Kim Lyons never set out to become famous.
An aerobics instructor-turned-personal trainer, she didn’t expect much when she auditioned two years ago for a spot as a trainer on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.”
Yet fame is what she’s gained.
“How many people go from regular trainer to prime-time NBC? It’s so weird,” said Lyons, who returns at 7 p.m. Tuesday for her second year as a trainer on the fourth season of the weight-loss reality show.
“I’m just this dumb trainer on the red carpet,” she said. “All these other girls, this is their life, and I’m like, ‘OK, I’m just the trainer.’ “
She may be “just the trainer,” but she’s a big piece of “The Biggest Loser.” After all, this year’s crop of “Losers” — 18 overweight men and women hoping to slim down for a $250,000 payoff (and, of course, their health) — won’t be losing all by themselves.
“The training is brutal,” said Lyons, a former competitive weightlifter whose first book, “Your Body, Your Life,” will be published in early 2008. “Who wants to have a trainer with them 24 hours a day?”
The competitors began training in April. Team members were eliminated one by one, based on their weight loss and their performance in various physical challenges, until four remained.
Those four were sent home in August to continue the program on their own — off camera — until Dec. 18, when they will return for the finale and one person will be crowned “The Biggest Loser.”
“It’s kind of a test of whether or not they really learn the lifestyle,” Lyons said. “You can’t just do everything for them and then have a winner and say, ‘OK, you’re done, you win.’ I have to teach them everything so that when they do go home they can apply these things in the real world.”
More than 100,000 people auditioned to compete in Season 4 after last year’s season finale drew about 11.7 million viewers. Those chosen for this season include a Hurricane Katrina survivor, a pair of male twins and the show’s oldest-ever contestant, a 62-year-old man from Peoria.
“They all have high blood pressure and high cholesterol,” Lyons said. “The only thing we do test for is that we do a stress test of the heart so that we know they’re not going to keel over and have a heart attack there on the set.”
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Let’s get physical
Kim Lyons, a trainer on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” says there’s no excuse for the obesity epidemic in the U.S.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 60 percent of the American public is overweight — with an estimated 400,000 deaths per year due to poor diet and low physical activity.
“I’ve heard every excuse in the book,” she said. “People are like, ‘Oh, I can’t work out because of this, this and this,’ and I say, ‘Whatever. You should see what these 400-pound people do. Don’t tell me you can’t do it.'”
