Week four arrived, and the competition is hotting up! Some of our participants find themselves a month into Biggest Loser, looking down and seeing an overall gain, whilst others have reached in excess of 3/4/5% weight loss…
As week five approaches, the motivational quote on the top of our leaderboard changes from, ‘put the biscuit down’, to ‘that’s the stuff, keep it up!’ We are getting deep into the process, without anyone choosing to give up so far.
With a trip to London, and endless work-based temptations, it was the turn of Tom from the Marketing team to put pen to paper on the blog… Here’s how his week turned out:
So, I get a lot of people telling me that I don’t need to lose weight, and that it’s stupid me taking part in this ‘Biggest Loser’ competition as I don’t have enough to lose to win it… but for me it’s not necessarily about winning (although I am very competitive).

As a family, we love to cook! Here is one of my favourite sauce recipes, used in a dish later on in this post:

I have a point to prove to myself… since leaving university in 2010 I have slowly been putting weight on – creeping up from 75kg to over 85kg – and although I look healthy, I know that the extra weight is fat, and not muscle like I keep trying to convince myself every time I step on the scales.
In the last year I have also had a baby daughter, who is now 10 months old, and I want to make the change now so that I am healthy and active as she grows up.
I started this week on the back of a huge 2.7kg weight-loss and feeling motivated. I pushed myself hard at the gym on my lunch break to make up for the next two days (the weekend) where I refuse to spend my time away from my family.
I try to train at the gym every day on my lunch break, and have recently moved away from weights to focus solely on cardio in a bid to bring my body fat percentage back down to 10%, before refocusing on building muscle and tone.
My healthy heating continued from the week before over the next few days, lunches consisting mostly of fruit with the occasional sandwich and biscuit thrown in, and my dinners are home cooked by either myself or my wife, so we know what ingredients are used, and can we can control the salt/sugar content.
It’s probably worth mentioning that I don’t normally eat breakfast, but instead have a routine of a peppermint tea when arriving at work which can see me through to lunchtime.
Friday night, the meal of choice was a bowl of Thai green chicken soup, with two small bread rolls (anyone who eats soup without bread is ‘mad in the head’) as a side.

Saturday consisted of a day spent shopping with the wife (an exercise in itself, traipsing around shops with a pushchair quickly becomes exhausting), and a sandwich stop at the M&S café. Dinner that evening was Spaghetti bolognese, and because it was the weekend we had a garlic flat-bread to share.
Sunday, the weather was hot and we spent the day at Beamish. I must have walked about 5 miles throughout the day and crawled at least another mile chasing after Ivy. We had a picnic lunch in the sun, with sandwiches, cocktail sausages and olives… oh and a very large bag of crisps! Dinner was sweet chilli salmon with rice and peas.
Back to work on Monday and back to the gym at lunch – pushing hard on the rowing machine to get 5k done before 10 mins of HIIT on the treadmill; at this point feel like I must have lost 1kg in sweat alone! Avoiding the snacks at work throughout the afternoon is a challenge but I managed to make it through, and arrive home for a dinner of slow cooked, sausage and chorizo casserole.

Tuesday is my last day in the office before a work trip to London, and I get in 4km steady state on the rowing machine followed by 15mins of HIIT on the treadmill. Exhausted I hit the showers before heading back to work.
I have to admit… I buckled at the office, and had a couple of fig rolls in the afternoon! I felt very guilty about it, well, at least until I got back home and find Amy eating a pack of shortbread! Dinner was roasted red pepper and almond pasta.
Wednesday, the day things changed!
Travelling down to London and my first mistake is a full cooked English breakfast on the train with a glass of fresh orange juice (all that sugar!!) and a chocolate twist pastry! Lunch was amazing! We ate in a quirky Mexican restaurant, where I chose beef quesadillas, chunky potato wedges, sour cream and a pint of lager.
Later that day at the ITSPA awards ceremony empty calories were supplied by prosecco and lager provided by the event sponsors. Feeling a bit guilty from the day’s feasting, an evening a trip to the hotel gym was in order, and an hour on the rowing machine was enough to suppress the guilt of the fatty food and alcohol. Supper was a late night sandwich and can of coke from the local Tesco metro.

Thursday, and my last day of the food blog. Total. Complete. Blowout!
Breakfast – full English, including black pudding and doorstop toast… it was amazing! Lunch at Kings Cross was Chicken meatballs and brown rice from Leon, whilst dinner on the train back to Newcastle was steak and ale pie, served with mash (not to mention about 3 cans of full fat coke 2 pieces of cake and a huge cookie supplied by Mat).
Back to Friday and weigh in day… I knew I must have put on weight but the question was… how much exactly?
Stepping on the scales, sweat starting to build on my brow, nerves of what my indulgence could mean… and (somehow) it’s only 1kg gain! I am certainly happy with this outcome, as the last few days of my blog week had been really bad, and overall I am still operating at a good weight loss!
Look out for our next blog, when we will be featuring another of our hopeful Biggest Loser participants!