Yes! I met Blaine Kotter, Season 7 Biggest Loser Contestant

What a fun, insightful night!! I loved learning all the behind the scene things and how he compared to the gospel to the things on the ranch.

Here are some of the tidbit "insider" things he told us!

• Biggest Loser sends you home with nothin but a couple resistance bands, 3 boxes of cheerios (because I did a commercial) and a one year to 24 hour fitness (like you will only need to only work out a year! haha)
• Worked out 4 hours then had lunch, a lil break 2 hours then had dinner 2 hours then went on a walk. Sometimes they wouldn't get home till midnight
• Jillian kicks the snot out of you. He learned what suffering was. He likened that suffering to the atonement and repentance!
• When he was in the final process of being chosen, Dane and he were sequestered in a hotel room for 3 weeks. Take away all communication, don't give you a room key. He said it prepared him for the prison like feeling of the Ranch!
• 6 baptized members in that season (Black team: Dane and Blaine, Blue team: Sione and Fillipe and Yellow team: Aubrey and Mandy,how ever Mandy and Aubrey aren't active)
• They have fill in trainers. Bob and Jillian are only there 60% of the time. There are other trainers who take you on outside workouts.
• Biggest Loser spend $100 a day on the contestants food all organic, high quality things
• The ranch is old and worn down. (they make it look nice on TV...it isn't) Used to be owed by Gillette Razor guy. It is a on national park land so you can go right up to it (tourists)
• Ron is as scuzzy as he appeared to be.
• Kristin really DIDN'T get baptized :(

He learned about repentance and treating his body right. Before the show he was on 8 different medications and he had high blood pressure and an enlarged liver from them. Within 4 weeks he was off all meds. He ended up losing about 155 lbs and ran a 1/2 iron man, 2- 1/2 marathons and a full marathon before the finale.

His wife had a baby and he got to go home for 24 hours. It was while at home he realized the STARK contast of home life with The Savior as the head and the world contrast on the ranch.

Dane and him still set "game days" to get to the goals they want to achieve and to remember to get there. He elaborated on this. He said every week that everyone looked forward to the challenges, the "game days" where they could accomplish something they have never done before. He said that we should set a date (game day) and set our success in motion. He gave this

acronym.

G oals

A ccountability

M otivation

E ducation

Some spiritual insights he gave throughout his talk...

• "You can't give what you don't have!"
• "Pain is temporary, Growth is permanant!"
• "Be accountable to God."
• "If you haven't suffered, you haven't repented."

My favorite thing that he talked about was how before he left to sequestered state in the hotel his wife gave him a book To Draw Closer to God: A Collection of Discourses by Henry B. Iring.

There was a talk given by President David O. McKay that he quoted in there that taught the following principle,

“Man is a spiritual being, a soul, and at some period of his life everyone is possessed with an irresistible desire to know his relationship to the Infinite. … There is something within him which urges him to rise above himself, to control his environment, to master the body and all things physical and live in a higher and more beautiful world” (True to the Faith: From the Sermons and Discourses of David O. McKay,comp. Llewelyn R. McKay [1966],

244).That pull upward is far beyond what you would call a desire for self-improvement. When I felt it, I knew I was being urged to live so far above myself that I could never do it on my own. President McKay had it right. You feel an urging to rise above your natural self. What you have felt is an urging from your Heavenly Father to accept this invitation:

“Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

“And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot” (Moroni 10:32–33).

That urge to rise above yourself is a recognition of your need for the Atonement to work in your life, and your need to be sure that it is working. After all you can do, after all your effort, you need confidence that the Atonement is working for you and on you.

I think that I really got what he was saying! I appreciated his words, the laughs, the spirit and his willingness to talk to me after and answer any questions that I had. It was a great night. It was fun to see someone that you cheered on, on your television set, right in front of your face and still working towards that goal of self mastery. I appreciated his hard work on the show and I appreciate his continued drive to have that GAME day and keep himself focused and his success in motion! Thanks Blaine for sharing your challenges, suffering and testimony with us tonight!!