"The Biggest Loser" contestants received a shock on Tuesday night's show when host Alison Sweeney told them that two people would be going home -- and one of them would be automatic as the show had added a new element to the weigh-in: a red line. The person who had lost the lowest percentage of their body weight would automatically leave the ranch, no vote would be taken.

Surprisingly, that person turned out to be fan favorite Daniel Wright. After Daniel left, the rest of the cast had to vote for either pink team member Amanda Arlauskas, or orange team member Shay Sorrells to be the second person to leave. Shay, who was the heaviest-ever contestant, was sent packing. She lost by one vote, cast by Rudy Pauls, with whom she had had a confrontation during a challenge that week.

Shay had lost 17 pounds at the weigh-in, making her total 100 pounds, a record for a woman on the ranch. So it seemed at first as if she were safe, but because she still weighed 376 pounds, it just wasn't enough.

"I wasn't' surprised by Rudy's vote," Shay tells ET. "I wasn't surprised by anyone's vote. I knew from day one that Rudy was a game player. He was open about it. I think when I hit 100 pounds [weight loss], it shocked every one probably more than it shocked me and my trainers. …Before, I wasn't a threat. All of a sudden, it proves I was a little bit more."

Shay's 17-pound weight loss was her biggest ever on the ranch. She worked hard to get there, even working with Daniel and Rebecca Meyer on a covert smuggling operation to bring an exercise bike, weights and pads into her room to use late at night.

"We definitely did it under the disguise of night," she says, laughing. "We did not let anyone else know we were doing it. If they were sleeping, we could be exercising and look like we were not exercising and working hard [during the day]."

She also had the support of trainers Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper, who had never discussed trying to save an individual player the way they did Shay on Tuesday night's episode.

"To hear Bob and Jill say what they said, and that they were really fighting to keep me there, is huge," says Shay, who today weighs 322 pounds, a 154-pound loss. "A couple of weeks before that Jill said, 'You are ready. You are fine.' I felt like Jill and I were finally getting to the root and the bottom of my soul. I felt like she really wanted me to get better. I use the metaphor that Jill digs and digs until she rips the roots out and Bob comes and plants new flowers. Jill knew I was raw and wounded and I needed time to build back up and the ranch was the safest place for that. That is why they were fighting for me."

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