Ukrainian Biggest Loser Transformations

[Sabur]

Hi, as you know, I come from Kharkov, Ukraine. My goal of registering here was to watch and worry together for our favorite contestants, and also to share experience from our Ukrainian Biggest Loser show, or, as it is named in our country, "Зважені та Щасливі" (literally translated as "Weighed and Happy").

I would like to show you how Ukrainians do in weight loss. And Ukrainians do very well. The good thing is that many contestants manage to keep their weight after the end of the show, and there are few that even keep losing their unhealthy kilos.

I also would like to present you before-and-after photos of our contestants and their progress. Together we had 4 seasons, 86 contestants and 3 trainers (the 5th season is coming the next year despite the difficult political situation in our country).

If I accidentally violate something by putting photos here, then, please, let me know.

So, this morning I'm going to show you the amazing transformations (well, amazing but one or two) from season 4 which ended two weeks ago, on 25th of December.

First, basic information about our most recent contestants.

We had three teams: the "young blue" team (under 23 years), the "middle green" team (23-40 years), and the "old red" team (41-50 years). Just like in your's season 12. Our teams were bigger though, there were seven contestants in each team, 21 in total. While blue and red team were trained by two experienced trainers, the green team was trained by a newbie on the Biggest Loser.

So, these are the transformations. I list the contestants in order of their elimination, finishing with three finalists. PART 1
 

Alla Vinogradnaya
Occupation: lieutenant-colonel of police
Starting weight: 124 kilos (273 lbs)
Finale weight: 95 kilos (209 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 23,39%

TRIVIA:
- Was one of the oldest contestants in the history of Ukrainian TBL (along with Natalia Svistun).

Natalia Svistun
Occupation: vendor at the market, formerly a PE teacher
Starting weight: 119 kilos (262 lbs)
Finale weight: 69 kilos (152 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 42,02%

TRIVIA:
- The one that most surprised me positively at the finale;
- Had a chance to come back to the camp in Week 14, but didn't complete the challenge and was not qualified for further competition.
- Was one of the oldest contestants in the history of Ukrainian TBL (along with Alla Vinogradnaya).
 

Irina Strebkova
Occupation: postgraduate
Starting weight: 109 kilos (240 lbs)
Finale weight: 60 kilos (132 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 44,95%

TRIVIA:
- Though Irina left the camp on week 3, she managed to show third best result among all contestants at the finale.

 

Sergei Poroschenko
Occupation: free
Starting weight: 174 kilos (384 lbs)
Finale weight: 123 kilos (271 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 29,31%

TRIVIA:
- One of the very hew contestants on the Ukrainian TBL who is absolutely Ok with private life.
 

Sergei Bondarenko
Occupation: school teacher
Starting weight: 164 kilos (362 lbs)
Finale weight: 99 kilos (218 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 39,63%

TRIVIA:
- Had heart problems after one of the workout and was taken to the hospital. Was not allowed to take part in further challenges and to go through active workouts. This was the main reason he was sent home quite early, on week 5.

Lyudmila Bondarenko
Occupation: manager of the drama group
Starting weight: 132 kilos (291 lbs)
Finale weight: 87 kilos (192 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 34,09%

TRIVIA:
- Lyudmila comes from Lugansk, which is situated inside the ATO zone, so she had a tough time training at home, but nevertheless, lost a lot of weight.
 

Tanya Melikhova
Occupation: student
Starting weight: 124 kilos (273 lbs)
Finale weight: 105 kilos (231 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 15,32%

TRIVIA:
- The youngest contestant of the season.
- Gained weight at home before the finale and had the worst result out of all 21 contestants.

 

Lyuda Ostanina
Occupation: a meat vendor in supermarket
Starting weight: 111 kilos (245 lbs)
Finale weight: 75 kilos (165 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 32,43%

TRIVIA:
- Like her namesake, Lyuda comes from ATO zone, from Gorlovka, and had a very difficult time losing weight at home.
- Has a small prononcuation defect, sometimes entangles letters "R" and "L".
 

