How to create a fair weight loss challenge?

lauradians

My sister and I need to lose weight. I need to lose about 100lbs and she needs to lose about 30. We weigh in every two weeks and the original plan was whoever lost the most percentage of weight, the other person would have to put $20 in the envelope.
We are doing this for three months so at the end, the person who lost the overall most percentage of body weight wins it all.
I thought this would be fair because theoretically I should lose weight faster with so much more weight to go than her. Today was our first weigh in and I lost 1.5lbs over the last two weeks and she lost almost 4. I am super happy for her of course and happy for both of us, but I also want to have a chance to win.
Im just thinking since we both set our myfitnesspal settings to lose 1.5lbs a week, should the challenge be off pounds loss vs percent loss since our goals of lbs/week are the same? And then whoever actually sticks with he plan the best is the one who wins? Or would it be fair to stick with the percentage lost which would mean id have to lose about 3lbs a week to meet her 1.5lbs?
Just want to find a way to make it fair for both of us!

socioseguro

Just forget about the money and work to decrease your weight together.
You both share the experience, support each other and lose weight whenever your goal is achieved. Win-Win. No deadlines.

DaisyHamilton

A lot of people, when doing challenges like this, use body fat percentage. You can always try the biggest loser equation.

jemhh

This plan illustrates a complete lack of understanding about how dieting works outside of a theoretical thought bubble.

rainbowbow

jemhh wrote: »

This plan illustrates a complete lack of understanding about how dieting works outside of a theoretical thought bubble.

this. Plus a good helping of "lacking an internal drive and motivation to make lifelong changes".

mom23mangos

Our family is doing a similar challenge in order to help motivate my son and his GF to be healthier. Except we each have 100 in the pot. We are going off of percent of goal met. That is the fairest. Just because your sister dropped a lot of weight the first doesn't mean you don't have a chance. I had the least amount to lose and dropped rapidly the first week with water weight, then have just inched after that.

kristieshannon

I think challenges can be fun and motivating. I did one with friends last year, it combined weight loss with healthy behaviors. One point for each pound lost, one point for each meal tracked, one point for each mile walked/ran, one point for each hour of other types of work out, one point for every day with five fruits/veggie servings. Most points at the end of three months won. I think challenges are a way to keep your interest up & make things fun.

lauradians

kristieshannon wrote: »

I think challenges can be fun and motivating. I did one with friends last year, it combined weight loss with healthy behaviors. One point for each pound lost, one point for each meal tracked, one point for each mile walked/ran, one point for each hour of other types of work out, one point for every day with five fruits/veggie servings. Most points at the end of three months won. I think challenges are a way to keep your interest up & make things fun.

This is our thought process as well. Thank you for the tips, it sounds like you had it set up well!
Thanks for everyone who told us that it was not a good idea and offered other ideas, but we are happy with this challenge as it is what motivated us to start.
We both know that we need to make lifelong changes and this is not just a diet, but we both lacked so much motivation to just get started. I see nothing wrong with using a competition as we are both competitive with each other to get motivated on such an important issue.

kimny72

Personally, I really don't like the idea of a weight loss challenge. I've seen too many people who felt bad even though they were having success because someone else was doing better. And it can also lead to people being way to aggressive in an effort to win and end up causing harm to themselves or burning out and rebounding.

Maybe you could base it off some kind of successful behavior change, like a certain amount of money for each day under calorie goal?

And if your sister only has 30 lbs to lose, 1.5 lbs per week is pretty aggressive.

That's just my opinion. Regardless best of luck to both of you.

MelodyandBarbells

I don't understand - you came into an agreement with your sister, but now that it seems like it favors her, or at least she's doing a bit better than you are, you want to change it? Or are you asking about how to structure your next potential challenge after the three months have run out?

ilex70

Different strokes people.

I like goals with dates, challenges, erm...wagers. If you don't like those things, or they don't work for you, then don't do them.

Fat percentage is probably the fairest to work from, but since you didn't start that way I don't know that it is really fair to change now.

