Tonight on Biggest Loser Masterclass exercises that are fun for the whole family, preparing a big breakfast for a bunch of lycra clad cyclists, cooking with good carbs can be tastier than cooking with bad carbs and some wheelchair guy is going to talk about crawling along the Kokoda Track!

No stretching exercise weird things for me to describe? Awesome.

First part of Masterclass this week is out in The Yard instead of indoors.
Shannan and Michelle turn up. Shannan has a basketball.

Michelle says her and Shannan are big believers in activity, not just hardcore training sessions. Activities you can do with friends and family.
Shannan is going to show them activities they can do with their family. First up is basketball.

Shannan explains that all the parts of your body benefit from the exercise in basketball. Lower body strength, cardio, core strength and so on.

Michelle explains how to play a little one on one. Michelle throws the ball in from the baseline to Joe who then has to dribble forwards with the ball and try to score a goal.
Both of them get well into the game though Michelle seems to be winning.

Shannan goes into more of the benefits of basketball like hand eye coordination. On their way out of the court to their next activity Shannan throws a shot from out past the 3 point line and pots it, much to his excitement!

Next activity is bike riding! As a kid, before dinner on a Sunday night, he, his Mum and his Dad used to go for a ride around the local area. He thinks their positive influence has really stuck with him for the rest of his life.
Even Shannon at 174kg will be taking part today. That’s a sturdy bike they’ve got then.

Shannon, Phil, Phoebe and Michelle will be riding with Shannan.
Shannon’s not been on one for 7 or 8 years because he just wasn’t comfortable doing it, tires would go flat and he just couldn’t be bothered.

Shannan leads them off across the lawn and around on a lap of the road and stuff. Phil powers up the hill on the driveway ending with a heart rate of 170bpm. Shannon hits 185bpm by the top. Everyone’s really impressed with their efforts but most are particularly surprised Shannon is managing to do it at all…

Next activity? Rollerblading!
I did rollerblading once. I fell on my arse. I didn’t do rollerblading again.

Everyone’s managing to stay upright though, which is impressive!
Michelle says it helps strengthening the legs and ankles and so on. Shannon says they don’t look out of place on rollerblades either.

First person shown to stack it? Shannan! Much glee for Michelle.

They’re already done with the exercise-y bits of Masterclass. After the ad break will be Dr Swan bringing some carbohydrate knowledge up in the Camp.

After the ad break Dr Swan first decides to describe what goes on in the body with carbs. When you’re talking about carbs you’re talking about energy. Anybody know what the basic building block of energy in the body is?

Glucose!

Dr Swan has a bowl of “white powder”. But it’s not sugar.
It’s glucose.

… which is a sugar. But anyway, go on Dr Swan.

Glucose is what the body burns and the shortest route to glucose is to go from carbohydrates.
Carbs are stored in the body as glycogen. We only store 800 grams of glycogen. Which is why athletes carb load, to store lots of glycogen. And you can’t just do it an hour beforehand, it needs to be at least a day before.

Daina asks if you eat too many carbs does it transform into fat?
Not so much, says Dr Swan. Carbs get broken down into glucose which gets burned for energy. So if you eat too many carbs then that’s all that is burned for energy, any left overs gets stored as glycogen.
And then any fat in your diet, instead of being burned as energy, it gets stored as fat.

Dr Swan goes back to prehistoric times where humans mostly ate a lot of protein, some grains, some fruit and veg but not a lot of carbs.

Shannon asks what happens if you don’t eat enough carbs, do you then not have enough energy to exercise? And Dr Swan says yes, that’s what happens. Your glycogen stores won’t be big enough.
So you don’t want to stop eating carbs, just eat the right kinds of carbs.

Table sugar is a “simple” carbohydrate. It’s pure energy. And delicious! But mostly pure energy and nothing else in it. Nothing else nutritious in it.
Complex carbs are the furthest you can get from simple glucose. Like oats. It’s not just carbs it’s fibre, starches and things that will resist being broken down too easily. They’ll give you a nice slow release of energy in your body, rather than just one big hit.

Dr Swan says he thinks it’s easier to consider how many carbs you should have in portions, rather than pure calories. Couple of slices of bread is one portion, some other things he has on the table too.
Women should get 4-6 portions, 6 or 7 or 8 for men. Though on a weightloss regime you might be on less than that. And don’t eat too many of them later in the day.
People who’re fat eat most of their calories after dark. So when you’re sleeping fat just goes straight to fat because you don’t need very much energy at all while you’re sleeping!

Hayley gets to head in to do the cooking lesson with Janella today. She seems quite excited to be joining the class.

Today is all about carbs! Good carbs are good, they’re complex. Bad carbs are the “evil white things”. RACIST AGAINST WHITE BREAD!
White flour, white sugar, white pasta and white bread are the bad things.
Since they’ve got a big event coming up they’re going to start teaching them how to load up on carbs.

Janella lifts a lid on jacket potatoes with cream and bacon bits and some cheese. Phoebe’s obsessed with potatoes, apparently.
Janella says they’re okay every now and then, particularly if you have a very active lifestyle.
Lots of fat in the cream, bacon and cheese.

Chicken pad thai is the next one. Nobody’s favourite? A couple of sheepish hands go up. Including Hayley’s!
She says it’s got to be a good one though. And Janella asks not very often? Hayley says no… but can’t stop a grin breaking out on her face.
There’s about 700 calories in the dish. There’s sugar in the sauce and refined fat and so on.

Third dish is lasagne. Everyone says it’s yummy. Janella says you can make healthy lasagnes with different pasta but the white sauce on top of it – flour, butter and milk – all full of saturated fat.

Janella’s going to show them that good carbs can be just as tasty!

So she’s going to show them how to make some wholemeal pasta with chicken and vegetables.
They’re going to steam the chicken in “Bali Huts” as Phil calls them. Bamboo steamers. Daina is told to put the plate and all in the steamer as the juices from the chicken will be used in the stock for their sauce. Nice idea!

Wholemeal pasta is cooked in boiling water with no oil or salt in it. Aww!

Their red/napoli sauce isn’t starting with olive oil like you usually would, just tomatoes from a tin, some tomato paste, various herbs and spices.
Hayley asks about the tomatoes in the tin and Janella says yes they often have quite a bit of sugar and salt in them, so always be checking. What you’re looking for is tins that only say whole tomatoes, not any added stuff.

Daina’s a fan of cream. With her pesto sauce. Ew.
Janella says you could put some feta cheese with it instead in the future.

Daina cuts the stalks off her broccolini because she doesn’t like the look of them. Okay?

Janella tries to convince Phoebe that the leafy greens and other vegetables look nicer than the baked potato. I don’t think Phoebe’s buying it!

Janella reminds us all to break up the portions into dishes right away or into plastic containers. Don’t leave it in the pot because it’s too tempting then!

350 calories in the whole meal and 30 grams of carbs. It’s a really huge meal, too. Plate is piled high with vegetables and pasta and sauce and chicken bits.
Daina says the pasta tastes much the same as regular white pasta. It’s a bit chewier but tastes much the same so she could swap to that very easily.
Janella gets Daina to try some of the broccolini stalk and she says it tastes a bit like asparagus, which I gather she likes and is not horrified by!

Janella says that next is brown fried rice. Interesting!
She’s selling it pretty hard, saying you won’t want to go back to white rice afterwards. Not even Hayley, who really loves her fried rice.

Janella says she might get Shannon up to assist this time and Shannon says, “Let’s go nuts!” Janella says okay but only a small handful of nuts because they’re full of fat… cue giggling all round.

Apparently brown rice is much easier to cook than white rice. Two times the amount of water as you have rice. One and a half times, if you’re cooking white rice but of course nobody will be doing that anymore, will they?

Janella comments that Shannon hasn’t remarked on the “white block” on the ingredients plate yet. Tofu. Shannon says it’s coming…

Janella breaks a bit of ginger to put in and offers it to Shannon to smell. He shakes his head while she shoves it under his nose and she asks if he can’t smell it? He says he can smell it but he really doesn’t like ginger!
Crush the garlic with the side of a knife to release the flavour and goodness from it, before chopping it up.

Shannon asks if there’s an alternative to ginger? You don’t have to add it if you don’t like it, it just gives a nice asian flavour to the dish.
Janella enquires whether Shannon’s made fried rice before? Shannon says he’s eaten it a lot! But his Mum used to make it when he was a kid. With white rice and peas and bacon and egg and onion and so on.
Of course back then we didn’t worry about all this high-GI low-GI crap we just ate stuff and got some exercise to work it off…

Tofu time!
Firm tofu. Lots of horrified looks. Including from me!
Janella insists it doesn’t have a flavour, but it takes on the flavour of other things in the dish. So she’s adding some fish sauce, some wheat-free soy sauce.

The whole block of tofu has about 500 calories. So Caitlin asks the obvious question – if it’s so full of calories and doesn’t taste of anything, why bother adding it?!
It’s soya beans mushed up, so it’s high in protein, calcium, has no fat and is a good complex carbohydrate. So because they’re carb loading this is an ideal food because it has the carbs and the protein and no fat!

Chilli! Seeds in because it doesn’t look like a hot chilli to her. It’ll make it taste sweet, she tells Shannon who’s doubting it!
You can marinate the tofu overnight in the various sauces to make it take on more of a flavour. And it’s a meat substitute, basically.

