Alex Ebert and his mate Gareth Cochran found the TV world was not all glitz and glamour.

Mr Ebert said they had been in shock, and taken off guard when they faced the 2nd elimination, but didn't let it influence their performance.
 

"When you think you've done well and you actually haven't, you start to question yourself," he said.

"One of the hardest things was not letting it get to you."

Mr Ebert said they were already putting enough pressure on themselves, so it was best to not let it get to them because "that's when disaster strikes".

At first we kept looking at the cameras; it was really hard to adjust to, but by the end we were used to it, he said.

During his time on MKR Alex Ebert said they were both sick a lot of the time, but never enough to get hospitalise.

"When I got back, I had bronchitis and nearly had pneumonia," he said.

"There was a choice to get more sleep, but a lot of us were sacrificing sleep to practice cooking,"

Mr Ebert said they did not eat well and on top of that they only got three - four hours sleep on average, so it was inevitable that they had become run-down.