Previously on The Biggest Loser the families weighed in again with The Westrens shifting up into first place overall.
Then at The Contest Red and Black have bowed out but Blue and White are still in the game.

Tonight we find out who wins The Contest, we get to see Black be “very dirty little girls” (*herrrrrrrk*) and The Challenge will begin. Lots of sandbagging and lugging sandbags and the reward is the inevitable letters from home.

But first! The Contest continues.

Women have a high health risk if their waist measurement exceeds…
77cm, 88cm or 99cm?

Both teams get it wrong. Emma’s not sure she can continue holding the weight up but Tiff tells her she can do it. She can hold it!

Which of the following is the best source of fibre?
1 large pear, 5 prunes, 1 large banana?

Both answer banana, both are wrong as the correct answer is pear!

What is the recommended daily protein intake for an adult male?
65-100g, 150-200g, 200-250g.

Correct answer is 65-100 and neither of the boys get it right this time. Sheesh!

Emma’s struggling mightily and finally calls for her people to get the weight off her.
Followed very shortly by Lara begging them to take her weight off too.

Shannan says Lara’s been a rock throughout and it was apt that she was there carrying the load for her family again today.

Westrens win something else!

And their reward? They get to decide which family cops a weighty penalty.
The family they choose will have to babysit a 5kg medicine ball?!

Lame. Laaaaaaaaame.
Once the team takes possession of the ball it is no longer allowed to touch the ground. Ever. 24/7 it must be off the ground, right until the weigh-in. One family must always be on ball duty.
Going to suck for either of the three people teams since that means 8 hour shifts!

But that’s not all, the ball and its babysitter must stay within a special location inside the house. The only time the ball can leave the ball park is to compete in a challenge.
At no time can they put the ball down or they will be penalised.

… with a second ball? Oh, scary. I thought they’d get a 5kg penalty. Weak!

Lara’s got an idea of who to give the ball to, so The Westrens let her have her pick.
Lara doesn’t really want to give it to anyone because they’re friendly with everyone in the house. But it’s got to be done!

Lara says that she’s looked at who’s been penalised before and Black has had their trainer taken away, White has had gym equipment and food taken away… so it’s Red Team’s turn.

Joe says, “What goes around comes around.” Which causes a few “oohs” to go around.
When it’s time to pick up the ball Mish volunteers Joe, after his comment. And Shannan says it makes it an easy decision next time, that was done in good faith.
Rebecca says to us that Joe’s a bit of a sore loser but he’s going to have to harden up!
Jarrod says that it won’t harden the Red Team up, it’ll just crack them.

The room they’re stuck in? Well, at least it’s the lounge room, so they can chat to people.
But it’s just a boring chair with some velvet rope around it.

Mish asks Joe what he thinks and Joe says they’re just going to have to do it. So what was with the comment then, Mish asks?
Joe says the goes around, comes around thing again. Michelle says that that stuff doesn’t win you any mates and maybe he doesn’t want any and that’s fine, but he’s not in there alone.
So Joe gets to take the first stint with the ball.

Damien says that shooting his mouth off isn’t a good idea, in the future the other teams will know what button to push to get to him.

Time for Blue to train! They’re all doing boxing on the heavy bags together to start with.
Shannan says that Craig’s started to understand what it is to be a role model. He’d wanted to crawl into a dark hole and give up but since then he’s got the courage to pull himself out of the hole and now he’s being more of a leader within the family.

Shannan gets Craig and Leigh together today so Craig can show Leigh what it’s like to be a role model, etc.
Craig’s got to lift the heavy bag up on his shoulder at one point, after a bunch of flipping it end over end. Looks like hard work.
Lara and Sharlene are urging him on from inside the ring.

And Craig tells Sharlene to shut up. And apparently some other nasty words we don’t get to hear. Since Shannan says he’s got to teach Craig that you don’t speak to your wife like that.

What if she’s meeeeeeeean, Shannan? Can I then? :-D

Shannan tells Craig that Sharlene just wants the best for him.
They’ve gotten fatter since their wedding day and have grown further apart. They take each other for granted and that’s not a good role model for the other kids.
Sharlene says it’s been hard with a daughter that has cerebral palsy and their own health issues from being overweight… The spark’s just not there anymore.

Craig sits down afterwards and apologises for swearing at her. It’s just his way of dealing with the volcano and that’s why they’ve come in there, to deal with it all.
Sharlene says Shannan’s a great support and she’s appreciating him a lot more, now. She’s learning to hand over the reins a bit, she tells us, but she’s not going to tell Shannan that!

After another interminable ad break we have Commando Steve leading his girls out onto the parade ground. It’s raining and wet, apparently, so Sarah is sure they’re going to be very dirty little girls.
Steve says he saw Kellie give up in The Contest. It’s time for the princesses to learn that life is tough and they have to deal with it.
They thought the last session was tough? That was nothing!

They’re dragging a smaller rope across the parade ground, today. And they’re already getting a lot of mud all over them.
Steve says they don’t believe they’re strong enough for The Challenges and Contests, but he wants to show them they are!

“You want to change your lives? You’ve got to have a little bit of an intimate relationship with pain!”
Kellie’s looking for excuses, Steve says. Kellie knew she was going to cop it today.
Back in the day Kellie was a surf lifesaver and she was super fit at the time and used to thrive on that. She needs to find that strength inside herself again, she knows.

Steve says that Black has worked hard today, but he wants them to work harder.
So he’s got them up one end of the paradeground that is currently under a fair bit of water. Lovely, muddy, water!
Faster! Commando Steve tells them to go faster. One of them says they’re coming and Steve says so’s Christmas.
I wonder if it’s even Christmas there yet? Hmm.

