The Deadbolt Interview - New Biggest Loser Life with John Crutchfield of The Biggest Loser Couples

New Biggest Loser Life with John Crutchfield of The Biggest Loser Couples
by Alison Cox

The Biggest Loser Couples After seeing his twin brother James leave The Biggest Loser ranch in the first week of The Biggest Loser Couples, John Crutchfield had an unexpected uphill battle in week five. While John Crutchfield had his workout routine changed by Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper, episode five of The Biggest Loser Couples saw the return of ousted Biggest Loser teams Yellow and Blue from the first week of the ninth season of The Biggest Loser.

Unbeknown to the rest of The Biggest Loser Couples teams, the Blue team of Cherita and Victoria and O'Neil and Sunshine of the Yellow team were given thirty days at home to lose as much weight as possible before returning to The Biggest Loser ranch to compete for Biggest Loser Couples supremacy. Blue and Yellow returned to compete in an individual Biggest Loser weigh-in to get back on the ranch and Sunshine and O'Neal won not only the coveted Biggest Loser spot but also immunity this week and the sole vote during the Biggest Loser Couples elimination.

Their vote didn't come to fruition, as Biggest Loser rancher John Crutchfield fell below the yellow line and became the deciding factor in sending John home after his battle to become The Biggest Loser. With his twin brother James eliminated in Week 1, John Crutchfield was the only member remaining on the Brown Team, which resulted in immediate elimination from The Biggest Loser Couples.

When we caught up with John the next morning, the newly eliminated Biggest Loser gave us his thoughts on how he's made new changes at home and his take on the changes Bob made to his Biggest Loser workout routine.

THE DEADBOLT: Facing elimination in week one, you had expressed your concerns about balancing work. After a few more weeks on the ranch, you talked about starting a Biggest Loser club at work. What other changes have you made now that you're back at work so you can continue your weight loss goals?

JOHN CRUTCHFIELD: Well, at first my work was really supportive and my [boss], she's awesome. She let me work from home. I work from home for weeks and weeks, so obviously I was able to work out a ton. [I'd] maybe go on a conference call and then go walk around the apartment complex, which each loop is half a mile. But eventually there's a lot of stuff I need to get involved in because it's a tough time for a lot of companies. I actually go back to work now full time and I actually find I'm losing more weight now than I did in the beginning.

For me, I think it's just the routine. You kind of get on a routine at the ranch and for me it's back to that. I want a real life routine and this is what I'm going to be doing. So I've got some great co-workers, they want to do it too obviously. So we go to work an hour and a half early and we do a pretty intense cardio on the treadmill for an hour and a half and we can take a shower right there. Luckily we have a couple of nice gyms at work. So we can shower, go right to work.

In the afternoon at around four, I head to my MMA training, which is my really intense training. So it's been awesome and I'm lucky. The laptop, it's all set up at home where I'll come home, do a bit of work after my MMA training, and then jump on the treadmill I have at home. So it's actually been really fortunate. I'm getting three good workouts in a day, which is awesome, and keeping the same routine is definitely a difference. But like I said before, the morning workouts, especially the past two weeks, I think I'm definitely going to stick to them. There's just something about working out in the morning and weight loss, or fat loss, that I'm really starting to notice.

THE DEADBOLT: Being familiar with weight loss plateaus, what are your thoughts on whether or not you would've plateaued regardless of your change, because you changed your exercise regime a week prior to your elimination?

JOHN: Well, I know there's definitely a plateau, but at that point I was still almost four hundred and thirty pounds. I don't think I would've plateaued yet. But at the same time, I agreed with Bob at the time, with changing it up, and my knees always hurt but we thought let's give it a shot. I mean, I was really happy. Like I said, those little personal victories.

I'm running on a treadmill on a five and five in a six-speed, with people next to me that have been doing it for three weeks, and I didn't stop once. I kept right up with them, so I was really excited. But like I said, in the episode I was really nervous because I knew exactly how much I could lose in the pool. I knew how much just in the pool. And walking the Presidential Mile, I knew I could hit those double digits every week.

I will say hitting the gym - I think a gym with that type of equipment and intensity is definitely necessary to go to the next level. I wish I would've waited one more week, honestly, when it came down to [it]. Or I wish I would've waited longer until I bumped back up to only the gym so I could lose a bit more weight, because I kind of honestly think I maybe gained a little bit of swelling and stuff in my legs. Just running you'll often get shin splints and your ankles swell and all of that. As you know, one pound is a killer and that's what it cost me, one pound [laughs].

So one pound is like a small Gatorade bottle full of fluid, which is 1.16 pounds I think. Just a little bit of swelling can do it and I honestly think that might be what happened. As soon as I came home and weighed in four or five days later, I was down another ten. So it was really upsetting just because I'm competitive. And to lose by one pound and then come home and lose ten right off the bat was like, "Oh, man."

-- Alison Cox