The Block: Norm and Jess’ shock 19kg weight loss

Bubbly Blockhead Jess won fans last week when she fought back against body shaming Twitter trolls. But as she now reveals to New Idea, the gruelling hours on The Block have seen her incidentally drop a dramatic amount of weight.

‘I was an Australian size 14, but [I was] cycling very fast to the next size up when I went on the show,’ Jess, 33, admits.

‘I’ve dropped two dress sizes and at least 10kg. I call it the penthouse workout!’

All those stairs up to the top of the former Gatwick Hotel in Melbourne’s St Kilda meant the couple were getting training without even trying.

‘We weren’t allowed to use the lifts just to go up and down. We could only use them if we had something impossible to carry, so we had four flights of stairs to get up every single day. My butt is amazing after all those stairs, you could crack eggs on my arse.’

Jess’ fiance Norm, 40, also saw the weight drop off as he worked tirelessly to present their rooms. Already slim, Jess feared for his health.

‘Norm has probably lost about 10kg too, but he didn’t have anything to lose!’ Jess reveals. ‘I was so worried about him. I think he looked sick at some points.’

But Jess is very aware that The Block workout will be hard to keep up.

‘There’s no way I’m ever going up that many stairs in real life,’ she admits. ‘Even at the gym I will give up halfway through, but you have no option here.’