‘Biggest Loser’ siblings drop pounds and excuses
BY KAREN BERKOWITZ February 21, 2012 2:24PM
Evanston resident Adrian Dortch is determined to keep his weight-loss regimen going after a two-week run as a contestant on NBC's Biggest Loser competition so he has plenty of years ahead with wife Simbryt, 15-month-old daughter Koi and another child set
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Updated: March 23, 2012 8:03AM
Evanston siblings Daphne and Adrian Dortch have been thrown some curves in their quest to become the biggest weight losers and longest-surviving contestants on NBC’s “Biggest Loser” reality television show.
After the siblings made it back on the show after pulling off a combined 60-pound weight loss in a month, Adrian was voted off his team at the end of the Feb. 7 episode.
But Daphne’s 12-pound weight loss for the week that aired Tuesday saved her team from having to vote off one of its members. She’s headed into her eighth week and is still in the running for the grand $250,000 prize.
“I feel the weight of the world on me right now,” said Daphne Dortch, 36, the last member of her team to step onto the scales Tuesday. All told, she’s lost 47 pounds since the first weigh-in of the season that aired Jan. 3.
The brother-sister pair, both lifelong Evanston residents, were sent home at the start of the 13th season, but offered a chance to win back their spots and compete for the cash prizes.
They didn’t know the exact nature of the mystery challenge, but they kept their workout regimens and healthful diets going in overdrive. Adrian, who started the “Biggest Loser” at 371 pounds, shed another 34 pounds during a month on his own, working out for 14 hours a day.
Daphne dropped 26 pounds off her starting weight of 271 pounds. When the two were summoned back to the show for a weigh-in, their combined 60-pound loss surpassed the 50-pound requirement.
Hard work
In a phone interview this week, Daphne confirmed the “Biggest Loser” workouts are as grueling as they appear to viewers.
“It feels like you are dying once a day,” she said.
“I have struggled with weight all of my life,” said Daphne, a single mother whose 13-year-old twin daughters and 7-year-old son attend Bessie Rhodes Magnet School in Skokie.
A 1992 graduate of Evanston Township High School, Daphne Dortch says the fat-rich southern cooking practiced by her grandmother was handed down to her mother and brother. Fried chicken and its deep-fried cousins have long been the family’s foods of choice.
“My mother passed on those habits to me and I passed them on to my children,” said Daphne, a paralegal and children’s activity leader.
Her weight shot up while attending Eastern Michigan University and topped out around 290 after she gave birth to her son.
The gravity of her health crisis was underscored when she awakened one night to a loud thump.
Health scare
“That thump was coming from me,” recalled Daphne. “My heart was racing at over 130 beats per minute. I couldn’t walk or stand.” Already suffering from sleep apnea, she was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat.
Her own list of excuses for not losing weight has often started off with “too busy as a single mother of three.” But she proved the crutch was just that when she lost 26 pounds at home, waiting for the phone call.
“When I was sent home for those 30 days, I still was taking care of my kids and I still lost the weight,” she said. “You have to find the time to do what you need to do.”
The siblings arrived at the “Biggest Loser” ranch in California in time for week five, which aired Jan. 31, and were split up between teams in a twist added this season of “no excuses.”
When the weigh-in arrived at week’s end, Adrian lost only two more pounds, rubbing some teammates the wrong way. One voiced suspicion he’d manipulated the small weight loss to post a larger loss the following week and gain immunity from elimination. But Adrian says he’d simply reached a plateau.
His teammates voted him out at the end of the Feb. 7 episode, though he posted a respectable 9-pound loss his second week.
“I was told that the ‘Biggest Loser’ has never had contestants attack another contestant the way they attacked me,” said the 35-year-old Adrian during an interview back home in Evanston, where he seemed to be taking the drama in stride. He still has a shot at some prize money to be given to the contestant who loses the most at home. All of the season’s contestants will return for the May finale.
“I have already proven I can do it on my own,” said Adrian, a music producer and 1995 graduate of Evanston Township High School who ran unsuccessfully for both Evanston school boards in 2007 and the 5th Ward aldermanic seat in 2009.
He says the “Biggest Loser” experience has given him time to reflect on the reasons his weight ballooned to over 400 pounds in the past few years and figure out the life changes he needs to make to enjoy a bright future with wife, Simbryt, daughter Koi and another child due in May. One goal is to be able to play “head, shoulders, knees and toes” with his daughter.
Adrian’s wife says the prospect of prize money cannot begin to compare with the joy of watching her husband’s transformation.
“We have already made a pact,” she said. “Regardless of whether the confetti falls for losing the most weight at home, we have won,” she said. “I have gotten my husband back.”
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