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

Tina: On a personal level I became very good friends with Sharon Lott. Sharon and I talk at least every other week. She is some I consider a very good friend. The other girls I do not keep in touch with. I was very surprised at the amount of trash talking Amanda talked in particular considering she is a NAVY WIFE herself. That is all I will say about that.

Brian: Tell us about series hostess Caroline Rhea. Is she only around when her scenes are being filmed or does she come by at other times? Is there off-camera interplay with Caroline?

Jessica: Caroline is really nice. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time with her, but the time we did have with her, she was very nice and very funny. She’s seemed very down to earth and does her job really well.

She won me over at the first weigh-in. We were dressed in those horrible shorts, little sport bra tops and flip-flops, and it was really damp and cold that night. I guess she noticed the eight of us standing there, shivering, while they were trying to fix something on the set. She pretty much jumped on the crew and made them send us to our vans to warm up. She was fully dressed and cold so she knew we were freezing our behinds off.

Tina: Caroline Rhea was wonderful. She was around for days she filmed with us. We laughed a lot with her. We told her on the day of our challenge that we did not want the nanny services and she laughed so hard. We were making faces like we don’t want that. Sorry to appear ungrateful, but send us to the spa instead. The spa, we found out, was something they offered to the teams after us. We should have kept our mouths closed.

Dari: I honestly was not a fan of hers until I met her, now have a greater liking for her. I did enjoy the times we were with her.

Jessica: At the final weigh-in, I felt she went out of her way to come over to us to say hello while we were waiting in the wings to come out onstage. We had a few laughs. She really was cool.

Brian: Tell us about the behind-the-scenes people you interacted with. Who else was there and what are their roles?

Tami: There were so many people involved with this show its unreal but everyone was very nice and accommodating.

Dari: We had people that catered to us called “handlers,” they were terrific. Everyone was nicer then the next. We had three in particular that were there with us the most Tim, Al and Chandler. They put up with us and our goofy pranks. They were great guys!

Jessica: We had one hell of a producer named Pam Griffiths who wrote the first hour of the show. She was so easy to interview with and she really made you feel comfortable. We became very good friends and we still talk to this day – I love her to death!

The directors were also great. The name of everybody escapes me, but I remember Mark Jacobs’. He went on to direct Breaking Bonaduce. He is very talented and an all around nice guy. All the producers, sound folks, camera folks, lighting crew, everybody – they were great!

I have to give a special shout out to the Production Assistants: Jaime, Carly, who put up with a lot of crap from everybody, Gray, Tim, Al, Chandler… I know I’m forgetting a lot of names, but all of them, they were all so nice to us. They’ve got tough jobs and I don’t think they get the props they deserve. Without all the PAs and the support staff, there would be no show.

Jessica: I also want people to understand that we were closely monitored and contacted often by our show doctor, Dr. Robert Huizenga. This man is amazing, a true genius in every facet of the word. You should Google him sometime! We were drug tested, checked on during our time at the ranch to make sure we were okay, and he would call and check on us while we were at home, too. He still does. He was very instrumental in helping Tina finding out about her breast cancer sooner! I love him. He’s awesome!

Brian: Having been on the show, are there any changes to the process you’d like to see?

Dari: I would have liked to have been more informed of the process along the way. It seemed as if the production company was flying by the seat of their pants to get things done. The process was concrete but the information passed down was vague.

Tami: We were always left in the dark about everything, we never knew what we were doing until right beforehand.

Jessica: Maybe a bit more organization and less waiting. I mean, we were stuck in a van for ELEVEN hours once. A couple hours here and there. We could have been working out or something. I guess there’s a method to their madness though.

Tina: I will go back to saying, equal air time or close enough to equal will be fair instead of it being a one or two man show when there are more than one participants on the show. This could lead to mixed feelings by air. I guess I am kind of stuck on that. I have heard so much by my family and friends and even some of the other participates, it's stuck.

Um, this is not even a “process” answer!

Brian: In my recap I said you seemed to disappear, in the second episode especially.

Tina: Back to the question at hand – the process was good.

Brian: Was there anything not shown that you wish had been aired?

Jessica: I really and truly wished they would have aired more interaction between us and our trainers. More of our workouts. And something that was very close to my heart… my vow renewal on the flight deck of the USS Rushmore when we flew to Hawaii to see our husbands for the first times since deployment. Not seeing that was a BUMMER!