America was touched by hearing Abby Rike's story on "The Biggest Loser." Her life had been ripped apart by tragedy: She lost her husband and her two children -- her 5-1/2-year-old daughter and her 2-1/2-week-old son -- in a fatal car collision. But Tuesday night on the ranch, she talked about getting the light back in her life, and she knows there is still happiness to be had.

"'The Biggest Loser' served as such a great catalyst or kick start for finding that light again," she tells ET. "When things are tough and really sad, it is hard for people to know what to say. I get that completely. But, then, whenever something great is happening, people are comfortable coming up and saying all the things they thought the whole time. I think 'The Biggest Loser' was just the greatest venue for showing the world I wasn't falling apart and was still a part of life."

In fact, the show and the friends she made at the ranch touched her so much that when her team had to send someone home Tuesday night, she volunteered to be the one to leave.

"When Shay was standing on that scale and she was not the highest percentage winner, I could tell the decision had been made," Abby recalls. "It had been an incredibly emotional week. Amanda was just on the cusp, something was going on with Daniel at that point, and I would take a bullet for Shay. I went on the show to get a life back. It was never a game for me. It was never about the prize money. The prize for me was life. At that moment, I felt I was blessed. It was what needed to be done. It was the right choice for me."

Returning home was joyful. Abby, who started her journey at 247 pounds and now weighs closer to 165 pounds, was met by her parents and loving friends. That said, it was still a time of adjustment -- a time when she struggled to find the balance between the life she had lived at the ranch and her new life at home.

"When I first got home, it was finding out how to assimilate what I had learned into my life. How do you find a balance?" she poses the question. "If you trade one addiction for another, you just have another addiction. I didn't want that. It took me a few weeks to figure out how to workout, eat right and maintain friendships. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out the balance of it all and make it work in real life."

After touching so many lives as a result of her appearance on "The Biggest Loser," the 34-year-old theater/speech teacher and debate coach says she is now setting her sights on a new career goal: public speaking.

"I am really just focused on finishing the [weight-loss] journey and what I started," she tells ET, "but I am definitely in the works of trying to get in the speaking realm. That is truly what I want to do at this point."

"The Biggest Loser" airs Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. on NBC.