It was War in the Biggest Loser house yesterday, in more ways than one!

Concerns

Mark, Jamie, Carol, Kevin and Katey were in the gym discussing their new teammate. Not everyone is happy that Lisa-Marie has returned because they doubt how much effort she’ll be able to put in. Mark said,

‘We’ve gone through five weeks of hell and earned the right to be here. She’s come back in and, if she wants to stay, she’s gonna have to really bring her game!’

Being charitable, Jamie said she might be finding it difficult because she isn’t used to the equipment in the Biggest Loser house. He said he wouldn’t make any judgements until he’d seen her in the all-important weigh in.

Extra Push

Because the Blacks hadn’t been doing too well against the Blues at the Challenges last week, Angie decided to get the Blacks together for a pre-challenge, motivational training session. She said,

‘Moral is very, very low. They’re losing challenges, they’re losing temptations and basically, I need to get their heads back up and in the right space. They’ve got to believe they can win,’

Angie told the team that she didn’t want them up for Elimination and that she didn’t want to lose anyone else because she thinks they are a strong team. She said they need to take one of the Blues out. Carol agreed and said that they didn’t want to have to go through what they did last week with having to vote one of their own teammates out.

Angie was impressed with Sadie during the session. She told her it was 100% better than she’d ever seen her do. She told Carol that she is a strong member of the team and, although her weight loss wasn’t great last week, she didn’t want to lose her.

Determination

The Blues have been dominating the Challenges since the new teams were formed. The Blacks are really lagging behind, even losing at Dodge Ball earlier this week. Kevin said

‘I was absolutely determined to beat the Blue team on the Challenge this week. I wanted to wipe the smile off of Mark’s face!’

The Black team seemed to work like Trojans in their session with Angie. They definitely look strong and are determined to have a good week on the scales. They are working well as a team – when a teammate is slacking they pull them up and when someone is out in front, they aim to catch up. Their focus is not in question and they do deserve some big numbers this week. Carol said she didn’t understand why they kept losing when they have been working so well together as a team.

The Challenge

Kevin said that on the way to each challenge, while they’re on the coach, it’s always like a big mystery with everything shrouded in secrecy. He said it is a very nerve-wracking part of the day. Carol said the Black team were nervous but also excited because they were determined to win the Weekly Challenge and put a spanner in the works for the Blue team.

They arrived at the venue for the Challenge and were faced with a climbing wall. Katey was petrified they were going to have to climb it, Carol felt physically sick at the sight of it and Michaela was really, really scared as she hates heights. Maria said it was her worst nightmare and Lisa was worried she would fall to her death!

The Sky Tower

Kate Garraway introduced the Challenge as the Sky Tower. She said it was two part challenge. For the first part, they were playing for bonus time for the second part. One member from each team would have to scale the wall to collect five flags at the top in ten minutes. They could only collect one flag at a time and then had to bring it down then climb back up again for the next one. Each flag was worth two minutes of bonus time and they could collect a maximum of 10 minutes extra.

For the second part of the Challenge they had to build a sky tower out of 100 crates in 15 minutes plus any bonus time they had got. Whichever team built the highest tower was the winner. The winning team gets to choose one of their own team members to exclude from the total weight of their team at weigh in. Kate Garraway said that for all the parts of the challenge they would be harnessed so, although it would still feel scary they would be absolutely safe. However, there was a weight limit on the harness of 21 stone which mean that Mark, Kevin and Lisa from the Blue team wouldn’t be able to participate leaving only Michaela and Katey on their team.

That caused a little bit of a problem for the Blues as Katey and Michaela are both petrified of heights! Kevin said he thought to himself that four weeks ago, he wouldn’t have been able to take part either because of the weight restriction.

The Blues had to decide who was going to do the wall. Michaela waited for Katey to volunteer but, judging by the look on Katey’s face, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon so brave and bold Michaela said,

‘Well I guess I’ll have to do the wall!’

Kevin said later that he is absolutely petrified of heights because a few years ago he fell 30 feet from a ladder. But, he didn’t want to show his team he was scared and he volunteered for the climb. He said he was going to challenge himself and see what he was capable of. You go Kev!

He said the climb was totally exhausting and he was so out of breath but, he said he was getting really good direction from his teammates below, telling him where the next hand or foothold was. He grabbed the first flag and lost his footing which must have been really scary for him. But he lowered himself to the ground and then started back up the wall again. Kevin managed to get three flags for the Black team.
Michaela was doing really well but she was not happy to be climbing up that wall. She kept saying that she didn’t like it and looked quite worried. Mark said that he got annoyed with his team because they were all shouting directions at once and it wasn’t working. Michaela said that it did get quite confusing. Jamie said,

‘Me and Mark were looking at each other and all I could hear was the foghorn called Lisa!’

