Competition At Work
 

At work someone organized a "Biggest Loser" style competition that I've joined. I just keep gaining and gaining (up 20 lbs. over the past 4 or 5 months) and I haven't been able to successfully lose any weight on my own so hopefully this will help push me?

Everyone threw in $20 to be a part of it and whoever loses the largest percent of body weight gets the whole shebang (a little over $500!). Yesterday was our first weigh in and we'll weigh in each Monday until April 15th when it ends.

I'm really excited about it and it's not the prospect of winning the money really. It's just that I've been very open about it to my friends so they know what I'm doing and I have the support of lots of people at work because they are doing the same thing and I'm REALLY hoping that I can stay on track so I won't embarrass myself in front of everyone if I can't do it. It's like the ultimate accountability!

Has anyone else done something like this at work or with friends or anything like that? Did you enjoy the competition aspect of it? Did it help you? Hurt you? Would you do it again?

I wish we did this at work. Everyone there eats so badly, and when we have potlucks of 'congratulations', it's always cake or bad things. Sometimes they bring veggies and fruit. And not to pass judgement but mostly everyone in the office is overweight (myself included).

They tried to do something similar, but it lacked motiviation as there was no money involved. It completely bombed.

These weight-loss-at-work scenarios seem to be popular, but to be truthful I can't really fathom it. I would never participate in any kind of weight loss program at work - not even Weight Watchers at work. The very idea makes my skin crawl. My weight loss plan is a private matter to me and I'd rather stick pencils in my eyes than even talk about it with coworkers, much less have to report to them on my results. It's none of their business!

And the thought of making a public spectacle of my attempt at weight loss and then not succeeding, or not succeeding as fast as I'd hoped to. So not only would I not have lost the weight, but everyone would know that I tried and failed to lose the weight. That would be worse than not trying at all.

But hey, if it sounds motivating to you, I guess there's no reason not to go for it. Everyone's different - what sounds like torture to me might be really motivating and inspiring to you. And maybe your relationship with your coworkers is different from mine, which is very arm's length; they're people I work with, and I like them, but they aren't my friends and I don't talk to them about personal things. If it sounds appealing, go for it, and good luck.

My workplace did this last year around January. I joined. I failed. The program ended in March or so of last year.

Then I woke up on April 5 and decided (later that day) that I was sick of not doing it for real. I started WW Online that evening. I dropped over 50 pounds last year. If only I'd have been motivated just a few months earlier! :P ...ah well.

Good luck to you! I think it could be fun.

To my mind, the bad thing about these sort of competitions is that they set a false "winner/losers" scenario. Say one person loses 30 pounds during the compettion, while the next closest participant only loses 20. The 30 pound loser wins! Yay! But what if right after the contest is over, the 30 pounder gains it all back when they go off of the crash diet they were on, while the 20 pounder keeps it off because they lost it by developing new, healtier life habits that they keep? Is the 30 pounder still the winner? You bet, they still have the money, thank you very much!

It can be a huge motivater, of course. Competition is fun! Especially if you are towards the front of the pack of winners. But not everyone can win, and I think it can be a terrible burden for those that don't have such a high rate of loss, even if they are ulitmately doing the right things the right way and will have much greater long term success.

So, you're in. Have fun with it. Just don't let it dictate whether or not you are a weight loss "winner".

My office did this last year. It was a huge motivator for me because I knew other people would be able to see my progress. Every week they would post everyone's percentage of weight loss (or gain) on a big chart in the breakroom. I'm also kind of competitive so it really pushed me to be totally on plan. The winner got a trip to Las Vegas and the whole thing was sponsored by my office so we didn't even have to pay to participate. I knew going in that I wasn't going to win since we have a lot of men in the office and lets face it; they just lose weight faster :p but it ended up really pushing me to get some weight off. I also started exercising around then and i've kept that up since !

My total percentage of weight loss was about 12% (I lost like 19lbs in 12 weeks) and I was the biggest female loser in the office. The guy that won the whole thing lost about 23%.

Carter-I'm glad to hear someone else who hates this idea. It's motivating and worked great for some people, but I would feel so scrutinized everytime I put something in my mouth. It wouldn't help me because I would just eat double later on to make up for what I felt I couldn't have at work. But, that's just me. If it works for you Bombe, go for it and have fun. Good Luck!

We did this in an office I worked in once, and it worked for nearly everyone who participated. We had one person who was a little compulsive about it and watched everything everyone ate and asked....hmmm.....demanded? LOL -- to know why someone ate something bad -- it was a little over the top and yet at the same time got funny after a while. Weighing in in front of others was a little weird, but we all got into doing our own thing diet-wise and most of us starting going walking together after work, around where we worked, which was an added bonus. I think we all became closer for it. We did total pounds the first weigh in and then switched to the percentage loss like you're doing, Bombe. We did $5 for each weigh-in and it wasn't always the person we suspected that would win it. As long as you're motivated to do it, and know you're losing the weight the way you want to and because you want to, the competition just adds a little fun to it. :-) Good luck to you and your office mates!

Darcy

Well I'm having fun so far! There are people in the competition that I don't even know but those that I do know I'm fairly close friends with. I like the camaraderie, everyone is always cheering everyone else on. We don't weigh in front of the whole group, we just have to have at least 1 other person in the competition see in order to verify our weight which is kind of nice, that way you can choose somebody that you're not embarrassed to reveal your weight to and you know they won't beat you up if you didn't lose anything. I don't really mind making my weight loss "public" though so it's not a big deal for me. There are some people in the group though that are very self conscious and uncomfortable being that open with everyone and I'm not all that sure why they joined then!

Honestly I think at the end I'll be in the middle of the pack. I don't expect to win the whole thing but I know if I stick with it I won't be in the "last" position either. So far my scale indicates I'm down 3 lbs. so we'll see what the work scale says on monday!

Sounds like you're off to a great start. Congrats on the 3 lbs already. Sounds like a good group of people -- just keep having fun with it and win or lose competition-wise, you know you're winning personally regardless. :-)

This is exactly how I feel! I don't even really care if I win the money as long as I lose some weight!

Oh I am currently involved in one at my work and it's totally motivating me! So far in two weeks I've lost 5 lbs! :D

It's sad cuz there are like 100 of us at my job and only 5 people have joined! Four of us are committed and the 5th is making excuse after excuse. I feel bad for her cuz I found out when she started she was a thin and tiny thing and over the years has just gained and gained :(

The only thing that's annoying is some animosity from certain people cuz they aren't losing as much as others- and it's like well there is no one to blame but yourself there!

Overall it's a great experience and motivator for me :D

Oh and we put in $5 a week for 20 weeks :) The pot is $500 :)

I think something like this is good motivation, a good start.

Update: I dropped 4.8 lbs. my first week!

I'm excited and motivated and I'm really hoping that just ONE of those pounds was some actual fat and it wasn't all just water weight!

Congratulations!

I like the idea of this a lot. I have tried things like this with my family and friends before, but they always kinda drifted off into nothing. Doing it at work would be great for accountability!

Good luck with your future weigh-ins!