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Burning Calories with Shanon Thomas of The Biggest Loser Couples
by Troy Rogers
 The Biggest Loser Couples stepped on the scales for its seventh episode and it was a tough call between Pink Team mother - daughter couple Helen and Shanon from Michigan on who should be the one to leave the Ranch. Not only was it a bit harder for the other players since the teams had to decide whether they should honor a request by 29-year old Shanon to be sent home so her mother could remain in the game for her own well-being, but it was also tough to keep Shanon because of her strength. When the final weigh in was over, Helen and Shanon fell below the yellow line despite having access to the gym for the entire week and it was Shanon who was sent packing. For the Pink Team, it was all about making peace with who was going to leave early.
The next morning we hopped on our weekly Biggest Loser phone scale for a conference call with latest evictee Shanon Thomas to find out how she felt about the keys, the challenges, her outlook on junk food after her time at the Ranch, and what surprised her most about her time on The Biggest Loser Couples.
THE DEADBOLT: You didn’t seem too concerned about winning the challenge and the key to the gym. Did it matter to you to win that key?
SHANON THOMAS: I mean, of course everybody wants to win the challenge and the key and stuff, but ... my mom and I love to be outside. And that mountain there, behind, that we were climbing is an awesome workout. I mean, some days we would spend two hours up there burning close to two-thousand calories. We love being outside. So my mom and I kind of looked at it like, "Do we want to win? Yes, we always want to win. Will we be fine without the key? Yeah, we will be because we love the outside."
THE DEADBOLT: How hard was the rowing challenge?
 SHANON: Well, what they did was: We had to keep it above a certain point, like we had to keep it above ninety. And then they raised it, so you had to keep it above a hundred. It’s not miles per hour, but I’m not sure how exactly it works, the watts, or whatever it is. So if you dropped under there - and it was all hooked up to a computer system and the lights would turn - when you got to a certain point range, you know, the yellow, the green, and the red. But yeah, you definitely had to get into your groove. And they had some rowing instructors out there because some of us, like me, I’ve never rowed before. We didn’t have any rowing machines in the gym. So I was just like, "okay." But Dane, he was in the groove, man. He found the groove. Cathy was really in the groove there for awhile, too. But there was definitely a science to it.
THE DEADBOLT: Was there any particular type of junk food you missed and what have you replaced it with?
 SHANON: I don’t know if you guys know or not but I used to eat Thai food like it was going out of style, and it had real coconut milk in it. But the only thing was, it was breezing through the calories. The calories were just, like, through the roof. I don’t know. This morning I had eggs and I chop up peppers and onions and then I just spice it with the Mrs. Dash and I try to make it like a little quiche thing. I don’t know. I’m just getting creative. When I get my sweet tooth, I do like a teaspoon of peanut butter with a cut-up apple and that takes care of my sweet tooth in two seconds. I freeze the protein shakes and eat it like a popsicle. I don’t know, you just have to get creative. But it’s worth it.
THE DEADBOLT: What was the biggest thing about the whole process that surprised you the most?
SHANON: The thing that surprised me the most is how it’s so non-stop. When it’s not completely physically draining, it emotionally takes a toll on you. It’s non-stop. You don’t realize how much goes into the show and I didn’t realize how the whole thing worked. I’ve never been on a TV show before, you know? And another thing that surprised me was my mom, man. She’s a rock star. She’s awesome, like a soldier. Only my mom can wear her hair down during a football challenge and look hot [laughs]. Yeah, I think there’s so many things. Everything was a surprise. I didn’t know what to expect, really.
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