Michaela got to a point where she couldn’t reach any higher handholds and she shouted that she was stuck. She froze for a moment but then managed to find a handhold and carried on. But then a moment later she started to freak out and panic. She was shouting that she needed to come down and she couldn’t carry on. The Blues kept telling her that she could carry on and that she only had about 8 feet to go before she got to the flag but, she couldn’t handle it and fear had got a grip so she was lowered to the floor without getting any flags for the Blues.

Challenge Part 2 – The Blues

In Part 2 of the challenge the teams had to build a tower out of crates. Only two team members were allowed to do the climbing and the other members had to give them support and help as best they could from the ground. They had 100 crates and 15 minutes plus their bonus time and the team that built the highest tower was the winner.

The Blacks went first with Carol and Maria doing the climbing. Because of Kevin’s heroism during the first part, they had got an extra six minutes of time, giving them a total of 21 minutes. Carol said she volunteered herself for the climbing because she felt she had to prove her worth after last week’s weigh in. She said the thought of the climb was making her feel really ill but she remembered what Angie had said to her – You’ve got to face the fear!

As the crates got higher and higher, the tower got more and more wobbly and Maria was obviously not enjoying the experience at the top of the tower. Kevin suggested that instead of piling the crates on top of each other to make the tower tall and then having to climb on them, once they got to a certain point, they should make a flag pole type thing on the top. At that point they had to start throwing the crates up to the girls because they couldn’t reach to pass them up anymore.

They worked really well as a team again and Kevin said he was so proud of them all.

Challenge Part 2 – The Blacks

As they hadn’t collected any bonus time in the first part of the Challenge, the Blues had a flat 15 minutes. Because of the weight restrictions, it was up to Michaela and Katey to do the climbing and the rest of the team to pass the crates to them as the tower grew.

They started building the tower and Lisa said later that ‘Sergeant Major Mark’ had given them their rules and their chores. She said,

‘My job was to get the crates and pass them to him so he could do his magic!’

But, in his defence, Mark said later that he’d been stacking things all his life as a lorry driver so he knew a bit about stacking and making things safe. Although, his plan of building the tower and making steps up the side so they could climb as the tower grew didn’t work so well as the platform they were on wasn’t big enough and they ended up going with Lisa’s idea.

When it was all over, both teams had managed to stack the tower 20 crates high so it was a tie and a re-match was needed!

Re-Match

Kevin was gutted that they hadn’t won first time round. He said he was no longer in his ‘happy place’. Lisa said that she wondered what the Black team had done with their extra time and insinuated they had taken it easy and messed around!

For the tie break they had five minutes each to build the highest tower they could. Only one person from each team would be allowed to do the climbing this time and the rest had to help build it. Carol decided to go for it for the Blacks and Michaela reluctantly agreed to do it for the Blues. The Blues went first this time.

Lisa had got a real bee in her bonnet about being told what to do by Mark. There’s definitely going to be some friction between the two of them during their stay in the Biggest Loser house! They are both strong characters, so that could be interesting! Mark said that he felt she just isn’t putting enough effort all round. He said her classic phrase that morning was that she didn’t want to sweat because she didn’t have a spare t-shirt!

The Black team were up next with Carol doing the climbing. Between the two teams, the Blacks seem to have the better harmony within their team and are working toward the same goal. Kevin and Carol said later that they just seemed to know, without any communication, what everyone needed to do to get the job done.

All of the team were impressed with Carol’s performance. Maria said Carol couldn’t have done any better if she tried and that she looked like a real professional up at the top of the tower.

Their harmony certainly paid off because the Blues got their tower 18 crates high and the Blacks just managed to beat them with 20 crates! The Blacks finally had a win under their belts!

Disadvantage

The prize for the challenge is to be able to exclude the weight from one of their team members at weigh in, which is a real advantage. The Blues however, had an extra team member and one of the heaviest ladies in the Biggest Loser house. They also didn’t have a bench mark for her previous weight loss so they had no idea how she would do. Katey said,

‘I think Lisa might be a big disadvantage to our team at the weigh in. It’s not a nice thing to say, because she has only had a few days to get back into our routine and things but she is not at our fitness level at all!’

Instead of working and bonding together as a team, there seems to be some cracks showing in the foundations of the Blue team. There’s lots of bickering and back stabbing going on between them. Particularly between Lisa, Jamie and Mark. Whereas the Black team are getting closer by the minute!

Next time it’s the Temptation Challenge with a real sting in its tail that really hits the contestants where it hurts! And there’s more friction in the ranks of the Blue team.