Other than knowing it has tofu in it the end result actually looks really nice!
When it comes time for Shannon to try it someone tells him to get a bit of the tofu and Shannon says it all tastes really good and you don’t even really notice the tofu, it’s just something else added.

Hayley then gets to have a taste as well. She’s never had tofu or mung beans before so she wants to get some of that tofu to try. And she really likes it! She says it’s delicious. She thanks Janella and then tries to take the plate back to her seat. Heh!

And it’s only about 280 calories per serve!

Number three dish is lentils and couscous casserole. Janella gets Phoebe up to help her.

It’s very important to measure couscous carefully. Apparently it’s the inside-y bits of wheat so if you’re avoiding wheat or you’re a coeliac you shouldn’t have it.
Couscous is cooked with equal parts couscous and water. So Janella is cooking one cup of couscous so she brings one cup of water to the boil before adding the couscous.

Lentils go into a pot with plenty of vegetable stock. Lentils are high in protein and fibre, like tofu.

New herb today – marjoram. They’ve not used that before, apparently.

They’re adding some lemon rind to the couscous once it’s cooked. Just bung it in the pot, put the lid back on and make sure you’ve taken it off the heat!
Janella cuts the sweet potato into big chunky bits with the skin on to fit their rustic theme.

Janella adds the marjoram, keeping the leaves on. You don’t have to leave the leaves on, Janella says, but her and Phoebe are going to!

And now Janella has one she prepared earlier. It looks quite mushy now.
To prepare the couscous you just stir it around in the pot with a fork till it all breaks up and goes nice and fluffy. You can throw all kinds of things into it if you want, but this is obviously an accompaniment to their casserole, today.

Phoebe asks if you could substitute couscous for your usual mashed potato and Janella says yes. Substitute for the evil white carbs! Phoebe sounds less than convincing while saying evil white carbs so Janella gets her to say it a few more times.

Janella’s about ready to serve up when Phoebe asks her if she wants the low fat yoghurt too? Janella says yes!
Low fat yoghurt is higher in calcium due to the reduced fat content intensifying the calcium concentration.

308 calories in total and only about 2 grams of fat. Lots of carbs and protein.

Phoebe then gets to taste it and she says it’s delicious. She doesn’t like lentils normally but you can’t taste them due to the vegetable stock and sweet potato in the casserole bit.

Hayley then thanks Janella for letting her into the kitchen today and thanks the contestants too. But it’s time for them to go to the big gym to meet a very special guest!

Today their special guest is someone who Shannan and Michelle are really excited about. He’s won gold medals at Beijing and Athens Olympic Games plus several world titles.
And all without the use of his legs!

Introducing… Kurt Fearnley.

He’s in a chair due to missing part of his spine and sacrum, which is why he’s so short as well.

Not only is he a paralympian he’s crawled the Kokoda Track. He says it was hands down one of the hardest things he’s ever done. Every single day, both physically and emotionally. But he really wanted to do it.
A disability over in PNG means you often just sit in a room and nobody ever expects you to leave that room. But seeing him crawling along and going through the villages and so on really inspired them, too.

The day before he left to do it a guy in a wheelchair came up to him and told him about that whole deal in PNG and so when he does this, he’s got everyone else in a wheelchair on his shoulders.

From the first village he got to he knew he’d make the entire journey. 11 days later he crawled out of the jungle. And he says it was incredible.

Lisa asks him why he chose to do Kokoda and Kurt says it’d always interested him. He’d always wondered about it. It might sound a little strange, but why not have a go, wheelchair or not? He’s physically able to do it so why not?

Kurt says there was a few days where he got so exhausted he couldn’t even talk. He’d get to the next camp, lie down in his tent and his family would be wandering around outside, peeking in, thinking he wouldn’t be getting up the next day to carry on the journey.
His brother came in and said he’d seen him do something pretty incredible things but this trip has blown him away.

Kurt knows now that he’ll keep going until he physically and emotionally can’t move, no matter what.

Shannan says going back to what Kurt said at the beginning, there’d be people out there looking at the contestants thinking if they can do it, people on the outside can do it too.

Kurt says to them, “Don’t even think about giving up!” He tells them they’re changing lives by what they’re doing. He didn’t see the impact from his trek while he was at Kokoda, but when they get home people will be stopping them in the street to tell them how much it meant to them.

Kurt says he’s had tough races and tough years in racing. It took him 10 years to even win a race and he started when he was 14. But everything in the way is just speed bumps.

Shannon asks him what’s next for him.
The Commonwealth Games, apparently. In New Delhi. It’s the first time the Commonwealth Games have had full medal status for paralympians. So it’s a big year for him!

