This whole post is a spoiler for The Biggest Loser finale
The winner of this season’s Biggest Loser was also their biggest contestant ever. Michael Ventrella, a 30 year-old DJ from Chicago, weighed in at 526 pounds at the start of the competition and just 262 pounds at the end. After losing over half his body weight, Ventrella was named the winner and took home a cool quarter of a million dollars. Ventrella went on Biggest Loser: Couples with his mom, Maria, who was eliminated in the third week. Maria expressed her fear for her son when they started their weight loss journey. She cried as she said “I really could never live with myself if I lost my son. That’s why we have to do this together. We have to get healthy.” Michael said that he was hoping to lose weight so he could meet his future wife. “I feel like because I can’t love myself, that nobody else would love me.” I bet he feels a lot differently about himself now.
A new Biggest Loser was crowned tonight in NBC’s live season finale, which featured inspirational tales of pounds lost, tears shed and lives regained. Sure, all of the recaps and promotional tie-ins that host Alison Sweeney has to cram in made the night seem a little bloated (sorry!), but the weight of these inspirational stories never failed to get us all emotional (and back on the treadmill).
So who won: Daris, Ashley or Michael? Read on…
Michael, who began as the show’s heaviest competitor ever at 526 pounds, won the $250,000 prize after dropping an incredible 264 pounds—half his body weight!
Hope that quarter-million-dollar prize doesn’t weigh him down too much.
[From E! Online]
Entertainment Weekly has a longer summary and a recap of the episode, if you’re interested. They also have the breakdowns of what each contestant lost.
At first I thought that Ventrella lost the highest percentage of his body weight this season, but that’s not the case. Koli lost 53.3% of his body weight, weighing in at 188 after losing a whopping 215 pounds. He took home the $100,000 at-home prize.
Tough trainer Jillian Michaels said before the season started that she was concerned for the contestants’ health and safety on the show due to the ever-increasing size. It looks like Ventrella proved her wrong.
Congratulations to all the finalists and contestants on Biggest Loser!
Michael and his mom Maria at the beginning of the season:
Here are pictures of the finalists, thanks to NBC
Michael:
Koli:
Ashley:
Daris:
*sigh* I LOVE this show…but there is not a way I could endure the grueling workouts these people go through. Good for him, I hope he finds someone to love him…a person who would love him big or not.
They’re all so much better off now, and I hope they keep it off.
I was kind of hoping Ashley would win, just because men have such an advantage losing weight because of their higher muscle mass, it’s harder for women.
I’m glad Melissa didn’t win any prizes, she was nasty.
We can only hope they keep the weight off because many gain a bunch of it back after a few months. Daris is such a cutie now, hope he finds a great girl, he seems really sweet.
Im happy they lost the weight but doubtful that they’ll keep it off long term. Most of the contestants on that show always gain a lot back once they’re removed from the show and out of the regimented environment.
I love this show, but I could NOT handle watching it without my PVR and fastforwarding through all the product-placement and reptitive recaps. 😛
I kinda wanted Daris to win, personally, but they all did really well.
I think they will keep the weight off, only because they are taught healthy eating habits like choosing the right foods that are healthy and filling at the same time and how to exercise a lifestyle change instead of just buying the food to nuke in the microwave.
Love this show. Always inspiring. I wish they’d do a show where they go back to every contestant who was ever on the show to see where they are now. I know they’ve brought back a few here and there but it would be interesting to see them all from every season.
People are amazing to me…through determination and motivation. Love it!
Koli was robbed!!!
Daris=adorable! His mom said it so well,
‘I’ve watched him go from a boy to a man, a manly man!’ (or something to that effect. I kinda hoped he’d keep his great hair, but he looks fantastic now!
They all seemed to genuinely love each other (cept Melissa)
Michael sure turned out to be handsome, let’s hope a potential love interest will teach him how to dress! Skin tight is just so not on for a man!
So many of them end up with ‘skirt legs,’ those legs that flare outward at the knee, too much stress on the joint. I wonder if they do more leg extensions they can correct that?
kelbear– Daris has a girlfriend now, they introduced her last night.
I’m thrilled Michael won, he’s a complete inspiration, and am even happier that that prick Koli didn’t get a shot at the quarter mil.
I really, really wanted Sherry to win the $100G, she’s positively tiny now!
I also agree with jc126– Melissa is a loser as a human, glad she didn’t win anything.
Congrats to all the contestants– they were tough and dedicated and made for a great season!
Why would anyone say that Koli is a prick? We see 1% of what happens in a week on the ranch – the footage is heavily edited so how can we judge what the contestants are like? Koli lost the most and should have won the $250K prize. It’s too bad America didn’t give him the chance, but $100k is still pretty nice!
I’ve been particularly invested in this season, mostly because I share a very unique bond with one of the final contestants. . .
I’ve never, ever met someone with my name before – certainly not a 400lb Togan male!
We’re probably destined to be soul mates. We’ll Duggar my uterus out and name all of our children after the two of us. Different spellings of course. (The way I spell our name is the less feminine of the two, interestingly enough.)
We’ll use the 100K to hire Jillian as a babysitter, and she’ll shout all sorts of exciting and playful variations the family name at the children. And yell at us for not using Britta waterfilters and Ziploc Bags. It’ll be beautiful!
. . .
But I really liked the guy on his own merit, (having a soundbite of Jillian screeching my name is only a bonus!) and it was bullsh*t he was voted off. America’s not ready for “Boss Man Moves”.
(But I am, Koli! Call me!)
Kali: You can only edit so much. You say the things you say and you do the things you do. If the editors didn’t have any prick material to work with, then no one would think Koli was a prick.
I’m glad Micheal won. He will definitely gain back some of his weight, like they all do, but I’m happy that he’s no longer over 500 pounds. I also hope he does something about his “skirt legs”, as guilty pleasures called them.
MSNBC had something on their site somewhere showing past contestants and their weights now. Of course it wasn’t the majority, maybe 10 or 15 of them who have kept the weight off give or take 10 pounds. There were a few people from seasons 1 and 2 that I find rather impressive.
I’m too lazy to find it, but it is on msnbc or their Today extension.