September 26, 2025 • 17 mins
But not the Biggest Loser! Sonya Jones came in 2nd about a decade ago on "The Biggest Loser." How did she get on the show, how was her experience (including emotionally), and why is she coming to Omaha this November?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vordiez.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Coming up on November sixth here in Omaha is a
special luncheon hosted by an organization here in Omaha called
Dear Diabetes. Dear an acronym that stands for Diabetes Education,
Awareness and Resources. This organization assists individuals living with diabetes,
(00:24):
helping with rent and utilities and the like. And their
speaker here for this event is someone who you may
have seen on television, but you were seeing less and
less of her every week during season sixteen of The
Biggest Loser on NBC. She went in and checked in
(00:46):
at this weight and by the time she left, she
almost won the thing. And she joins us now at
Sonya Jones from The Biggest Loser of finalist on that program. Sonya,
it's great to have you here in eleven ten.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Kab Hey, Scott, Thanks, it's great to be with you.
I'm thrilled to becoming your direction here in about a
month and a half.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, deardiabetes dot org where you can get all the
details about the event, and we'll talk about that as well.
But I have to ask you about your life leading
up to not just being on the Biggest Loser, but
I imagine seeing that TV show, having mirrors in your
home and wondering whether any of this might be a
(01:31):
good fit for you. How did that whole journey start?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Man? If I'm being honest, I have loved The Biggest
Loser since the first season. I would sit and watch
it with my best friend. We would we'd sit with
a big old pizza and a two liter or soda
and we'd eat and drink. And that's what got me
to my starting weight of two hundred and eighty three pounds.
But I actually as as weird as it is. I
wrote a Facebook post back in two thousand and nine
(01:57):
that essentially said it was called twenty five random things
you may not know about Me, and number nine on
that list was that I secretly had a desire to
be a contestant on The Biggest Loser. And I mean
just the way that it worked out. It was six
years to the day, the date, the minute, and the
hour that I was standing on the show for my
(02:20):
grand finale. So I had always loved the show. I
only tried out once. Most people try out seven, eight,
ten times. But yeah, leading up to the show was
I was a pe teacher. I was a you know,
a track coach, but felt like a hypocrite because I
was supposed to be the model of health and wellness
(02:41):
for my community and felt like an absolute embarrassment. So
when I got the call to go on Biggest Loser,
I was like, man, I'm all.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
In, Well, let's talk about that for a second, because
I think that there was this feeling that the first
of all the TV show, The Biggest Loser, some people said,
was mocking, making fun of, belittling, looking down on, or
shaming people who were overweight. And here you were overweight,
(03:08):
watching the show and loving it. What was it? What
was it a guilty pleasure? Was it like, all right,
maybe I can stand to lose a few pounds, but
I don't look like that guy? Like, what was it
that drew you to that show?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
No, not that at all. What drew me to the
show is the same thing that you won't hear from
me from the stage if you come to the to
the luncheon. Is that. What brought me to that show
was the possibility that if they could change, I quite
possibly could too. It gave me hope, It gave me motivation.
I fell in love with some of the contested, hated
(03:43):
some of the others not hated, but you know, did
not identify with them nearly as much. And I will
tell you, you know, with with a documentary that just
came out on Netflix and the thing that you heard,
I will tell you one hundred percent that was not
my experience. I love the experience. I loved my trainer.
All of us who had our trainer, I'm telling you today,
(04:06):
we'd still take a bullet for I mean, she was
transformational in our lives. People who had Jillian, some of
them still loved Jillian right. Some of them loved Bob.
I will tell you at no point did I feel
like I was fat shamed. I did not feel like
I was made fun of. I literally felt like I
was part of a family. And what drew me to
(04:28):
the show is what has made me its biggest advocate,
and that is that I just knew that I could change.
They gave me the motivation to know that if they
could do it, then I could too.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, you were on that first season in the post
Jillian Michael's era of the Biggest Loser, and I loved Jillian.
