Ship Shape - An Interview with the Navy Wives of The Biggest Loser: Special Edition

Dari: In a normal everyday setting, the foods would have been tempting, but we as a team were not tempted by any of the foods. We were positively totally ready to make a change. Most of the time we were too tired and nauseous to eat. There were times that we had to force ourselves to eat to make up our daily calorie consumption of 900 calories. That was the caloric intake only for the time we were on the ranch.

Jessica: They had a couple of candies lying around our bungalow, kinda decoratively. The first thing we did was throw all of it in the trash. We were unwavering in our dedication to not fall to temptation. And I’m proud to say that we didn’t!

Tami: Yes, our bungalow was filled with food that Bob wanted us to have.

Brian: What was it like working out under Bob’s tutelage?

Dari: Our workouts with Bob were miserable! His personality made it bearable, but we were in so much pain and in a state of total exhaustion. We were so out of shape, and the first week of any new workout is painful, never mind being under the gun with cameras and people everywhere watching.

Jessica: Bob was tough. And if you showed him any kind of strength, he’d go after you. I know that because he was pretty hard on us, but in a good way. If I was running ahead of the team, he’d run up next to me and tell me to step it up. If I was doing some weight training and showing some strength, he’d add more weight. He wanted to push us to our limit to see what we were made of so he could get a better idea of how to train us. Just when you found yourself getting pissed off at him for pushing you too hard, he’d do or say something that would make you smile or better yet, he’d make you proud of yourself. He was really contagious.

The endorphins – I called them “Bob-dorphins” – kicked in and sometimes he made you feel that you could do anything. He still managed to piss us off every now and again though, and I’m sure we were no walk in the park for him at times.

Tina: Bob was BOB! He was no joke. I had a lot of fun with him on the ranch. After leaving the ranch, Bob was only a part of my weight loss for the camera. Meaning, we just saw him when they did a filming with him in it.

Brian: The temptation challenge was kind of a “minefield” game, where you had to work your way along a route that included many spots where you’d have to eat “bad foods” and a few spots of “free parking.” Neither team played the game. Why didn’t you start playing to see if you could luckily avoid the bad spots, and just quit the game if you did?

Jessica: I don't recall the rules that were told to us saying anything about starting the game but quitting if we had to eat. I wasn't risking anything. The payoff wasn't worth it. They would have had to up the shopping spree a couple thousand bucks more than what they were offering!

So, why risk it? Our bodies had been going through a detoxification period. I worried that if I ate something that it would make me sick, or that maybe I wouldn’t be able to hold off on any other temptations. Not to mention the fact that we didn’t want to let Bob down. And the prize kinda sucked too. It just wasn’t worth it to me.

Tina: The temptation was tempting, but not for the food aspect of it. It was tempting for the prize part of it. I think that we should have done the challenge. It would not have hurt us as far as our weigh-in was concerned. It was more of someone said, “I don’t want to disappoint Bob.” The rest of the team just went along with it. But I have heard from others that they regret not doing it.

Tami: We had promised Bob that we wouldn’t give in to it. I would have liked to have the money, though it just didn’t seem like that much, once you split it between four girls. And I don’t think once you started that quitting was an option.

Brian: Well, without knowing that they might not let you quit, it was the only way to go.

Dari: I summed it up as we had lost and gained too much to risk blowing our progress for a shopping spree. The prizes were not enough to even tempt us into risking the progress we had made. It wasn’t about the money for our team.

Brian: In the “Win a nanny for a week” boat-oriented challenge, carrying those heavy (25 pounds) and cumbersome items seemed like quite the challenge. Was that as hard as it looked? How long did it last? They had fun with you on the show, highlighting that Navy wives had difficulty with the boats. Do Navy wives ever go rowing? Tami: That damn challenge is going to haunt us for life!!

Tina: It was the… funniest thing in the world! We were all trying to get the boat going. Tami was having a fit. The behind the scenes crew LOVED it. They laughed so hard. They said all they heard was bleep, bleep, bleep, and more bleep!

Dari: I grew up on boats so I had a little bit of an idea about how to row a boat but as a team we were clueless. We stunk! It was a very hard physical challenge and the weights were SO heavy.

Jessica: I don’t know why we all had such a hard time. It was definitely a team loss. There are a few things I don’t do well and boating is one of them. I knew I couldn’t steer a boat to save my life, but I knew I had muscle and could at least paddle my butt off. We just kinda worked against each other.

Tami: I was about five seconds from jumping off the boat and pushing us in the right direction when we finally got it going. I was SO frustrated! Then we get out there, I grab a buoy and it popped of the rope and sank. I wish we could have done that again, like we did everything else a hundred times. When it aired on the east coast I thought my cell phone was going to explode from all of the calls about the challenge!

Tina: Truth be told, we were not interested in receiving a nanny for a week. We all have children old enough to take care of themselves. The only motivation we had was just to win.