By William "The Champ" Millender

(author's note: Thanks, Will for sharing your thoughts after these first two episodes!)

Stage Two has come to an end and it's finally time to talk about those terrible two struggles. I ended stage one on a rough note with chaffing being an issue and I started off stage two just as rough. I remember the day being very hard to accomplish. I struggled to get to the end of that day in time. Shea and a couple of others had come back for Anthony and myself and just finishing that route up for the day was very hard. Lorrie and Shea, literally, pulled me through to the end point, up a hill, to make sure I got there in time, which was down to the minute of our end time for that day.

I struggled with food this stage. We were given a choice of bad food vs. good food. What was presented to us on the good side was Salmon, Asparagus, Grilled Zucchini, Brown Rice and other assorted small items. Presented on the bad side, Buffalo Wings, Pizza, Chicken Fingers and Mozzarella Sticks. I do not eat Salmon, I've tried it, I just do not like it and did not want to eat it. I came back from a long hard day of walking, and dinner was something that I just did not want at all. Had chicken, or something similar been available, I would not have chosen ANYTHING from the bad side. So what I decided to do, was take one portion of each of the bad things and share a half a slice of pizza with Chantal. I figured that not only was I going to learn self control, but I was also going to help someone else make better choice. What that turned into was a typical riot mentality of one person having something to say, and everyone else jumping in. It was completely unnecessary. I would later talk to Steve, who told me that he felt I could have done a lot worse and just wished I would have added at least a portion of one of the healthy items. Lorrie was upset that I let my anger over the presented choices take over and not ask for help instead. I can agree on both takes, however I gave myself a pat on the back for what I HAD done and that was begin to take control over my habits. This was a step. And by the way, Michael had a couple of Chicken Wings, but he didn't mention that did he?

There was also the issue of my fainting spell. What had happened was that I was not feeling well after about the 3rd mile of that day. I knew something was wrong. I felt very tired and at one point, almost fell asleep during a break. I did eat my food quickly, but only after feeling so horrible. I ate my snack when I was supposed to and instead of breaking my lunch up in two, I had the whole portion because I felt extremely tired and hungry. I continued walking despite this feeling, on top of a weird muscle pain in my chest area and got through my day. I also had a bit of chaffing under my belly which cause me an extreme discomfort and after a visit to the bathroom, the pain of that, combined with how I had feeling for the day, caused an unexpected emotional outburst and subsequent blackout.Learning how to and beginning to take control of myself, I made good choices while in the hospital. I had many options available while there and was starting to make the right choices. Choosing Egg Beaters over regular eggs. Choosing a piece of fruit as a dessert. It was things like that, that let me know this new outlook was beginning to take.

I also struggled with not punching Anthony and Mike in the face and/or voting them off. For me, Anthony and Mike are not the type of people I can take in large doses. I've wavered on my feelings about them back and forth since this stage, but now that I know what they truly did have to say, I can confirm everything I've felt about the tweedle dee and tweedle dum from the beginning. At the food choice debacle, the only thing stopping me from jumping over the table was the fact that Matt was sitting next to me, also in the mindset of not liking the choices I made, and I didn't want him to have to take me down. Haha. I do like the fact that I came off as the more mature person in this situation because I was. I really held back a lot until it reached a boiling point. Not bad for a "weak minded" person, huh? Looking back, I don't regret not voting him out. It still would not have been worth it. What I did have an issue with was protecting myself from being voted off. I knew that Anthony was a wild card at the vote offs and I struggled with the decision to vote him off to protect myself, or be the bigger person and not vote for him off because of our issues. I just didn't want to be suckered later after being told I was safe.

I struggled with Wendy's personality and also, not knowing the challenge situation, having not been there. About the challenge, I didn't really think too much into it the first time around, and now having seen it, I don't think it was a big deal. Wendy's feet were hurting pretty bad and I don't disagree with her want to not strain them. That being said, me and Lorralie would have totally won the thing. My and Wendy's personalities did rub however because as time went on, she just became more and more annoying to me. We had it out one night and finally settled our differences before the vote off, as you can see at the end of the episode. I've come to appreciate her more having hung out and recorded "Walk On By" with her.

Lastly, I struggled to understand all the Chantal hate. I agreed that she had her moments where she could have toned it down a little and was a little too all over the place all at once. But I also got to know her better as we bunked for awhile and shared a tent. We kept each other up, late into the night laughing and playing cards, and most of the time she was the first and only person to stick up for me. And I appreciated that. But her own desire to succeed and place herself ahead of the pack should never have been held against her. Some of the comments about her being negative, I felt, were uncalled for because the moment someone is being "real" people like to spin it as negative because realism doesn't always fall in line with idealism.

I'm now going to struggle to get some sleep as I sense a major hang over after tonight's events. Hope to see you next Monday.

Carrie Falquist is a mother, an artist and group leader for www.realityofweighting.com, an online weight loss support group formed from folks who tried out for The Biggest Loser and/or Fat March and banded together to lose weight on their own!

Get On Reality TV: Biggest Loser 5 - Singing Bee - Flavor Of Love 3 - Kid Nation 2 - Hells Kitchen 4 - Pros Vs Joes 3 - Dont Forget The

Lyrics

--------------

Find additional Fat March links on sirlinksalot.net