Suntimes.com: Sue?s Morning Stretch: ?Extreme Weight Loss? Returns Tuesday

Originally published on voices.suntimes.com.

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Season 4 of “Extreme Weight Loss” has Heidi Powell joining her husband, Chris, in front of the cameras.

When ABC?s ?Extreme Weight Loss? returns for its fourth season Tuesday, fans of the show will notice some changes.
For one, Heidi Powell, wife and partner of show host Chris Powell, will be in front of the cameras now. Since the very beginning, Heidi and Chris have worked on the show together. (In an earlier interview, Chris told me that when they were first selling the show idea to ABC, he drove from their Arizona home while Heidi sat shotgun finessing their proposal on a laptop.)

?My role has not changed,? says Heidi during a telephone interview. ?Only difference is that the cameras are now capturing it.?

In previous seasons, Chris would go home with each participant for the first 90 days. This season all the contenders spent the first three months together at a facility in Denver. There were benefits because the pair and their team could really focus on the work the participants needed to do. But for those on the show, this change was somewhat of a ?double-edge sword,? Heidi says, because many of them have spouses and families and they missed their loved ones.

The work for this season started with nine females and eight males. And there were two ?firsts?: one contestant quit and another was asked to leave. The person who left ?was not expected,? says Chris. ?That was a tough thing for me to take.?

While Chris and Heidi say they put potential participants through an intense vetting system, after working for a while with one this season, this contender turned out to be not only addicted to food, but to lying, too. ?That?s beyond our scope,? says Chris and that?s why he and Heidi had to make the tough decision to eliminate that person.
(I say person because Chris and Heidi are staying mum about the sex of both of these individuals. As you watch ?Extreme? this season you?ll figure it out.)

But don?t worry. Like those before it, Season Four will still have its fill of inspiration, one of the reasons viewers turn in. For one, they?ll see 44-year-old former gymnast Georgeanna return to the sport and perform before an audience, despite visible sagging skin from the weight loss. ?She?s so inspiring,? says Heidi. ?She shows how perfectly imperfect we all are.?

One of the first things they work with participants is helping them accept that their transformations are theirs alone. ?We sit them down and ? tell them their transformation does not include their family and friends,? says Chris.

?You?re not choosing to change your family?s life,? Heidi tells them. ?They didn?t ask for this. You did. You need to be prepared.?

And that means finding others who they can turn to for support as well as figuring out how they will deal with returning to a home that might have a cabinet full of candy and chips. ?Ultimately you are responsible for your life,? Chris tells them.

That said, family and friends very often do come through and ?Extreme? welcomes that. ?We always give the family an opportunity to be part of the transformation tribe,? Chris says.

And what do Heidi and Chris want us, the viewers to take away from ?Extreme??

?We will continue to do this over and over so that everyone can see that if you can dream it, you can do it,? says Chris, with Heidi chiming in, ?Yes! I love that quote.?

?Extreme Weight Loss? airs at 7 p.m. Tuesday on WLS-Channel 7.

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