NEED TO KNOW
Tracey Yukich competed on The Biggest Loser season 8 in 2009, where she says she “died” during a medical emergency in her first episode
She has since run the Boston Marathon and become a motivational speaker
Yukich is unsure if she would return to The Biggest Loser, saying the question is “impossible to answer”
The Biggest Loser was a life-changing experience for participants, including season 8 contestant Tracey Yukich.
“Being on The Biggest Loser is just like winning the lottery,” she said in the opening minutes of the Netflix docuseries Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser.
Yukich had a memorable introduction to The Biggest Loser when she ran a mile on the beach during her first challenge and collapsed before reaching the finish line.
Although a helicopter took her to the hospital amid the medical emergency, Yukich later said she didn’t “remember a lot” from the incident, except a “floating” sensation.
“Then my grandpa was there, and then I saw darkness, but then I saw light, so I knew I died that day,” she explained.
Yukich would stay in the competition, eventually making it to the eighth week of the season. But it wasn’t the end of her journey.
So what happened to Tracey Yukich after The Biggest Loser? Here’s everything to know about her life after starring on the reality TV competition show.
She continued to lose weight after appearing on The Biggest Loser
Stacie McChesney/NBCU Photo Bank
‘The Biggest Loser’ contestant Tracey Yukich on ‘The Jay Leno Show’ on November 3, 2009
During her time on the show, Yukich lost 118 lbs., going from 250 lbs. to 132 lbs. According to The University of Texas at Arlington’s The Shorthorn, she continued her weight loss journey after getting eliminated, dropping an additional 80 lbs.
“The Biggest Loser was just a stepping stone. It’s a lifestyle. This is the rest of my life,” she said during a presentation in April 2013, per The Shorthorn.
Speaking to PEOPLE in November 2009, Yukich explained that as a mom of four, she had to be “very strict and concise” about getting her workouts in after returning home from The Biggest Loser.
“I am up every day at 4 a.m. and I’m out that door before anyone is even awake in this house,” she said. “The dog is still asleep and I leave and I go to the gym and I get a great workout.”
At the time, Yukich did not reveal how much weight she had lost since leaving The Biggest Loser, hoping to win the “at-home” prize, which would eventually go to Rebecca Meyer.
“This is the first time in my life that I actually started something and trust me, I’m going to finish exactly what I’ve started and if that means I get to take home that prize, then I’m gunning for it,” Yukich added.
Yukich lives in Boston after residing in Texas
Tracey Yukich/Facebook
Tracey Yukich in May 2024
Yukich grew up in North Carolina and lived in Texas when she earned a spot on The Biggest Loser.
According to an Aug. 19 Facebook post, Yukich now lives in Boston, having moved there from Dallas in 2015.
She is remarried with a large blended family
Tracey Yukich/Facebook
Tracey Yukich and her husband in January 2020
While competing on the reality TV competition show, Yukich spoke about being a married mother of four after working in a corporate job for years. Fast forward, in Fit for TV, Yukich revealed that she and her then-husband split due to “infidelity,” among other reasons.
“I thought it was my fault because I was fat,” she admitted in the docuseries. “I knew that I had to make some changes in my life, in order to have the best version of what I wanted out of life.”
Since The Biggest Loser, Yukich has remarried and now shares a blended family with her current husband, as she wrote about in a January 2020 Facebook post, and shared in the final episode of Fit for TV.
Yukich is a motivational speaker and an exercise physiologist
Tracey Yukich/Facebook
Tracey Yukich in February 2018
Since leaving The Biggest Loser, Yukich has become a motivational speaker and an exercise physiologist.
“Helping others with injuries get back into daily life through activating their bodies with good exercise and better nutrition,” her bio reads on the 2025 CrossFit Games website. “I speak at churches, corp. wellness events, colleges and major fortune 500 companies such as Chick-fil-A, Towers Watson, and General Mills.”
Per the Texas Speakers Bureau, Yukich’s speaking engagements focus on “sharing her story of hope and recovery to empower women to take the time to take care of themselves.”
According to the bureau’s website, her presentations remind “anyone struggling with weight and self image” to “believe in yourself. Live the life you love. That’s something she had forgotten how to do.”
Yukich’s CrossFit Games bio also states that after leaving the show, she returned to school and was later named the exercise physiologist for First Health Medical Group.
She ran the Boston Marathon with Dr. Robert Huizenga
Courtesy of Netflix
Robert Huizenga and Tracey Yukich in ‘Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser’
Yukich kept up her workouts and even ran the Boston Marathon with Dr. Robert Huizenga, the medical consultant on The Biggest Loser.
“It was the most elating experience, to know that I could do a marathon,” she said in Fit for TV.
“What an attitude by this person, this is a role model to me,” Huizenga said in the documentary while looking at a photo of him and Yukich running the marathon.
In March 2010, Yukich told Dallas-Fort Worth’s NBC 5 News, “I never in a million years thought I would be running a marathon. My heart rate is going up right now just talking about it.”
While participating in the race, she raised funds for Homes for Our Troops, an organization that builds houses for wounded veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. As for a finishing time goal, in an April 2010 interview with The Dallas Morning News, Yukich said, “It’s not about time for me.”
“It’s about crossing the finish line and saying, ‘Wow! Look what’s happened in a year!’ ” she continued, referring to her season of The Biggest Loser, which aired the previous year in 2009.
Yukich’s unsure if she would go back on The Biggest Loser
Trae Patton/NBCU Photo Bank
Tracey Yukich on ‘The Biggest Loser’
When asked if she would ever return to compete again on The Biggest Loser, Yukich said, “Knowing what you know now, it’s just impossible to answer.” Nevertheless, her original experience on the show was life-altering.
“I definitely think that if I hadn’t have gone on the show and experienced everything that I did experience I would have never had the strength to make some serious changes in my life,” she said in Fit for TV.
After the Netflix docuseries premiered in August 2025, Yukich reflected on the positive response from viewers, which contrasted with how she remembered the show being received at the time.
“What strikes me most is how different this feels compared to 2009,” she wrote on Facebook. “Back then, the criticism was relentless and often cruel — I carried the weight of that for a long time. Today, to see kindness and encouragement reflected back instead is something I never expected.”
“It feels like healing in motion, and I’m so thankful for it,” she added.
Read the original article on People
