DISQUS

I wanted to see Cosi at the finale, and to see him proved correct once again. He's gained a little weight, it's true, but he looks tremendous.

I wonder how Alison REALLY feels about finishing second? She can say whatever she wants but I guarantee she has regrets. Remember when Cosi was below the line with Sam? And remember how he went to the others and said, "If you vote me out, you're handing Sammy the title"? So who won the title? Sam? Gee, there's a shocker! LOL

I remember that elimination well. Kirsten said, "I have to vote out the biggest threat, so I'm voting for Cosi." What was the point of lying there? She was voting for Cosi because Sam was her homie, period. Well, she cost herself $15k and Alison cost herself $175k, and the title, and bragging rights for all the women of Australia. Alison's going to be thinking about this for the rest of her life, and what she could have done differently.

I won't post the spoiler. But there is some good info on the finale on the SAFM website (courtesy of Cosi. Of course he's not allowed to give away the winner on air):

http://www.safm.com.au/shows/rabbitamberandloui...

I recommend the April 30 podcast, and Cosi's bit starts at 3:51. He's on some of the other podcasts on the same page as well.

Hint to Australia's Biggest Loser producers: Don't pretape the show. Now that I know who won it takes a lot of the fun out of it.

I imagine they'll go to a live finale next year. Until then -- Nice going, "BL Winner Whose Name I Can't Mention".

Pay attention, please. This is the OTHER Sam, the female one. The one from last year. Also note the long hair, and lipstick in the picture. This proves that it isn't the "Sam" from this year.

I feel much as you do. I like all 3 of the blues too, although they are quite bland... I suppose it's not fair to hold it against them though. The last interesting personality left the house the instant Bryce hit that gong.

Wake me up when it's over, please. Or just send me a note saying, "Sam won". I too would like Alison to win, but I doubt it.

I'm surprised the contestants haven't figured out the real deal yet. This money being offered to them is NOTHING compared to what they can make outside of the House.

Probably the best example of cashing in on the fame of becoming the Biggest Loser is Adro from Season 1. Check out his website! He sells books, DVD's, workout apparel, supplements with his own label on them, and he has a fat camp that anyone can attend (for $1272AUD/wk). Not only that, you can hire him as a motivational speaker. His fees are not listed on the site, but I can tell you that a guy of his stature, in the U.S., would be looking at about $20,000US, plus expenses, for a one-hour motivational speech. I used to be a salesman and we'd get guys like that all the time. They'd say, "Get off your ass, push yourself, do it now, etc." then collect a check and go back home. I don't begrudge Adro at all for doing this, I think he is great and deserves it. But the point I'm making is that $200k, not to mention a mere $35k, is really nothing compared to what is available out there.

And you don't even have to be a winner to cash in, although the winner would have more power in contract negotiations. Look at David from Season 1. He got booted off the first week, and he's got his own website, his own fat camp, etc. Kristie also didn't win and she sells athletic products on her website, at massively jacked-up prices ($124AUD for a pair of ankle weights!! They're worth maybe $25). Even Jo, the woman nearly everyone hated, is making money off her BL experience.

Michelle may have given up $50k and gotten booted out anyway, but if she's smart she'll make far more than that over the next few years. What about Cosi? Do you think he'll have more power in his radio contract negotiations now that he's famous all over Australia? Of course he will. There's no way to quantify it, but all these contestants can be enriched by their appearances on the Biggest Loser. I say, go for it.

Haha, it does look bad, and Ajay makes it worse (although I like her a lot, and know she's just reading a script). She didn't just say that Alison was guaranteed to go to the finale, she said "100% guaranteed". Talk about redundant. That's like saying "exact same", or "hard boner".

One thing is for sure, this show is way more exciting than the U.S. Biggest Loser. "The Walk" may be stupid but it sure gives us something to talk about. I thought Bryce was an idiot for not stepping off the disk and eating the Smartie, but due to "The Walk" he'd have been in the same position anyway.

Alison was GUARANTEED a spot in the finale, according to Ajay. It's right there on tape.

I'd like Alison to come back from the walk and say, "Well, this rock says my immunity is in jeopardy. But I know it isn't because we have a verbal contract. So either I go to the finals automatically or I sue the network". That would be a slam dunk.

Alison could also take the money and still go to the finale, at least from a legal standpoint. I enjoyed Ajay's statement about Alison giving up her *GUARANTEED* spot in the finale. The word "guaranteed" means you are "guaranteed" to go to the finale. How can she be guaranteed to be in the finale, and yet not BE in the finale? My brain is starting to smoke now.

