Fat Chance Read Online Free Page B

sent home the very first day. Or so we had been told. We had all been taken to a desert, where we raced each other down a mile-long sand dune in an attempt to reach trainers Bob Harper and Kim Lyons, who had parachuted to the bottom of the hill. The two contestants to reach Bob and Kim first would be deemed team captains and given the distinction of selecting their own team members. Bob would then train his six blue-team members. Kim would train her red-team six. And those of us who were left unchosen on the sand lot would simply be sent home.
    It came as no surprise to me that the smallest of the eighteen—yours truly—was left without a team. In that moment my greatest fear was being realized. What I was most afraid of had nothing to do with adopting a new diet, enduring a grueling workout routine or even facing America in nothing but Spandex and a sports bra as I broadcasted the weight I had been lying about for years. What I was
most
afraid of was making it all the way to the show and then being sent home before I’d lost a single pound.
    Despite a lifetime of serial rejection, somehow this rejection seemed the worst one of them all.
    After the red and blue teams were driven away by bus, the remaining six of us walked toward the café where we’d be picked up and carted off to the airport. But just as we neared the entrance, a motorcycle could be heard approaching from the distance. I stopped in my tracks, took in the size and shape of the person on the bike and said to my teammates, “Please let that be Jillian.”
    Jillian Michaels, a
machine
of a personal trainer, might as well have been riding on a white horse, for the sense of rescue we all felt. She pulled off her helmet, let her hair cascade down and with the spunk that only Jillian can manifest, said, “You just
wish
you were going home, dudes! You’re my new black team!”
    Even though it seemed like Jillian rode up immediately after the bus pulled away with the red and blue team members aboard, in reality, the six of us outcasts sat around for more than an hour before she arrived, lamenting the fact that we were obviously headed home.
    At the sight of my weight-loss savior named Jillian, my hopes for change were resurrected. I bent at the waist, clutched my knees with both hands, and wailed like an inconsolable baby.
HERMOSA HORRORS
    S ince the existence of the black team was supposed to be a secret for the first part of the season, we had to stay in hiding until our grand entrance into
The
Biggest Loser
house. So, for two weeks, our workouts were held in Hermosa, a town a hundred miles from campus.
    The black team really was a secret from the other players and trainers, but after we finally made our appearance, we learned that some of the contestants had suspected a third team. Evidently, the culprit was the kitchen floor. In a house that boasted red and blue comforters in the teams’ bedrooms, red and blue towels in the teams’ bathrooms, and red and blue rugs in the entryway, the kitchen featured red, blue and
black
tiles. Observant types figured that something was up.
    Jillian Michaels’ objective on day one every season is to separate the wheat from the chaff. All she wants to know is who is serious and who is not. Who will persevere and who will not. Who can handle the fire and who will utterly melt. At one point during our first workout, I heard a teammate whine, “Jillian, I’m gonna throw up!” The response I overheard gave me a little window into my trainer’s soul. “Then puke and keep on moving!”
    Jillian had a special disdain for those who threatened to quit. “You wanna quit? Then quit!” she’d shout right in their face. “It’ll be one less person I have to deal with!”
    For two and a half hours, our newly formed black team exercised. I’m not sure what I expected going into that session, but I know it was not what occurred. I thought that since my teammates and I were so fat, she’d go easy on us. After all, what can a