Avoiding "Cheaters" in Office Weight Loss Competition

BethC729

Hello!

I am hopeful that someone (or several someones) has good advice to share when it comes to running an office weight loss competition (similar to the biggest loser). We ran one in our office this past spring and everyone was doing quite well. Suddenly, one of the participants started shedding pounds like mad. She told me she'd started using supplements, under-the-tongue-drops, and was eating something crazy like 500 calories per day.

Her sudden and rapid weight loss (pardon the language) really pissed a lot of people off who were participating in the competition. People who were "doing it the right way" - exercising, eating clean, watching portions - and whose efforts were sustainable beyond the competition. Needless to say, when this girl won the challenge and 50% of the pot of money (over $150 went to her) there was quite a bit of grumbling and hard feelings.

How do you think I could word something in the rules of our next challenge (set to start on October 9th) that would discourage such practices?

These are the current rules:

• Challenge will run for 10 weeks from October 9th through December 18th

• $20 buy-in for the challenge, payable at first weigh-in on Wednesday, October 9th

• Private weekly weigh-ins each Wednesday morning in Beth’s office
o $1 penalty for gains (0.6 lbs. or higher), payable at time of weigh-in
o $1 penalty for purposefully skipped/missed weigh-ins, payable at next weigh-in

• Results will be determined by the percentage of body weight lost.

• If there are less than 10 participants, the top two winners will split the pot of money 60%/40%.

• If there are 10 or more participants, the top three winners will split the pot of money 50%/30%/20%.

• If there are 20 or more participants, the top four winners will split the pot of money 50%/25%/15%/10%.

• Along with the weekly weigh-in results, a recipe and an exercise tip will be provided by Thursday morning of each week.

• Lunchtime walks/walking groups are encouraged. Walking routes with mileage will be provided.

• While not part of the monetary contest, there can be an optional pedometer challenge if there are enough participants with pedometers.

• A list of web and print resources will be provided to all participants.

• Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two teams for additional moral support and camaraderie.

Any/all advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Beth

Commander_Keen

You could make everybody sign a contract that says no "Supplements."

jellybeanhed313

Just say the only acceptable method of losing weight is diet and exercise. No supplements of any kind allowed.

BobOki

Your contest was to lose weight and who could lose the most, it was never stated they could not just starve it off or use supplements. It sounds like she was willing to do what was needed to WIN, not necessarily the healthiest or best way to lose weight, but just to WIN, and under your rules she did just fine. None of you should be angry at her at all.

Now what you do on the next one is to define some rules for this. You have to maintain at least a 1200 calorie a day diet, you can't do meth, etcetc. Supplements are usually GOOD, so don't say they can't use them, but you CAN say it has to be HEALTHY loss.

climbamnt

What others said, say up front that it is a diet & exercise only challenge - no supplements.

silken555

I would add a bullet point stating 'No diet pills, weight loss supplements, etc. are allowed. Discovery of the use of such items will result in the contestant being withdrawn from the competition without refund.'

The caloric amount thing suggested is also a good thing to put in.

lsmsrbls

I think that this is just one of the downsides to making weight loss into a competition rather than an individual endeavor. : (

If you want a competition but don't want to encourage people to drop lots of weight quickly, perhaps you should make it over a longer time frame. e.g. everyone puts in money and at the end of a year, everyone who has lost or maintained their weigh gets some of the prize pool back and everyone who has gained weight loses their money.

That still just encourages weight management, though, and could be at the expense of the health of some participants.

Maybe you could just encourage people in another way to walk at lunchtime?

BeachGingerOnTheRocks

You can't avoid them. People are going to do what they want to do with these. If you tell them they can't use something, then half the competitors will use something to try to gain an advantage. The other half will complain for having followed the rules when "nobody else did."

You can't win. If you're going to have one of these competitions in the office, be prepared to give the award to someone who either starves or dehydrates themselves before weigh-in, and be prepared for the inevitable complaints about it.

Heck, even if the winner is someone who does it without "cheating," that winner will be accused of cheating simply for having won.

