Simon and Shannon Vos, contestants on The Block Glasshouse, have spoken of the toll the show took on their health, in which they completed a renovation in 12 weeks that would normally take a year and a half. The brothers both lost seven kilos from a minimal diet of pizza, burgers and coffee.
They revealed at one stage they went 54 hours without sleeping.
“There was a stint there where we did 54 hours straight without sleep. That shouldn’t be allowed,” Shannon told news.com.au.
“I got a call from Michael saying ‘your brother looks really, really bad, he looks shocking’. Simon had green under his eyes, proper, proper green, like it wasn’t just a tinge, it was a dark green thing under his eyes and he was so white and we were trying to tell him ‘just go and lie down for an hour, just go lie down for an hour have a feed and chill out’”.
The brothers had two all-nighters in a row to complete a room and finish the pop-up shop, as well as attend a party until midnight for the shop’s opening.
“The safety guy had to pull me off, he says ‘mate I’m sorry you look like crap, you need to sit down, so I think I went down the road, ate something and came back,” Simon said.
“I greened out and I spewed from exhaustion. You forget to eat because you get up in the morning with the news crew and you forget to eat until like two o’clock and then we’re like ‘oh we haven’t even eaten breakfast yet’ so we’ll go have some breakfast, shove whatever we can shove down and it’s usually some dim sims, pizza, burgers and the odd bircher (muesli).”
“The whole Block, we were in zombie mode,” Shannon agreed. “That last day in the week or the last two days (before room reveal) you don’t sleep and then you kick start at 6am the next day so you’re always on the back foot with sleep.”
“We both felt gaunt, seven kilos is a lot, the fact that we didn’t exercise either, we just ate junk food. I don’t know where the seven kilos came from. We didn’t have seven kilos to lose.”
Simon said he was admitted to hospital at the end of filming due to his poor health.
“I guess if you push yourself for 12 weeks so hard that as soon as you finish, your body will just give in. On that day I remember finishing and I had a little sore throat and it just went downhill from there for two weeks. I got a really bad sinus infection and it went through the bones and I couldn’t chew because it was all in my top teeth, I had massive migraines and bad headaches. But Codeine is a wonderful drug and that fixed me right up.”
“I don’t think there was one day on The Block where we ate three meals, it was two or one, breakfast at lunch time and lunch at dinner.
Despite the dramatic weight loss Simon and Shannon were proud of their achievements.
“I was very proud looking back at the photos and I just can’t believe we actually got there on some of the rooms, especially kitchen week, it was hell,” said Simon.
“We’re just so, so proud. I want a bucket load of cash after this and a new career,” Shannon said.
Image credit: simon and shannon the block: supplied
