It was time for the Temptation Challenge in the Biggest Loser house yesterday and this time there was a twist and a sting in the tail!

Bad News . . .

The Paramedic was called to examine Jamie’s ankle at breakfast because he was in lots of pain. He said that when he got up that morning, he couldn’t put any weight on it at all. He had taken part in the Challenge the day before and was worried that had aggravated it.

When the Paramedic was explaining the situation to Richard, he did seem a bit sceptical. He said that Jamie had taken part in the Challenge with no complaints and then, when he woke up this morning, there was pain. But the Paramedic did explain to him that he thought it was quite important to get it x-rayed. He said,

‘Just to rule out any sort of hairline fracture because, it is quite possible that he genuinely has done something to it,’

Jamie was worried that if he had fractured his ankle or chipped a bone or anything, that it might mean the end of his time at the Biggest Loser house.

. . . And Yet More Bad News

Jamie went off to hospital and the rest of the Blues met Richard in the gym where there was more bad news for him. Mark’s ribs were still an issue and causing him pain and, Katey had still got a stiff neck from a neck sprain. Richard said later,

‘We have Jamie with a damaged ankle. We have Mark with bruised ribs. We have Katey with a damaged neck. We are officially the walking wounded!’

He went on to tell his team that there was no time for injuries and that they just had to get on with the training as best they could. He asked about the challenge and breathed a sigh of relief when Mark told him they had won and the Blacks had a 4lb penalty. Richard said they needed that break!

Tour De Biggest Loser!

Although he only had three team members with Jamie at the hospital, Richard decided to crack on with his Trainer Challenge. He set them the task of half an hour on the bikes at the same resistance and same level. All they had to do was cycle for half an hour and the winner was the person who had gone the furthest. The prize was £200 of Spa vouchers.

Katey was confident she could win this challenge because she loves using the bikes. But she had competition on her hands because Michaela really wanted the vouchers too!

Mark said,

‘Katey can only be described as one thing when it comes to the bikes. She’s the King of the Cycles! She really is so, I knew she was going to be really good,’

Richard asked the three of them what their game plan was going to be for the challenge. Mark said he was going to go as hard as he could to start with so he could rest later. Michaela said she was going to take it steady so she could sprint it at the end and Katey said,

‘I can’t tell you Rich. I don’t want these lot knowing!’ Truth was though, that she didn’t have a game plan! Oooops!

Michaela was struggling and decided to drop out and just let Katey go for it. So she told Richard that she had to stop. Then it was down to a battle between Mark and Katey.

Mark won the challenge but only by a cat’s whisker!

Jamie returned from the hospital. He hadn’t broken his ankle but had just badly sprained it. He was on crutches and had been told that it could mean he’d be out of action for anything up to three weeks!

Angie’s Trainer Challenge

It was the Black team’s first Trainer Challenge as a new team and Carol said,

‘It was the first Trainer Challenge for the Black and it was my first time for a Trainer Challenge with Angie and, I must admit, I was dreading it because I am still fearful of Angie. I know I shouldn’t be but I am!’

They had the same prize up for grabs as the Blue team and to win it they had to dead lift a power bag on to their shoulder, run to the other end of the room, do 10 squats with it still on their shoulder, drop it and run back for the next one. They had to do this six times and if the squats weren’t good enough, they wouldn’t be counted but they would have to keep going til they’d done 10 each time. The men started with 25kg bags and the women started with 20kg bags – not like Angie to differentiate between men and women!

She told the team that the challenge was all about speed and technique. They had to be quick and spot on with the squats.

Sadie was up first and wasn’t overly happy about that. She said later,

‘When I realised I’d be the first to go on the Trainers Challenge, I thought, well okay this will be a bit of a disadvantage because, if I’m the first one going I’ve got no point of reference and, you know, people can just pretty much go up there and beat me. So I wasn’t really happy about that!’

Sadie did well with the lifting but her technique for the squats just went to pot. She did loads of them that weren’t counted, costing her precious time. Her time was 4 minutes 8 seconds.

Maria was terrified because she thought she wasn’t very good at squats but she did really well and Angie kept telling her how well she was doing. Maria said later,

‘The more Angie says encouraging words, the more it sort of pushes you,’

Her time was 2 minutes 56 seconds. Angie said later,

‘I was so impressed with Maria. Phenomenal time! She just absolutely destroyed Sadie’s time and everything she did was brilliant. You know, she has really got potential to be phenomally fit and lose a lot of weight!’

Carol was next. She knew that if she was going to have any chance of winning she had to give it everything she’d got. On her first go, she dropped the bag and started running back before she had completed the squats. She had only done 9 so she had to go back, pick up the bag and do one more. That cost her a little bit of time. Her total time for the drill was 2 minutes 58 seconds.