She's a former guest on this program. Came to Omaha
for an event, got a chance to meet her and
total sweetheart but scary. And some people are like, I
don't want to work with Gillian, She's mean, I'd rather
work with Bob. Seems like a nice guy. So who
(05:02):
was your trainer on that season?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
My trainer was Jen Wheederstrom was My season was called
Glory Days, and so you had to be a you
had to be a pretty decent athlete to be on
that show. So Jen was the first trainer post Jillian,
and yeah, she was amazing. Now, like I said, there
are people who loved Jillian also, you know, I mean
(05:27):
I never had the chance to meet her. She was
gone when I arrived, But yeah, I had Jen. Bob
was on the show as well, but I didn't know that.
We didn't know that until episode the end of episode fifteen,
because with us being athletes, those who were eliminated from
the ranch, unbeknownst to us, went to a place called
Comeback Campyon, where Bob was their trainer. And so this
(05:49):
was happening all season and we had no idea. So
at the end of that season, at the end of
episode fifteen, which was the end of Makeover, the doors
open and here comes Bob Harper with his comeback Canyon
contestant and it blew our minds. So yeah, it was.
It was a whole lot. But yeah, we loved Jen.
(06:10):
Those who had Bob loved Bob. Those who had Allvett
loved Allvet.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Okay, yeah, there were as you said there you had
to be athletes, and of course you, as you said,
you know, you were a gym teacher. But you were
on there against players who played in the National Football League.
I believe there were at least one former Olympian who
were on the show. So you weren't exactly set up
to succeed, but you made it all the way to
(06:33):
the finals, where you ended up runner up on the show.
And for those who are not familiar with the show,
it's not about who loses the most weight, it's the
highest percentage of weight loss. So obviously I want to
know your numbers, if that's really indelicate to say. But
you started out where and then you ended up where.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Sure, so I was My certain weight was two hundred
and eighty three pounds, which is awesome if you're seven
foot tall. I'm five foot four, so I was two
eighty three. My ending weight was one hundred and thirty
nine pounds. Which was about thirty one pounds underweight. But
I was trying to win. Yeah, you're right. I was
kind of one of the underdogs because we had some
amazing athletes. You know, Damien Woody, two times Super Bowl champion,
(07:18):
Scott Mitchell was a quarterback in the NFL for twelve seasons.
Lori Harrigan Mack was a three time gold medalist. I mean,
just amazing athletes. And then there's Simony Jones, who I
was a two time American but from a little D
three school in the middle of Cornfields in central Illinois.
But yeah, so my ending weight was one thirty nine.
I lost the titles biggest loser by point zero one
(07:41):
percent of my body weight, which was the closest margin
of loss and biggestes or history. So I lost the time,
I lost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars by less
than a pound.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
So when you get that close, are you like, oh,
that's what I get for breathing. I shouldn't have taken
that last breath.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
No, not at all. I fully believed that that that
was God's plan for my life. I like, even if
I could go back and change it right now, I
would because honestly, I did everything right. I did everything perfectly.
I ate correctly, I slept correctly, I drank correctly, I
worked out perfectly, and so it was not meant to be.
And that night the best person one and that was Toma.
(08:24):
You know, he deserved to win. He and I started together,
we ended together. If I was going to lose to anybody,
I'm glad that it was him. Did it sting in
the moment, absolutely, But what I got to do was,
you know, being a former gym teacher, I got to
model before my students what I had said for so
long that you know, it really isn't whether you wear
or lose, but it's how do you play the game?
(08:44):
And I had, you know, I had, I had the
ability to model before them that, even in the face
of a huge loss, like quarter of a million dollars,
but we still have a responsibility to lose with you know,
mercy and grace and integrity. And I got to model
that before my kids. So I didn't sing in the moment, sure,
but I knew that it was just opening up a
(09:06):
platform for me that was so much bigger than weight loss.
You know, who would have thought that eleven years later
I'd be sitting in my living room having a conversation
with you right in Omaha about my experience. So I'm
grateful for it. Every Day's right. Like I said, I'd
leave you d do it all over again.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, I'm not talking to Toma. I'm talking to you.
So who's the Who's the winner? Now?
