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: