Heading home last month, Helen Phillips was considered a long-shot to win NBC's "Biggest Loser."

"Everyone kind of never considered me a threat," she said today. "Lucky for me."
Phillips, 48, of Sterling Heights, Mich., was talking by phone the day after winning the show's $250,000 top prize. Mike Morelli, 19, of South Lyon, Mich., finished second, with Tara Costa, 24, of Long Island, in third.
In the previous episode — taped five weeks earlier — it was the other way around, with Costa first, Morelli second and Phillips third. Then they retreated to their homes. "It kind of went back to old-school training," Phillips said.
That started when she visited Mott High School in nearby Warren. Her son is an athlete there and the football coach Shauhen Tahrebandi is a former fitness instructor. "I just knew he was the right person," she said.
Soon, he and two colleagues were training her. "I was getting up at 4:30 in the morning," Phillips said. "I was doing two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, two hours in the evening."
This was truly old-school, she said, including running up and down the bleachers. "I actually tired them out, these big football coaches."
Phillips lost more than 30 pounds during that time, taking her to 117 — three below her target weight. Starting at 257, she had shed 54.5 percent of her weight in eight months.
That's how the final winner is chosen. Morelli (388 to 181) lost 53.4 percent and shed the most overall pounds in the show's history; Costa (294 to 139) lost 52.5 percent and set the show's record for most pounds lost by a woman.
Now Phillips is preparing her next step. She doesn't plan to return to her job in management at Macy's; instead, she hopes to give motivational talks and to start a "spin" (stationary bikes) fitness center somewhere in the Detroit area.
That will be with her daughter Shanon Thomas, who was also on the show and has been losing weight gradually. "We're going to run marathons together; we're going to go biking together," Phillips said.
Other ambitions are less energetic. Phillips hopes for a quick vacation to Las Vegas. "I want to walk with my husband ... I just want to go for a walk slowly."