left on the ranch, Emily and Alexa (the two teenagers) take a walk together and have a chance to exchange stories. Neither currently has anyone their age they can talk to about being overweight. They share stories like shopping and wearing black or jeans and hoodies so no one knows how big they are. Yeah, that works. But seriously, it looks like their friendship will be a source of strength for both.

The families have been at the ranch for about a week, and it’s time for a challenge. They’ve been told to bring a water bottle, so that’s not a good sign. The way it works is that each team has 90 minutes to amass as much distance on a treadmill as possible. Each team has one walker at a time, and must tag out by hitting a “stop” button. Danger - hit that button twice and the machine resets to zero. The prize will be an extra week back at the ranch with their trainer before the final weigh-in.

Robert and Kelly start things off for their respective teams. Daniela steps in for Robert, who’s trying to urge her on. Both sides progress as they continue to swap walkers, but the one consistent factor is Robert’s shouting. From what we saw in the intros, that may be the family dynamic, but he’s always there and at full volume. Ten minutes in, he thinks Alexa accidentally double hit the stop button (she hasn’t) and while he’s hollering at her, his reaction is so over-the-top that both teams start laughing at him.

A bit later Robert and Toni are arguing again, and Daniela says they look like “the Italian Osbournes.”

After 20 minutes, Tammy Senti makes the mistake we all saw coming – she double hits the button and they lose all their accumulated distance, which was 1.23 miles. They are now 1.35 miles behind! She’s shocked and upset with herself. They think they’re cooked, but Scott is determined to do his best to catch up. Tammy says to him, “I didn’t know you were so strong. I’d marry you all over again.”

With three minutes to go, Robert decides Daniela should finish off the last few minutes. And sure enough, she brain-farts, double-hitting the stop button and wiping out almost 6 miles of work! Oops! That’s a fatal error, there’s no time to catch up, and the blue team wins an extra week on the ranch with Bob.

Had I been on the blue team at that point, I’d have set the speed to 0.0 and stood there for three minutes. Daniela feels just sick about what she did, but Tammy says, “Wouldn’t that be a horrible way to win?” Tammy, it’s okay for you to think that, but never say it out loud!

Later, Daniela is despondent over letting her team down and won’t let Robert into her room. She says he likes to keep things “right on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” In fact, she’s talking about quitting.

There’s only one possible way to fix this – Jillian to the rescue! Jillian knows that these are strong people with a lot of potential, but tells them that they don’t know how to support each other. She tells Robert he put too much pressure on his teammates, but also tells them that they have to accept Robert’s drive to succeed. Well, Daniela is still locked in her room, but the rest are beginning to see the light and appreciate Jillian’s efforts.

It’s now just three days until the weigh-in and we’re meeting with the blue team and a doctor associated with the show. We learn that in the pre-show exams, Emily was diagnosed as being in an early stage of adult onset diabetes. She’s only 16, so this is not trivial news as it could take decades off her life. However, what she’s doing is exactly what she needs to be doing (namely, getting the weight off). This should be a big incentive for her, both for the time after they leave the ranch, and well beyond the scope of this show.

It’s almost time for the final weigh-ins for this episode, where the trip will be awarded. But first we have the last-chance workouts. All four are going at it pretty hard, and the blue team is really being pushed hard by Bob… and, panic.

As they arrive for the weigh-in I note all the ladies are wearing tank tops or tee shirts with sweaters - it’s evening there and it must be a little chilly. The following chart (enhanced with some of my own calculations) shows how they did.

When their turn comes up, the Red team has to lose more than 51 pounds. When Emily steps up, they only need a two-pound loss from her, so there isn’t much suspense.

After her numbers are announced, Kelly is happy to be under 200 pounds for the first time in a long while. Caroline humorously credits Scott’s big loss to shaving his mustache.

Now, I would never belittle anyone’s weight loss for even a single pound matters, but neither team’s percentage number matches up to the results of the last two weeks. But that doesn’t matter, circumstances are different and the main story tonight is that the Senti family won the challenge and the nice family vacation.

We’re pretty much done at this point. Accompanied by the series’ inspirational theme song (Heather Small’s “Make Me Feel Proud”), all eight have positive things to say about their experience at the ranch and are confident they can continue their successes.

Next week – part two of “The Little Italy Family” versus “The 1950s Diner Family” to see who wins the big prize. Of all the teams, these guys are going to have the biggest temptations on a daily basis. We’ll see if trainer Bob can finally pull off a victory.

Although Bob’s team finally won a weigh-in, I note that the second team onto the scale has still won every weigh-in.

I noticed that in the opening, it concluded as usual with Caroline telling us that the winners will get a $50,000. It’s interesting that she did it on the final weigh-in stage, and in front of a live audience. I wonder when that was taped.

Well, that’s it. Join me here each Thursday for a recap of all the action, sprinkled with my own reactions and opinions. Let me know what you think at the email address below!

Brian lives in Toronto where he can be reached at uncle_bto@rogers.com. He’d like to hear your opinions and promises to respond to all serious email.

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