The Biggest Loser Special Edition: Marine Wives vs. Navy Wives, Part 2

It’s time for some more video diary entries. Jessica is starting to look good when she tells us she wants to make her husband proud. Rosalina finds the competition is what pushes her. Dari reminds us that surgery wasn’t the right solution for her, but this program is. Well, yes, liposuction will do the job initially, but living the same lifestyle as before will put you right back in the same boat. Alas, I pun!

With six weeks to go, both teams come home to find they have a “Biggest Loser-gram.” It contains a current picture of the other team. Jessica is sure they have the Marine wives beat and says, “We can almost smell that $50,000.” Is that some foreshadowing from the reality TV gods?

The Navy wives have returned to the ranch for the extra week of training with Bob that they won in last week’s challenge. He’s driving them hard, which they feel they need. Dari reveals she was having asthma attacks on the ranch before, but has not had any recently and has not had to use her inhaler at all. Good for you!

It’s time for the final workouts. The Marine wives are cautiously optimistic. Sharon is particularly impressed with Amanda’s efforts. As they pack, they feel like winners already as a result of the lifestyle changes they’ve made. Aside from the rest, Amber thinks they could have done better but figures the team has a chance to win. More foreshadowing?

The setup is complete and it’s time for the payoff – the final weigh-in. The scene is a Hollywood stage with series host Caroline Rhea in front of a live studio audience. Initially the teams are brought out one at a time to stand on opposite sides of a dividing mirror. By eyeballing the teams it looks like both are a lot smaller than they were, but I do see a few tummies still evident. Like, eight. It could be a close one!

Alas, Caroline puns, too. She says, “The wait (“weight”) is over.” The mirror is lifted and the teams see each other for the first time in months. Both teams applaud each other. When prompted for a sound-byte by Caroline, Dari says, “Work hard and the results will come to you.” The trainers are brought out to observe the weigh-ins. The blue team is getting weighed first and here’s how they did:

NAME	INITIAL	CURRENT	LOSS	PERCENT
BLUE TEAM (Navy Wives)
Dari	241	196	45	18.67
Jessica	217	169	31	15.50
Tina	200	157	37	19.07
Tami	194	179	38	17.51
(Total)	852	701	151	17.72

Very tidy - all four had similar results. Caroline informs the red team that they must have lost more than 144 pounds to win, and that seems like a lot to me. Here are their results:

NAME	INITIAL	CURRENT	LOSS	PERCENT
RED TEAM (Marine Wives)
Sharon	208	182	26	12.50
Rosalina	190	170	20	10.53
Amanda	248	182	66	26.61
Amber	157	144	13	8.28
(Total)	803	678	125	15.57

Not enough! It’s $50,000 for the Navy team! Defying the gods of reality TV irony, both Jessica and Amber predicted these results correctly after all.

When she stepped up, Amber was told she had to lose more than 32 pounds for her team to win. I congratulate Amanda for having both the largest net loss and best percentage loss. They’d have won if the other members of her team had lost another six pounds each, an amount that still would have left them with the three lowest loss percentages.

Family members and friends of the Navy wives team overrun the stage while the Marine team looks on disconsolately. We close out with some current pictures of the wives and learn that Dari is getting certified to teach spin classes and Pilates, Jessica takes five spin classes a week, and Rosa is playing competitive volleyball.

My Own Thoughts:

It was nice to see Bob win again, and also nice to see that the last team on the scales didn’t win for a change.

I guess it wasn’t just editing this time – except for Amanda, the Marine wives really did have troubles sticking with the plan once they left the ranch. Now, maybe most of the numbers weren’t as impressive in this arc as, in fact, neither team did as well as any of the other Special Edition teams. But maybe the story of the Military wives wasn’t about stunning weight loss numbers, but about more realistic results from people busy with active, full lives.

Or maybe it was about a couple of teams that, even for $50,000, couldn’t motivate themselves to improve their lives. I can’t decide. Let me know what you think at the eAddress 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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