Matt Hoover - Matt Hoovers Guide To Life, Love, and Losing Weight: Winner of the Biggest Loser TV Show!

Matt Hoover was the grand prize winner of NBCs The Biggest Loser 2 . A legend back in his hometown of Belle Plaine, Iowa, he was a member of four NCAA wrestling championship teams at the University of Iowa. In high school, Matt was a two-time Iowa state wrestling champion and was thrice named a high school all-American athlete. Awarded a scholarship to the top college wrestling program in the nation at the University of Iowa, he was later torn from his Olympic dreams by an injury, leaving his competitive dreams unfilled. After his wrestling career ended, he developed severe eating and drinking problems that caused his weight to balloon up to 340 pounds in just a few years. Near the height of his weight gain and the nadir of his life, he was cast to be on the NBC show The Biggest Loser 2 early in 2005. He arrived at the Biggest Loser Ranch in March of 2005 weighing 339 pounds, but ended up winning the shows grand prize by losing 157 pounds in just nine months. He weighed in at only 182 pounds at the final weigh-inthus accomplishing a remarkable 46.31 percent overall weight loss (close to half his body weight).

Matt Hoover currently resides with his wife, Suzy Preston Hoover, near Seattle, Washington. He works as a motivational speaker, traveling around the country, and he also coaches individuals on exercise training regimens and works with many others to help them achieve their weight loss goals. He and his wife welcomed their first child, Rex, in the summer of 2007.

Sheri R. Colberg, PhD, is an exercise physiologist and professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, as well as the executive director of the Lifelong Exercise Institute (LEI, accessible at www.lifelongexercise.com ). Having earned a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, she specializes in research on exercise, particularly related to obesity, diabetes control, lifestyle improvements, and prevention of chronic health problems. She has also authored more than 150 research and educational articles on exercise, nutrition, weight loss, diabetes, and aging (many accessible at www.shericolberg.com ), as well as six books: The Diabetic Athlete, Diabetes-Free Kids, The 7 Step Diabetes Fitness Plan, 50 Secrets of the Longest Living People with Diabetes, The Science of Staying Young, and The Diabetic Athletes Handbook . A person living long and well with type 1 diabetes since the age of four, she practices what she preaches when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle and exercising daily. A resident of Virginia Beach, Virginia, with her husband and their three sons, she is an avid recreational exerciser who enjoys swimming, biking, walking, tennis, weight training, hiking, and yard work, as well as staying active with her boys.