By Bonnie Pfiester



The one-hour premiere of VH1’s new weight loss reality show, Bridal Bootcamp, proved to be everything I hoped for, with all the drama, action and humor one would expect to see with brides-to-be thrown into a real boot camp. Wow! They weren’t kidding when they named this program. This was no Princess Boot Camp, that’s for sure!

In the opening scene, ten brides were immediately thrown into action, crawling through a muddy obstacle course while dressed in wedding gowns, being thrown over a four-foot wall, and told to “get down” while bombs were going off around them.

After all the future brides made it through the course alive (barely), the trainers introduced themselves to the filthy-dirty exhausted brides, who you could tell were all still in shock. Green Team trainer went first, introducing herself as Francesca Petrucci from New York, who once was a whopping 200 pounds and new exactly how it felt to be overweight and out of shape.

Then the Blue Team Trainer, Steve Pfiester, (my husband) from Vero Beach, Florida introduces himself to the brides and makes it clear he didn’t want to hear anyone’s excuses, all he cared about was “gumption”. This made me want to look the word up to see exactly what he was looking for – the answer: courage, guts, nerve, bravery, the get-up-and-go. I’d have to say these girls had plenty of that by the looks of the show so far.

After meeting their trainers, they were taken back to their luxurious hotel suites complete with whirlpool and chocolates on the pillow – NOT! Oh no, no! Even a one-star hotel would have been a much improvement. Tesha sure wasn’t happy about the sleeping arrangements, itchy wool blankets and all. I know I wouldn’t want to sleep on a lousy twin bed with four other strangers stuffed in one small room sharing one teeny shower. Yes, the part about the shower wasn’t on the show – but I’m just saying, I was there! The showers weren’t only small but I know Steve’s shower barely spewed out enough water to keep you warm on those freezing cold mornings.

Back to the story, after the girls got cleaned up in their team colors and camo pants, a wedding-style invitation was slipped under their door to attend a lavish “one last meal”. Just after they all piled every food you could imagine on their plate, and after they got maybe one or two bites in, they had one heck of a surprise. The look on everyone’s faces was priceless when they first heard the loud mechanical sound coming from the woods, which ended up being a massive armored tank heading directly for them!

After the tank completely flattened everything in its path including all the food, dinner tables and chairs, out pops Cynthia Conde, the host and founder of Bridal Bootcamp, saying in her strong voice “Welcome to bridal boot camp ladies”. Now THAT is what I call a grand entrance!

Cynthia goes on to explain what lies ahead for the brides. The two teams would go through what she called “Marital Missions”, where the two teams would compete for immunity. The losing party would be sent to the “Fitting Room” where someone would be sent home, which ultimately was determined by Conde herself.

Once the rules were explained, the training began their boot camp beatings bright and early the next day. There was no need to create drama on this show, their grueling workouts created enough craziness to go around. Between the Green Team having to do more work because Lauren had diarrhea, the Blue Team totally falling apart due to Tina’s asthma, and Jamie’s major caffeine withdrawal, the show’s drama was launched into high gear by the sheer intensity of the workouts.

As if, like Steve said, “doing jacks ‘til you puke” wasn’t enough, a couple of hospital trips really had the Blue Team in a tizzy. Was Tina going to make it? What was going on with Jamie? – she didn’t even know. What I did notice was seemingly a genuine concern between the Blue Team members. By the looks of it, the added stress made the Blue Team bond. My only question is, was the Green Team really that mean, or do you think they were playing it up for the camera?

One thing I can say is the Green Team looked like they were having fun, even if it was at the expense of the Blue Team. Melissa definitely positioned herself as a leader, later leading a cheer mocking the Blue Team “Who are we? We’re Blue! What do we do? We puke!” As much as I don’t want to admit it, that crap was funny, even if I am supposed to be rooting for the Blue Team!

After a week of training, it was time for their first Marital Mission, a challenge to shovel 150 pounds of sugar out of this enormous box into a wheel barrel and run it down to dump into a canoe. Once every granule was in the canoe, they had to push the loaded boat, for what Steve said was almost the length of a football field, into the lakeshore. After correctly answering the question which determined who would go first, the Green Team decided they would prefer to go second so they could learn from the Blue Team’s mistakes – and it paid off.

The Blue Team had a hard time getting it together. They seemed to be sluggish and Tina’s asthma wasn’t helping. The Green Team dominated the challenge finishing the race with 2 minutes to spare, sending the Blue Team to the fitting room where someone was being sent home.

While the Blue Team prepared for the dreaded Fitting Room experience, the Green Team hit the dock for a weigh-in. I think they were all shocked at how much weight they lost that first week. The average weight loss was five to nine pounds, except for Lauren. I would have thought she would have had diarrhea on her side but that wasn’t reflected on the scale. Ha! Just kidding Lauren, we love ya and the fact is three pounds is still amazing in just one week!

Finally, the Blue Team files into the fitting room, where they will weigh-in to see who will face possible elimination. Like the Green Team, the Blue Team dropped some serious weight, but someone had to be the bottom two of losing the lowest percentage of body weight, and it was Amberly and Tina. Although I would have personally pulled for Amberly just because I would be too scared to train Tina since I haven’t ever had to give mouth-to-mouth before. Steve was brave and said he’d take her on, but Cynthia didn’t agree and decided Tina’s asthma was too much and named Amberly “fit to stay” in the competition.

You could tell no one wanted anyone to go home and it was quite obvious Tina had the “gumption” Steve was talking about. Tina was stripped of her Blue Team garb, dog tags and all. This leaves the blue team one down, setting up the Green Team for a total advantage for the next episode. All I can say is it’s not looking good for the Blue Team. “Blue! Baaad! Touuuugh!” is looking Blue, Bad, Weeeeak - for now at least. Sorry Steve, I love ya but I gotta call ‘em like I see ‘em! J

Lastly, previews from the next episode showed even more tension on the blue team, where the team seemed to go at it with their trainer. It looks like there will also be a continuation of the war between teams led by Amberly, “the mouth of a trucker” and Melissa, “AKA Lucy Liu”.

Visit www.vh1.com and join me on twitter, www.twitter.com/bonniepfiester, or on facebook, www.facebook.com/bonniepfiester, for up-to-date news and more on Bridal Bootcamp. For information about Steve’s boot camps, visit www.StevePfiester.com. Steve also leads weekend boot camp retreats at Gloria Estefan’s Florida beach resort for those of you who would like a crash course on getting fit. For more about his retreats, recently featured in Fitness Magazine, visit www.aboutfaceretreat.com.