Previously on The Biggest Loser Natalie was sent home, though Shannon probably wanted to go home a bit more. Too bad!

Tonight The Fridge and shark attack survivor Paul de Gelder turns up for a very special training session.

And a halfway mark checkin with the town of Ararat. Are they losing enough weight to hit that 26,000kg they “need” to not be the town of fatty fats?

Mish has her team for training first. Lake Bellfield in the Grampians is the location and it looks quite pretty. But for the various bits of exercise equipment on the shore.

Michelle welcomes Natalie to her team of outcasts. She tells us she knows Natalie was struggling a little at Camp, so she’s going to have a chat with her today as they exercise on the rowing machines.

Natalie’s daughter is almost 2 and still getting through the various stages of development. She has a “genetic deletion”, if you’ve forgotten, so she’ll learn everything a little bit more slowly than other kids. She’s missing her kids but Mish points out that she needs to get through some milestones of her own so she can stick around for the long term.

Mish tells us the word from Camp was Natalie would break into tears at the drop of a hat, but Mish isn’t seeing that today. Natalie says she’s much better now she’s been home and seen the kids and so on.

Back at Camp and it’s training time out on the oval near the lake. It’s a combined training session today as they’re at the halfway mark. Steve says it’s time to ramp it up. He tells us he doesn’t want to hear the contestants excuses anymore.

Steve then introduces someone he says epitomises the “no excuses” way of life is navy clearance diver and shark attack survivor is Paul de Gelder. And here he comes now! Missing half his right arm and it looks like two thirds of his right leg?

Paul recounts the story, saying he’d only been in the water for about two minutes about four years ago in Sydney Harbour. He felt a massive whack on his leg and didn’t think much of it, until he looked down and saw a massive shark’s head. Jeeeeeeeeebus.

The shark ripped off his hand and tore out his hamstring. Afterwards, in hospital, the surgeon told him he could keep his leg if he wanted. But the shark took his entire hamstring and 25cm of his sciatic nerve. He can keep the leg, but he won’t be able to feel it or move it ever again. So he decided to have the leg removed.

The day after surgery they couldn’t get his pain under control and all he could do was cry in bed. So he realised he had two options – give in to the depression and sadness, curl up into a ball and stop trying. Or he could choose positivity, so he decided to persevere and not give up on himself.

Shannan tells us the bitches and moans his contestants had all went out the window as none of them compared to what Paul went through. Yes, and if an otherwise extremely healthy person can survive losing a limb and go on to be otherwise extremely healthy, your issues are MEANINGLESS.

Sigh.

Anyway. Katrina has a whinge anyway, saying Paul’s attitude makes her feel so bad about the way she’s been addressing her problems. She uses a lot of negative thoughts and self doubts in her head.

Paul asks if it’s time for a change? Absolutely, Katrina says. Time to take the first step!

Time to crawl under neats and climb over logs and under logs and step through tires and flip tires end over end.

Shannan tells us Katrina can inspire other Mums now with her actions, she has to realise she has that ability now.

Paul was mauled by a bull shark apparently, so says Shannan.

Both teams are working together today, helping each other over obstacles and encouraging everyone. Paul’s doing some of the exercises with them. He has a hook attachment for his prosthetic arm that helps him traverse the monkeybars much better than any of the contestants.

Shannan’s a bit frustrated by Shannon, the penny still hasn’t dropped for her. Shannan wants Shannon to explain what she’s afraid of. Shannon’s afraid of everything! She’s afraid of failure, afraid of the world, doesn’t leave the house much, doesn’t like the water and doesn’t go swimming anymore.

Really, she’s not going to suggest being afraid of the water in front of the guy who was attacked by a shark. Thank god she’s only telling us that, not him.

Shannan thinks they’re still yet to see the best out of Shannon. He’s waiting to see the fight come out of her, for her to show them the best version of her.

Paul says she can see it in her, she can do this. Shannon says she’s afraid of failing and Shannan says she’s finally got out what she’s afraid of. Paul says everyone fails, the only people who don’t fail are the people who don’t try.

Paul says she can’t fail in there. She completes every day of training, eats well and so on. Every day she does that she’s succeeding.

One final run then? Shannon and Paul running the entire course together. Shannan says Shannon’s looking a lot happier during this run, picked up her effort a lot from earlier training sessions.

The last bit is a bridge over the water. Makeshift bridge, supported by inflated inner tubes with planks lashed across the top.

Shannon slowly heads across the bridge and manages to get to the other side without taking a dunk, hooray! Then she gets a big hug from Paul at the end.

Steve says it was good to see Shannon have her breakthrough and it’s good for the rest of the contestants too, giving them a lift.

