Fat Chance (12 page)

We’d clean up the kitchen, moan about how exhausted we were, wait in line to do our “confessional” recordings on camera, write a few letters to family members who were cheering us on from home, update our online Bodybugg, moan some more about how exhausted we were and then whimper our way to sleep.

It was a far cry from the life I’d known in Jacksonville. And things would only get worse.

W
hen the black team was still operating incognito in the desert, a production assistant approached Jillian with a video camera during one of our workouts to ask her about the strategy she employed when training a team. “Tell us about your approach, Jillian,” the guy said. And in response, Jillian shed light for millions of Americans on the truth of what makes her tick.

“My plan is the same, season after season after season,” Jillian said as she then punched one fist into the palm of the other hand: “Beatings, beatings, beatings. And then some more beatings.” Whether or not we appreciated her approach, evidently it had been working well for her. At this writing, out of the six seasons that Jillian has appeared on, a member of her team has won every single time.

Still, on those frequent occasions when I needed a way to ease the pain that she so fervently loved to inflict, I’d dream up new reasons to detest the trainer who has a strange affinity for abuse. While I could write an entire book on the trouble with Jillian Michaels, I’ll try to contain myself to a top-ten list of sorts. Here they are, in no particular order.

On a near-daily basis Jillian would lead a small group of us in cardio drills. She’d say, “Okay, everyone, twenty jump-squats, starting now.” She’d begin counting as we obediently crouched down low and then sprung up high, but when we got to twenty, mysteriously, we were not done. “Five more!” she’d holler, just when we were pulling back to take a break. “Really, Jillian,” Hollie would protest. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Obviously, she was not.

The extra five would become an extra fifteen in the end, and my
teammates and I would despise her even more. The first twenty were tough enough, let alone an agonizing total of thirty-five. I stand by my case: She cannot count. But that was hardly the worst of her quirks.

The only thing more annoying than a person who thinks she’s always right is a person who is, in fact, never wrong. Enter Jillian Michaels.

For instance, it would be mere hours before a weigh-in, and I’d say, “I think I lost six pounds this week.” I mean, I know my body best, right? Jillian would shake her head immediately and say, “Nope. You only lost three.” Or, “Are you kidding? You clearly lost eight.” Of course, come weigh-in time, she always was dead on.

Jillian also knew our personal limits better than we did. During one especially awful workout, Isabeau was running on a treadmill when Jillian came into the gym. She made a beeline for Izzy and said, “Harder!
Faster
, Isabeau. Move!” Through labored breaths, Izzy panted out her reply: “I
can’t
, Jillian! I’m already going as fast as I can go!”

Jillian, of course, took that response as a challenge. She reached around and punched buttons on the treadmill’s control pad until Isabeau was nearly flying, she was running so fast. As soon as Izzy successfully completed the thirty-second interval, with Jillian counting down every single stride, she heard Jillian shrieking at the top of her lungs as she left the gym, “
I AM NEEEEVVVVVER WRONG
!”

Closer to home, weeks into my
The Biggest Loser
experience, Jillian decided to take me off of all of my medications, which included Ortho Tricycline to combat the effects of my polycystic ovary syndrome, and Metformin for my glucose intolerance and prediabetic condition. Understandably, I was nervous about it, but she assured me that in three weeks’ time my body would adjust. Twenty-one days later,
you guessed it: My plateau of piddly two- and three-pound weight-loss weeks was jolted, and I finally began to see results.

Never
wrong. Never, ever, ever wrong. It’s annoying, but it’s true.

If you’re overweight, it’s tough to tip yourself over and walk on your hands and feet, but “bear crawls” were one of Jillian’s favorite exercises from day one. She’d divide us into duos and wrap resistance bands around the waist of one member of each team. “Get in back of them,” she’d holler to the ones without the bands strangling their bellies, “and don’t let them get up the hill!” Talk about misery. With us pulling against them, our beloved friends and teammates would then tip over into the bear-crawl position and try with all their might to ascend the hundred-yard hill.

I remember one situation when this was the drill
du jour
, and all was going well. That is, until Hollie cried. Keep in mind, Hollie was not much of a crier. But on that particular day she’d simply had enough.

Jillian noticed Hollie hesitating, and so she grabbed the resistance band that was wrapped around Hollie and said, “Are you going to do this, Hollie? Or are you going to
quit
?”

The rest of us kept moving and tried to avoid eye contact with Jillian. We hated to see Hollie get picked on, but it was better her than us.

Through the corner of my eye I saw Hollie tip herself onto all fours, her heavy, heavy weight coming down hard on her hands. Her neck looked constricted as her chubby cheeks covered her eyes. Sweat ran down her face and pooled on the ground below.

But still, she forced herself up the path.

In the face of an emotional breakdown, I’m sure some trainers rush to the person’s side, wrap a loving arm around the person’s neck, and say, “Oh, you poor thing. Here, let’s have a Snickers and take a break.” But not Jillian. Far from it. She’d rush to your side, all right. But only so that she could fire a closer-range shot that was sure to take your sorry self down.

