Biggest Loser...Urm, Monthly Recap?

So, do you remember back to last season of The Biggest Loser where I would get on here each and every week and whine and moan about what a horrible season it was and how I was so sick of TBL and how, unless they made some serious changes to the next season, I wouldn't ever watch again?

Yeah, me too.

I blogged about that show EVERY week - even though I hated every minute of what was going on.

And then, I get what I wanted...a new season, a better season, and I've made one post about it in the 4 weeks it's been on.

It's not because I'm not watching.. because I am.  It's just that I DVR it and sometimes I don't get to watch it until the weekend or later in the week.

So far, I'm back to loving the show.  It's full of that team spirit, go-get-em attitudes, and emotional "grab a box of Kleenexes" breakthroughs I love so much.

In a matter of 4 weeks, most of the contestants have lost more weight than Anaconda did throughout the entire show...already hitting the 40lbs lost mark.  And that's the women!  The men, who are pretty big, are having great weight losses too.

I'm not going to sit here and recap the past four weeks.  I will say, that I'm sad about some of the people that have had to go home - but I'm so happy to see the progress they made once they left the show.

I watched this week's episode last night.

Each trainer, Bob, Jillian, and Dolvett started off with 5 players each.  All singles.  Before last night, Bob still had all 5 of his, Dolvett was down to 4, and poor Jillian only had 1 person left on her team.

The focus for the week was eating healthy on a budget.  Each contestant was given 10 dollars a day to buy a week's worth of groceries.  So, the blue team had $350 to spend on a week's worth of groceries, the red team had $280, and poor Danni - the white team - had a whopping $70.

Each team was able to buy their groceries all coming in under budget and were extremely surprised at how much they could buy with the money they had.

Huh!  They should think themselves lucky.  In our house, we budget $600 for groceries...and that's for an entire MONTH.  That's only $150 a week.  And we always come in under budget each month, and for the most part we stick with fresh foods...hardly ever do we buy prepacked meals.  Hubby insists on making homemade meals - and who am I to complain about that?

Even now that I'm eating much healthier, we haven't had to really change our buying that much.  I'm spending some money on Atkins products, which bumps our spending up a little - but being that I wasn't really eating breakfast and I was buying school lunches every day - there really isn't much difference in our spending.

Anywho, all of the contestants were given a little demonstration on how to prepare a home cooked meal for an entire family on a budget.  And it always makes me laugh how much product placement is now in the show.  If you don't know that Jennie-O is a sponsor of the show, you have to be missing half the episode.  I hear her name just about as much as I hear Bob, Jillian, and Dolvett's names.  Same is to be said for Planet Fitness and BodyMedia...which is just the maker of BodyBugg.

The challenge for the this week was that each team member had to collect ten 5lb "coins" from a pond and place them in designated fountains.  The red team and Danni (white team) gave it a great shot.  The same can't be said for the blue team, who didn't really put in that much effort at all to win.  Danni ended up coming out victorious and won a 2lb advantage on the scale for weigh-in.

I will admit, the blue team irked me a little this week.  There was a lot of whining, and some game playing going on... but Bob picked up on it and made them push it out of their systems.  I'm also not a fan of one of the blue team members - and that would be Alex.  There's just something about him that rubs me the wrong way.  Not anything like how Anaconda got to me - but he still bothers me just a little.

At weigh-in, the red team all pulled pretty good numbers losing 31lbs as a team.  The blue team got up there and BLASTED the competition with each player losing a lot.  The blue team had to lose more than 42lbs to be safe and managed to pull 51lbs lost as a team.  And then poor ol' Danni got up there needing to lose more than 4lbs with the 2lb advantage.  She did it by a landslide and knocked out a 9lb loss.  She didn't even need the advantage.

So, it was the red team up for elimination.

I will say, it was kinda nice to sit at home and not want any of the red team to be voted off.  They all worked so hard - and have worked hard since day one.  They are all so supportive of each other, and there hasn't been on ounce of game play from the team...that we've seen, anyhow.  In the end, it was Lisa - the mother of four - that was sent home.

I was sad to see her go, but Oh Em Gee... I couldn't have been happier to see her end of the show update.  The woman didn't even look like the same woman who started the show.  She had managed to lose 70lbs since starting the show - and looked FANTASTIC.  Don't remember those kind of transformations last season.

I'm just so happy to have the regular BL back.  Every supportive, emotional, heart-warming moment of it.

So, who else is watching?  What do you think this season?  Are you as happy as I am?