Tracey Yukich was painted as the villain on this season's "The Biggest Loser" when she took control of the game and played it for all it was worth -- not once, but twice! So this week when she fell below the yellow line, it was no surprise to viewers that she was booted off the ranch by her fellow "Losers."

"I always knew that if I ever fell below that I would definitely be on the chopping block because of the choices that I made in the beginning when I got to the ranch," Tracey tells ET.

Those choices included breaking up contestants who had been partners when she won a challenge that gave her the power to decide which players would go on the blue team and which ones would become members of the black team in an attempt to stack the deck and give her team the strongest players. She also won another challenge -- which required her to eat several cupcakes -- something no one else was willing to do -- which gave her the power to determine which of a team's weigh-in numbers would count and, in effect, determining which teams would fall below the yellow line and be sent home. But Tracey felt she had no choice. She had to do whatever it took to keep her on the ranch, because she got there after the rest of this season's contestants.

In the very first "Second Chances" episode, the just-arrived contestants were required to run one mile. Tracey collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where she stayed for several days. She was diagnosed with heat stroke because her core temperature reached 104 degrees. In the hospital, she had plenty of time to think about things, and even though she and her husband had had a conversation about not being a game player before Tracey left for the ranch, her hospitalization changed all that in her mind.

"I was scared I wasn't going to be able to go [to the ranch]," she recalls. "Once I got home [after my elimination] and truly looked at the situation, I really felt I did everything I had to do to stay there as long as I could. I was one of 16 people that had this opportunity out of 500,000 people all over the country. I tried out for 'The Biggest Loser' three times. I stood in line for 14 hours in the pouring rain in Dallas, TX, and I made it on the show. Why wouldn't you give everything that you possibly have to stay there?"

And despite how it may look on TV, the 37-year-old homemaker from Allen, TX, who is down 85 pounds from her 238-pound starting weight, says she now has great relationships with her fellow contestants.

"I spent a lot of time talking to them last night when the show was over," she says. "A lot of people think I don't, but I do. What you see is what is on TV. When people know who I am and know where my heart is … I have a huge heart."

That said, Tracey also admits she monitored episodes of "The Biggest Loser" before allowing her four children to watch them, recording them and pre-screening them.

"After the cupcake incident, I did have reservations and, honestly, I did TiVo it," she tells ET. "I would watch it first and then let my kids watch it, because I do have little kids and I am their mom. I am a superhero in their eyes, so when they see someone on TV -- and maybe I wasn't completely myself -- and others were talking about me, it did hurt their feelings."

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