Twelve weeks and hundreds of pounds later, the scales revealed the winning contestant of “The Biggest Loser: Families” who went home with the grand prize of $250,000 on Tuesday.
Michelle Aguilar, who entered the competition with her mom Renee Wilson, was declared the Biggest Loser after dropping 45.45 percent of her starting body weight of 242 pounds.
On the night of the two-hour live finale, the 26-year-old from Fort Worth, Texas, weighed in at 132 pounds.
Aguilar beat out 31-year-old Ed Brantley, from North Carolina who went from 335 to 196 pounds, and 37-year-old Vicky Vilcan from Louisiana, weighing in at 145 pounds, almost exactly 100 pounds lighter than when she first came on the show.
The winner was determined by the percentage of body weight lost, not the number of pounds.
“We went through a lot, but it was all—all—worth it,” Aguilar said about the show.
Last week, Brantley and his wife Heba Salama, the show’s heaviest female contestant, both fell below the yellow line, but eventually America sent Salama home.
However, despite being kicked off the show, Salama lost 138 pounds and won the $100,000 “at home” prize for losing a higher percentage of weight (53.06 percent) than all those previously eliminated from competition.
The next season of the hit NBC series, “The Biggest Loser: Couples”, kicks off January 6th, 2009 and will feature the shows two heaviest contestants to date.