Daphne Dortch shook The Biggest Loser house to the core by switching up the teams last week – and she paid the price by being sent home.When presented with the opportunity to change the red and black teams, Dortch ate over 1,800 calories to guarantee she would have control.
"I ate the [peanut butter cups] because I wanted to stay with [my trainer Bob]," Dortch told reporters after her elimination.
After gaining the power, Dortch chose to switch her teammate Jeremy for his sister Conda, whom she blamed for evicting her brother Adrian two weeks earlier. "It was very personal," she said of her decision. "I switched them out of revenge but I had no idea the house was going to be devastated by the switch."
Dortch and her brother joined the teams on the Ranch a month into the season after successfully losing a combined 50 lbs. at home, but they were not greeted with open arms. "We never had a chance," she said of returning to the Ranch. "They had already bonded for a month before we even got there. I think it solely came down to that."
Her brother Adrian was rejected by his teammates on the red team, but Dortch says her black team "may have appeared to have accepted me but I don't think they ever did. They were just very quiet about it."
"A part of me was extremely relieved to be sent home," she continued. "It doesn't feel good to be in a house of people where no one likes you and no one talks to you."
Now back at home in Evanston, Ill., Dortch, a mother of three, is making major changes in her life as well. "I am 37-years-old and I was living at home with my parents – not because I didn't have the money but because I was living in fear. I thought every day I was going to die," said Dortch, who suffers from atrial fibrillation and sleep apnea and was afraid her children would find her dead in her sleep.
But Dortch has now moved with her children into a house of her own. "I've already won The Biggest Loser because I don't need to have someone here in order for me to go to sleep," she said.
And while she has a long way to go before fulfilling her goal of becoming the at-home winner, Dortch has already lost over 70 lbs. since beginning her weight-loss journey. "I [feel] like Dorothy," she said. "I feel like it was in my all along. I just had to do it."