Kevin was up next. He said that he saw the first people go and he thought – Oh no! This is going to hurt! He said his aim was to run as quickly as possible so that he had more time to do the squats. His time was 2 minutes 9 seconds. He said,

‘When Angie said that I’d done it in 2 minutes 9 seconds I was absolutely shocked! I thought, was that me? Did I just do that?’

Dave was the last one to go. He said later that he didn’t think he would keep up with Kevin’s speed between the squats so, he wanted to make sure his technique on the squats was fast. Angie said,

‘Dave is very competitive. He doesn’t really show it but, it’s definitely there. I don’t know if that’s tactical or if that’s just Dave but, he wants to win!’

Dave’s time was amazing! He did it in under 2 minutes at 1 minute 58 seconds!

Kevin said later,

‘He just beat me by 11 seconds. Ooooooh! That really hurt!’

When Angie asked Dave what he was going to do with the vouchers, he said he was going to give them to his wife. She had always wanted to go to a spa but it had always been too expensive.

I Want to Ride my Bicycle!

Angie set Sadie a challenge last week to learn to ride a bike and her first lesson had proved to be a giggle for all involved and a danger to any trees in the vicinity! But, had she improved since then?

She didn’t do too badly. Kevin and Dave were running alongside her holding the handlebars and steadying her. Then they let go of the handlebars and Dave just kept his hand on her back for reassurance. Sadie said,

‘When I did actually manage to ride it on my own and I had Dave and Kevin completely let go, it felt kind of free and, you know, I was really into the moment but, then I kind of got terrified again so it was a mixed emotion thing!’

Angie was really impressed by the little bit that Sadie managed and Carol said later,

‘The fact that Angie was really impressed must have meant that she was absolutely horrendous last time, God bless her!’

Kevin said, tongue in cheek,

‘It’s an absolutely joyful experience to see Sadie riding off for the first time alone without any stabilisation on the bike. You could liken it to the first flight of an aeroplane – the Wright Brothers you know? It was one of those tear in the eye moments that I’m going to cherish for the rest of my life!’

 

 

Team Rivalry

Since winning the Weekly Challenge, the Blues have been revelling in it a bit. The Temptation Challenge was where the Blacks could even the score.

The Temptation Challenge was called Battlechips. There were two chequered boards with letters down one side and numbers along the top and five bowls of chips and crisps next to each board. The instructions said:

It’s War! Welcome to Battlechips. Both teams must take part. You have five bowls of chips and crisps of a variety of calories. Please place the five bowls on any five different squares on your board. If your Battlechip bowl is hit, you as a team must decide who on your team will eat the entire contents of that bowl. The losing team with the empty bowls will forfeit their trainer for Last Chance Training.

Basically, as the name suggests, it was a game of Battleships with bowls of chips. See what they’ve done there? Battle and chips. Clever eh??!!

Kevin said later,

‘We had to win this temptation because we didn’t want to lose Angie for the Last Chance workout and we had the 4lb penalty over our heads. It was quite bleak if we lost our trainer on the last session!’

Mark said that they didn’t want to lose their trainer either because they needed someone shouting at them to make them push themselves because they would be tired after working out all week.

The Black team won the coin toss so they got to go first and they were the first team to score a hit. A pretty hefty hit at that because they got the waffle chips at a massive 302 calories! Michaela volunteered to eat them.

The Blues were the next team to score a hit and, yep, they managed to get the waffle chips too! Dave volunteered to eat them.

Then the Blacks got a hit and the Blues had to eat the low calorie potato chips at 114 calories. Jamie ate those.

The Blues then managed to get a hit on the Blacks. Carol ate this bowl which was the root vegetable chips at 243 calories. She said that she wasn’t happy eating them as, up to this point she had never given in at Temptation!

The Blacks got a hit next, also with the root vegetable chips which Mark ate. He said he didn’t like the idea of putting something into his body that was bad for him.

The Blues hit the Blacks next. They hit the bowl of low fat potato crisps and Sadie was the victim this time. At this point, it was ‘even stevens’. Both teams had been hit three times.

The next hit was for the Blues again. They managed to hit the Black’s bowl of chunky chips at 165 calories. They had decided that Maria would eat these but, just as she was about to reach for them, Kevin said he would eat these and the next bowl if there was one – what a gentleman! He said,

‘I’d kinda made up my mind in that instant that I was going to eat the last two bowls on the board. I kind of done a little mathematics and it was 400 and something calories and I thought to myself, I’m gonna work that off tonight,’

Mark thought that Kevin had a hidden agenda, offering to eat the last two bowls and saving the others from having to eat them. He said gestures like that were sure to keep him safe when it came to voting for Elimination – How cynical!

The Blues managed to hit the Black’s final bowl which meant that they had won yet again and the Blacks would be losing their trainer for the Last Chance Training.

So, the Blacks are trainerless but the Blues have lots of injuries. How will the Blacks cope without Angie for Last Chance Training? And which team will be the Biggest Losers for the week?