“I did gain extra weight” - Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser star Suzanne reveals that casting directors asked her to get heavier

Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser was released on Netflix on August 15, 2025. It featured the contestants who participated in the popular show The Biggest Loser because they were overweight, and the show had them lose weight on a competition basis. 

Suzanne Mendonca, a contestant from season 2 of the show, appeared on episode 3 of Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser. She shared that casting directors asked her to gain more weight before coming to the show, and she listened to them. She quit her diet and started eating more food. 

"I wanted to be on this show so badly that I did gain extra weight," she shared. 

Suzanne also shared some of the things that she had to go through after she came back from the show. 

What The Biggest Loser star Suzanne said on Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser

At the start of the episode, Suzanne was seen in an old clip, which she made for the showmakers of The Biggest Loser. In it, she said she was trapped in her body and needed to break free. Adding that she needed their show to "desperately" lose weight, Suzanne promised to meet her goals if they gave her their show. 

In a confessional on Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, Suzanne said that she was a NYC police officer and worked through Ground Zero for eight months. She said it was a difficult feat for a woman to accomplish, so she had to prove herself. 

She then had a "terrible" car accident when she was ejected from a police car and sustained a concussion and multiple other injuries. She stated that while she had always struggled with her weight, it soared "out of control" after the accident. So she thought maybe the show was a way to get her life back. 

"That perspective completely changed when I was actually in the throes of the show," she added. 

She shared that she told the makers of the show that she had started eating healthy and was exercising as well. The casting directors asked her not to do that because they wanted more weight on her. She wanted to be on the show, so she did whatever they asked her to do. 

She said in the confessional that the show wasn't selling how to get healthy; it was just doing things to appeal to its millions of viewers. She wondered why nobody told her that she could have "ruined" her life on the show. 

Further in the episode, Suzanne shared that after the show, when she came home, she "instantly" put on 20 pounds because she was starving herself throughout her run on the show. She slept in bed for two days because her body hurt when she moved. On the third day, she went back to training eight hours a day. 

"I didn't know who I was financially, emotionally, mentally, physically... I came back with a severe eating disorder, I stopped eating," Suzanne said. 

She added that she avoided going out because she was stressed about social situations. She was scared of getting judged for her weight. Further in the episode, Suzanne shared that she used Ozempic to achieve a healthy lifestyle later in her life, and it worked for her. 

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