NEWS - NEXT 'SURVIVOR' CAST TO INCLUDE TWO FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

Thursday, Feb. 02, 2012

Next ‘Survivor’ cast includes two from SC

Two people from South Carolina will try to be the next “Survivor” as they compete in the newest season of the reality adventure series debuting Feb. 15.
Jay Byars – a Matthew McConaughey look-alike – is a 25-year-old model living in Gaffney. He told CBS that his hero is the adventure TV host Bear Grylls and counts several mission trips abroad in his experience.
Chelsea Meissner, a 26-year-old saleswoman from Charleston, also is competing. She was a champion equestrian rider and is inspired by her mother, who raised Chelsea as a single mom and now lives with Lyme disease.

This “Survivor” season pits men against women, who all have to live on one island. The prize still is $1 million for the person who can outlast and outwit the others.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/02/2137301/next-survivor-cast-includes-two.html#storylink=omni_popular#storylink=cpy

NEWS- OKLAHOMA TWINS ON 2011 'BIGGEST LOSER'

ok, so my last post was about the couple from columbia, SC...
this post is about the twins from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma..where im living now...

tough decission on who too root for, HOME TOWN? or CURRENT TOWN? or the UNDERDOG?

BIGGEST LOSER 2011 : DON EVANS

Hometown: Oklahoma City, Okla


Occupation: Police lieutenant
Don Evans says, "Obesity prevents me from living the kind of life that I want and it hurts my family." The 54-year-old husband and father of two adult children says that his obesity has also caused discord in his family, which he hopes will be fixed when he loses the weight.  Don was born in Raleigh, N.C., and grew up with his identical twin brother, Dan, and an older brother.  They lived in various states and countries due to his father's career in the Navy and his parents' divorce when he was six, which resulted in shared custody and many moves.  He graduated with an associate's degree in police science from Oklahoma State University, and earned bachelor and master's degrees in liberal studies from the University of Oklahoma.  He has been an Oklahoma City Police office for 30 years.  Don started gaining weight when he joined the police department, and became significantly overweight when he was 28 years old.  He even tried lap band surgery in 2004.  Now, at 309 lbs. and suffering from high blood pressure and sleep apnea, Don looks forward to getting healthy and enjoying activities with his family and doing all the things that his obesity prevented him from doing.

The Biggest Loser 2011: Dan Evans


Hometown: Oklahoma City, Okla.
Occupation: Police captain

Dan Evans was born in Raleigh, N.C., and grew up with two brothers, including his identical twin brother and "Biggest Loser" teammate, Don. As a child, he lived in several different states due to his father's Navy career and his parents' divorce when he was six years old. He attended college in Oklahoma, where he now resides, getting an associate's degree in police science from Oklahoma State University, and bachelor's and master's degrees in liberal studies from the University of Oklahoma. He wasn't overweight as a child or young adult, but his weight began to increase after he joined the police department in 1979. He began really gaining when he was 28 years old, due to poor eating habits, lack of exercise and a sedentary lifestyle. Dan had a son who died at age 24 in 2004, and also has a nine-year-old daughter. Now 54 years old and 287 lbs., with sleep apnea and high blood pressure, Dan says his weight adversely affects every aspect of his life, and he wants his old life back. He looks forward to running and playing with his daughter when he loses the weight.

but so far, my fav has to be:


The Biggest Loser 2011: Arthur Wornum 

Hometown: Portland, Ore.
Occupation: Stay-at-home dad/day care provider
Arthur's primary motivation for going on "The Biggest Loser" was to save his life.  Having weighed 646 lbs. in January 2009, he got down to his current weight of 507 lbs., but hasn't been able to lose beyond that.  A Seattle native raised in Portland with a younger sister, Arthur was always a big kid, but sports helped keep his weight in check until his junior year in high school when he had trouble making the weight of 275 lbs. for wrestling.  In the year 2000, he lost his insurance agency and gained 200 lbs., and then gained an additional 100 lbs. after the birth of his son in 2007.  Now a father of two, 34-year-old Arthur has high blood pressure and diabetes.  He was inspired by season seven contestant Ron Morelli, and looks forward to going to the Portland Trailblazers games when he has lost weight, something he always enjoyed doing as a child with his father.  He also hopes to inspire people who are too large to go on "The Biggest Loser" and let them know that there is hope for them too.

