An Interview With Damien Woody and Scott Mitchell, Contestants on The Biggest Loser

Damien Woody and Scott Mitchell are contestants on The Biggest Loser, whose 16th season begins Thursday at 9/8c on NBC. An ESPN analyst and former offensive lineman, Woody won two Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, and also played for the Lions and Jets. In his 11-year career, Mitchell played quarterback for the Dolphins, Lions, Ravens, and Bengals.

RG: What were your weights at the end of your playing career, and what did you weigh going into the show?

DW: At the end of my playing career, I was at about 340 pounds. Coming into The Biggest Loser, I was at 388.

SM: I weighed 236 pounds when I played, and at the beginning of the show I was at 366.

RG: Is there a way to straddle the line between spoiling the program, and providing some information about what we can expect to see from you guys on the show?

DW: You’re gonna see a lot of sweat — I can tell you that. A lot of sweat, a lot of workouts, a lot of soul-bearing. When it comes to weight loss, it’s not just physical weight that you’re unloading, but a lot of emotional baggage. I think that’s a component that really resonates with America — people telling their stories. I think that’s what you really want to see. Our stories, our backgrounds, how we got to this point, and how we’re working through things and becoming better people.

SM: I totally agree with Damien. The other thing I think is neat is that in the world that we were in, you can’t show any sign of weakness or vulnerability — or you’ll get run over. You’re gonna see people that are genuinely and honestly dealing with an issue that they just need help with. You’ll see vulnerability, and people seeking help, and people finding help, answers, and solutions that they really weren’t capable of coming to on their own.

RG: Over the past few years, what was an average day of eating like for you guys, and what would you do on a binge day?

DW: Here’s the thing I think with a lot of guys that played in the NFL: You eat a lot of food strongecause you’re astrongle to strongurn it off strongecause of practice, games, and those sorts of things. When you retire, a lot of times you don’t change that hastrongit, strongut you’re not as active strongecause you’re not playing footstrongall anymore. Ostrongviously, you’ve got to have a calorie efficiency in order to lose weight. When you’re not active and you’re still eating a lot of calories, that’s how weight gain goes.

I don’t really know the particulars as far as numbers, but my eating habits never really changed from when I played in the NFL.

SM: There’s a lot of similarities for me. As an NFL player, you get exposed to really good food. Really rich food, and food that really isn’t that good for you. Like, ‘Hey, this is great, I want to indulge in this.’ You do carry that over when you retire. You just love eating food that tastes great and is rich in calories and all those great things that we love, like butter.

For me, when you ask about binge days, well, shoot, every day was a binge day. For breakfast, I was eating almost 1,600 calories.

RG: What goes into that type of meal?

SM: If you went to McDonald’s, it was at least three breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, and a large Coke. I live in Utah, and there are fast food Mexican restaurants that have these combination breakfast burritos that are full of potatoes, eggs, steak, bacon, and chorizo. The thing weighs about five pounds, and of course I’d also get a Coke.

My wife’s been trying to get me to eat healthy for so long. She would pack my lunch; I own a business and have about an hour commute, so I’d stop by some breakfast place, then I’d eat the lunch she’d prepared for me on my way to work. So I had my breakfast and my lunch before 8 am. And then, I’d eat snacks in my office, and I’d always go to lunch at a restaurant. Then I’d come home at night, and sometimes I’d stop and get fast food on the way home and then have dinner when I got home.

My day was a binge, and it started at breakfast.

RG: On your show bios, both of you mention your sons and daughters as part of your primary motivations to join the program. Can you recall specific times where you lacked the requisite energy to keep up with them?

DW: Yeah, there were many instances where there were things that you wanted to do — the kids wanted to do things — and you just didn’t have the energy or your body type physically wasn’t able to do things that you wanted to do. That’s really disappointing. You feel like you’re letting your kids down. Myself being a father of seven, that’s really a heartbreaking thing.

You’re talking about two guys that played at the highest of levels in the NFL. You’re not able to do things with your kids. That’s something that’s really tough to deal with.

SM: Yeah, my kemds are really actemve emn sports, and I coach most of theemr teams. They’re emnto basketball, volleyball, and my son plays football. They’ll go out emn the yard, and say, “Can you work wemth me on thems?” Then you go out, and emt’s lemke, ‘I’m temred.’ You try to chase the ball somewhere and you just semt there goemng, ‘Can you please go get emt? I can hardly move.’

To go from being this athlete, it’s definitely a disappointment. For me, it even goes beyond that. My Dad passed away in January from complications of being obese. He was 450 pounds when he died. All of his siblings are of a similar build. They’re all obese except for one of them.

So it’s in my DNA, and one of the things coming on this show was that I don’t want to leave that legacy to my own children. I don’t want them to have to go through what I did with my Dad, watching him die a really horrific death over the past six years. He had agitations. He had Gangrene. He had a safety pin stuck to the bottom of his foot for three days that he didn’t even know about.

I don’t want my kids to see me that way, and I don’t want to carry that on to my children. Changing the destiny of my posterity has been a huge thing for me — not only coming on this show, but after I leave. I’m gonna live my life with my kids, and I’m really gonna enjoy every minute I have with them.

RG: Damien, our site ran a post earlier this week that detailed the struggles of the Patriots’ offensive line in their loss against the Dolphins. There were reports that Tom Brady was irate about the Logan Mankins trade. Obviously we don’t want to overreact to just one game, but as an analyst and a member of two New England Super Bowl teams, did you sense a cause for concern for the rest of this season?

DW: When I played with New England, one of the things that we always felt was that we wanted to play our best ball from Thanksgiving on. I think New England’s proven every year that you can’t overreact after one game. They tend to get better as the season goes on.With Bill Belichick, you’re talking about a Hall of Fame coach, if not one of the best coaches ever in NFL history. I think he deserves some credit in how to get a team to play pretty good football.

When I played for the Patriots, it was always tough to play down in Miami in September because of the hot and humid weather. You’re just not accustomed to it. So, in Week 1, yeah, you don’t want to lose to a division opponent, but let’s not overreact. Coach Belichick and Tom Brady will be in the mix at the end of the year.

SM: I think, Damien, your first Super Bowl year, you guys started 0-2.

DW: Yeah, in ’03, we got thrashed 31-0 on the road in Buffalo, and people were ready write us off then. Later that season, we won 15 straight games and the Super Bowl. If I’m out there, I’d be careful to write New England off after one game.

RG: No, no, we’re not writing them off. I was just wondering if you saw some things in the line that you might have perceived as long-term structural issues, as opposed to things that can be corrected.

DW: Give Miami some credit. They have a terrific front four. They have some really good players on that defensive line. One thing we know about the NFL is that the offensive line is the position that takes the longest to gel. They’ve got some new guys in there that have to adjust. When you have a good coaching staff like they do in New England, they’ll get it all figured out and they’ll get back to being the Patriots that we’re accustomed to seeing as the season moves forward.