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
We're talking to Sonya Jones for a few more minutes,
a finalist on season sixteen of the Biggest Loser. She's
coming to Omaha November six for an event with Deer Diabetes.
All the details at deerdiabetes dot org. But as you mentioned,
there is this documentary that's out now on Netflix right
where you have people who were contestants like you on
(09:51):
this show, The Biggest Loser, and they said it was dangerous.
I almost died. This is a terrible message to send
to people, not everyone saying, but you do have some
of that in the show. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
You know? I want to respect everyone's experience, I really do.
But what I will tell you is that you saw
on the documentary a man named doctor Robert Heisinger. Doctor
h was our was our show's position, And I will
tell you that before we went on the show. This
is my own personal experience. I was put through rigorous
physical physical testing, so, uh, you know, I had to
(10:28):
do stress tests, I had to do psychological testing. I
had to do a lot of blood work and all
kinds of stuff through doctor H's office in Beverly Hills,
and they made sure that we were that we were
you know, well taken care of, and that we were
strong enough to make it through the uh, through what
(10:48):
they were going to put us through. I mean, I
knew that it was going to be a lot. I
didn't realize how intense it was going to be, obviously,
but but man, they they took really good care of
us and as kind as like any supplements or any
drugs things like that. Man, when I got there, they
took everything I had, any pain reducers. I remember, I
(11:09):
used to self medicate ni Quill, and I take I'd
take a shot at ni quill, you know, two to
three times a week, just because I wanted to sleep well.
And so I took about six bottles of ni Quill
with me and they took that out of my bag.
We had to, you know, we had to ask for
pain reducers, right, and we had for anti inflammatories and
they would give it to us. But that was not
(11:30):
my what they talked about. I felt like they were
on a completely different show than I was on. Now,
I will tell you that that there are some people who,
you know, like I said, I want to respect their
their journey, but I will just tell you that was
not my journey at all. That was not my experience.
(11:50):
And I do also recognize that sometimes when you put
a lot of weight back on, that comes with a
lot of embarrassment and shame and and all of the things.
And sometimes people just need to be able to blame
something right. And so you know, I think it was
Danny in a documentary who said, yeah, my metabolism was
(12:13):
much slower. However, I also knew what I was putting
into my body. I knew what I was eating, So
I respected very much his ability to say, you know what,
that that's on me. So, yeah, the experience that they
shared was not what I shared at all. I loved
it and I was very well taken care of. And
(12:36):
you know Tracy's experience of almost dying on the show,
I know, I now know that that was a real experience.
But sometimes your body just responds in ways that you
that you don't expect it to. Doctor h didn't expect
her body to react it in that way, and thankfully
they got.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Her taken care of the I mean, unlocking how someone
gets to be in some instances morbidly obese is as
individual as the person who is in that state. But
I think a lot of it, And you elluded to
this at one point, like, I think a lot of
It's not so much like I just eat and don't exercise,
(13:18):
it's I don't feel good about myself. And as I
feel myself going down this path, I feel even worse
about myself, which then robs me of the opportunity to
do anything about it. And I was like, well, I
guess this is just how it is. As you said,
like I felt terrible when I put the way back on.
You felt like a hypocrite before you were on the show,
(13:41):
And so much of it is tied with self esteem.
So when you came off that show having lost all
of that weight, you lost an entire person of weight
on that show. Did you feel good about yourself?
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Great question. I did feel much better about myself, But
I will tell you when I got home from the show,
I felt like an addict. You alluded to to this
there is you don't get to be a contestant on
The Biggest Loser because you like a little bit of pizza.
It's because you have an emotional ties to food. And
(14:16):
every time that something happens in your life, whether you're mad,
happy and sad, you want to run to something that
doesn't judge you and something that will comfort you for
a little bit, or as I like to say, to
numb those feelings. Right, So someone upsets me, I grab
a bag of you know, a bag of donuts, or
(14:36):
I'm stressed about something and I grab some chips. But
for me, you have to get to the reason why.
It's not so much about what you eat as much
it is about why you eat. And so there was
a very very big part of the journey that made
me have to get really real with and that took therapy.