Igor Antonyuk
Occupation: private enterpreneur
Starting weight: 198 kilos (437 lbs)
Finale weight: 112 kilos (247 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 43,43%

TRIVIA:
- He is the fastest to lose 40 kilos in the history of Ukrainian TBL (8 weeks).
- Had great chances for the finals and excellent weight loss, but didn't build good relationships with the team and got eliminated as soon as fell below the yellow line.
- Was the leader of the red team.

Tatiana Krikunenko
Occupation: experimental machinist
Starting weight: 151 kilos (333 lbs)
Finale weight: 81 kilos (179 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 46,36%
AT-HOME PRIZE WINNER

TRIVIA:
- Was chosen as the first contestant to the 4th season at the end of previous one by Ukraine.
- Broke a rib during one of the challenges and was not allowed to take part in several others.
 

 

 

 

[Sabur]

Ukrainian Biggest Loser 4 transformations - PART 2
 

Evgeniy Kozlovskiy
Occupation: freelancing copywriter
Starting weight: 146 kilos (322 lbs)
Finale weight: 83 kilos (183 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 43,15%

TRIVIA:
- Had a back injury in the middle of the season and didn't participate in several challenges.
- Gained 3 kilos at the week 12 weighing, which is the worst weighing result in the season.

Natascha Solodkaya
Occupation: student
Starting weight: 198 kilos (437 lbs)
Finale weight: 128 kilos (283 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 35,35%

TRIVIA:
- The heaviest female contestant in the history of Ukrainian TBL.
- Comes from ATO zone (Enakievo), so had to leave her town and settled temporarily by Yulia Fomina (the winner of the season). Then moved to Kyiv, where continued to lose weight under the surveillance of her trainer.
- Didn't lose anything 3 times at the weigh-ins.

Sergei Chopik
Occupation: priest
Starting weight: 199 kilos (439 lbs)
Finale weight: 128 kilos (245 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 44,22%

TRIVIA:
- The heaviest contestant in this season.
- Was eliminated week 13, then had a chance to come back but lost the KO weigh-in to Dmitri Zavoyura and was forced to leave the camp again.

Ivanka Marchuk
Occupation: student
Starting weight: 131 kilos (289 lbs)
Finale weight: 89 kilos (196 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 32,06%

TRIVIA:
- She's a tomboy; her nickname among the friends is "erne".

Arpad Komar
Occupation: pharmer
Starting weight: 162 kilos (357 lbs)
Finale weight: 94 kilos (207 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 41,98%

TRIVIA:
- Has a huge family of wife and five children, all of whom have quite exotic names (for Ukraine).
- Was a leader of the green team.

Vitaliy Vas'ko
Occupation: welder
Starting weight: 149 kilos (328 lbs)
Finale weight: 101 kilos (223 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 32,21%

TRIVIA:
- In 2013 applied for MasterChef, but was not qualified.

Dmitri Zavoyura
Occupation: student
Starting weight: 147 kilos (324 lbs)
Finale weight: 83 kilos (183 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 43,53%

TRIVIA:
- Was eliminated along with Igor Antonyuk on week 10; on week 14 he was given a chance to come back to the camp. He went through the challenge and won over Sergei Chopik in a KO weigh-in, and regained his place in the camp. In week 17 there was a challenge where the contestants had to name the person who is less deserving to stay in the camp. All the remained contestans chose Dmitri because of his comeback, and because of this he had one more challenge to overcome: he had to stay above the yellow line at the last weigh-in in order to stay in the camp. But Dmitri shockingly lost only 1 kilo and was automatically eliminated.

Alena Voronova
Occupation: owner of a jewellery store
Starting weight: 152 kilos (335 lbs)
Finale weight: 91 kilos (201 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 40,13%

TRIVIA:
- Pulled out very small numbers in the first weeks, but was lucky with the team's general results and never fell below the yellow line during the team competition. At the individual stage she started to show good results but nevertheless fell 3 times below the yellow line; but was saved over and over due to good relationships with other contestants and not being a threat at the finale.

