The contestants competed to win a $250,000 prize, which was awarded to Michael Ventrella, the finalist with the highest percentage of weight lost.
* with one pound disadvantage First aired January 5, 2010 Eleven teams of couples—siblings or cousins or spouses or parent-child—are chosen this season, and this is the largest, sickest bunch of contestants yet seen on the show.
Unlike prior seasons, the couples initial weigh-in took place in front of family and friends in their hometowns.
Once the contestants arrive at the King Gillette Ranch in California's Santa Monica Mountains, Alison announces their challenge; each team must together complete 26.2 miles on stationary bikes.
The Brown team finished last, with a total weight loss of 4.75% (each twin losing 23 pounds), meaning one of them must be voted off by the other contestants.
Maria (white team) is scared of water... She panics, falls, bruises her nose (giving her a black eye) and breaks her ring finger; she is taken to the hospital, thus losing the challenge and getting a two-pound penalty.
At the weigh-in, red team has immunity, and Melissa denies purposely gaining weight, but admitted she did 'slow down' the weight-loss, in hopes of getting larger numbers week three.
In the update segment, Patti is now 200 pounds, has been able to be removed from eight different medications, and works out with her other daughter and takes dance lessons with her husband.
In the update segment, Maria, weighing 230 pounds, says that her goal is to overcome her fear of the water when she goes home and plans to swim in the ocean at her next family vacation.
First aired January 26, 2010 The week starts with a pop challenge, won by Red, which gets immunity, and the ability to assign rules to the others.
Bob and Jillian continue their argument with Melissa over her supposed sandbagging; Lance takes exception to their accusations against his wife.
First aired February 9, 2010 The contestants go to the Olympic training center in Colorado this week, and many Olympians guest star.
The pop challenge, introduced by Olympic skater J. R. Celski, involves contestants going back and forth on a slide board 500 times.
The challenge is based on the biathlon – the contestants run around a track and then take a shot with a laser gun at one of the other players' targets.
The contestants get taken out in the following order: Lance, Melissa, Miggy, Daris, Michael, Andrea, Sunshine, Koli, Sam, Stephanie, Sherry, Cheryl, Ashley, and Darrell, so O'Neal wins immunity.
Michael and Andrea decide to do the challenge, which involves choosing small boxes, trying to match foods hidden behind the doors.
He splits up most of the pairs, and puts many of the weakest players on the Black team: Sam, Cheryl, Andrea, Stephanie, Sherry, and Ashley.
He put the heaviest competitors on Blue: Koli, Daris, Lance, Miggy, Sunshine, as well as himself, and gives immunity to O'Neal.
At the food bank, contestants meet one of the workers who is also overweight, and they hear his story and try to give him some advice/tips on how to change his life.
Alison appears on the DVD and announces the challenge: a 42.195-kilometre (26.219 mi) bicycle race (the length of a marathon), with a prize of $10,000.
If they choose to weigh in and find that they have not yet lost the required amount of weight, they forfeit their scale privileges and cannot try to win immunity again that week.
Sam, Koli, and Melissa all express a strong desire to win the immunity challenge, working out at all hours of the day and night.
The same day that immunity is awarded, the players compete in another challenge involving retrieving 100 one pound weights each from the bottom of a swimming pool, with a prize of a two-week vacation at the Biggest Loser resort.
Another challenge is presented the next day, involving keys tied to the strings of nine large balloons that are anchored atop a hill.
Sunshine starts crying like a baby, before finally coming to the realisation that the world doesn't revolve around her and her dad.
He is now able to do things he couldn't do before his journey on The Biggest Loser such as tie his shoes, get onto his motorcycle, and climb up and down stairs with ease.
Each contestant gets $1,000 to shop for clothes around Los Angeles, a trip to a professional hair stylist, and attendance at a concert.
A short time passes and a mirror panel slides open reuniting the contestants with a few of their family and friends who had been hiding behind it.
At the weigh-in, Ashley loses 10 pounds, setting the record for the most total weight lost by a woman on campus.
All of the contestants are seen having difficulties with their at-home weight loss; Daris is seen getting up in the middle of the night and snacking and eventually over-trains and ends up with a knee injury, Ashley struggles with the urge to go out with her friends and party, Koli relocates to Las Vegas to focus on training for the marathon and on the finale, and Michael believes that he was gaining weight.