I have a question...I was hoping to do Biggest Loser at home against my hubby. He wants it to be as fair as possible (since I have more weight to lose than he does) and he wants to use % body fat which our scale can calculate. He doesn't want to use the scale or percent weight lost. Do you think that will work?
We are also having trouble with what the weekly winner gets (financial constraints and time constraints) Any suggestions??
Men can build muscle a lot more easily than women, thus affecting bf%, so this isn't necessarily any more fair than % total body weight. It's a hormonal thing...men have an advantage in weight loss contests, except those related to staying on plan vs. losing weight.
I would think the percentage of weight lost, not body fat percentage, is the fairest. Women almost always have a higher body fat percentage than men, so you're already at a disadvantage (e.g., mine is 27%, while my boyfriend's is 9% -- I'd have to become anorexic to ever beat him if we played the game using these parameters). Do you mean he wants to determine the winner by seeing who has made the largest decrease in body fat percentage? In other words, if I dropped to 25% body fat (from 27%) and my boyfriend dropped to 8% (from 9%), I would win because I dropped by two percentage points? I don't think that's quite fair because in that example, I had more space to drop than he. In addition, I believe scales are notoriously inaccurate as far as measuring body fat is concerned. It can be thrown off by how much fluid you've ingested that day, etc. (Calipers are really the way to go -- if you have a gym membership, pop in the office and see if you can each get a measurement.) I would stick to calculating a winner based on percentage of weight lost.
For prizes, why don't you each make a list of the favorite 5 or 6 things the other person does that you enjoy. For example, maybe you like the way your husband massages your feet, or when he brings you a hot coffee and newspaper from the corner store. Write these rewards on slips of paper and save them in a jar. The winner each week gets to choose his or her reward, and the other must fulfill that desire!
I mean that measuring percentage of lost body fat according to what the individual needs, not random loss of fat without taking individual stats into account.
So, if a man would like to lose 10% of his body fat to get to a healthy place and a woman would like to lose 30% to get to a healthy place, that measurement would be more accurate than pounds.
Hey, this the Hubby of KissingGinger. Just to clarify what we want to use as a measuring stick for our BL@Home. We want to use percent body fat. The winner will be the person that reduced their own body fat the most. For example, I start at 26%, I go down to 24% by the second week. That is a 2% loss in overall BF. That equates (if my math is right) a 7.69% loss from the previous week. We are comparing our losses against ourselves.
Because I only have about 25 lbs to lose, after 3-4 weeks I will still be losing fat, but I will also be putting on muscle. There will be a point in which I will be gaining weight in the form of lean muscle. I will still be losing BF. In the shortish time period that we will be able to compete against each other, BF% is the fairest way to go.
BL at home with hubby
