The Biggest Loser
The Biggest Loser - The Workout DVD
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Starts Monday 27th April for 8 weeks
The Biggest Loser is a new daytime show on ITV 1 where each weekday Kate Garraway follows the progress of 16 seriously overweight contestants competing to change their lives forever.
The Biggest Loser challenges the 16 contestants to undergo dramatic physical change without any kind of surgery – just sheer sweat and hard work.
The contestants weigh from 15 stone to an incredible 28 stone and are made up of eight couples, including combinations of mums and daughters, best friends, dad and son, husband and wife, sisters and two single men who’ve never met before.
For eight weeks they live together in a house in Leicestershire where they face intense physical challenges and exercises in a battle to lose weight, transform their bodies, their health and, ultimately, their lives.
Help comes in the form of two amazing trainers, Angie Dowds and Richard Callender. Each week Angie and Richard must put the contestants through a gruelling weight loss programme, which includes a split of three hours of cardio a day and two hours of resistance training.
Their fitness programme and gym visits are in preparation for the all important weekly 'Weigh In' where Kate reveals just how well they have all done. At this stage the two couples who have lost the least amount of weight are put up for elimination and the remaining contestants must vote out the couple that they want to leave the house.
After four weeks the teams change and the competition intensifies when the remaining pairs are divided into two teams – Black and Blue. The contestants individual weight loss forms part of their teams total weight loss. The team with the lowest percentage faces elimination with each member of the losing team voting on whom they want to be eliminated.
As well as the overall weight loss, the contestants must endure tough challenges which see them face a range of tasks including: pulling themselves along on rafts in a swimming pool, tobogganing down a snow slope and then race up it, returning to an old-school sports lesson, digging strawberry plants on a farm, running with hay bales, pumping a hand cart down a quarter of a mile track on an old steam railway, building and climbing on top of a tower of milk crates, pulling a 7 ½ tonne truck and then facing the final challenge of completing a triathlon under the expert supervision of Darren Campbell, Jamie Staff and Mark Foster.
Contestants are also wickedly enticed by a series of temptation challenges to see if they have found a new born strength to resist what has previously helped them pile on the pounds.
During their time on the show they must adhere to the rules of the house, which clearly state no alcohol, cigarettes or food not supplied by the approved nutritionist.
They are only allowed books and music as entertainment and there is no television, newspapers or indeed any contact without the outside world.
At the end of the gruelling eight weeks the remaining contestants are weighed and the finalists chosen. They are then sent home where they must continue training and maintaining their new lifestyle. Two months later they are brought back for the final weigh in and the contestant who has battled the bulge the best will win a cash prize of £10,000 and the title of The Biggest Loser.
Kate Garraway said: "On top of the cash prize for the winner, the real reward is the life-changing - and maybe even life saving - achievement of finally reaching their goal weight.
"Every contestant has a different reason for wanting to take part, some are longing to have a baby, but their weight is preventing them, some are looking for love and others have been told that if they don't shed the pounds they could die, so for them the show really is a last chance, literally a matter of life and death. I have been so moved and often completely inspired by many of the contestant’s stories and I know people watching at home will be gripped too."