I see what you're saying. I know my solution isn't perfect, but it's better than the current situation. I don't really buy the younger vs. older people advantage thing, though. Our Season 3 BL, Erik, was 36. The Season 4 BL, Bill, was 41(!). And this year's biggest loser was 32. It could be that the younger people have more ability to lose weight (I could accept that) but that the older people are more driven. Who knows. As for Alison, you're right, you can't give her props for just one big week.

She seems like the type of person who has a lot of friends at home, though. Let's hope they rally behind her at home, lighten her workload and let her work out, and give her the best chance of winning. She's still a bit of a fatty: I'd say she's actually tiny under all that. Bryce is too large and muscular to lose much more weight (he looks very studly, though). Kirsten has the same problem: look at the size of her shoulders and arms. She can't lose much more unless she does a Chris and starves herself. Garry is actually not very muscular, in my estimation. It would be interesting if he could drop down to 110kg or so at the finale, but is he driven enough? Obviously Sam's got a good chance. I actually would be pleased to see any of the remaining contestants win, as the few I didn't like are already gone.

You've probably figured out that I tend to like the underdogs. I identify with them and pull for people who are persecuted. So even though I like Bryce, I think he's the only one left who has no chance of winning.

It would be great if a woman could win this year. Obviously this is their best chance to do it so far. But there's one problem with it: if a woman does win, as in the American Biggest Loser, then people will say, "Obviously this competition is totally fair and balanced." But it isn't. And as usual, I will back up my position with logic and leave personal preferences out of it.

I crunched the data from the American Biggest Loser, since there have been five full seasons of data already. (The Aussie version has only two completed seasons). Here's what I found:

Number of men who've lost over 50% of their bodyweight: 4
Number of women who have done the same: 0

Number of men who've lost 45-49% of their bodyweight: 7
Number of women who've done the same: 3

Number of men who've lost 40-44% of their bodyweight: 8
Number of women who've done the same: 9

Total average bodyweight loss percentage for men: 37.2%
Total average bodyweight loss percentage for women: 31.7%

I think I'm detecting a trend here. A girl did win the American BL this year, with an outstanding 47.9% bodyweight loss. However, she was lucky that there were no men who could hit 50% this year. Last season, 3 men lost a higher bodyweight % than Ali (the winner) did this year. Neil last year lost 211 freaking pounds (95.7kg) or 50.1% of his bodyweight, and he didn't win the $250k grand prize OR the $100k eliminated contestants' prize.

Here's how to fix this. I know this is totally logical and leaves contestant preferences and likes and dislikes out of the equation. So it'll probably get shouted down, as most good, logical ideas do. But here's how I'd balance the competition. It's kind of like handicapping bowling scores. I would take the expected weight-loss ratios of the men vs. women (37.2% and 31.7%) and divide them. This would give me a multiplier which I could apply to adjust the female weight loss percentages. And of course I would update this multiplier with each new season of data, as any good statistician would. 37.2/31.7 = 1.17. Every female weight loss, every week, would be multiplied by this factor.

I have succeeded in making the weight loss side of the competition fair. You're welcome. I'm not going to get into the men vs. women challenge side of the affair because it's too subjective. But obviously women are at a disadvantage at the challenges, and so are more likely to incur weight penalties, etc.

I noticed something quite interesting on this episode. I don't really keep track of the contestants' total weight losses, but it is sometimes flashed on the screen when a contestant is being interviewed. I knew Garry had lost a lot but I didn't know that he is at 64.9kg. That's massive.

In five full seasons of the American Biggest Loser, the record for weight lost while still at the house is 144 lbs. (65.3kg). And that contestant did that over 15 weigh-ins, while Garry has only had 11.

If Garry can stay motivated at home, look out.

It is OK to be mean. And it's OK for the respective fatty's friends to come on to these forums and defend said fatty. But it really amuses me to see the lengths some people will go to. On this very site, "Charlie" called Sheridan "HITLER IN A DRESS!!!". Well, that makes perfect sense. Let's make a list of the most hated people throughout history.

1) Adolf Hitler

2) Joseph Stalin

3) -Insert your favorite Australian serial murderer here-

4) Sheridan from the Biggest Loser, Australia.

