“If you get told you have a heart condition, you have to take the news and do what you need to do to change your life,” Mr Brown said.

The supermarket manager was commuting to work in Ararat daily in 2013 when The Biggest Loser came to town.

He was smoking a packet of cigarettes a day, binge drinking and consuming huge amounts of takeaway food, soft drinks and coffee.

Weighing in at 155 kilograms, Mr Brown’s staff urged him to take part in the TV program. He agreed, on the condition they could raise 60 signatures in five hours. Mr Brown was sitting in his office eating a hot dog and drinking a Coke 40 minutes later when a petition with 90 names landed on his desk.

A few weeks later, he was in Camp Biggest Loser. In his first week at the camp, the self-

confessed addictive personality lost the show’s record amount of 15 kilograms. But in his second week, his heart rate monitor picked up a very rapid heart rate of 190 beats per minute while he was on the treadmill.

When it happened a second time, Mr Brown was sent to a Sydney cardiologist and restricted to light exercise, which he interpreted as walking 100 kilometres a day on the camp’s driveway.

He still recorded a weight loss of 3.5 kilograms, but the show’s producers sent him home for further checks.

An MRI scan and a visit  to a cardiologist saw him diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia, or rapid heart rate, which he controlled with medication. He trained with a personal trainer, doing three sessions a day. 

But when The Biggest Loser still wouldn’t let him rejoin, he consulted a second cardiologist, which showed a node on his heart. He was operated on and soon began running half-marathons, made a comeback with the Buninyong Football Netball Club and was doing weight sessions to add muscle to his 83-kilogram frame.

But, sitting at work one day, he experienced crushing chest pains and was rushed to hospital. Further investigations showed an extra left artery, which was then fused in a second operation.

Since then, Mr Brown’s heart has been operating perfectly, he won the eliminated contestants’ $10,000 biggest weight loss prize at The Biggest Loser finale, and is now working towards becoming a personal trainer.