Kurt tells them it’s not given to them at birth, the ability to win a gold medal or whatever, it’s something you have to work at, remind yourself over and over until it becomes second nature and you don’t need to remind yourself. The little voice screams KEEP GOING instead of give up.

Masterclass Challenge today is related to breakfast! Big breakfast cookoff!
Phil’s concerned. He’s not big on cooking!

There’s four tents. Eggs, bread, pancakes and oats tents. They have to man the tents and devise breakfasts with their core ingredients. So the eggs tent has to have eggs as the core ingredient of their breakfast. Oats, bread and pancakes all have to be the centres of their respective menus.
But there’s also a large buffet table full of other ingredients to pick from as well.

When Hayley says go they can run to the tent of their choice. Maximum of three people in each tent. If you get their late, go to another tent!
They’ll then get a few minutes to decide on the meal they’ll prepare. Then they can have one trip to the buffet table for additional ingredients.
And it better be nice, healthy and tasty because it’s not for them. In just over half an hour a bunch of cyclists will turn up and pick meals from the four tents. Once they’ve eaten they’ll vote on their favourite meal. Whoever wins gets their names on the Masterclass shield. Oooh.

Everyone pelts towards the tents. Well, everyone capable of running.
Bread: Daina, Caitlin and Phil
Oats: Shannon, Lisa and Jarna
Pancakes: Phoebe, David and Rick
Eggs: Joe. Joey Nofriends!

Caitlin takes pity on him and moves over to help Joe.

They all grab heaps and heaps of ingredients to add to their various things. No menus have been announced, however. Bit disappointing.

Phoebe spoons out ricotta from a tub. Rick is mystified, never having seen ricotta before.

Phil and Daina are doing some bruschetta? One with tomato, spinach, onion and balsamic vinegar and one with mushrooms, ham, cottage cheese and parsley. So there’s a vegetarian option and a meaty option.

Joe and Caitlin are going with scrambled eggs. Shannan and Michelle are crestfallen, they were clearly hoping for more of the omelette Rick and Joe won a Masterclass Challenge with before.
So scramblies with garlic, onion and parsley plus some grilled capsicum and tomato for a side.

The oats table is making a wet muesli with dried fruit and yoghurt and also a toasted oat trifles with yoghurt and fresh fruit in layers. Breakfast trifle!
Quite easy to put together but both sound quite delicious!

Pancake stall. Michelle says pancakes are notorious for being empty calories. How’re you going to make them healthy? Banana pancakes! No sugar, wholemeal flour, bananas for the sweetness which is better than just plain sugar apparently.
They’re going to use egg whites instead of whole eggs to keep some of the fat out.
They’re going to serve them with some sliced fruit, some ricotta and lemon juice and lime zest. Or maybe lime juice and lemon zest? Something like that!

Shannan laughs at the intense workouts they’re getting behind the cooking benches!

10 minutes to go and they’re looking a little rushed.

Rick’s hovering over the pancake tray trying to grab one. David finally relents and lets him have one of the burnt ones. Rick says they taste really good. Everyone encourages him to hoe in while Michelle says in a loud voice they have a weigh-in coming up!

The cyclists finally turn up. And there’s quite a few of them. Two dozen or so. Shannon’s trying to drum up business as soon as they hop off their bikes. And it seems to be working.

Everyone looks really impressed by the meals on offer. Big rush on pancakes, unsurprisingly!

The oats table looks quite dejected. They didn’t get many takers. Jarna says if they were on Masterchef they’d be sabotaging someone right now and go over there trying to sell their wares. Shannon says he’ll go over with the tray! Lisa gets him to hold off but then some of the cyclists come back for seconds… And Shannon poaches a pancake customer with the offer of breakfast trifle!
Shannon’s really rising to the occasion, selling his oats. Using his humour to good effect.
He’s a salesman at home. Usually talks over the phone rather than face to face, but he’s giving it a go.

First vote we see? For oats. Nice!
Lots of people being very complimentary of the pancakes!
One guy says the bruschetta was good and bad. The mushroom and ham was spot on but the spinach and tomato was no go. Probably the healthiest because it tasted the worst, he says!

Michelle says she was really impressed by what they turned out today as most of them couldn’t really cook at all when they arrived at Camp.

So who made the best breakfast?

In 4th place, eggs tent with just 4 votes. Ouch!
Equal 2nd: Oats and Bread Tents.
First place: PANCAKES! Of course!

Phoebe, David and Rick got 9 votes for their pancakes making them this week’s champs.
Phoebe’s happy that her name is on something before the end of the series.

And now Masterclass is done once again!

Sunday night, every competitor for themselves. Breakdowns, breakthroughs, then facing the scales as singles… and someone will make Biggest Loser history!