It’s always wise to warm-up properly before exercise, and I extend this rule to watching exercise. So before I settled down to watch The Biggest Loser last night, I did some light dynamic stretching with an old episode of Frasier. The episode ‘Frasier lite’ sees the team at KACL (Frasier’s radio station) competing in a weight-loss challenge against rival radio station KPXY as part of a ‘Biggest Loser’ style slot on a breakfast TV show. They have to lose more weight as a team than their rivals.
Appropriate then that I should watch it before last night’s episode of The Biggest Loser where the contestants were challenged to lose 90lb as a group to prevent anyone being sent home. As well as the usual task involving being shouted at in the gym by Angie, this week we saw contestants in a field being shouted at by Angie as they tried to roll haybails. I’m sure the producers were going for some Giant Haystacks vs Big Daddy joke here (they’re British wrestlers from about 100 years ago) but unlike Giant Haystacks – that isn’t big or clever.

For the second task they had to spin a wheel and could win (no not a car or luxury holiday) 18 pounds. I was a bit confused at the crapness of the prizes on offer – I know there’s a recession on but these people are having to put up with Angie on a daily basis and that’s got to be worth more than 20 quid. It turns out that it was 18lb off their total weigh loss goal, but on the other hand, if the spin didn’t go well, they could be forced to eat a cake. Yes, the producers have grown tired of the stock footage they have of the contestants at home eating takeaway in front of the TV – it was time to get more shots of them eating high-fat food so we could point and blame them.

At the nail-biting climax of the show it came down to whether the one in the Yellow Team that I like had lost enough weight to save the group from sending someone home. She hadn’t. If she had seen ‘Frasier lite’ she would have known that the quick-thinking Roz, when faced with losing to KPXY, cut off her ponytail to shed the much-needed extra few ounces. But she hadn’t – so we were faced with a vote-off. It was between the Yellows and the Blues (difficult for me because you’ll remember last week I named my favourites as the Blues and half the Yellow Team). The Yellows were outta there. But what’s this Davina? A chance for one to go and one to stay? Cue tears, hugging and the departure of the half of the Yellow team that I wasn’t fussed about. Hooray!
Next week there’s no more competing as pairs – they’re part of either the Red or Blue team – which means I’ll have to learn all their names and stop referring to them as colours. My favourite is now Wil of the soon-to-be dissolved Green Team – and not just because he’s the only one whose name I know. Go Wil!
Catch-up: Week 1, Week 2, Week 4, Week 5

Janathon Day 24 and Day 25
Last night I did core strength exercises while watching ‘The Biggest Loser’ – it’s almost as though Angie is shouting directly at me! Today was a 3.5 mile run at lunchtime down the Thames.