Where are “The Biggest Loser” trainers and hosts now? See what the coaches have been up to since the series ended

Key Points

• The Biggest Loser, NBC’s controversial weight-loss competition, aired for 18 seasons over 16 years.

• The show put contestants through a 30-week boot camp, awarding $250,000 to whoever lost the most weight by season’s end.

• A new Netflix docuseries, Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, explores “the good, the bad, and the complicated” about the series.

Between 2004 and 2020, The Biggest Loser drew in tens of millions of viewers across a whopping 18 seasons. But is it ethical to produce a show about weight loss?

That’s the question at the heart of the new Netflix documentary Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser. Directed by Skye Borgman (Abducted in Plain Sight), the three-part docuseries shines a light on former contestants, trainers, and producers, as well as health professionals, to, as Netflix puts it, unpack “the good, the bad, and the complicated” about the controversial show.

Per a synopsis, Fit for TV “explores how the experience shaped the lives of those involved with the show long after the cameras stopped rolling and invites viewers to reflect on the balance between entertainment and well-being, and what it truly means to pursue lasting change.”

Each season of The Biggest Loser found contestants undergoing a 30-week boot camp led by a series of trainers — the most notable being Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels. Contestants were given workout and nutrition plans, and whoever lost the most weight by the end of the training period was awarded $250,000.

Ahead of Netflix’s docuseries, see what The Biggest Loser‘s hosts and trainers have been up to in the years since it left the air.

01 of 14

Bob Harper (seasons 1-18)

Tennessee-born Bob Harper served as a personal trainer to celebs as starry as Julia Roberts prior to joining The Biggest Loser as a trainer and eventual host. He’s the only personality from the show to have appeared on each of its 18 seasons.

Harper, who appears in the Fit for TV documentary, acknowledges many of the concerns critics have had about the series, but continues to assert its success stories. “I really do believe that we did help a lot of people,” he recently told The Guardian.

The last decade has been a wild one for Harper, who suffered a “widowmaker” heart attack in 2017 that put him in a two-day coma. That same year, he published his fifth book, The Super Carb Diet, and appeared as an advisor on The New Celebrity Apprentice, hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He would later appear on the third season of The Traitors (2025) and make Carolyn Wiger cry, for which we have yet to forgive him.

The 60-year-old told The Guardian that he’s in his “retirement era,” though he continues to teach hot yoga classes in New York. In 2019, he got engaged to his longtime boyfriend Anton Gutierrez, but the pair have since split.

02 of 14

Jillian Michaels (seasons 1-2, 4-11, 14-15)

Jillian Michaels’ aggressive, tough-loving training style instantly made her a standout on The Biggest Loser, on which she served as a trainer for 12 of its 18 seasons.

Throughout the show’s run, Michaels’ rising fame helped her launch Losing It with Jillian (2010), a spinoff on NBC, and land a role as a cohost of CBS’s The Doctors (2011–2012), though she left the panel show after just half a season. She also starred on her own E! reality show, Just Jillian (2016).

Michaels discussed her decision to leave The Biggest Loser for good in a 2020 chat with PEOPLE, saying that she felt her edit on the show’s later seasons was unfair.

“In the beginning of the show it was tough love. You saw the tough, and you saw the love,” she said. In later seasons, she claimed, she was framed in a different light. “You saw none of the relationships, none of the bonds that I build with my clients.”

During an interview with Today the following year, she criticized the producers of The Biggest Loser for how they “gamified weight loss,” as well as their failure to provide an on-set mental health professional.

Michaels has found herself at the center of multiple lawsuits over the years for her endorsement of various supplements, though all the cases were dismissed. In 2017, however, she was awarded $5.8 million after suing Lionsgate for streaming workout videos she made on a free fitness YouTube channel owned by the studio.

Over the past several years, Michaels has continued to find success with her fitness app and podcast, Keeping It Real.

She co-parents 15-year-old Lukensia and 13-year-old Phoenix with her ex Heidi Rhodes. Phoenix was born to Rhodes in 2012, and the same year the couple adopted Lukensia, then a 2-year-old in Haiti.

In 2022, Michaels married fashion designer DeShanna Marie Minuto.

03 of 14

Caroline Rhea (seasons 1-4)

Comedian and actress Caroline Rhea hosted The Biggest Loser for its first four seasons, overseeing the weigh-ins and eliminations from 2004 to 2006. In an interview at the time, she called it a “great part-time job” and compared it to “being on a soap opera.”

By that point, Rhea was well-known as a comedian and for her role as Aunt Hilda on Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996–2003). She also hosted a daytime talk show, The Caroline Rhea Show, from 2002 to 2003.

