A few weeks back, a friend of mine on Facebook sent out a message asking if we wanted to participate in a 5 week weight loss program.  The details were pretty vague on her post but I jumped at the chance for a little weight loss motivation and said yes.  The challenge just ended so I thought I would share a little bit about it with you.

The Basics:
The idea of the challenge is to movitate you to follow along in the hopes of losing the largest % of weight so you win a pot of money at the end.  Looking great and getting healthy is obviously the biggest goal but a little extra $$$ makes it all so much better.

The Buy-In:
Each person that participates pays an entry fee. This money creates “the pot” that the winner will get at the end.  For our challenge, the entry fee was $15.  We had 20+ people so our pot started out big 🙂

The Challenges:

Each week brings a new challenge.  The challenges are cumulative so that they really become effective over time.
Our challenges were:
Week 1: Hydration Nation – Drink 64oz of water per day.
Week 2: Sweet Tooth Cured – No sweets (i.e. cookies, brownies, etc.)
Week 3: Bust a Move – Work out for at least 30 minutes per day.
Week 4: On the Wagon – No wine, beer, etc.
Week 5: Clean it Up – Clean eating.  No processed foods at all.

Infractions:
Now, obviously, it would be awesome if everyone did all the challenges perfectly for all five weeks.  But, we live in reality here people.  Sometimes you just need a donut…or, in my case especially, you have a meeting and just know that 4th glass of water during the work day is going to make you miss it because you are here:

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So, whenever you have an infraction {meaning you don’t follow the challenges}, you pay a dollar.  So, miss a glass of water…$1.  Eat a candy bar…$1.

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You get the picture.

Reporting:
The organizer keeps tracks of everyone’s reporting.  Each week, as a participant, you give your % of weight lost and the number of infractions you have to the organizer.  Weigh-in day is the same day each week and is done as the first thing you do when you wake up to make sure you capture your true weight.
To calculate the % lost, you need two pieces of info {and for me…a calculator}:
– Your starting weight (the weight you start with at the beginning of the challenge)
– Your new weight

Now, let’s calculate:
1)  Subtract your new weight from your starting weight.
2)  Multiply the number from step 1 by 100.
3)  Divide the number in step 2 by your original starting weight.

Surprises:

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My organizer did such a fantastic job and even offered some surprises.  One week, you could lose one infraction if you tried a new fruit or vegetable.  It was meant to inspire us to seek out more healtful eating options while also rewarding us by erasing an infraction {i.e. giving us back $1}.

The Prizes:
There were two winners for our challenge:
– The person who lost the largest % of weight won the entire pot minus$15.
– The person who had the least number of infractions won their $15 entry fee back (hence the reason #1 was minus $15}

The Results:
I thought the challenge was awesome!  I didn’t do as well as I probably could have but still felt pretty great seeing a loss each week on the scale.
We had ladies in our group lose over 10% of their total weight which is awesome!  The winner got a good chuck of money and healthier body too.

So, would you ever consider a weight loss challenge like this?  Which week would be the hardest for you to stick with it?