Looking at Old 'Biggest Loser' War Injuries with Laura DenouxNow that the weight loss field in The Biggest Loser Couples has been narrowed, it's nail-biter time as the players hit the scales to inch closer to the title of Biggest Loser. But it was the long awaited makeover week on The Biggest Loser Couples, as Tim Gunn schooled the finalists on a fashion stint at Macy’s before Tabatha Coffey and Brandon Martinez grabbed scissors and color accessories to whip The Biggest Loser players' hair into new, less weighty shape.
But the high profile festivities weren't over as all of the remaining ranchers headed to Hollywood for a premiere, which turned out to be an unexpected highlight reel of their journeys on The Biggest Loser Couples, which made for pounds of reflective emotion. And the drama only continued when the ranchers were joined by their families, which then made for pounds of tears when Ron's son Max couldn't contain his emotions at seeing how far his father and brother had come in their journey to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle.
When things got back down to Biggest Loser business, Laura was still nursing a bad hip, which she eventually sought medical attention for at the urging of trainer Jillian. The final diagnosis indicated a stress fracture at Laura's hip bone, which forced Laura out of the exercise aspect of the show this week. As a result, Laura ended up gaining 3 pounds. And it's not too often that you see the steel chomping, tougher than leather Jillian shed a few tears either.
Unfortunately, due to her fractured hip bone, the ranchers felt compelled to send Laura home, with Filipe casting the final vote.
The next day we stepped on the scale with now ex-Biggest Loser Couples rancher, Laura Denoux, to get an update on her hip injury, the previous plan to throw the final weigh-in with Tara, and when she first started to notice her Biggest Loser weight loss and healthy transformation.
THE DEADBOLT: How did you injure the hip?
[Biggest Loser Couples NBC] LAURA DENOUX: Really, I think it was just a combination of running on the treadmill. It was an athletic injury. From what I was told from the doctors is a common injury that a lot of athletes get, especially when they run a lot. From the constant pounding on the bones, there’s that pressure on the femoral neck of my hip. So it was just constant running that we were doing. And then I think the different challenges, like the Rose Bowl stadium, just made it even worse. So I can’t really tell you one particular thing that caused my fracture.
THE DEADBOLT: So it was basically just wear and tear?
LAURA: [laughs] Basically, wear and tear. I mean I know they only show a few seconds of us working out, but we’re working out six to eight hours a day, and they can’t show all of that in the two-hour show once a week. I mean, you’re doing lots and lots of running, lots of pounding, and that’s what causes these types of fractures.
THE DEADBOLT: So what was that canyon wire-walk challenge like?
LAURA: Oh, my God! That thing was so scary. I mean you’re over a hundred feet off the ground and you’re just looking down, holding onto a wire, and you’re standing on a wire, and you have to walk across it as fast as you can. So not only are you afraid of falling because you might get disqualified - Or who knows? Maybe you might plunge to your death - but just being as high as we were ... I mean, the camera didn’t do any justice to it. It was high. It was extremely high.
THE DEADBOLT: It looked really cool.
LAURA: Yeah. I was super confident going into that challenge. I was like, ‘I’m gonna win this challenge and I’m just going to fly across it. I’m not afraid of heights.’ But then once you’re up there, the wind is swaying you back and forth and you’re like, ‘Oh, my God! If I fall off of this wire I might be disqualified.’ So you are kind of cautious.
THE DEADBOLT: Without relying on the scale, when did you first start to notice the weight loss? Was there one day where you were like, ‘Oh, great! Look at this.’?
[Biggest Loser Couples NBC] LAURA: I think once I started to see the fact that I started at like a 3X t-shirt and then all of a sudden I was down to a 1X, a large, the clothes. And the fact that the people who are giving us our clothes, the t-shirts, The Biggest Loser t-shirts, they’re like, ‘That’s too big for you now, you need another one. Here are your smaller shorts.’ You know, all of our clothes, and even our bras, weren’t fitting us anymore. You had to just get new ones. And that’s really where, I think, because you don’t really see yourself change unless you are looking at your clothes changing.
THE DEADBOLT: Last week, when you won the golden ticket, how long did it take to sink in that this thing might be a curse?
LAURA: [laughs] I think once I actually had to make a decision on who to send home. And I think everybody was getting a little bit insane with the workout, the last chance workout, the night before. You know, me having all of this stress, like, ‘Oh, my God! What if it’s this person that falls below? What if it’s that person that falls below? What am I going to do?’ Actually, what if it was two people that I loved just as equally, especially if it was Tara and Helen? That, I didn’t want to live with, sending home Helen. You know, she was one of my best friends on the show. So that was a lot of pressure.
THE DEADBOLT: Were you surprised at how emotional the whole journey was?
LAURA: Yeah. You know, I knew that I was an emotional person, but I didn’t realize that I was going to be crying so much on the show [laughs]. I mean, not only are you emotional for yourself but you’re emotional with all of the other contestants, because you’re seeing how much it’s affecting their lives and yours. And you don’t really realize how impactful to the people watching until you’re off the show and you’re in the real world, and people are coming up to you telling you how you inspired them and how they lost fifty pounds because they’ve been watching you. So being on the ranch, it’s emotional because you’re tired and you’re realizing how far you’ve come, especially towards the end . You’re like, ‘Oh, my God! I can’t believe I made it this far.’ But then when you get home and start to interact with other people, and see how much you’ve inspired them, that’s really big.
THE DEADBOLT: During the golden ticket episode, can you explain your reasoning behind the plan to get Tara to throw the weigh-in?
LAURA: Yeah. There were a couple of reasons why that came into our minds. Well, first off, we knew that if one of us got that ticket - You know, we’re also playing with water. I don’t think a lot of people realize that when you workout you can kind of conserve water for yourself for the following week so that if one of us threw the weigh-in, it was on purpose. So we could drink water, and then that way the next week have a huge week. But then there was also the fact that if she fell below the yellow line with somebody, it would make my job to vote somebody off even easier. And we were kind of hoping the person that did fall below with Helen was somebody we wanted to go home.
[Biggest Loser Couples NBC] But then there was that risk - What if Tara fell below with Helen? I don’t want Helen to go home either, so you were taking a lot of risk. And then it’s like, ‘Well, what if I fall below with Tara? Then Tara is going to go home.’ I know that everybody was really scared that we were going to throw the weigh-in. And that three pounds that Tara lost that week, people still thought that we were trying to throw the weigh-in and she really wasn’t. It came across our minds but that was definitely not what we were planning on doing. She really did lose three pounds because that’s all she lost.
THE DEADBOLT: What was your favorite challenge?
LAURA: I really loved the week five challenge when we were tied to ropes and had to jump over and under that metal pole. We were just laughing at the end. We were frustrated. But at the end we were just laughing at how silly we were because of how we got this rope tangled up. And really, that was the only challenge that Tara and I got to participate in as a team, because in week one we were running. But obviously Tara was way faster than I was and then I was home for thirty days. Then week five we got to that challenge once I got back. And then week six, I believe we were already into black and blue, so it was the only challenge that Tara and I got to do together. It was fun for us, and the tangling was just hilarious.
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