‘Extreme Weight Loss’: Twin Brothers Robert & Raymond [Preview]

Extreme Weight Loss on ABC (9:00-11:00 p.m., ET/PT) will be starting up the show’s fifth season on Tuesday, May 26, with a show featuring the twin brothers, Robert & Raymond, from the small town of Monet, Missouri. They will be the first people featured of the ten episodes that will make up this season of Extreme Weight Loss. Robert and Raymond will be helped in their year-long quest to lose enough weight to qualify for skin reduction surgery by the husband-and-wife team of the transformation specialists and trainers, Chris and Heidi Powell.

At the start of the premiere episode of  Extreme Weight Loss, Robert weighs in at his initial weigh-in at 381 pounds and Raymond weighs in at 378 pounds. When the twin brothers were just 12, their mother was sent to prison and their father skipped town, to leave their children on their own. Robert and Raymond, who were 12 at the time, ended up trying to raise their three pre-teen sisters, making sure they got feed, went to school, and turned in their homework.

Rob and Ray still look after their three sisters to this day, helping them with groceries, taking care of their kids, and sometimes paying their bills. Their sisters think of them as being like fathers, and send them text messages and cards on Father’s Day.

Though both Robert and Raymond were basketball players in high school, and were big fans of the Los Angeles Lakers, they left those days behind as they continued to eat junk food and overeat, in general. They finally decided to write Chris and Heidi Powell, at the prompting of their three sisters, and ask him and his wife for the help that they need to be able to lose weight.

Like with all of the people who appear on Extreme Weight Loss, Robert and Raymond spend the first 90 days of their year of being transformed both physically and psychologically with Chris and Heidi Powell in Aurora, Colorado, at the University of Colorado Anschutz Health and Wellness Center. There, the brothers will learn about proper nutrition, and they will train and exercise in order to lose at least half their body weights so that they will be able to qualify for skin reduction surgery by the end of the year.

Besides the people involved in the Extreme Weight Loss series being motivated for health reasons to lose weight, Chris and Heidi Powell plan for the the people taking part in the year-long weight loss program to have celebrations when they reach different milestones during the year. For instance, in the case of Robert and Raymond, to celebrate their six-month milestone, the show will offer them the chance to meet the Lakers stars, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, and play two-on-two basketball against Byron Scott and James Worthy.

Chris and Heidi Powell will challenge the twin brothers not only physically but emotionally, as well, because often emotional and/or physical trauma from the past is what led to their clients’ overeating. If the people who the Powells help lose weight on Extreme Weight Loss do not change internally as well as externally, they will be more prone to fall back into their old habits of eating junk food and overeating.

One of the biggest challenges that Chris Powell asks Robert and Raymond to face is an intense confrontation they have with their father. While Chris hopes that the twins will be able to find strength to tell their Dad how he changed their lives for the worse by leaving them, he is worried that the stress of meeting their father might have a detrimental effect and send the twins back to their old eating habits.

On Extreme Weight Loss on ABC this Tuesday night, twin brothers Robert and Raymond are the first people who will be featured this season. Their dual quest to lose weight will be both touching and inspirational to others seeking to lose excess weight. Some of the other guest stars this season will include three-time Grammy Award winner Ne-Yo, NFL star LeSean McCoy, two-time NBA champion with the Miami Heat Chris Bosh, soccer great and four-time Olympic Gold Medal winner Mia Hamm, six-time Olympic Gold Medal winner Amy Van Dyken, Mario Andretti and Autism advocator Holly Robinson Peete.

Written By Douglas Cobb

Sources:
Zap 2 It: Participants Announced for
‘Extreme Weight Loss’ Season 5 Premiering
Tuesday, May 26, on ABC
ABC: Extreme Weight Loss Episode Guide