Preview above: How do we lose weight and keep it off? Keeping Weight Off, Tuesday March 17 at 8:30pm on SBS and On Demand.
When Craig Booby was crowned The Biggest Loser in 2014 he couldn’t recognise himself; with just one follow-up phone call he was sent away only to eclipse his starting weight of 180 kilograms last year.
“It all happened so quickly, that 80 kilos in six months, I didn't stop and take a breath and see myself changing,” Craig says.
Craig lost almost half of his body weight on The Biggest Loser, but the weight crept back on – a problem that impacts nearly 80 per cent of people who lose weight.
“I kept thinking I’ll get on top of this, I’ll get on top of this,” Craig says, but after four years of intense career focus and bad habits, he began to struggle with his mental health as the scales showed he was slowly undoing his hard work.
“I was probably the lowest I'd ever been in my entire life, and yeah, I just honestly didn't see a point in what I had to live for.”
Craig before he went on The Biggest Loser Source: Supplied
Personal trainer and former The Biggest Loser trainer Michelle Bridges remembers Craig being “quite a formidable force”.
“I remember him being very driven, very focused and really taking every opportunity that was presented to him,” Michelle says.
The Biggest Loser competition provided Craig a distraction-free environment without phones, family contact or television, allowing him to focus entirely on developing healthy habits – but the real world was a much more challenging place for him, something that Michelle acknowledges.
“I would always have wanted to be able to go home with someone like Craig and say ‘okay, everything that we did on the show we're now going to embed that into habits, routines and rituals in your life,” Michelle says.
“In your kitchen, in your lounge room, the way in which you eat in your dining room, let's go even further afield into the way in which you shop, the supermarket you go to."
But that didn’t happen for Craig and in the one phone call he received after filming he said he was feeling lost and didn’t know who he was anymore.
“When I look at myself in the mirror I just don't feel myself and I was pretty much told ‘Oh, you'll get used to it, make the most of the opportunity,’ and that was pretty much it and that was the last I heard.”
Last year, Craig decided to take control of his weight gain and invest more time into his health than his career. Since then, he has lost 30 kilograms and hopes to reach a comfortable weight and learn good habits to keep the weight off.