Now Michelle’s off to visit Cam to see how he’s going and one change is apparent right away – he’s shaved his head! No more shitty thin curls.

Michelle meets his wife and explains what she’s doing in town. She can’t train him because he left due to heart troubles. He says he just has to keep walking and eat healthy and he knows he’ll keep losing the weight and getting much healthier.

Mish then asks him if he’ll come out for one of the challenges and inspire the troops because he’s a big community leader type. And he’ll be doing that under the banner of the red team, of course!

Challenge time for Ararat! Cameron, Rodger and Mary are there to help support the two teams. The town black and blue teams will be pulling an 11 ton tractor each. Five laps around the course they’ve set up.

John, Sharon’s husband, is there to lead the black team this week. Spanner’s there again for blue and Scott, Shannon’s husband, is there too.

This is the third town challenge and each team has won one. So who’ll get bragging rights?

Cam’s enjoying the rivalry between the two teams, says there wasn’t even that much intensity in the house!

Mish says the two teams are like engines, pushing along at a good pace. She just hopes they don’t run out of petrol. People don’t run on petrol, Michelle. You must know that by now.

The hardest part of the course is turning the large tractors around at each end of the course. Blue start to fall behind as black seems much stronger.

But then black gets their tractor stuck somehow and can’t get it to finish a turn.

Cam’s getting a bit frustrated and joins the front of the black team’s pullers. He’s trying to keep his heart rate under control but he can’t help trying to get the team moving again.

Blue’s in the lead with one lap to go but black’s breathing down their neck.

One of the black team falls down at one point, physically spent. But with some encouragement from Mish he gets back to his feet and continues pushing.

Michelle’s calling out encouragement from the sideline as the black team drags their tractor along… one lady gurning hard as she tries to push, yet can’t help staring at Michelle as she goes past!

In the end the blue team is too strong, winning the race and sending an advantage back to the house.

How much does blue need the advantage, Mish asks Cam. Cam says it’s the halfway mark and the three champs standing there are all blue. So they definitely need every advantage they can get.

Meanwhile, back at Camp, there’s a letter on the fridge when some of the contestants get into the kitchen. Sharon gathers everyone around and reads out the letter.

It’s a reminder that Craig has the option to open The Fridge himself or not. There’s a hint on the card, which is all about Ararat’s history as a gold mining town. Craig’s a bit cagey about whether he’ll open the fridge but then says he’ll be opening it, of course.

Craig wanders up and opens The Fridge. Hayley’s not there, she “wrote” the letter so I assume she’s actually just busy with something else on the day this was filmed.

After an ad break we finally see that inside the fridge is… a 5kg gold nugget, that looks totally legit and not at all like a fake rock painted gold!

Black team will have to hold on to the 5kg nugget from now until weigh in. Every hour of every day, no matter where they go. Even the toilet, much to Sharon’s amusement. Craig suggests maybe hitting Cal over the head with it and Cal says to make sure they don’t drop it when they do!

Back in Ararat – where Hayley’s disappeared to! – it’s time for the halfway weigh in. Dr Swan’s there too, though he’s not saying a lot just yet.

Hayley reminds everyone that their goal was to lose 26,000kg. And now here’s Dr Swan again. Remember him? He horrified you all last time with that dump truck full of fat which was actually only a month’s worth of fat.

Dr Swan says they’ve been keeping track of the town’s workouts and diet and generally keeping an eye on them. At the halfway mark the news is good. The average blood pressure is 10% lower, lowering their risk of stroke by 40%.

As a town they’ve walked a total of 130 million steps. Which is equivalent to going around the world two and a half times. Yet they’re still stuck in Ararat…

Time to weigh in guys!

Mary says the weigh in is very exciting for the town as everyone’s been working very hard. But have they been working hard enough? We’ll see. Maybe they’ll just have lighter people turn up to be weighed this time…

Rodger thinks they’ll “shit it in”, reaching the target that is. He says he’s been seeing people in the gyms and at the pool and stuff, which used to be rare.

Each basket seems to be weighing in less, everyone’s saying, but they’re all still huge indecipherable numbers.

Ararat Start: 901,062kg
Ararat Now: 880,332kg
Ararat Loss: 20,730kg

So they’re getting close and it’s only the halfway mark, well done Ararat!

Hayley says that in the last two weeks their weightloss has plateaued. It does happen, Dr Swan says, as you lose the initial weight and then slow down a bit you can get disheartened. Don’t let it get you down, you can keep going and you’ll start losing weight once again.

Tomorrow night, will the black team drop a nugget?

Then it’s time for the weekly challenge, another stack the tires in a cage affair. And Mr Voiceover Man is promising it’ll go down to the wire, but I think we all know what Mr Voiceover Man’s promises are worth…