You Don't Become Obese By Lightning Strike -- it takes a lot of food to become as heavy as these contestants weighed a couple months ago (300, 400-plus pounds). Filipe's fast food testimonial made me cringe -- he used to eat three double cheeseburgers and a large fry for lunch, then grab the exact same meal before dinner. Sione often ate two 1,000-plus burritos per day. Eat like that fairly regularly and welcome to the 100+ Pounds Extra Club.

Bison Burger Time -- Rocco announced a Blue versus Black 30-minute cook-off challenge, with the winning team scoring a healthy dinner by Rocco and one extra vote at elimination for a random winning team member. Teams had to plate-up a health burger, burrito and pizza, judged by Rocco himself against a great taste, low calorie rubric. Light beer, anyone? Black's 417-calorie bison burger with onions, spices, portabello mushrooms and feta put them in the winners circle. Laura landed the extra vote. By utilizing ingredients such as lean meats, fiber-packed whole wheat dough and non-fat yogurt with sweet chilis in place of sour cream, contestant entries had half to one-third the calories in typical burgers, burritos and za. Check out Dreamy Rocco's recipes for no-fried chicken, whole wheat pizza and turkey corn tacos with fresh salsa and beans.

Don't-Miss-Rocco-Gems

• Ketchup is a sugar cube, I mean, condiment -- one cup of the red stuff contains 14 teaspoons of sugar. Not four, 14.
  
• To flavor your food without unwanted calories, add dried or wild mushrooms to your sauces, soups, casseroles and salads. You'll find those in the perimeter of the grocery store.
• Chicken parmesan can be healthier if you prepare with egg whites, whole wheat bread crumbs and soy flour in place of whole eggs and white flour.
  

Doc Huizenga Makes Ranch Calls -- Dr. H. reported that at the nine-week mark, Mike has shed the most fat in Biggest Loser history to date, Tara weighs 29 percent less, Mandi's treadmill test is superb and Ron is shooting less insulin to control his diabetes.

Sugar Ray Still Has It -- Remember watching Sugar Ray Leonard dance and jab around the boxing ring? At 53 years old, he's in top form, continuing to train as a boxer (without shots to the head). He led an Everlast Shadow Box workout for Bob's Blue team, which was an instant hit with Aubrey, a former amateur boxer. Beyond boxing moves, Sugar Ray emphasized the importance of mental strength to fight obesity. You have to really want to win this fight. If fast food, too much food or no workouts knocked you down this week, stand up. Get on the treadmill, take a walk, toss the ice cream out of the house and prepare a Rocco recipe.

Food Bank Challenge -- This was one of my favorite challenges in Biggest Loser history as the end result produced more than a winner, it meant enough bags of food assembled and loaded on a truck to feed 1,200 people in need for a day. Black won again, scoring a year's supply of food, a team presence in a Cheerios national ad campaign and letters from home. Blue team's Aubrey took the loss especially hard, she's got five kids to feed and used to be a food bank recipient years back. In a touching moment, Black's Mike gave his year's supply of food to Aubrey and the tears flowed.

This cast puts last season's mean bunch to shame. Are you enjoying the show as much as I am? The game is definitely in play, but there's more love on the field. In a major twist at the final weigh-in, Blue and Black needed to lose more than 77 pounds combined to deliver immunity for all. If not, one person will head home from each team. In a cliffhanger ending, Mike is the last to weigh in and needs to drop 10 to save all. Will he do it? I don't know ... did last week's eliminated Dane really run that entire marathon back home in under four hours? Nope, it was a total crock. See you next week.