The first full day of the Fatties Go To New Zealand is what’s in store for tonight. First up is another of those not-so-minor challenges the show has become so fond of.

Want to know what hellish torture they’ve cooked up for this week?

The Fatties wake up and have some breakfast and while they’re eating they hear some weird noises and poke their heads out the window to see some kiwis out on the lawn doing a haka, cool!
Pati hasn’t seen the haka up close before, Kimberlie likes it because some of the guys are quite good looking.
The lead guy has been doing it since he was sux!

The haka they performed was written specially for them, it was about an ancient tree and stuff.
Chris wasn’t able to join them as he’s still in bed feeling a bit under the weather. Probably due to that starvation diet the genius has been trying to live on.

The professional haka monkeys start teaching the Fatties how to perform a haka themselves and Courtney says it was actually quite fun, as well as being a decent workout.
Munnalita says it was to help them build strength and inspiration, have faith and courage in themselves and it was a really nice “hucker” for them to learn.

“My face was so stupid! Everyone laughed at me! I don’t think I scared anyone!” – Courtney

Kiwi guy is very impressed with the effort all the Fatties put in, he’s taught other people before who didn’t put in anywhere near as much effort.
Kim is stoked because afterwards they do the nose-kiss thing.

Shannan goes up to check on Chris, who has apparently not been able to keep any food down. Thinks maybe it might be a stomach bug. Shannan thinks that maybe he’s overdoing it and that’s caused things to go awry. Chris isn’t going to do whatever exercise they have planned for the day, he’s just going to stay around the house. Shannan wants him to get better before doing anything more intense.

The trainers come down for a chat with everyone on the couches and find out about the haka. Shannan thinks it’s a great honour to have such an ancient culture write a haka for them and everyone is keen to show off their newfound haka facepulling skills.
Then Shannan and Michelle tell them all that they’re going hiking after that nice little warmup. Out in the great outdoors and way up a mountain. Kim is not too thrilled at that idea as she doesn’t like hiking or dirt and tends to avoid them when possible!

But wait, they’re getting into cars to head to where they’re going hiking. Hello?!

Shannan says they’re heading up from Coronet Resort, for those curious where they are in NZ.
They start out just hiking, no backpacks or anything like that. Eventually they crest a hill and find a pile of backpacks and sticks. Kim’s immediately wondering why on earth they’d need sticks?
They’re hiking up Coronet Peak. Eight stops on the way up. At each stop there’ll be a pile of weights for them. The weight they’ve lost each week in the house.
So Damien’s going to have a bunch of helium balloons for his first stop?

Journey of self discovery, you’ll feel so much better when the weight comes back off, rah rah rah. Everyone’s scared about how hard it’s going to be putting that weight back on.
Damien sees it as a metaphor for their journey so far. It’s been an uphill battle against their weight all their lives and what better way to symbolise that then climbing up a really big hill?

Courtney races up to the first gate, though Damien is not far behind. Shannan tells us all they’re starting out 1,200 metres above sea level, making it much harder to get oxygen into their bodies.
Munnalita says it actually felt good to put the weight into her pack. Courtney says 1.8kg doesn’t sound much but when you see the actual sack it’s in.
Kim’s first sack is 4.8kg. Ouch! Kim thinks her Dad would be proud of her progress so far. She feels like part of her butt has been returned when the weight is added back on. She’s not looking forward to continuing!

We continue following Kim with a mid-2kg weight the second time. Damien gets his first sack-o-weight.

Munnalita sits down at the Week 7 gate because that’s the one where she lost no weight at all. She has a bit of a cry and a chat with Michelle. She doesn’t want to come back down the mountain. She just wants to keep going.

Michelle then remembers that when they get to Gate 6 she’d have to give Munnalita a 9kg sack. Munnalita thinks that week was probably her most intense in the house. We get some more replays of the past occurences here.
“That is like, really heavy!” – Munnalita

Courtney’s Week 6 was the most emotional for him too. The “Hangman Challenge” that he and Munnalita quit on. But they managed to come out the biggest losers for the week, which he thought was great.
“Did you put it in yet?” – Courtney, for whom those words seem to come entirely too natural.

Week 5 was when Damien changed from a Can’t-Do-Quitter to a Can-Do-Winning-Inspiration. It was the week of the hill marathon, where Damien finished and had virtually everyone watching in tears. Shannan and Damien both realised at that point that Damien could be a really big inspiration for everyone.
Damien has over 11kg in his pack by this point and Shannan says he’s starting to feel it.

Week 5 was also the week which saw Munnalita being given the nickname Marsbarlita. So we get a bunch of replays of Munnalita acting like a spoilt child again.
Munnalita says it was a really emotional week for her and Michelle asks her if she can share something with her? And Michelle admits that it was a really long week for her too!
“It’s so heavy! It is like, ridiculously heavy! And it’s only going to get heavier as I go further up!” – Munnalita

Damien’s up to over 20kg in weight at Gate 4. Ouch!

Pati’s becoming quite emotional by Gate 3. She thinks the closer she gets to the top she remembers how messed up she was emotionally. It’s clear to her now that she was sabotaging herself. Michelle thinks it’s heavy stuff to realise all those sort of things about yourself. It’s not about the food or the weight it’s about what’s going on in your head.
She’s up to 16kg in the backpack now. Her knees are starting to feel pretty bad and she remembers that she actually used to feel that every day.

