The Biggest Loser: Couples' ninth-season cast welcomed back two returning contestants and said their goodbyes to three other competitors during last night's episode of the NBC reality weight-loss series.
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John Crutchfield -- the remaining member of the season's Brown team which had originally also included his brother James Crutchfield, who was eliminated at the season's first weigh-in -- was automatically eliminated after he put up a six-pound loss that left his one-man team with the lowest weight-loss percentage at the competition's fifth weigh-in.
"Ew. I didn't expect it, I definitely wanted to be here," the 30-year-old senior marketing manager from Orlando, FL said after he weighed-in at 421 pounds -- one pound short of the seven-pound loss he had needed to rank above Red team husband-and-wife members Lance and Melissa Morgan and remain in the competition.
"It's going to be tough, you know, but I'll go home and beat up on James," said John, who lost a total of 63 pounds during his six-week stay on The Biggest Loser ranch.
"I'm very disappointed, I wanted to be The Biggest Loser [winner] so bad," he added later. "But at the same time I look back and all my little victories -- I kept double-digit [losses] most of the time, I walked across a crazy-small balance beam, ran on a treadmill . I was afraid to get my heart beating [before and] now that's not even an issue, so I'm thrilled to know I can go home and I know I can do this."
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"I definitely took responsibility here, it's one of the lessons I learned. I'm not going to fall back on family tragedies anymore -- 'Oh poor me, this is why I'm big.' It's my responsibility for why I got that big and it's going to be my responsibility for to get myself out of it... this is not who I'm going to be... me and James are definitely going to be pushing each other."
In a post-elimination update, John -- who began the competition at 484 pounds -- revealed he now weighs 380 pounds.
"When I came home I was having a hard time going to the gym, just wrapping my arm around 'I've got to do this every day.' After about a week my weight-loss started to slow down and it just wasn't clicking with me," John said. [So] I found something with martial arts and now I can't wait to be done with work and I look forward to it every day."
In addition to John's ouster, the episode also featured the permanent elimination of Blue team members Cherita Andrews and Vicky Andrews, a mother/daughter team that had been one of two teams sent home for 30 days after being the weakest performers in the competition's initial challenge.
After spending 30 days attempting to lose weight at home on their own, both teams returned to the ranch and weighed-in to determine which one would be allowed to return to the competition and which one would be permanently eliminated.
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Cherita, a 50-year-old homemaker from Houston, TX, and Vicky, a 22-year-old student, lost a combined 63 pounds for a weight-loss percentage of 9.92%. However they lost the weigh-in to Yellow team members O'Neal Hampton, Jr. and SunShine Hampton, a father/daughter team that lost 76 pounds for an 11.45% weight-loss percentage.
"Now we go back home and we still continue on our journey," Vicky said afterwards. "I still expect to see the results that I would have expected to see here. I will see those results."
"Failure is not an option. It's not an option," Cherita added.
The episode also included a medical emergency involving Miggy Cancel, a 48-year-old chef from Pemberton, NJ who began experiencing abdominal pain only hours after her daughter Migdalia Sebren had been eliminated at the conclusion of last week's episode.
After being rushed to the hospital, Miggy was diagnosed with appendicitis and underwent an emergency appendectomy.
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"They took out the appendix, a cyst and a mass," she told the rest of the cast upon her return to the ranch several days later.
"That's why I didn't lose the weight last week," Miggy told trainer Bob Harper later. "I was full of fluid."
Remarkably, Miggy decided to remain in the competition and managed to rank fourth at the weigh-in even though she had been given eight pounds of fluids during her surgery and had her exercise heavily restricted afterwards.
The Biggest Loser: Couples' next episode will air Tuesday, February 9 at 8PM ET/PT on NBC.
About The Author: Steven Rogers