(15:00):
I'm being on and I got home and like you said,
you you know, you feel bad about yourself, so you
eat and you feel worse, and it's a vicious cycle
and you have to be willing to take a look
at what is it that's going on in my life
that's causing me to consistently go back to my addiction.
I felt like a complete addict, you know. And so
did I feel better about myself? Yes, I did, But
(15:22):
I also when I first got home, felt like I
was spiraling out of control. I meant, five million people
went on the journey with me, five million people invited
me into their home every week, and I didn't want
to let them down. I didn't want to let myself down.
So while I felt better about myself, I had to
get to the root of what was causing me to eat,
which is what I had to do so that I
(15:43):
didn't put it back on. I'm the only contestant for
my season who's remained at a healthy weight post show
without having gastric bypass, and so I've done that because
I've done I did that through a lot of hard
work and through a lot of therapy and going back
to the reasons why I ate. So, yeah, did I
feel better about myself, But man, as I was shrinking
(16:04):
physically on the show, I was growing emotionally and mentally
and spiritually. And for me, that's where the real wind
came in. And that is the reason why I can
keep it off today.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
So much else to so much else to get into
You've got to go see Sonya Jones as part of
this event November sixth. You're in Omaha at the Dear
Diabetes Luncheon on Thursday, November sixth at the Metro Community
College Fort Omaha campus. They do an incredible job up
there with healthy food from those at the Culinary Arts
(16:36):
School at Metro. Also, I encourage you to check out
forty four Lessons from a Loser Navigating Life with laughter,
prayer and the occasional throat Punch by Sonya Jones. That
is out and you've got a website as well, and
that's it's a fun thing. Losing it with Sonya dot com.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Is that it? That's right, That's right, losing it.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
With Sonya dot com and then deardiabetes dot org for
all the details about the event. Sonya, thank you so
much for taking all the time for us. I know
we could have talked for more hours, but we don't
have that opportunity today. But we'll see you in Omaha
on November sixth.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
I can't wait. It gonna be great event.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Thanks Scott, you bet, thank you from season sixteen of
the Biggest Loser that is Sonya Jones again dear Diabetes
dot Org, Scott Bohies, News Radio eleven ten kfab
Scott Vordiez.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Coming up on November sixth here in Omaha is a
special luncheon hosted by an organization here in Omaha called
Dear Diabetes. Dear an acronym that stands for Diabetes Education,
Awareness and Resources. This organization assists individuals living with diabetes,
(00:24):
helping with rent and utilities and the like. And their
speaker here for this event is someone who you may
have seen on television, but you were seeing less and
less of her every week during season sixteen of The
Biggest Loser on NBC. She went in and checked in
(00:46):
at this weight and by the time she left, she
almost won the thing. And she joins us now at
Sonya Jones from The Biggest Loser of finalist on that program. Sonya,
it's great to have you here in eleven ten.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Kab Hey, Scott, Thanks, it's great to be with you.
I'm thrilled to becoming your direction here in about a
month and a half.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, deardiabetes dot org where you can get all the
details about the event, and we'll talk about that as well.
But I have to ask you about your life leading
up to not just being on the Biggest Loser, but
I imagine seeing that TV show, having mirrors in your
home and wondering whether any of this might be a
(01:31):
good fit for you. How did that whole journey start?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Man? If I'm being honest, I have loved The Biggest
Loser since the first season. I would sit and watch
it with my best friend. We would we'd sit with
a big old pizza and a two liter or soda
and we'd eat and drink. And that's what got me
to my starting weight of two hundred and eighty three pounds.
