By Buzz Byrne

Last week Isabeau went against her team and voted with her conscious, sending Amy home. Her teammate and friend Julie was feeling mighty betrayed by this and her trainer, Crazy Jillian was flaring her nostrils with a renewed vigor and approached the subject by telling Isabeau she better not EVER fall below the yellow line because “Bryan will consistently beat you!” I’m not sure where that tactic falls in the trainer handbook but I chalk it up to Jillian being out of her gourd crazy. And Julie is pissy because she hasn’t dropped forty pounds yet which means she is having a tough time and is getting soft in the comfy ranks of a large team. Boo-Hoo.

And, by the way, Amy was no lock to stay with the Black team. She turned on the Red team and I think she would have turned on anyone to stay in the game.

The first reward this week wasn’t a challenge but a gift for everyone still in the game. The contestants got to go to Hollywood (well, Burbank) and get professional makeovers on the set of THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES. For Julie, “It was like walking into the TV!” I don’t think Julie was quite grasping the fact that she was on the set of a show she watches ON TV. After the makeover they faced a threeway mirror that gave way to revealing a loved one. Tears and more tears. Bryan saw his wife for the first time in three months and they made out. Julie saw her husband for the first time in seven days. And they made out. Bill saw his brother Jim and thank God, they did NOT make out. The editor of PREVENTION magazine was there and chose one of the contestants to be on their cover. It was revealed later to be Kae.


The next challenge was for a five grand shopping spree courtesy of PREVENTION. It was a rope climb, the bane of every chubby kid in gym class everywhere. Kae won that as well.

For the weigh-in, it was a squeaker. My guess was that Julie and Nicole would be below the yellow line and up for elimination but I was only half right. It was Nicole and my girl Kae, fresh off the two sweet victories. She lost three pounds when she needed to lose four to stay safely in the game.

Kae had no shot of staying though. She started out at 225 pounds and over the course of the three months on the show she lost 69 pounds, close to thirty percent of her body weight. She was simply amazing. And when she got see her husband at the threeway mirror, she said the way he looked at her, well, it was the best day of her life. A life she was able to reclaim, despite getting voted out by lesser players like Julie.

The hook tonight was a live weigh in of the eliminated contestant. Again, the producers and director proved they simply cannot handle a live broadcast. I know these aren’t actors who hit their lighting marks but they don’t need a camera shot that feature’s Trainer Bob’s back for a full minute. Alison Sweeney does not exactly make you feel like the captain of the ship is in full control. She twitches and jerks like a meth-head with a seizure disorder. Being able to hit a lighting mark doesn’t guarantee being at ease on live TV apparently.


On the upside, Kae came back to put up another huge number. Her total weight loss since joining the show is an amazing 88 pounds. She lost over a third of her body. That is astounding. I may have been wrong when I said she was going to win but she has nothing to be ashamed of. Great job, Kae.