Vicksburg resident is BIGGEST Loser ‘What a ride it’s been,’ House says after skinny victory

Published 12:08 pm Wednesday, December 15, 2010

A 219-pound Vicksburg resident won the title of the “The Biggest Loser” Tuesday night, taking a $250,000 prize and swinging into a whirlwind tour of talk shows and appearances.

“What a ride it’s been!” Patrick House said after the live finale of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” in Los Angeles Tuesday night. “It still hasn’t sunk in yet.”

House, 28, who lives in Vicksburg with his wife, Bradley, and two young sons, won the cash and a one-year contract with the television broadcasting giant after losing 181 pounds since June, including three months spent at The Biggest Loser Ranch in California. Since September, he has been seen in Vicksburg, visiting with friends and mostly working out at local gyms.

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“I’m so proud of him. He looks amazing,” Bradley House said this morning on NBC’s “Today Show” as she watched her husband being interviewed by host Al Roker.

In the final moments of the two-hour show Tuesday night, House weighed in, showing he had lost 45.3 percent of his weight, less than a percentage point more than Frado Dinten, 43, of New York, who had lost 44.1 percent. San Francisco resident Ada Wong, 27, lost 99 pounds, or 39.37 percent of her body weight.

House said getting this far was almost unimaginable.

“When I first got to the ranch,” House said, “Bob (his trainer) told me that I had what it took to win, and that really helped me get through.”

Back in Vicksburg on Tuesday night, 13 of House’s friends and co-workers gathered in Dennis and Jennifer Coulter’s den to watch the show.

As House stepped on the scale, the group inhaled simultaneously. Then, all at once, the room exploded with screams of joy as they celebrated Patrick’s success.

“It could not have happened to sweeter, more deserving people,” Jennifer Coulter said.

House said throughout the training he was fighting to have a better quality of life for himself and his family and also wanted to give Mississippi something to celebrate.

“It feels great to be able to win this for Mississippi, a state that comes in last in so many things,” House said.

Just an hour after being declared the winner, House was on a flight to New York so he could appear on “The Today Show” and “Live with Regis and Kelly” this morning. He is scheduled to appear on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” at 10:30 tonight.

On Friday, House, his wife and their two sons will head to the Cayman Islands for a vacation. They will then return to the state for the holidays before House begins fulfilling his contractual obligation to NBC by speaking about healthy living and losing weight.

“It’s a lifestyle change,” House told Roker this morning, “not a diet anymore.”

Before being picked to participate in “The Biggest Loser,” House was without a job, having lost his position as a grocery store sales representative. Now, he has accepted a position with a South Carolina high school called Mindstream Academy, which is for overweight teens committed to getting healthy. He is also set to launch a blog, where he will give tips for eating healthy through the holidays, he said in the NBC interview this morning.

But, he told Roker, “The first thing I’m going to do (with the $250,000) is go back to my parents and in-laws and pay them back the money I’ve borrowed this year.”