But I actually as as weird as it is. I
wrote a Facebook post back in two thousand and nine
(01:57):
that essentially said it was called twenty five random things
you may not know about Me, and number nine on
that list was that I secretly had a desire to
be a contestant on The Biggest Loser. And I mean
just the way that it worked out. It was six
years to the day, the date, the minute, and the
hour that I was standing on the show for my
(02:20):
grand finale. So I had always loved the show. I
only tried out once. Most people try out seven, eight,
ten times. But yeah, leading up to the show was
I was a pe teacher. I was a you know,
a track coach, but felt like a hypocrite because I
was supposed to be the model of health and wellness
(02:41):
for my community and felt like an absolute embarrassment. So
when I got the call to go on Biggest Loser,
I was like, man, I'm all.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
In, Well, let's talk about that for a second, because
I think that there was this feeling that the first
of all the TV show, The Biggest Loser, some people said,
was mocking, making fun of, belittling, looking down on, or
shaming people who were overweight. And here you were overweight,
(03:08):
watching the show and loving it. What was it? What
was it a guilty pleasure? Was it like, all right,
maybe I can stand to lose a few pounds, but
I don't look like that guy? Like, what was it
that drew you to that show?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
No, not that at all. What drew me to the
show is the same thing that you won't hear from
me from the stage if you come to the to
the luncheon. Is that. What brought me to that show
was the possibility that if they could change, I quite
possibly could too. It gave me hope, It gave me motivation.
I fell in love with some of the contested, hated
(03:43):
some of the others not hated, but you know, did
not identify with them nearly as much. And I will
tell you, you know, with with a documentary that just
came out on Netflix and the thing that you heard,
I will tell you one hundred percent that was not
my experience. I love the experience. I loved my trainer.
All of us who had our trainer, I'm telling you today,
(04:06):
we'd still take a bullet for I mean, she was
transformational in our lives. People who had Jillian, some of
them still loved Jillian right. Some of them loved Bob.
I will tell you at no point did I feel
like I was fat shamed. I did not feel like
I was made fun of. I literally felt like I
was part of a family. And what drew me to
(04:28):
the show is what has made me its biggest advocate,
and that is that I just knew that I could change.
They gave me the motivation to know that if they
could do it, then I could too.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, you were on that first season in the post
Jillian Michael's era of the Biggest Loser, and I loved Jillian.
She's a former guest on this program. Came to Omaha
for an event, got a chance to meet her and
total sweetheart but scary. And some people are like, I
don't want to work with Gillian, She's mean, I'd rather
work with Bob. Seems like a nice guy. So who
(05:02):
was your trainer on that season?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
My trainer was Jen Wheederstrom was My season was called
Glory Days, and so you had to be a you
had to be a pretty decent athlete to be on
that show. So Jen was the first trainer post Jillian,
and yeah, she was amazing. Now, like I said, there
are people who loved Jillian also, you know, I mean
(05:27):
I never had the chance to meet her. She was
gone when I arrived, But yeah, I had Jen. Bob
was on the show as well, but I didn't know that.
We didn't know that until episode the end of episode fifteen,
because with us being athletes, those who were eliminated from
the ranch, unbeknownst to us, went to a place called
Comeback Campyon, where Bob was their trainer. And so this
(05:49):
was happening all season and we had no idea. So
at the end of that season, at the end of
episode fifteen, which was the end of Makeover, the doors
open and here comes Bob Harper with his comeback Canyon
contestant and it blew our minds. So yeah, it was.
It was a whole lot. But yeah, we loved Jen.
(06:10):
Those who had Bob loved Bob. Those who had Allvett
loved Allvet.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Okay, yeah, there were as you said there you had
to be athletes, and of course you, as you said,
you know, you were a gym teacher. But you were
on there against players who played in the National Football League.
I believe there were at least one former Olympian who
were on the show. So you weren't exactly set up
to succeed, but you made it all the way to
(06:33):
the finals, where you ended up runner up on the show.
And for those who are not familiar with the show,
it's not about who loses the most weight, it's the
highest percentage of weight loss. So obviously I want to
know your numbers, if that's really indelicate to say. But
you started out where and then you ended up where.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Sure, so I was My certain weight was two hundred
and eighty three pounds, which is awesome if you're seven
foot tall. I'm five foot four, so I was two
eighty three. My ending weight was one hundred and thirty
nine pounds. Which was about thirty one pounds underweight. But
I was trying to win. Yeah, you're right. I was
kind of one of the underdogs because we had some
amazing athletes. You know, Damien Woody, two times Super Bowl champion,
(07:18):
Scott Mitchell was a quarterback in the NFL for twelve seasons.
