PORTLAND (AP) – A Mainer featured on the television show “The Biggest Loser” was given the boot in the premiere of the show’s third season.

Matthew McNutt of Boothbay was one of several candidates vying to lose the most weight on the reality TV show. The winner gets $250,000.

This season, the show’s producers cast one contestant from each state, and McNutt, who’s 31, was chosen to represent Maine.

He was one of 36 candidates who failed to make the show’s first cut Wednesday night. But he and the others who were cut were given the opportunity to continue the diet-and-exercise regimen at home, and two of them will return to compete later this season.

The 6-foot-5 Mainer’s starting weight was 366 pounds.

How much McNutt weighs now that the show is airing or how much weight he lost remain a mystery because the show’s rules bar him from discussing it.

But McNutt’s father, the Rev. Dan McNutt, says his son looks dramatically different from when filming began back in May.

“You can’t even recognize him now, he’s changed so much,” Dan McNutt, pastor of Boothbay Baptist Church.

The McNutts held a viewing party Wednesday night at the church.

Matthew McNutt, the church’s associate pastor, said he was excited to have children at his church see his appearance change. “I want to inspire the teens I work with to be physically and spiritually balanced,” he said.

McNutt said he played soccer and basketball when he attended high school in Bolivia and that the exercise offset his poor diet. He said his eating habits caught up with him when he started his career and began spending more time behind a desk.

These days, Matthew McNutt’s eating habits have been scrutinized at local restaurants since residents have learned that he was chosen for the show. “I go out, and everybody’s checking to see what I’m eating,” he said.