Oleg Sichak
Occupation: enterpreneur
Starting weight: 149 kilos (328 lbs)
Finale weight: 91 kilos (201 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 38,92%
2ND RUNNER-UP

TRIVIA:
- Famous for shouting out "Reanimation!" after every challenge that he or his team won.
- Has a son that suffers from ICP.
- The last standing member of the red team.

 

Oleg Gopatsa
Occupation: free
Starting weight: 165 kilos (364 lbs)
Finale weight: 92 kilos (203 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 44,24%
RUNNER-UP

TRIVIA:
- The leader and the last standing member of the blue team.
- Won 4 individual challenges.

Yulia Fomina
Occupation: housewife, has a law education
Starting weight: 118 kilos (260 lbs)
Finale weight: 56 kilos (123 lbs)
Total percentage of weight loss: 52,54%
THE 4TH UKRAINIAN BIGGEST LOSER

TRIVIA:
- Has set a bunch of records (in Ukrainian version of the show), such as: losing most weight at camp among all women (47 kilos); having the biggest percentage of weight loss at the camp among all contestants (39,85%); the longest period without bad results at scales among all women (she didn't lose less than 2 kilos in 14 consecutive weeks, and lost 1 kilo only once when had immunity); the smallest weight at the finale among all contestants (56 kilos) etc.
- The last standing member of the green team.
- Supposedly was in conflict with Arpad Komar because of the question of leadership in the team (Yulia wanted to be a leader but was not chosen, basically for just being a woman and the youngest member of her team).
- Has never fallen bellow yellow line and has never been under the threat of elimination (one more record).

- Has become a leader in weight loss percentage after week 2 and never gave her leadership to anyone during the rest 15 weeks.

Charts:

1) General progress:

 

2) Weight loss timeline:

 

3) Elimination history:

 

4) Percentages:

 

5) The Weeks Biggest Losers Board:

 

6) Contestants ranking:

 

Sorry, it's just that Ukraine isn't a major player on the global scene, so I thought I should share something Ukrainian that deserves to be proud of, because a lot of people even don't know that we film such shows.

 

We count weight in kilos, not in pounds (1 kilo = circa 2 pounds).

Edited January 14, 2015 by Sabur

[newyawk]

Thanks so much for sharing! That was fascinating and they had some amazing results! And Dmitri is a hottie! ;p

[Meushell]

That was fun. Many inspiring pictures. Tanya's after dress is beautiful.

[Lesia]

Dyakuyu Sabur!  My parents are from Ukraine, came here in the 1950's.  I grew up speaking Ukrainian and now my children do too. I'm curious, was this show done in Ukrainian or Russian? 

I loved the photos- very interesting to see that people struggle with weight all over the world.

Molodets!!

[Mrsjumbo]

Very interesting, thanks for this!

I found it funny that the "oldest contestants" didn't look that old. The oldest contestants I believe were 63 yrs old in the US 2004 season.

[Sabur]

In all three previous seasons show was mostly done in Russian, with almost all the contestants speaking Russian (except one, two or three, not more). In this year though it was 50%/50%: half of the contestants spoke Russian, and other half did Ukrainian; Ukrainian-speaking contestants switched into Russian when spoke to Russian-speaking contestants.

 

The host constantly switches between Russian and Ukrainian, depending on the situation. When she says something according to scenario, she speaks Ukrainian, but when it's something from herself, she switches into Russian. She may even say one sentence in Ukrainian, then turn to Russian, and then back to Ukrainian.

Very interesting, thanks for this!

I found it funny that the "oldest contestants" didn't look that old. The oldest contestants I believe were 63 yrs old in the US 2004 season.

 

I believe that the oldest U.S. contestant was Johnny from season 12 (65 years old).

[Found A Peanut]

I'm late to this thread, but thank you, Sabur! This is my first season watching the U.S. version of Biggest Loser, and I hadn't realized other countries also did the show. Your contestants had excellent results. Is this a very popular show in Ukraine? I'm also curious about what is considered a healthy weight (or attractive) vs. an unhealthy weight since that seems to vary a lot from culture to culture.