Biggest Loser Season 14 Premiere Part 2: Get Busy Moving, Or Get Busy Crying

Bite Size Wellness will be recapping all of the sweat, tears and, uh, vomit that takes place during the hit TV show The Biggest Loser over the next several weeks. Hidden among the screaming trainers and awkwardly placed commercials are some very insightful fitness and healthy living tips we can carry on into our day to day lives. We plan to highlight these lessons as well as give you the rundown of what happened in each episode with a bit of humor and truth sprinkled without. 

Biggest Loser Season 14 Premiere (Day 2) — Monday, January 7th episode

It seems like just yesterday when we were introduced to the latest batch of contestants….Oh right, it was yesterday. Funny how time flies when you’re watching other people exercise.

So what did we learn in the part 2 of The Biggest Loser premiere kickoff? Eh, not much. The theme of this episode was “get moving,” so here’s what I took away from the show:

• Even if you can only do a little, do it because it’s better than doing nothing;
• Bear claws are delicious, but not dying of weight-related health complications is better;
• Blood can be filled with fat, which, ew, I never really thought about before; and
• Stay active, and stay positive.

Hostess Cupcake (aka Alison) arrives at the BL Ranch, which is more like a suburban cul-de-sac. She informs the contestants that this week, the person who falls below the red line will be automatically eliminated.

To get the contestants out and moving, the trainers designed “a space for functional movement,” also known as an outdoor gym. It looks like a school playground on steroids, but with 37% fewer schoolyard bullies. And, just like grade school, there’s always one kid with a doctor’s note. This time, it’s Jackson. He has been medically restricted to “just walking.” So while the Blue Team is pulling and jumping and lifting and squatting, Jackson is “just walking.” Which, to be fair, is my normal pace. Mike nearly passes out, another Blue Team member whose name I don’t know because today’s shirts don’t have any names on the back bursts into tears, the Red Team is holding Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles over their heads while doing squats, and everyone dives into a sandbox that is likely riddled with germs.

Meanwhile, Jillian’s White Team is a mess. It’s like they’re moving in slow motion, and not the cool slow motion like in The Matrix. Danni and Pam are taking turns giving up, with Pam in the lead. She’s “scared of the pain of the workouts,” and something about bear claws? Sometimes I don’t understand this show.

Each of the contestants meets with Dr. Curly Hair and oh my gosh, he shows Pam a vial of her blood and it’s 80% congealed fat. Gina has diabetes, Jackson stops breathing, Mike’s main arteries are calcified, and, yeah…we get the picture. Obesity is really bad for your body. Like, seriously bad. And these contestants can only hope that it’s not too late to change.

Speaking of change, Jillian needs to switch up her strategy because it’s not working for the women on the White Team. She tells them that the people who watch (Hello! That’s us!) get deeply inspired by the changes the contestants make, and that they need to push through the terror of failing because it’s worth it on the other side.

For their challenge, the contestants go to a football field riddled with kids running around like Olympians. There’s also a football player from some team I’ve never heard of called the Chargers, and then in bolt Bingo, Sunny, and Lindsay who sort of don’t really do much of anything except act as inspiring little team mascots. There’s something about the Play 60 Program, which is the NFL’s initiative to help kids get fit, and the Chargers guy gives a few examples of things that kids can do to get fit. These include shoveling snow and mowing the lawn, and it kind of made exercise sound like a scam parents are running to get kids to do the chores.

The challenge is a footballish thing that involves running and carrying a football. The Red Team has a ringer—Joe, a former football player. Next up is an agility course. Dolvett’s advice? Stay low and balanced and pick your knees up. That’s good advice for life in general. The White Team is in the lead again this week and somehow pulls out another win. Hopefully that will be enough to save the White Team at the weigh-in.

Back at the gym, Jillian decides to give the Blue Team a little taste of what the White Team has been subjected to all week, and the White Team gets a relative vacation from the horrors with Bob. I don’t know what that means for the Red Team, except they seem to be kicking some ass. But it’s the White Team’s Pam who gets twelve gold stars. After whining her way through the first half of the week, she turned into a monster and killed every activity. Her teammate Nate, however, is not. He has another meltdown (sans vomiting), but eventually gets back in the game.

At the weigh-in, the Blue Team weighs first. Everyone did moderately well until Jeff got on the scale and didn’t lose a single pound! Huh? How does that even happen? I lost three pounds sitting on the couch watching Jeff on the treadmill. Everyone’s shaking their heads at him, but Jillian, ever the softie, says that this is normal for Week 2.

The Red Team weighs next, and 5 lbs here, 6 lbs there, and Jackson only lost 4 lbs. He is disappointed in himself and concerned that this may send him home. When the last Red Team contestant, Lisa, steps on the scale…commercial break. Sigh. If they cut out the suspense-music-tense-face-drama, this show could be condensed into one neat and clean hour. Turns out Lisa lost 5 lbs, which is 1 lb more than the Red Team needed to come out ahead of the Blue Team.

Last up is the White Team. Pam lost 8 lbs, Danni lost 5 lbs, and Nathan lost…another commercial break. Tension builds, I grab another piece of crystallized ginger (shut up, we all have our snacking shame), and oh right! I can fast forward! I love you, DVR.

Nate lost 5 lbs, which means that the White Team loses again and Nathan goes home. The White Team is now down to two players. Jillian is crying, like, genuine tears, because Nate is a good guy. But don’t worry about Nate, he’s going to be okay. He gets what has to change in his life and is committed to the hard work needed to achieve his weight loss goals. So bad for the White Team, but good for Nate.

What did you think of the 2-night premiere of The Biggest Loser? Do you think Jillian needs to change her strategy? 

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