Michelle Bridges

Michelle Bridges
Bridges in May 2011
Born	20 October 1970 (1970-10-20) Albion Park, NSW, Australia
Occupation	Personal Trainer, Biggest Loser Trainer, Author
Website
http://www.michellebridges.com.au/

Michelle Bridges is a personal trainer on the Australian version of The Biggest Loser. She made her first appearance in 2007, on the second season of The Biggest Loser and trained the red team alongside Jillian Michaels. When Jillian left half way through the series, Michelle officially took over as red team trainer. Michelle continued as red team trainer in 2008, although Jillian appeared as well.

Early life

Michelle Bridges attended high school at Wagga Wagga, Riverina in Australia. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Bridges said "I was 14 when I pitched the idea to my school mistress that I would take the kids at school who didn't play sport, who hung around smoking cigarettes, and do fitness classes with them." She then went on to take over space at a local squash court and taught classes there. When she was 18 she became a certified fitness instructor.

TV appearances

She has appeared on the Nine Network's "Mornings with Kerri-Anne" as a women's health and fitness expert.^{[citation needed]}

Bridges was one of the contestants in Celebrity MasterChef Australia. Michelle, who describes herself as "a bit of a foodie", won the second heat with her signature dish of Moroccan spiced lamb with eggplant and currant couscous, beating performer Kathleen de Leon Jones and journalist Peter FitzSimons to continue in the competition.

Books

In addition to her TV appearances, Michelle is the author of several books, including:

• Crunch Time: Lose Weight Fast and Keep it Off
• Losing the Last 5 Kilos: Your Kick-Arse Guide to Looking and Feeling Fantastic
• Crunch Time Cookbook: 100 Knockout Recipes for Rapid Weight Loss - Bridges said the book "that we would normally think of as bad, like fish and chips and the notorious pad thai, and puts it in a more nutritious light".

Games

In 2010, Ubisoft brought Bridges to Canada to help develop the weight loss segments of their product Your Shape Fitness Evolved. The company used motion capture to create an avatar of Bridges to appear in the game, which will use the Kinect technology. Michelle said "It was quite extraordinary. I'm now a fitness trainer inside an XBox game." Bridges said fitness games could provide as good a workout as going to the gym, saying "If you can roll out of bed and turn on your Xbox and get into it games like this one, you've just cut your travel time to get the gym, to find a park and you're good to go. There's a real opportunity to spark a passion to get into your fitness."

12 Week Body Transformation Challenge

Michelle Bridges started the online 12 Week Body Transformation Challenge in 2010. Michelle Bridges said that in the third round of the program, the 1500 participants lost a combined 4500 kilos.

External links

• Official Website
• The Biggest Loser website