‘Race to Survive Alaska’: Hunter Describes Vomiting ‘Blood’ and ‘Bile’ – Jeff Reveals Shocking Weight Loss [Exclusive]
Race to Survive Alaska reality TV competitor Hunter Leininger described a night from hell during the first race, vomiting blood and bile for eight hours, leaving his father, Jeff Leininger extremely worried.
The first challenge of the series kicked off with a bang, which included Esther Sunderlin’s terrifying medical rescue, but also Hunter’s extreme reaction to shellfish during the first night of the competition. Race to Survive Alaska viewers saw Hunter vomit, but he revealed how serious his condition was and how much weight he ultimately lost during the six-week race.
While Hunter dropped some serious weight, it was Jeff who had production worried because his weight loss became extreme.
Hunter vomited nonstop on his first ‘Race to Survive Alaska’ night
Hunter and Jeff explained that if production or medics intervened, it ultimately disqualified competitors from winning the $500,000 prize. But despite being a highly trained, longtime racer, Hunter said the night he spent nonstop vomiting was nothing he had ever experienced. Hunter is a vegetarian, but the main source of provided sustenance was canned clams.
Hunter choked down the food – in fact, he inhaled it to build strength. That move ended up completely backfiring.
“It was way worse than it even seemed. Eight hours of nonstop throwing up,” Hunter described to Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “Throwing up blood, throwing up neon green, stomach bile. It was really bad. And that’s a thing like even an adventure racer, that we’re used to that happening. You just take some Pepto-Bismol, take some electrolytes, and you’re good to go.”
“The only option I had was to eat more clams or drink some unfiltered water,” he shared. “There wasn’t any medicine I could use. So it was definitely the lowest of lows I’ve had ever in a night of a race. And that was the first night of a 40-day race. Like, how are we going to bounce back and keep going from that?”
Jeff describes where Hunter went wrong with the food
Hunter recalled feeling full and happy after he ate the clams. But woke two hours later with the worst stomach ache of his life. “I just started throwing up. And then I would lay down for 20 minutes and get right back up and throw up. Continued for eight hours nonstop,” Hunter recalled.
Jeff was in an interesting position because he was a competitor and Hunter’s team member, pushing to win the money. But he is also Hunter’s father, who became concerned about his son.
“I only took two bites and I stopped. I’m not going to eat any more of that,” Jeff recalled. “So he finished the rest of the clams. And I think that was the problem. It was just a little bit of a shock to the system. And again, we have encountered injury, we’ve encountered sickness during other races. We’ve drunk bad water before, we’ve all gotten sick.”
“And pretty much we just rally around each other and support each other, whoever is the sick one,” he continued. “And hopefully we can get through it. It’s not a game changer or stopping that race because of the illness.”
Was Jeff worried they could be disqualified from ‘Race to Survive Alaska’?
Seeing how sick his son was became extremely concerning for Jeff. “But at that point, I was kind of in father mode,” he recalled. “After the first hour, I started getting really, really worried because he didn’t have anything else left in his body. And I kept making him drink more, drink more, drink more. So at least he had something.”
“But when we got to about four hours of just nonstop [vomiting], I then started to become seriously worried that this is day one and we’re going to be out of this race because Hunter’s not going to be able to recover from this,” he said.
“There’s no way losing all of that bodily fluid and then the next morning, being able to get up without being dizzy or just ill to the point you can’t even get up,” he said. “It was just one of those things that I kind of started really worrying about. But Hunter woke up. He said I don’t care. Let’s go. Well, alright. I guess we’re going to continue to race.”
How much weight did they both lose?
Hunter ultimately lost about 25 pounds during the six weeks. But Jeff joked that he did Race to Survive Alaska as a weight loss program. “We ate so well the week before. We were eating three meals a day plus desserts plus pancakes …” Jeff recalled.
“I looked at it as a weight loss program for my daddy belly,” he said. “But that went away in the first week. And then a couple of weeks in, the medical [team] was kind of really concerned that I had lost 30 pounds. And then ultimately it was about 35 total pounds that I lost.”
Hunter said his father resembled Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway.
Race to Survive Alaska is on Monday at 11 pm ET on USA Network.
