Sherry Johnston was eliminated from The Biggest Loser: Couples during last night's broadcast the NBC reality weight-loss competition's ninth ninth-season episode.

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"I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to change my life,"  Sherry said following her ouster. "I've become a whole new person.  I feel like I've come alive again, I've found life and energy inside me I didn't know I had.... I see now the possibilities for me are endless."

Sherry, a 51-year-old non-profit administrator from Knoxville, TN, was voted out of the competition by her Black team teammates after they lost the season's third Blue vs. Black team weigh-in despite receiving a five-pound advantage by winning a healthy cooking challenge conducted by Australian celebrity chef and current The Celebrity Apprentice participant Curtis Stone.

Including the five-pound advantage, the five-person Black team lost 30 pounds and posted a 2.50% weight-loss percentage -- numbers that still fell significantly short of 56 pounds and 3.11% weight-loss percentage the six-person Blue team managed to post.

"We had a five-pound advantage and we still lost... it's like a nightmare coming true," said Ashley Johnston, Sherry's daughter and fellow Black team member, following the weigh-in.

Sherry weighed 163 pounds and lost three pounds at the weigh-in but posted her team's second lowest weight-loss percentage.  Only Stephanie Anderson -- a 29-year-old radio sales executive from West Hollywood, CA who weighed-in at 208 pounds and lost just two pounds -- posted a smaller weight-loss percentage.

Sherry, Stephanie and Andrea Hough all campaigned to stay prior to the Black team's vote.

"I know we all want to be here.  I want to stay and I'm just going to put it out there for you guys," Sherry told her teammates.  "I think this is just the beginning for me and I want to be able to stay here and finish my journey."

"Even if I had lost four more pounds it wouldn't have mattered.  Like it scares me to death that I can work so hard and I don't see it [on the scale].  And I'm here.  [If] I go home what's going to happen?" Andrea said.  "That freaks me out!"

"I can't go home.  I can't.  I'm finally starting to figure out like who I am and I'm surrounded by people who encourage that," said Andrea, a 24-year-old executive assistant from Ann Arbor, MI.

Ashley, a 27-year-old manager/esthetician from Knoxville, TN, acknowledged the weigh-in had left her with a difficult choice.

"I have such a long way to go... I have over 100 pounds to [still] lose.  This is the absolute worst-case scenario for me, I have to pick between like my two best friends here," Ashley told Stephanie and Andrea, explaining that she couldn't vote for her mother or Sam Poueu, who had posted the Black team's highest weight-loss percentage and was therefore immune from elimination.

"Whoever I vote for, I love you so much, but I need my mom."

However once the vote took place it appeared that Stephanie and Andrea had little to worry about.  Similar to last week's elimination of 50-year-old Cheryl George, Andrea, Stephanie and Sam all voted to eliminate the team's only remaining non 20-something member, resulting in the exit of "Mama Sherry."

Sherry and Ashley both cast their own votes for Andrea.

"When I first came I came because Ashley wanted me to come with her, and as any mom probably would, I came," Sherry told her teammates after her elimination.   "And what I've realized along the way is I've begun to see myself, to be here for me.  I just needed that kick-start to get going again... my journey will continue."

"I know you're going to continue to do well and to be strong," she told Ashley.  "You can do this.  You can do it... I love you."

During a post-show update, Sherry -- who had arrived The Biggest Loser ranch weighing 218 pounds -- said she now weighs 138 pounds and hopes to reach the weight she was on her wedding day 30 years ago by the show's May finale.
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