Kai Hibbard

Kai Hibbard, 31
Mother of 1

Since her time on The Biggest Loser®, Kai has discovered a whole new approach to weight loss, one she considers more balanced and healthy.

Kai Hibbard made history on The Biggest Loser® Season Three finale by losing more weight than any other female contestant in the show's history.  She began at 262 pounds and lost 118 pounds to finish at an amazing 144 pounds -- that is the equivalent of losing more than 45% of her bodyweight. She is currently ranked fourth of all female contestants in weight loss in the show's seven season history.

But what most people didn’t know was that the day after her big finale, she became "sick as a dog. My immune system was so worn down that I got a virus and was in bed for two weeks."

Kai soon realized that she actually became afraid of food as a result of the show.  "While you are on the show, you're constantly in fear of food, and that carried over into real life – I was afraid to eat a cookie because I might lose control and eat the whole bag." For a year after she lost weight on the program, she ate the same diet every day and worked out five days a week, spending two hours at the gym or jogging up to six miles. "It was crazy – I had switched my emotional coping mechanism from eating to exercising," she says. When she got pregnant, she was no longer able to keep up her extreme routine. After the birth of her son she was barely sleeping and, to compensate, ate around the clock. She had no idea how to go back to her old rigid diet of egg whites, oatmeal, lean chicken, fish, and vegetables.

"It seemed that I would intend to eat that way when I started out in the morning, but by the middle of the night baby feeding I was living on a diet of cookies," says Kai. "The cravings had control over me and I was feeling like a failure for not being able to do what I did less than two years prior when I lost all that weight in just seven months."

Since her time on The Biggest Loser®, Kai has discovered a whole new approach to weight loss, one she considers more balanced and healthy. Kai has become a critic of what she considers the "extreme dieting" techniques used by many contestants on The Biggest Loser® and others. "Many of us are the consummate yo-yo dieters and 'expert crashers.' We want instant gratification – whether from food or weight loss. It's a whole self-imposed feast-or-famine mentality."
Since January of 2009, Kai has been taking Livea which has allowed her to have control over her appetite and eat less, and, in combination with a simple diet and exercise program, has resulted in losing weight safely and consistently.

When she first heard about Livea, she was very skeptical. "I was like 'yeah, right.' I'll believe it when I see it," she says. "There are so many products that dupe fat people out of money. We're a vulnerable population."

In fact, she had so little confidence in the supplements, which are made from natural substances such as barley grass and sea kelp, she decided not to bother exercising or reducing her food intake. After a month, she couldn't believe it when she lost 10 lbs. "That was weight that prior to Livea just would NOT come off," she says.

That weight loss inspired her to make more healthy food choices and work out two or three days a week. "What Livea did was give me the time to make better decisions," she said. "I wasn't ravenous anymore, grabbing for everything I could find on the counter."

Kai's husband, who at 6'3" and 240 lbs. was a "big boy" too, decided to take the supplements with her; he too did not work out. They both had significant food 'turning points,' when they knew Livea was working. "For me it was one morning when I said, 'I'm going to have a huge pancake breakfast today with butter and maple syrup.' Then I'm sitting in front of the plate and all I wanted was one," she says. For her husband, instead of ordering an appetizer, a veggie pizza and desert at his favorite Italian restaurant, he stopped at three slices. He lost 20 lbs in the next few months.

Kai has now lost 60 lbs. and she is no longer afraid to eat. "My diet is so much more flexible than when I was on The Biggest Loser®," she says.
Currently, Kai is getting ready to relocate with her husband, who is in the Coast Guard, to a station in Florida, where she plans to apply for a Master's program to become a registered dietician. "I'm not going to forego key lime pie either," she jokes.

Her goal is to get back down to her Biggest Loser weight of 144, or less, "without being dehydrated, sick or ravenous."