SAS Australia star Shannan Ponton may have lost 5kg while filming, but it came at a cost.
SAS Australia has put contestants through some of the most physically and mentally demanding challenging to ever air on TV, and it turns out it was even too much for former Biggest Loser trainer Shannan Ponton.
Taking to Instagram, Ponton revealed he lost 5kg during the two weeks of filming, dropping down to a low 74kg – the lightest he’s ever been as an adult.
“This is me directly out of the course 74kg. The lightest I’ve been as an adult. Next time I’d go in with a bit more meat,” the 46-year-old wrote alongside a topless photo of him.
He went on to explain how his low weight made him more susceptible to developing hypothermia twice.
“Being lean predisposed me to hypothermia, my body core temp had plunged to 34.0 degrees. The scariest part was having to go back into freezing water the next morning, the only time I was truly nervous on the course.”
Speaking on The Morning Show, Ponton discussed the intensity of experiencing hypothermia.
“I got hypothermia coming out of Lake Jindabyne again – as I was walking uphill everything went a psychedelic green and then you just black out,” he explained.
“I totally and utterly lost my memory – my body core temperature was at 34 degrees, and everyone knows you should be at 36.7 degrees.
The former Biggest Loser personal trainer said the producers had to “rip the clothes off me and put warm clothes on.”
But that wasn’t the end of his traumatic experience; he then suffered severe frostbite.
“I lost the top of all my fingers to frostbite,” the 46-year-old continued.
“They throbbed all night. You wake up in the morning and there’s blood running out of your fingers.”
He likened it to having “a thousand” paper cuts on your fingers.
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