Lori Harrigan Mack was a three time gold medalist. I mean,
just amazing athletes. And then there's Simony Jones, who I
was a two time American but from a little D
three school in the middle of Cornfields in central Illinois.
But yeah, so my ending weight was one thirty nine.
I lost the titles biggest loser by point zero one
(07:41):
percent of my body weight, which was the closest margin
of loss and biggestes or history. So I lost the time,
I lost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars by less
than a pound.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
So when you get that close, are you like, oh,
that's what I get for breathing. I shouldn't have taken
that last breath.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
No, not at all. I fully believed that that that
was God's plan for my life. I like, even if
I could go back and change it right now, I
would because honestly, I did everything right. I did everything perfectly.
I ate correctly, I slept correctly, I drank correctly, I
worked out perfectly, and so it was not meant to be.
And that night the best person one and that was Toma.
(08:24):
You know, he deserved to win. He and I started together,
we ended together. If I was going to lose to anybody,
I'm glad that it was him. Did it sting in
the moment, absolutely, But what I got to do was,
you know, being a former gym teacher, I got to
model before my students what I had said for so
long that you know, it really isn't whether you wear
or lose, but it's how do you play the game?
(08:44):
And I had, you know, I had, I had the
ability to model before them that, even in the face
of a huge loss, like quarter of a million dollars,
but we still have a responsibility to lose with you know,
mercy and grace and integrity. And I got to model
that before my kids. So I didn't sing in the moment, sure,
but I knew that it was just opening up a
(09:06):
platform for me that was so much bigger than weight loss.
You know, who would have thought that eleven years later
I'd be sitting in my living room having a conversation
with you right in Omaha about my experience. So I'm
grateful for it. Every Day's right. Like I said, I'd
leave you d do it all over again.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, I'm not talking to Toma. I'm talking to you.
So who's the Who's the winner? Now?
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
We're talking to Sonya Jones for a few more minutes,
a finalist on season sixteen of the Biggest Loser. She's
coming to Omaha November six for an event with Deer Diabetes.
All the details at deerdiabetes dot org. But as you mentioned,
there is this documentary that's out now on Netflix right
where you have people who were contestants like you on
(09:51):
this show, The Biggest Loser, and they said it was dangerous.
I almost died. This is a terrible message to send
to people, not everyone saying, but you do have some
of that in the show. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
You know? I want to respect everyone's experience, I really do.
But what I will tell you is that you saw
on the documentary a man named doctor Robert Heisinger. Doctor
h was our was our show's position, And I will
tell you that before we went on the show. This
is my own personal experience. I was put through rigorous
physical physical testing, so, uh, you know, I had to
(10:28):
do stress tests, I had to do psychological testing. I
had to do a lot of blood work and all
kinds of stuff through doctor H's office in Beverly Hills,
and they made sure that we were that we were
you know, well taken care of, and that we were
strong enough to make it through the uh, through what
(10:48):
they were going to put us through. I mean, I
knew that it was going to be a lot. I
didn't realize how intense it was going to be, obviously,
but but man, they they took really good care of
us and as kind as like any supplements or any
drugs things like that. Man, when I got there, they
took everything I had, any pain reducers. I remember, I
(11:09):
used to self medicate ni Quill, and I take I'd
take a shot at ni quill, you know, two to
three times a week, just because I wanted to sleep well.
And so I took about six bottles of ni Quill
with me and they took that out of my bag.
We had to, you know, we had to ask for
pain reducers, right, and we had for anti inflammatories and
they would give it to us. But that was not
(11:30):
my what they talked about. I felt like they were
on a completely different show than I was on. Now,
I will tell you that that there are some people who,
you know, like I said, I want to respect their
their journey, but I will just tell you that was
not my journey at all. That was not my experience.
(11:50):
And I do also recognize that sometimes when you put
a lot of weight back on, that comes with a
lot of embarrassment and shame and and all of the things.