Related: Melissa Joan Hart reunites with her Sabrina the Teenage Witch aunts: ‘This silly coven’

In the decades since, she found success as a voice actress on Phineas and Ferb (2007–2015) and its 2025 reboot, as well as on live-action series like Sydney to the Max (2019–2021) and Lopez vs Lopez (2022).

In 2008, she gave birth to a daughter, Ava Rhea Economopoulos, with her longtime boyfriend Costaki Economopoulos.

04 of 14

Alison Sweeney (seasons 5-16)

Alison Sweeney was best known as Sami Brady on Days of Our Lives — a role she’s played on and off for more than three decades — when she replaced Rhea as host of The Biggest Loser. From 2007 to 2015, she logged 12 seasons as the show’s host.

Over the past decade, she’s become a regular on the Hallmark Channel, primarily starring as small-town baker Hannah Swensen in the ongoing Murder, She Baked film series. This year saw the release of A Pie to Die For: A Hannah Swensen Mystery, and a new entry is currently rising in the oven.

Sweeney married former police officer Dave Sanov in 2000. The pair share two children, Ben and Megan, the former of whom left for college last year.

05 of 14

Robert Huizenga (seasons 1-17)

Robert Huizenga is best known to Biggest Loser fans as Dr. H, having served as the show’s medical advisor for 17 seasons.

He also appears in Fit for TV. “You cannot have a show based on weight loss that’s safe,” he wrote in an Instagram post promoting the docuseries, “but as I’ve proved, you can have a safe show about fat loss and muscle gain!”

Prior to joining the show, Dr. H was as the team physician for the Los Angeles Raiders. He also penned the 1995 book You’re OK, It’s Just a Bruise — A Doctor’s Sideline Secrets about Pro-Football’s Most Outrageous Team, which served as the basis for Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday (1999).

These days, he continues to conduct research in the fields of sports medicine and age reversal. In 2024, he and his wife, Wanda, separated after 33 years of marriage.

06 of 14

Kim Lyons (seasons 3-4)

Kim Lyons served as a trainer on seasons 3 and 4 of The Biggest Loser, initially serving as a replacement for Michaels after the trainer’s first departure.

Speaking to criticisms of the show’s “unrealistic” depiction of weight loss in a 2008 interview with Glamour, Lyons said, “People have to realize that it is TV, and yes it is difficult for people to try to replicate it at home… Our contestants don’t have any distractions at all, not even a phone or a newspaper. They are in a totally controlled environment with the undivided attention of top trainers.”

After leaving the show, Lyons remained a presence in entertainment, serving as a panelist at the 2008 Miss America Pageant and a personal trainer for the seventh season of Dr. Phil’s Ultimate Weight Loss Race. In 2014, she competed on NBC’s American Ninja Warrior.

Off camera, Lyons launched a fitness brand, Bionic Body, which specializes in fitness gear and accessories. She also constructed an eight-week nutrition program for women over 40.

Since 2007, Lyons has been married to bodybuilder Gunter Schlierkamp, with whom she shares a son.

07 of 14

Brett Hoebel (season 11)

Brett Hoebel was a trainer on The Biggest Loser during its 11th season, known for his tough love and martial arts prowess. Along with Cara Castronuova, Hoebel was unveiled as a “mystery trainer” during his season.

“I fully believe you gotta walk your talk,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2011. “If you want someone to do something, you can yell at them, you can blow a whistle at them, you can punch them, but I’d rather get in the trenches, do the exercise right in front of them, with them. I don’t have to open my mouth. They will do it at that point. And you’re going to see that this season, that’s different. You’re going to see us training alongside these contestants.”

Over the past decade and change, Hoebel has appeared on the Food Network, The Steve Harvey Show, and The Today Show, and teaches online and in-person fitness and dance classes via his Sweat With Soul brand.

08 of 14

Cara Castronuova (season 11)

Along with Hoebel, Castronuova was revealed to be a “mystery trainer” during the show’s 11th season.

Speaking with EW in 2011, she described herself as a “competitive athlete and a fighter,” going on to tout her aggression as a trainer.

“Puke and cry, day one. Everyone has a different training style and being a female, sometimes you find you have to get really aggressive,” she said. “Some people respond really well to aggression, some people don’t. I’m the type of person who can get a feel for what you need and what I need to do to push you to get you to a breaking point, where you realize that you can’t go on this way anymore, that the reason you’re heavy is because you’re ignoring all the stuff that’s going on inside.”

An actress as well as a TV personality, Castronuova has lent her voice to the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise and has led a handful of independent films. She’s also appeared on numerous morning shows, as well as Bravo’s Top Chef Masters. In 2016, she founded the nonprofit organization Knockout Obesity Foundation.

In recent years, she made a hard pivot into politics, taking on-air roles with right-wing outlets Newsmax and the Gateway Pundit and floating the possibility of a U.S. Senate run in New York.

