Well, one of the last likable players on “The Biggest Loser” fell victim to the Conda Curse tonight, with Emily’s departure.
Emily fell below the dreaded yellow line — couldn’t she have just taken off those big hoop earrings and lost another pound? So when the vote came down to Emily and Kimmy, Emily got booted. Oh sure, Conda voted to oust Kimmy, but hey, she knew that everyone else was going to vote off Emily. That way she can make nice with Kim and do things like go shopping with Jessica Simpson and pretend they are still BFFs, while she’s stabbing Kim in the back.
I guess Conda can’t be blamed entirely. Maybe Emily’s self-doubts and fears deserve some of the blame for not showing better numbers. She was the black team’s biggest loser last week, winning immunity when most of the other team coasted. It’s hard to have big weeks back-to-back.
However, Conda effectively alienated Emily and Kim from the rest of the players last week by stirring the red team up against them. She told Buddy, Mark and Jeremy that Emily, Cassandra and Kim approached her to get rid of the men on the red team. We don’t know if this really even happened, as we never saw any footage of it, and why would they ask her to get rid of her own brother? Whether it was true or not, the tale worked. Both Cassandra and Emily are now gone. I used to dislike Kim as the triple trio of Conda, Kim and Mark. But now Kim seems on her own, with no real friends on either team. And shopping with Jessica aside, Conda is NOT her friend. Still, Kim is a competitor, and if she can keep pulling numbers to stay above the yellow line, she can hang in there awhile longer. It will just be very uncomfortable.
I thought it was interesting that in the voting process, Chris mentioned how Kimmy reached out to her after Roy left. Apparently there are a lot of things viewers don’t see, so maybe some of our perceptions are off with some of the friendships that have formed. Part of me wants to cheer for Jeremy, because he’s pretty funny, and such a good brother; but he’s a brother to Conda.
Buddy’s injury (a stress fracture) makes me wonder about the trainers’ intense workouts, and how much you should “trust” your trainer, versus listening to your own body when it’s hurting. He’s not the first player to develop a stress fracture due to the intense training regimens. A few years ago I interviewed Heather Hansen of Bountiful, one of the final four on BL Season 3. She said when she left the ranch, she had a torn calf muscle, bursitis in her knees and tendonitis in her quadricep muscles. She had to do a lot of healing before she could start working out again.
Yes, doctors monitor the contestants, “but you get a lot of pressure from the trainers to push your body beyond its limits,” she told me. “The doctor would say, ‘Don’t do squats, hills or inclines,’ but then the trainer would say, ‘We’re climbing up a sand hill today.”‘
That led to the angry exchange with trainer Kim Lyon.
“A few days before, I got dragged up the sand hill and tore my calf muscle. So when she said, ‘Trust me, I won’t hurt you,’ I didn’t believe her. But at that point, my legs were almost completely useless, and I couldn’t afford any more injuries if I was going to make it to the final four. To Kim’s credit, she wasn’t malicious or cruel, just very competitive.”
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