SAS Australia winners reveal brutal reality of being on the show

SAS Australia winners Merrick Watts and Sabrina Frederick have revealed the gruelling reality of being on the show and the health issues they faced long after they wrapped filming.

During an interview on the SAS Australia Debrief podcast, Merrick revealed his hands "stopped working after about day six or day seven" of the course.

"Your hands just don't have any strength in them anymore, they're cut and bloodied and you're constantly patching yourself up," he explained.

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Sabrina agreed that things were tough, saying she didn't expect that she wouldn't have any feeling in her toes "the whole time I was in there and for six weeks after the fact".

Merrick also shared another strange ailment that they all experienced, "Our hands, for I reckon was probably a month after, my fingers - the tips - were all peeling skin was shredding off still, and I had absolutely no sensation for at least two weeks in my fingertips, couldn't feel a single thing."

He added, "It's amazing how your body deteriorates in weird ways that you just don't expect."

Most contestants also lost a significant amount of weight very quickly.

"I started the show at 82.5kg and by the end of it I was 76kg – so I lost about six kilograms by the end," Merrick told 7News, saying the food deprivation was "brutal".

"What’s interesting is I burnt off all my fat in the first six or seven days, then it just started eating away at all my muscle, that’s why we all looked so gaunt and thin by the end of the show."

Sporting legend Mark Philippoussis, who is taking part in this year's season of the show, revealed his weight loss in May after he finished filming the show.

"Never been so excited to watch my ass get kicked!" he wrote alongside a shirtless snap, revealing he had become significantly leaner.

Shannan Ponton also lost a significant amount of muscle and fat when he appeared on the show last year.

"The lightest I’ve been as an adult. Next time I’d go in with a bit more meat," he wrote at the time.

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