Also, if she continues like this then it really doesn't matter how you set it up. You have to try harder if you want a chance at winning.

This isn't to say you should do crazy unhealthy things, just to be very on point with your weighing and logging. Moving more is good too IMO. If you know you have done your very best then that is good enough and you body will do what it does.

I'm signed up for a challenge right now, even though I recognized at the start that I was in no man's land as far as any chance of winning just because I like goals with dates and I'm curious where I will end up in the rankings at the end.

PaulaWallaDingDong

How it's done at work: participants weigh in, supervised, during a set 4 days at the beginning of the 12-week challenge, and again at the end of the challenge. Those who lose 4%, 7%, or 10% of their starting weight win a corresponding cash prize. Those who win during a challenge and go on to participate in the next one have to use their final weight from the previous challenge as the starting weight for the next challenge, to prevent yo-yoing and promote long-term wellness. Also, goal percentages are lower and prizes are higher for those doing multiple challenges. (i'm about to get paid $300. Aww yeah!) However, because of the broad "weight demographic," it's an individual challenge rather than a competition. We also have other reward programs to promote wellness, because obviously not everyone needs to lose weight.

Tl;dr: the bold thing. Maybe try to come up with ways to reward eachother and yourselves rather than working against each other. It really doesn't sound like a fair contest.

lauradians

Good ideas! Thanks all!

Timorous_Beastie

My personal thinking... You don't. I hate the idea of weight loss challenges. Weight loss is not a competitive sport.

haviegirl

Are either of you interested in adding a fitness component to it, so that it's not just about the number on the scale? Like total number of steps/minutes/miles walked? Just thinking of a way to make it more interesting, but I haven't thought through the actual setup of a composite challenge. Having a couple of components in your challenge might play to each of your strengths in different ways, making things feel less one-sided.

Lounmoun

lauradians wrote: »

My sister and I need to lose weight. I need to lose about 100lbs and she needs to lose about 30. We weigh in every two weeks and the original plan was whoever lost the most percentage of weight, the other person would have to put $20 in the envelope.
We are doing this for three months so at the end, the person who lost the overall most percentage of body weight wins it all.
I thought this would be fair because theoretically I should lose weight faster with so much more weight to go than her. Today was our first weigh in and I lost 1.5lbs over the last two weeks and she lost almost 4. I am super happy for her of course and happy for both of us, but I also want to have a chance to win.
Im just thinking since we both set our myfitnesspal settings to lose 1.5lbs a week, should the challenge be off pounds loss vs percent loss since our goals of lbs/week are the same? And then whoever actually sticks with he plan the best is the one who wins? Or would it be fair to stick with the percentage lost which would mean id have to lose about 3lbs a week to meet her 1.5lbs?
Just want to find a way to make it fair for both of us!

Having to pay in only if you didn't lose as much as the other person sounds like a punishment game to me rather than motivation.
I would set a prize for the end and put that in the envelope now- both of you put in an equal amount of money. Your sister should lower her goal to losing .5 or 1 lb a week because she only has 30 lbs to lose. You should stay at 1.5 or raise to 2 lb a week. Figure out how much you each should be able to lose at the new rate and make those the goal amounts. The one who loses closest to their 3 month goal gets the prize.

andwing7

I've done exactly this based on body weight percent lost. It was a $20 buy in. And if you didn't meet your weekly weight loss goal, you owed $2 in the pot.

This way, the pot grew, and made you want to stay on pace!

willrun4pancakes

Trying to modify the challenge you already agreed to because you aren't winning is not at all fair.

MelodyandBarbells

willrun4pancakes wrote: »

Trying to modify the challenge you already agreed to because you aren't winning is not at all fair.

Agreed. In fact, with the way the current challenge is structured, I would have expected the OP to hands down win the challenge. But who knows, her sister might have realized how tough winning this would be and busted her heine to get it done. Yeah it's great to gather ideas for a different challenge, but I suggest you ride this one out, OP