Steve asks them why he has to keep yelling at them to get them moving? He says it’s because they’re not doing what it takes outside of training.
So he’s put a spin bike outside their room and 24/7 that spin bike must be in use! And if he rocks up at 3am and there’s nobody on there? They really won’t like that!
So pick someone to go man the spin bike right now. In their muddy wet clothes. Ew!

Mish leaves Joe with his medicine ball to do some exercising in the limited space while Damien and Nathaniel do their regular workout in the gym.
Michelle’s given both the other boys a 5kg medicine ball in a backpack to lug through training, too.

And Mish is going to focus on Nathaniel this session, because he’s a “very young” eighteen and it’s time for him to man up!

Nathaniel says that Mish has told them since day one to just keep their mouths shut and then they can’t get in trouble, so he was quite annoyed with Joe.
The best way to get someone to dig deep is through weight training, Michelle says.
Mish wants Nathaniel to express his frustrations, yell it out at his uncles if he has to.

Apparently Nathaniel’s elder brother Christopher had cerebral palsy and passed away eighteen months ago. Awww. :-(

Mish tells Nathaniel that he’s just as much right to speak up when he wants to or needs to, just as much right as his uncles.
Nathaniel says that’s the way it’s always been. He has uncles that give him the shits and he tries to keep it in because he doesn’t want to have the argument, he wants to try and be happy. Mish says it’s not working for him though.

Time to really get into the next part of the session, Mish says. “Let’s go hit something!”

Tiffiny wants to unite her team again, but particularly focus on Meg today.
Tiffiny has them lying flat on the ground then lifting their upper body, arms and legs up off the mat at the same time.
Tiff says Meg’s life revolved around watching TV and walking three steps to the fridge to get beers. Now she’s a fighter!

Meg’s worried about her weight. Her husband met her when she was big so he’s been on the rollercoaster with her through the diets and so on, but she can’t start a family like this and if she doesn’t change it now it’s only going to get harder as she gets older.
“I choose to fight for my life. I choose to fight for my family. I choose not to give in.” Etc.
“I AM A WARRIORRRRRR!!!”
Then afterwards as Meg bends over to catch her breath Tiffiny has a giggle along with her.

The Challenors are still babysitting their medicine ball. Damien’s on duty at the moment and Joe comes in to discuss what they’ll do.
Michelle’s told them to just keep working with the ball while they’re on, Nathaniel says they’re hoping to turn the disadvantage into an advantage.

Meanwhile Black is off working out their spinbike stuff. Steve says they’d all said they were prepared to do whatever it takes, so now they have a project to prove it!
Next morning they’ve had two hours sleep, each.

Erm, how? You could’ve been napping during other people’s turns!

Anyway, they rock up to the paradeground where four trucks are dumping loads of sand into sandpits. Rebecca’s hoping it’ll be a sand castle building challenge. Which would be AWESOME, but a bit too easy.

The Challenors still have their medicine ball, too. And the rules remain the same, they’ve got to keep the ball off the ground.

Only The Challenors, Moons and Duncans can be up for elimination this week as The Westrens have immunity. And the prize for winning today’s Challenge is a 1kg advantage at the weigh-in.
They’ll also receive letters from home. Lots of crying from the girls of all the families. Yeah, women are the stronger sex. :-P

The Challenge today is to fill sandbags from the sand piles and then lug them across the paradeground to their set of scales. Only one person can lug a bag at a time. 10-15kg per sandbag, Sarah tells us.
First family to get 1 tonne onto the scales, wins!

Jarrod wants to win for himself but more for his sisters, so they could hear from their husbands. Awww.

Westrens and Moons need to choose someone to sit out as they have a numerical advantage. Sharlene and Rebecca decide to sit out this time.

Take your marks, HOOOOT!

They don’t even have shovels to fill the bags up with? Crap. Handfilling sandbags takes a long, long time!

Blue is focusing on filling up a bunch of bags first to get a bit of a stockpile going so someone could be constantly running once they get underway.
The other teams all seem to be running one out as soon as they can. Not sure which is the wiser course of action at this point.

Blue, White and Black are all jogging their bags down, Red’s got Damien trundling down with a very full bag, a couple of times in a row. So they’re behind, but not by as much as they would be if they were doing half full bags like Black have been doing.

Kellie’s not a runner, she says, but she’s determined today to run every step of the way for her family. Awww.

Only Red seem to be piling their bags up neatly, which may also be an advantage in the long run.
They’re pretty sure they’re not going to win but they want to at least finish, even with Nathaniel’s sore knee and Damien’s weight and the medicine ball.

Sharlene says she really wants a letter from Emma because they’ve never left her alone for more than a week before in her life.

First place, Duncans: 519kg.
2nd, Westrens: 400kg.
3rd, Moons: 292kg.
4th, Challenors: 250kg.

Jarrod’s calling for fuller sandbags to carry. His shoulder’s hurting but they’re trying to do fewer runs with heavier bags now. Not sure why they’d change strategies partway through since they’re winning!
But Lara says The Westrens are only about 100kg behind and they can catch up.

Nathaniel’s just recently got clearance from the medicos to start running again and he’s running quite a few laps to test his knee out today. Sharlene’s very proud of him for getting going again.

Jarrod, meanwhile, is hoping to be the first triple Challenge winners in a row.

“Letter from Kim? Do you want it?” Rebecca’s running up alongside Sarah as she carries another load. Jodie says Commando is finally rubbing off on the Moon family.

Duncans are still ahead. They’ve only got about 75kg to go. Leigh’s running as fast as he can and Lara’s trying her best too. But I don’t see how they can make up the difference in time.

But I guess we find out on Sunday, again. Grrr!
And the weigh-in is super tense, Mr Voiceover Man says, as three of the teams fight to avoid being up for Elimination.