And sometimes people just need to be able to blame
something right. And so you know, I think it was
Danny in a documentary who said, yeah, my metabolism was
(12:13):
much slower. However, I also knew what I was putting
into my body. I knew what I was eating, So
I respected very much his ability to say, you know what,
that that's on me. So, yeah, the experience that they
shared was not what I shared at all. I loved
it and I was very well taken care of. And
(12:36):
you know Tracy's experience of almost dying on the show,
I know, I now know that that was a real experience.
But sometimes your body just responds in ways that you
that you don't expect it to. Doctor h didn't expect
her body to react it in that way, and thankfully
they got.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Her taken care of the I mean, unlocking how someone
gets to be in some instances morbidly obese is as
individual as the person who is in that state. But
I think a lot of it, And you elluded to
this at one point, like, I think a lot of
It's not so much like I just eat and don't exercise,
(13:18):
it's I don't feel good about myself. And as I
feel myself going down this path, I feel even worse
about myself, which then robs me of the opportunity to
do anything about it. And I was like, well, I
guess this is just how it is. As you said,
like I felt terrible when I put the way back on.
You felt like a hypocrite before you were on the show,
(13:41):
And so much of it is tied with self esteem.
So when you came off that show having lost all
of that weight, you lost an entire person of weight
on that show. Did you feel good about yourself?
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Great question. I did feel much better about myself, But
I will tell you when I got home from the show,
I felt like an addict. You alluded to to this
there is you don't get to be a contestant on
The Biggest Loser because you like a little bit of pizza.
It's because you have an emotional ties to food. And
(14:16):
every time that something happens in your life, whether you're mad,
happy and sad, you want to run to something that
doesn't judge you and something that will comfort you for
a little bit, or as I like to say, to
numb those feelings. Right, So someone upsets me, I grab
a bag of you know, a bag of donuts, or
(14:36):
I'm stressed about something and I grab some chips. But
for me, you have to get to the reason why.
It's not so much about what you eat as much
it is about why you eat. And so there was
a very very big part of the journey that made
me have to get really real with and that took therapy.
(15:00):
I'm being on and I got home and like you said,
you you know, you feel bad about yourself, so you
eat and you feel worse, and it's a vicious cycle
and you have to be willing to take a look
at what is it that's going on in my life
that's causing me to consistently go back to my addiction.
I felt like a complete addict, you know. And so
did I feel better about myself? Yes, I did, But
(15:22):
I also when I first got home, felt like I
was spiraling out of control. I meant, five million people
went on the journey with me, five million people invited
me into their home every week, and I didn't want
to let them down. I didn't want to let myself down.
So while I felt better about myself, I had to
get to the root of what was causing me to eat,
which is what I had to do so that I
(15:43):
didn't put it back on. I'm the only contestant for
my season who's remained at a healthy weight post show
without having gastric bypass, and so I've done that because
I've done I did that through a lot of hard
work and through a lot of therapy and going back
to the reasons why I ate. So, yeah, did I
feel better about myself, But man, as I was shrinking
(16:04):
physically on the show, I was growing emotionally and mentally
and spiritually. And for me, that's where the real wind
came in. And that is the reason why I can
keep it off today.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
So much else to so much else to get into
You've got to go see Sonya Jones as part of
this event November sixth. You're in Omaha at the Dear
Diabetes Luncheon on Thursday, November sixth at the Metro Community
College Fort Omaha campus. They do an incredible job up
there with healthy food from those at the Culinary Arts
(16:36):
School at Metro. Also, I encourage you to check out
forty four Lessons from a Loser Navigating Life with laughter,
prayer and the occasional throat Punch by Sonya Jones. That
is out and you've got a website as well, and
that's it's a fun thing. Losing it with Sonya dot com.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Is that it? That's right, That's right, losing it.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
With Sonya dot com and then deardiabetes dot org for
all the details about the event. Sonya, thank you so
much for taking all the time for us. I know
we could have talked for more hours, but we don't
have that opportunity today. But we'll see you in Omaha
on November sixth.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
I can't wait. It gonna be great event.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Thanks Scott, you bet, thank you from season sixteen of
the Biggest Loser that is Sonya Jones again dear Diabetes
dot Org, Scott Bohies, News Radio eleven ten kfab
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