09 of 14

Dolvett Quince (seasons 12-17)

Along with Harper and Michaels, Dolvett Quince was among the longest-serving trainers in the history of The Biggest Loser, having appeared on six seasons from 2011 to 2016.

In a 2016 interview with Parade ahead of his sixth and final season, Quince said he was approaching the show with an “angst of commitment,” saying, “I needed everyone that came in front of me to say, ‘I have an issue that I want to take so seriously that it’ll never come back.’ That was my approach this season. They had to come with a seriousness. I’m done with acting like nothing’s wrong. Something’s wrong and let’s figure it out together.”

After joining the show, Quince penned a New York Times best-seller, 2013’s The 3-1-2-1 Diet: Eat and Cheat Your Way to Weight Loss, and appeared in Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016), as well as a Tropicana ad opposite 30 Rock‘s Jane Krakowski.

Currently, he serves as a co-founder of Tabula Rasa, a company that curates luxury wellness retreats.

10 of 14

Anna Kournikova (season 12)

Anna Kournikova was already a professional tennis champion, tabloid fixture, and sex symbol by the time she appeared as a professional trainer on season 12 of The Biggest Loser.

“You’re going to be blown away by how sincere she is, how intense she is, how focused she is for these folks,” executive producer Todd Lubin told EW in 2011. “She’s totally dedicated… At one point she breaks down in tears, just because she’s so moved by the stories. None of it is fake.”

Kournikova chose not to return for season 13, with a source telling PEOPLE that the show “just wasn’t the right fit for her.”

Though once ubiquitous — her name was once among the top-searched phrases on Google — Kournikova has stayed out of the spotlight in recent years. As reported by PEOPLE, she and her husband, pop singer Enrique Iglesias, are happily raising their three children in Miami.

11 of 14

Jessie Pavelka (season 16)

Jessie Pavelka, the cousin of The Bachelor’s Jake Pavelka, served as a trainer on The Biggest Loser‘s 16th season.

“This is the Super Bowl of weight loss. This is the Super Bowl of fitness. Every single trainer in the world wants to be on The Biggest Loser,” Pavelka said in a 2014 interview. “The fact that we get to work with these people, and do our job on the day to day. And not just help people lose weight, but help people, kind of, rediscover themselves and live again. That’s the part that was like, yes. I will do this.”

Prior to his season on The Biggest Loser, Pavelka acted in the pilot episode of Friday Night Lights (2006) and in Lifetime’s 12 Men of Christmas (2009) opposite Kristin Chenoweth. As a host and trainer, he starred on the Lifetime reality series DietTribe (2009) and the U.K. series Fat: The Fight of My Life (2013).

These days, Pavelka remains a health and fitness influencer, and offers his services as a health and wellness consultant for various workplaces.

12 of 14

Jennifer Widerstrom (seasons 16-17)

After knocking skulls as Phoenix on NBC’s American Gladiators remake (2008), Jennifer Widerstrom appeared as a trainer on seasons 16 and 17 of The Biggest Loser.

“I was really scared because I had not been on TV in that way and I had never been in that scenario,” she confessed in a 2021 interview. “The one thing that I knew was that if I put my people first, if they were my focus it would be right.”

In addition to being a fitness influencer with nearly 300,000 followers on Instagram, Widerstrom currently works as a coach with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Pump app.

13 of 14

Steve Cook (season 18)

Bodybuilder Steve Cook was a trainer on USA’s 2020 reboot of The Biggest Loser, the 18th season of the show.

In an interview pegged to the season, Cook discussed how the fitness industry had evolved since the early days of the series. “Fitness and wellness have changed so much and it’s now all about self-love,” he said. “We exercise, but we also look at blood work, consult a doctor, and a dietitian; and there are no more challenges [that involve] food temptation. There’s no fat shaming. We don’t even say it, we call it the F word.”

Cook remains a social media sensation, with more than 2 million followers on Instagram and well over a million subscribers on YouTube, where he regularly posts workout challenges and programs. He also owns the Fitness Culture Gym in St. George, Utah, as well as the Fitness Culture app.

Cook and his wife, Morgan Rose Cook, share a daughter, Harvie, who recently celebrated her first birthday.

14 of 14

Erica Lugo (season 18)

Along with Cook, Erica Lugo rounded out the training team for The Biggest Loser season 18.

Lugo embarked on a weight-loss journey just five years prior to becoming a Biggest Loser coach, losing roughly 160 pounds in less two years. “I’m the first trainer to definitely go through a transformation like [the contestants],” she told Hola! USA in 2020.

These days, Lugo specializes in hormonal health training for women over 30, sharing advice and workout tips to an Instagram audience of nearly 700,000.

Where can I watch Fit For TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser?

Fit For TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser is currently available to stream on Netflix.

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