Ali Vincent's Blog:
The Return of the Eliminated Players—Ali Remembers Her SeasonAfter my elimination in week four of Season 5, I can’t even begin to explain to you the absolute elation I felt when I got the phone call weeks later that I might have the opportunity to return to ranch! I had been at the gym for a couple hours, after that, I went swimming for an hour without checking my phone. When I got back to the locker room I had three missed phone calls from the BL production team and ten from my mother! I didn’t even bother to check my voicemail; I immediately called my mom. She answered the phone saying, “you’re going back Buba, you really are going to be the First Female Biggest Loser." I was like ”what?”
Now of course, pretty true to form, that wasn’t quite the case. Mom was just excited. But what was true was that all the eliminated contestants were going to have the opportunity to win a spot back on the ranch, and we had a week till we would return.
I was out of my mind, this was it…. I knew it with every part of who I was. The camera crew had just been out to film the “where are they now?” and something just felt different. Of course when you are eliminated from the ranch you have no clue if you will ever be returning. People always assume, “well, you knew you would be coming back, right?” and the answer is "NO".
Why I Kept Going
I think they ask me over and over again because I had made such an amazing change that people find it hard to believe that I would continue without knowing that I might be going back to ranch. For me it didn’t make a difference. Yes, I wanted to become the first woman Biggest Loser, but I wanted more than anything to change my life and feel good about myself again, so when I was eliminated in week 4 I kept on my path.
When we all flew in the next week, and I got to see everyone, I was amazed. In fact I didn’t even recognized Mark when he came out of the elevator, I thought he was some young hoodlum! We still didn’t know how they were going to choose to return to the ranch, so the energy was all over the place.
Everyone wanted it.
In preparation, I had taken running classes in case it was some type of challenge, since I knew that wasn’t a strong point of mine, but we were all on edge with excitement. We thought, well, maybe they will choose the person who lost the most weight or maybe it would be the person who lost the least amount or maybe it would be a challenge. Either way we were all going to do whatever we could with in our power to get back on ranch.
Kudos to Stacey
For this season, it was fun to be able to see all of this seasons eliminated contestants, I think I was most surprised by the green team, Stacey in particular. With all the tension in the house, I think that Stacey was right on when she had such an emotional reaction to it. It made the fact that Stacey gave it her all during the challenge that more impressive. I was also impressed that she went for it with all that she had, even though she wasn’t sure she even wanted to be back on ranch. I wonder how the season would’ve played out if Stacey had been the one to return?
I love Ed and I thought he did an amazing job to earn his spot back on ranch, I just hope he has enough courage to be his own man and not fall into the “pack” mentality that seems to come with wearing the color blue. I get that it is important to have alliances and the support of a team but at what cost?
The Challenge of Challenges
The challenges were the part of the ranch that I liked the least
Even though, I was a competitive athlete growing up, I realized that I no longer had the desire to “beat” anyone. I now had the desire to be the best that I could be and the challenges just felt like I was taking away from someone else, I know that’s weird to some but to me it just made sense. And then one day it didn’t. I realized at home that by choosing me and going for my dreams, it didn’t mean that the person next to me couldn’t have theirs. As long as we all played with integrity and in alignment with who we were, competition was good and allowed ourselves to push further than we thought we were capable of.
I remember when I was brought back on ranch there were so many questions from all the contestants who hadn’t left at that point. I think there was a lot of thoughts of how it would be when they eventually went home, so I was extremely excited to be able to go to ranch and talk to the contestants this season and be able to bring with me Cynthia Sass from Prevention magazine, which everyone knows at this point is probably my favorite magazine. We just wanted the opportunity to give a few pointers and suggestions of how they could set themselves up to win when they got home as well as ways to give back and include their families in their journeys. I about fell out of my chair when Prevention gave each of the contestants $5000 worth of groceries.
I was glad that Shellay and Amy had the time to talk privately and reflect on their experience. I think it gave Amy the courage to vote the way she did in the elimination room. I’m glad that she realized that individuals are truly individuals and that she had make the move that will give her the best chance of going all the way and having the two married couples on a team didn’t leave her a lot of room to have much voting power, plus when given the chance you have to eliminate your biggest threats. Brady could have won the Biggest Loser…
Now he’ll just have to win at home!
--Ali
Link: http://blog.nbc.com/ali_vincent/