When they get to Gate 2 Courtney has a good gawk around at the scenery, which includes ice glaciers – presumably as opposed to the lava glaciers – and mountains and so on, all of which he’d not seen before and had never really expected to see.
Week 2 is when Courtney got his ass flogged by Jillian on the football field. “Week 2 changed me.” – Courtney
It was the time when Jillian went off at him and shouted lots and so on. It was all around the elimination of Alex, for those who’ve forgotten.
Michelle says the Courtney on the mountaintop is a much different man – so much so that she’s calling him a man, when before she called him a boy.
Courtney has a bit more of a look around at the pretty scenery. “Wow, New Zealand is pretty pretty, isn’t it? I feel like I’m Frodo!” I don’t know about Frodo, I was thinking Sam Gamgee.

Munnalita feels like pushing faster even though it’s hurting because she just wanted to get there and get through it.

Michelle reminds us all, in case we’re a bit thick, that at the final gate they’ll be carrying the weight that they had at the start of the show.
Munnalita says it was extremely heavy and she felt like she might fall backwards. Then we get treated to a replay of first-day-Munnalita blubbering on the scales about wanting a baby. Meanwhile Michelle is struggling to get the last of the weight into Munnalita’s backpack. Munnalita says she knew she was overweight before but now, with all the weight on her back, she really feels it.

Kim’s week 1 was 7.2kg. That’s going to be fun to put back on!
Kim says her weight was one of the things she was never able to control but now she’s sure she can.

Courtney says Week 1 was a miserable week, getting their asses flogged all the time, all the challenges and so on. When Michelle puts in the weights he says he can’t believe he’s lost that much and that he really was miserable back then. Michelle can’t believe he used to weigh that much either. Michelle asks him how he thinks he’s changed. Courtney says he’s determined, optimistic, happy, instead of negative like he used to be.

Pati says the person who stood on the scales in Week 0 was full of self doubt, full of excuses, full of things that would sabotage her fixing herself.

Damien lost 13.1kg in Week 1, which Shannan says is insane and Damien is very proud of.
Damien remembers being out of breath walking up the tiny hill and being out of breath when they arrived at the house, looking around at everyone else and wondering if they were as out of breath as he and realised they were all looking at him as the fat guy.
Damien’s last “pack” is so large that it’s actually more of a gut-pack that Shannan straps to the front of his body because it just wouldn’t fit in the backpack!
Shannan remembers when he first started to train Damien that he was unable to go 20 seconds on the treadmill and yet now, here he was, eight weeks later way above sea level with a bunch of weights strapped to his back and getting ready to charge up the rest of the hill.

They’re almost there! They’re almost at the top!
Courtney’s worried climbing the last bit because he was worried he’d slip and the 30kg on his back would end up dragging him right back down the hill. The others are a bit worried too and Munnalita does in fact fall over and needs help from Michelle to get back up as she’s a bit of a turtle right now!
Damien takes the lead and starts charging up the mountain, despite carrying more weight than any of them. He makes it to the top first, throwing his arms up into the air like a champ. \o/

Michelle thinks it’s extraordinary when they get to the top because she’s never been involved in something like that before.
Shannan wants them all to stand there for a bit and remember how heavy it was. Once they’ve taken it all in and realised how far they’d let themselves go, then they can let it go again.
“Nine weeks ago, this was okay for you all! To be like this!” – Shannan
“It’s not okay, man. It’s not okay at all. Never again, it’s not acceptable, it’s ridiculous. Look how much strain on your heart, on your joints and body and being socially accepted as well. Some of us have been ridiculed our whole lives for the way that we look. It’s not acceptable, we’ve got the power to do something about it and that’s what we’re here for.” – Damien
“It’s been a privilege and an honour to share this journey with each and every one of you.” – Damien

Damien has to take his front bag off first, then gets to take 7 more weeks off at once. The relief on his face when it falls off is incredible.
Munnalita bursts into tears when her’s falls off.
Pati feels much lighter, feels like she’s levitating even. Everyone says much the same thing, that they all feel so much lighter.

But then Kim has a special request – she wants to put another 35kg on, because as she tells us in a side interview, when she started that was not actually the heaviest she’d ever been, as she’d lost weight in the past. She wants a proper reminder of what she used to be, and what she never wants to go to.
She says she didn’t even remember what it was like until she put the extra weight on, she never wants to go back there again.
When she takes it off, “My god, I feel anorexic!”

Munnalita thinks the weightloss thing has been a spirital inner type thing, not just a numbers thing. Having lost all that weight she wants to let all of the past go and feel more free and happier.
Damien says in hindsight he’ll always be glad he walked up that hill, glad he pulled that plane, glad he did 50 laps around Centerpoint – because they’re empowering things. They’re things that they’re doing that they wouldn’t get the chance to do in their regular lives.

Tomorrow night on The Biggest Loser the contestants are going to face their biggest fears. “You’re too fat to do this, you’re too fat to do that,” says Courtney. Kim screams a lot while trying to climb a cliff face.
And Chris seems to be flying some weird plane-on-a-wire thing… And it looks like he might pass out? Awesome!