i think im rooting for aurtur because he has the most too lose and the most to gain. and, in allot of ways, i feel like him...so..GO AURTHUR GO! 
and if he loses, ill root : COLUMBIA GO! then OKALHOMA GO! 
those are my top 3, in just that order! :)

MICHELLE

NEWS - COLUMBIA COUPLE IN NEWEST 'BIGGEST LOSER' SEASON

Monday, Jan. 03, 2011

Columbia couple in newest ‘Biggest Loser’ season

By OTIS R. TAYLOR JR.

Avoiding mirrors and scales was how Larialmy Allen ignored her weight.
Until that wasn’t enough.
“I cut the tags out of (my) clothes so I didn’t know how big they were,” she said.

Similar stories of denial will be told on “The Biggest Loser: Couples,” the 11th installment of NBC’s weight-loss franchise. Millions of viewers will watch Allen and her husband, Jaquin, step on the scales when the new season premieres at 8 p.m. Tuesday on WIS-10.
The Allens, who live in Columbia, will be one of 11 twosomes competing to shed pounds. They are the second pair of South Carolinians to be on the show, following Phil and Amy Parham, who were on season six.
Jaquin, a patient services representative with the USC School of Medicine, attended a July 31 casting call at the Colonial Life Arena with his boss. His wife stood in line with them for support. When casting directors called Jaquin the same day, they asked if Larialmy would be interested in being on the show, too.
He didn’t have to ask her twice.
“We had decided a couple of months before to lose weight,” she said. “It was a blessing in disguise.”
“The Biggest Loser,” which debuted in 2004 and is hosted by Alison Sweeney, has attracted more viewers than other recent weight-loss shows, including VH1’s “Celebrity Fit Club” and “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life,” which began on A&E before moving to Lifetime.
The Allens, who will wear red T-shirts, began filming the show in September with the cast, which includes former Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Rulon Gardner, who let his weight drift near 500 pounds. The Allens were home for a holiday break from taping when they spoke to a reporter by telephone last week. They weren’t allowed to share their current weight, but they did talk about what we’ll see tomorrow night: their first weigh-in.
“I honestly had no idea,” 27-year-old Jaquin, who was over 400 pounds, said. “I really didn’t know that I had gained that much weight. I just skipped the 3s.
“Once you see those numbers, your whole perspective on things changes.”
At 26, Larialmy, a student services program coordinator at USC, was over 300 pounds. She had been told to lose weight before she has children. Now she is losing weight for her future family as well as her current family members.
“I have to be an example. I can’t let myself get back into bad habits,” Larialmy, a Columbia College graduate, said, adding that she has a 23-year-old cousin who weighs 600 pounds. “There are so many people in my family that are overweight and morbidly obese.
“I’m trying to break that cycle.”
That’s something that seems easy with “The Biggest Loser” trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels designing workouts and screaming into the ears of contestants. Harper has a cajoling manner about him when trying to get maximum effort, while Michaels, who is in her final season with the series, can get downright scary.
“It’s real. It’s authentic,” Jaquin said about Michaels’ tough-love approach. “It’s beyond tough. I don’t even know what the word is for it.”
“The Biggest Loser” puts contestants through rigorous workouts, but the show also dedicates time to educating about proper nutrition. Jaquin said the show altered him physically and emotionally, but it also changed the way he thinks about food.
“I had that mentality that it’s just more so how you eat things and you can have ‘this’ from time to time,” he said. “You can’t have those kind of things because that’s your abuse.
“That’s the thing that got me up to 437 pounds.”
Jaquin’s boss was supportive of his going on the show.
“It’s a big moment that’s really going to define the rest of my life,” said the Benedict College graduate. “I will never see that starting weight again.”
And Larialmy will no longer have to remove the tags from her clothes. But for her, the opportunity is about more than simply losing weight.
“It’s about changing your life,” she said.