Last night’s “Biggest Loser” finale on NBC was a true showdown of four contestants who really deserved to be there. No real game play was evident this season, anyone who started to play the game was swiftly eliminated by everyone else. Anyway, this was a live event, but they went through and showed each of their collective journey, especially how they all had to weigh in in front of their hometown friends and family at the start. This included the ubiquitous showing of Daris saying “I will do everything I can to make you proud,” in which he sounds like an overweight robot. I mean, the producers of this show love that clip so much, that you could seriously create a drinking game around every time they show it.
Anyway, host Alison Sweeney brought out Daris and Koli, because America held the vote that would send one of them to the Top 3 and one of them back into the “at home” competition. You may remember that Daris slipped last week, overeating when he was home and training for the marathon. I thought for sure Koli would win based on that, but America had sympathy and voted for Daris. Maybe it was all a ploy by Daris? Hmmm. But either way, it would be Daris vs. Ashley and Mike for the title of The Biggest Loser. And Koli, who came out all fired up, was reduced to almost whimpering.
Then after showing former winners such as Danny, Bill and Erik, it was time for one of last season’s fiercest competitors, Shay, to weigh in for her Subway challenge. You may remember Subway enlisted her to win $1000 for every pound she lost from December up until now. Shay looks great, and she lost another 52 pounds for $52K! But then Jared from Subway came out and challenged Shay again, saying she and him would train for a marathon, and when completed, Subway would double that money. Wow. But that was awesome.
Okay, time to what we came here for. To see everyone and how much weight they’d lost. Here is how it broke down:
Cherita lost 91 pounds, down from 277 to 186
Victoria lost 136 pounds, down from 358 to 222
Sherry lost 99 pounds, down from 218 to a stunning 119 (current leader)
Maria lost 114 pounds, down from 281 to 167
Patty lost 73 pounds, down from 243 to 170
Stephanie lost 99 pounds, down from 264 to 165
James lost 128 pounds, down from 485 to 357
John lost 149 pounds, down from 484 to 335
Melissa lost 90 pounds, down from 233 to 143
Lance lost 128 pounds, down from 365 to 237
Migdalia lost 52 pounds, down from 265 to 213
Miggy lost 91 pounds, down from 240 to 149
O’Neal lost 159 pounds, down from 389 to 230
Sunshine lost 114 pounds, down from 275 to 161
Darrell lost 189 pounds, down from 413 to 224 and he took the lead from Sherry
Drea lost 84 pounds, down from 298 to 214
Cheryl lost 76 pounds, down from 227 to 151
Sam lost 142 pounds, down from 372 to 230
And finally Koli lost 215 pounds, down from 403 to 188, and he took the at-home prize from Darrell, with a 53.34% weight loss
Koli was asked by Alison what he was thinking, and he said, “I just want to go home with my family.” Yikes…..that’s all he could muster? He’d just won $100K!
So then it was time for the big showdown between Daris, Ashley and Mike. Daris went first, and lost 168 pounds, down from 346 to 178 for 48.55%. Ashley was next and lost 183 pounds, down from 374 to 191 for 48.93%. Both of them looked amazing, as did Mike, who went next. Mike started out as the heaviest contestant ever, at 526 pounds. He struggled a lot this season, but kept dropping weight like crazy. Mike lost 264 pounds, down from 526 to 262, for a 50.19% weight loss and the title of the Biggest Loser! Now this was a true Biggest Loser champion, the kind of person who can inspire millions of people. But until now, I didn’t realize that Koli had lost more percentage of weight than Mike, and if America had voted him into the Top 3, he would have won. Ouch, that has to sting a bit. But I like having Mike as the champ, and he won fair and square based on the rule of the game.
Now let’s hope Mike keeps that weight off and keeps going, because he still has a ways to go. But he sure deserved to win and should enjoy it. We’ll be on a conference call with him today so look for some excerpts from that interview later this week. Thanks for reading this season!