Obviously these people are all going to the same level of hell ;)

I think Garry is an interesting case study. I was thinking about how the other contestants say he is lazy. Maybe he IS lazy, I don't know, but it could just be perception. Here's why. Garry is extremely tall at 207cm. I looked up the figures for Australian height, and he is over 4 standard deviations above the average height for an Australian man. It's been a long time since statistics class for me, but I know that puts Garry in the 99.9% percentile for height.
Bear with me, I am going somewhere with this.
Human beings are not meant to be that tall, and a guy like Garry is therefore going to function physically differently than most of us. Note how Garry looks so awkward when moving, and even when coming to a stop. I really noticed it in the last episode when he got on the scale. Notice how he sort of swings to a stop, even when his feet have stopped moving. Then look at Bryce getting on the scale, and notice that there aren't any extraneous movements (not surprising, as he is only a little over average height). Looking at Garry always reminds me of that old Bigfoot film some crackpot made in the 1960's. Remember that? A big, hairy monster with long arms swinging like crazy, and kind of hunched over. I knew a guy quite like Garry in high school. He was over 200cm, and when I ran behind him in gym class I noticed that he would kind of weave from left to right. He couldn't even run in a straight line. This seemed to give the effect that he wasn't working very hard, when in fact he was.
I think this is what has happened to Garry. Consider a guy like Bryce, when he is running sprints. He looks determined, his arms are pumping like crazy, and no extraneous movements. But when Garry runs his arms and legs seem to be going all over the place. It is not his fault, he's just so damn tall, but it makes him look like he's taking it easy in workouts. Like I said, that may be true but based on my own experiences with my tall friend from high school, it simply may not be the case.

I like to keep things simple. Bryce will vote for Kirsten, and everyone else will vote for Michelle. Bye bye Michelle. The editors like to edit things to make it look interesting, and you can't blame them.
Here's the thing: just because Kirsten mouthed off a little at the weigh-in, and maybe her former blues didn't agree with her statement, do you really think they're going to do a one-eighty and vote Kirsten off? No way! Kirsten has earned too much respect at this point. Of course, the smart thing would be to boot Kirsten off and keep Michelle, because Michelle has approximately a 0.0% chance of winning the title. But that's not gonna happen.

I'll bet Bryce did waterload, and I don't blame him. I mean, imagine being in the situation he's in. The trainers are likely still miffed about the "wiping the floor with you" comment Bob made previously, after training the black team. The previous blue team and Garry certainly don't want Bryce there. Bryce knows that if he comes back and drops below the yellow line, EVER, he's gone. Period. If I were him I'd be telling the others to "get stuffed", just like Cosi used to do.
Shit, if I were Bryce I'd have loaded so much water you'd hear me sloshing all the way to the scale the first day back.

Well, Sam COULD win. In the TV Week interview with Cosi, he says Sam's hardly eating anything now and getting ready for the finale. So if he starves himself like Chris did last year, he's got a great chance to win. But.. at what cost?

I like Cosi a lot myself, although I understand why he would grate on some people. But I thought about why he's so outspoken, and you have to realize what business he's in. He's a radio announcer and I got to hear a clip of him yesterday. These guys make their living by being controversial and funny, and Cosi's not going to go from his radio job to the White House and suddenly become a wallflower. I'm from Denver, Colorado, USA and we have highly rated radio hosts here that are a lot like Cosi. Smart-assed, opinionated, and funny. If you don't like Cosi, that's fine but he's just doing what he does best. I believe guys like him, and even like JJ, help the show's ratings because they get people arguing and talking about the show. Seems like the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Well, that's true. I like Cosi personally, but every other player should have put 10kg on him until he collapsed, while every other player would stand there with an empty bar, waiting. Cosi can hold up under 90kg? Well, let's see if he can hold 120kg, or 150kg, etc. Then when he collapses, you move on to Bryce, etc.
You are correct when you say that the women could do a better job of eliminating the men. But the point is, if it were an even competition they wouldn't have to think that way. I'll give you an example.
I imagine that you are familiar with the American BL show. Well, this year there was an episode where the trainers, Bob and Jillian, had a challenge heads-up against each other. They each had to run up an escalator which was moving downwards, and whoever stayed on the longest won. Of course Bob won, because he's a male and had a greater heart-lung capacity. Because he won, he got to choose his own team for the remainder of the competition. Now, do you think he chose 1)all women, 2)a mixture of men and women, or 3)all men? That's right, he chose an entirely male team. Why, you ask? Because men are better at challenges and better at losing weight. If women had an equal opportunity to win, he'd have picked some women for his team. Q.E.D.
The women aren't showing a lot of brains so far in this competition. Hopefully, next year they'll get wise and play the game a little better. We just had a girl winner in our BL, and the UK had a girl winner, so it's possible. But the odds are stacked heavily against the women.