Jillian would send one of my teammates or me to retrieve something from the house during a workout and become irate when we finally returned. “You should have been back in
three
minutes!” she’d accuse
whoever had been sent on the errand, forgetting entirely that it was a five-minute walk from the gym to the house … and therefore a ten-minute walk round-trip.

Jillian would tell us to eat lunch when we were between workouts and then thirty seconds later, obviously angered by the fact that food was not finding its way to our faces yet, say, “I thought I told you to
eat your lunch
!”

“Hello!” we’d fire back. “We have to cook it first!”

Once we finally
did
get our lunch prepared, Jillian would control our portions through the use of condiments. If she felt like we’d had enough to eat, she would upend the ketchup bottle or unscrew the salt shaker and destroy the remainder of our meal. And she wanted to be our
friend
?

Whenever our team competed in a challenge or a temptation activity, Jillian only wanted for us to assume risk if we would be guaranteed immunity. The reward could be a priceless video made by a loved one, a much-needed full-body massage or five thousand dollars in cold hard cash, and still Jillian would not budge. Family meant nothing and money meant nothing, because there was only room for one goal, and that goal was immunity, immunity, immunity. “Who cares if you win five grand, if it costs you a week in this game?” she’d rant. And as always, Jillian was right.

Jillian loved to lead our team in “spin” classes. She’d circle up the stationary bikes, tell us to take our pick and find a seat and then promptly proceed to remove them—the seats, that is. She’d rev up all the bikes as high as they would go and then come jump on my front wheel. There I’d be, pedaling as though my life depended on it—because it did—huffing and puffing out prayers to God and fending off Jillian’s added resistance until the magical moment I heard the word
Stop
.

From day one, the black team was instructed to bring snacks with us to every workout. If you forgot it, sweet heavens, the universe would utterly come to a halt. “I asked you to bring your
SNACKS
!” Jillian would roar upon discovering delinquency in the ranks. I’m sure that camera operators and production assistants stationed in the gym who heard that little reminder thought that Jillian was looking out for our own good. “What a kind and thoughtful trainer she is,” they must have thought. After all, wouldn’t any trainer worth her biceps want her trainees to eat healthy, frequent meals?

But that wasn’t Jillian’s motivation at
all
.

In reality, Jillian preferred to beat the snot out of us, and she knew we needed nourishment to withstand it.

Beatings, beatings, beatings—she was a woman of her word.

On the heels of one workout in which Hollie did, in fact, remember to bring her snack, Jillian circled up the black team and asked us to have a seat. We were all exhausted, and as Jillian stood in the middle of the circle, giving her best attempt at a pep talk, I couldn’t help but notice the teammate sitting directly across the circle from me.

Evidently Hollie had brought her food in a plastic grocery bag, and now the empty bag was hanging around her face, its handles hooked over both of her ears. I snickered a little at the sight of my friend, which caught Jillian’s attention. “What’s so funny?” she said, genuinely curious.

She swiveled around to see what I was looking at, and when she took in her trainee with a barf bag on her face, she just had to know more. “Hollie, honey? What’s
up
?”

But of course Hollie could not reply. For days on end our bodies had been detoxing from all the “clean” eating and incessant workouts we’d endured, and Hollie had some business to tend to. With all eyes on her, she drew her knees toward her chin, and, able to hold her cookies no longer, completely and thoroughly barfed. Which sent Jillian into full-fledged dance-mode.

I’m not sure when it began, but by our season on the show, Jillian had crafted a puke-induced dance of joy. Why was she so elated about such
a terrible turn of events? Because it meant that her beatings had taken effect, that her poor, suffering contestant had actually worked out
that
hard.

It’s a little difficult to describe without nonverbals, but essentially she squats down, throws her hands in front of her thighs, thrusts her butt into the air and swings her hips in ever-widening circles while squawking out strains of sheer delight.

Try though we did to contain ourselves for Hollie’s benefit, my teammates and I finally dissolved into a fit of laughter. By the time we composed ourselves, Jillian was on the floor in happy-baby position, kicking her feet in the air and crying hysterical tears. “That’s fan
tas
tic!” she cheered over poor Hollie’s condition. “She’s carrying a puke-purse on her face!”

Surely you’re with me here in deeming our trainer a little unstable at best. For all the reasons I’ve cited—not to mention a training philosophy that includes not one or two or three but
four
occurrences of the word “beatings”—I dare say Jillian is just a
little
south of sane.

Still, for all her craziness, we loved her. She was our trainer and confidante and yes, she’d even become our friend. Her commanding presence had commanded us, and our trust for her ran deep.

T
he implications of working out that long and that hard, for that many days in a row, were many.

After about two weeks, every bone in my body felt like it was made of Jell-O. I knew I’d hit an all-time low when I realized that for four days straight I had been crawling on all fours to the bathroom because I was too exhausted to carry my own weight. Exhaustion can do funny things to a girl, making trips to the bathroom and showering incredibly difficult.