Published: February 23, 2008 11:28 pm         

Biggest Loser competitors in it for biggest prize of all — health

Winning isn’t everything when it comes to Vance’s Biggest Loser contest, losing is.

But winning isn’t bad, say the members of Down With Quailridge, the team found to have lost the highest percentage of weight at the first weigh-in Feb. 4.

Julie Yarbrough, Debbie Shelton, Julie Dinatale and Suzi Castillo lost 37 pounds, or, as Dinatale described it, “a small toddler,” at the first weigh-in. As a result, each team member was awarded a fitness trampoline courtesy of Integris Bass Baptist Health Center.

“We were all working out, and they walked in with them and surprised us,” Yarbrough said. “We were really surprised.”

The team name, the members said, is not a slam against the street on which they all live, but a reference to their goal of lowering their collective weight.

“We’ve been working out here quite a while before the Biggest Loser started, Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Shelton said. “Then we decided when we saw the competition it would be a great way to inspire us to go further with our workout and our losing weight.”

Since the competition began, Down With Quailridge members have been trying to work out every day, walking on treadmills and lifting weights.

“I wanted to be exercising with my friends, lose some weight and get healthy,” Castillo said. “It was good motivation to do it with your friends.”

The team aspect of the competition, Yarbrough said, helps motivate participants and provides accountability.

“I know just signing the contract made a huge difference, because I couldn’t make any excuses, I was committed,” she said.

“It’s not, ‘Are we going to the gym?,’” Dinatale said, “it’s ‘When are we going to the gym?’ The team is relying on you to win.”

Vance’s Biggest Loser made Valentine’s Day especially difficult for Down With Quailridge.

“I said no chocolate,” said Shelton. “I asked for a manicure.”



‘We completely changed our diet’



The biggest change in Senior Airman Stephen McClellan’s life as a result of Vance’s Biggest Loser, has been his change in diet.

McClellan, with the 71st Communications Squadron, and his wife, Kalyn, have had to put their love of southern cooking on the back burner.

“We completely changed our diet,” said McClellan. “We figured we were eating somewhere around 3,500 calories a day, just through fast food and all the fun things.”

McClellan lost 13.5 pounds in the first month of the competition, while Kalyn lost 12.

“She decided to change our diet completely,” McClellan said. “It was a drastic change. She got rid of all the bad food, and the same day we went shopping and bought healthy food. Now, I’m living on a 1,200-calorie a day diet.”

The couple now eats a lot of vegetables. Meat is grilled, not fried. McClellan described an average dinner as three ounces of grilled fish, one cup of rice and one cup of vegetables.

“No desserts,” McClellan said. “She got rid of all the ice cream and chocolate in the house.”

McClellan described the diet change as, “pretty rough. I was constantly hungry. But we saw our way through it.”

The couple’s 21⁄2-year-old son doesn’t share his parents’ regimen, instead eating a diet more appropriate for a growing toddler.

McClellan researched diets before entering the competition. Soon he will adjust his daily calorie intake to 1,500, more in line with what a male of his size needs to remain healthy.

“The diet will never end,” he said, “it will be more of a maintaining.”

McClellan’s family lives in New Orleans, and Kalyn hails from Mobile, Ala., areas known for sumptuous but not-particularly healthy meals.

“From her side of the family, I’m used to eating fried chicken, cornbread and everything made with butter, rouxs made with bacon fat,” he said. “From my side of the family, jambalaya, crawfish etouffee. I was just used to the large amount of food that’s always served.”

The competitive aspect of Vance’s Biggest Loser has, “made it more fun,” McClellan said, but that wasn’t the reason he is taking part.

“I really did it for my wife,” he said, “she was wanting to lose weight. I felt if I did it, it gives her a little more incentive to do it.”