I was kicking around the site and found this thread. I think Michelle is right on here.
You must be around my age, because we were doing this kind of exercise a half hour a day, every day, in the mid-1970's. I'm from the U.S.
I thought of a funny story involving kids and exercise from that time period. We had a kid in our class who was called "hyper". Now they have all these politically correct terms for it, like ADD, but back then kids like that were simply called "hyper". Today, they would pump him full of drugs, get him counseling, and put him in a special class. Here's how my teacher dealt with him in the 1970's:
Whenever this kid would start to act up, usually by yelling, getting out of his seat, pulling the girls' hair, etc., the teacher would order him to go out and run around the school's perimeter. He would do this three to five times, or until he was too tired to run anymore. Sometimes the rest of us would stand at the window and cheer him on. I can tell you, when he came back in he'd be too tired to act up anymore. No drugs or other bullshit necessary, and the kid was pretty lean from all the exercise he did. Now I'm not one of those "good old days" type people, but that was one instance where a kid was handled better than he would be today.

I'm surprised there isn't more of an outcry, especially from women, about the unfairness of the challenges.
First of all, in order to get to this point, each of the contestants had to hold a weighted bar on their shoulders. But both the men and women had to have the same 10kg added each time! Men and women don't have the same strength. Imagine if during the next Olympics, men and women had to compete directly against each other in weightlifting and track and field. Do you think there's be any complaints? I can see the headlines now. "NOT FAIR" in big block letters, on newspaper headlines all over the world.
So how do we fix this? It's been done once before on the Aussie BL. Use a handicapper! These guys are paid to even out the competition and make it fair. On this challenge, the women should have had smaller hay bales to carry, maybe 10kg each instead of 15kg each. And on the weight holding challenge, they would have only 5kg added each time instead of 10kg. Note that of the six players eliminated previously, five were women and one was the guy with the heel spur. Tough for a woman to win this if she has a lower chance of getting through the challenges.

Thanks for the link to the interview. I'm from the U.S. so I can't find that stuff myself.
I think Cosi is hilarious. I don't want to spoil the interview either so I won't point things out. But he was exactly the way I'd expect him to be: he calls things as he sees them.
I'm going to have to do some research now and find out if I can hear Cosi on the radio. I know that Australia has some online stations, and maybe his is one of them. I assume he is back on the air now. This dude is such a character, calling people "tools", "cows", and "idiots", that I know he'll make me laugh.
I'm off to do a Google search.

I hadn't considered that before, that maybe the producers had a talk with the trainers before they chose teams. But seriously, putting personal feelings aside and that "boy/girl" stuff, which two players would you want on your team? Cosi and Bryce, of course. That team would have a 100% chance of winning the challenge. I don't think they like each other that much, but that's irrevelant. They're both so competitive and strong that they'd just blast through the challenge.
It's kind of a bummer that this contest seems to be rigged in some ways. But our U.S. Biggest Loser is the same way, and it's almost comical at times. For example, how do they know what order to have the contestants vote in at the weigh-ins? And I think they tell the contestants to purposely say things, then go against their previous declarations in order to add drama. But the idea of a successful TV show is to improve the ratings, so I guess they gotta do what they gotta do.

Before I comment I should mention that I like Cosi. He's got an iron will. And the JC reference doesn't bother me as I am not religious. So I suppose I'm a bit biased... but:
I'm glad Cosi got through. The rest of those guys are in deep sh*t now. I understand team loyalty and all that, but.. picking Sheridan over Bryce for the super challenge??? What is Sheridan good at? I mean, other than whinging, that is. But Bryce got in anyway. I suppose the good news, at least for those who don't like Bryce, is that he's going to be tethered to Michelle for the challenge. If that weren't the case, then it'd be Bryce and Cosi back in the game.
P.S. I'm from America and I love your show. It is better than the U.S. Biggest Loser in some ways. The best part is, it's on six days a week rather than one. The theme some to the Aussie version is better too. Our BL competition just ended on Tuesday so I'm glad I still have something to watch. We don't get a new BL competition until October (!). I know your BL ends in a couple of weeks, but do any of you know when the next Aussie version starts? I'm looking forward to it already!