Really, you can't win, and someone is going to be angry no matter how fair you think you're making the competition.

dacspace

Is your weight loss competition based on pounds lost or percentage of weight lost?

It sounds as those the previous winner was on a form of the HCG weight loss program whereby the actual weight loss came with the 500 calories daily and not the drops or supplements. You could state that participation in drastic calorie reduction program(s) are banned or something similar.

bennzz61

Did this person keep the weight off once they stopped the supplements and drastic diet? If not maybe you can say people must keep the weight off for X weeks afterwards? Or make it an inches competition?

jwdieter

The problem with the format is unhealthy behavior will win. Supplements or not. Someone wants to go extreme deficit, they'll win. They'll drop fat and muscle and huzzah percentage loss victory.

Maybe if you restructured the format to provide a threshold for winning, with multiple potential winners, the unhealthy approach would not provide a better reward.

TR0berts

Ginger's right. You can put in all the rules in the world. But unless you're spying on them 24/7, the contestants are likely going to do what they want. And you won't be able to prove - unless they do something stupid like blab - that they broke any extra rules.

sebshaw8

If you want to concentrate on sustainable weight loss, then make it part of the competition.

ex 1:
after ten weeks (using your timeline, it can be modified) everyone is weighed. The "winner" is the person that has lost the greatest percentage of body weight. However, in order to collect the person must stay within X% of their final contest weight for Y number of weeks, with weekly weigh ins as an optional condition. maybe X=10 or 20 and Y=8 or 13. If the "winner" does not sustain the weight loss for the additional Y weeks then everyone that does sustain the wight loss moves up a place.

ex 2:
similar to ex 1, but instead of determining the winner after ten weeks, everyone is weighed after ten weeks and then the winner is determined by the combination of the person with greatest percent loss and the smallest deviation from contest weight.

Just some ideas that could help incorporate sustainability into and office pool.

MityMax96

If you ask me, any and all avenues to lose weight are open to the participants.

Nothing stops you from donig the same......

Now what may be funny and hilarious, is after the competition and said person wins.....the balloon back up, worse than where they started. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

In regards to weight loss for a better life......it is better to take a long haul approach.
By setting up a competition, you throw that out the window with some participants, because they don't care about what you care about.....which I assume is the long haul, to take it off and keep it off.....
They just want to win, and get bragging rights.

JenRunTriHappyGirl

I would add a bullet point stating 'No diet pills, weight loss supplements, etc. are allowed. Discovery of the use of such items will result in the contestant being withdrawn from the competition without refund.'

The caloric amount thing suggested is also a good thing to put in.

This is good! People are going to cheat, but you know who they are.

40mpw

Just brainstorming here:

* Use an additional metric, such as body fat % to be included in the calculation to figure out the winner.

* Spread the payout to more people (for example, greatest % of body weight lost, greatest percent of body fat lost, most minutes of exercise logged, most days of exercise logged, etc.)

* Wait 6 weeks and split the ultimate payout between the person who lost the greatest percentage of body weight AND the person who maintained the best weight loss from the end date to 6 weeks later.

* Have mini-challenges where contestants can earn bonus points. For example, trying a new class at the gym every week, logging the most fruits and vegetables, recruiting a non-exerciser to join for a workout, walking the most steps. Of course, these would nearly all rely on the honor system, and it sounds like there's some distrust going around.

I'm not sure you can cheat-proof this competition, but you can at least make it less about the money and more about the weight loss.

Cameron_1969

Make it about pride instead of money . .

jerryvo

I learned a long time ago that it is impossible to make enough rules to eliminate people that want to take advantage of the system. I would make a lose weight and keep it off type of program . Someone may be able to shed pounds quickly for a easy win but there is no way you can eat 500 calories a day for months at a time and maintain at that level.

nilbogger

You really can't prevent people from "cheating". I did a weight loss competition at work and some people posted crazy losses a few weeks by starrving themselves, dehydrating themselves, etc. None of those people actually won because a) I don't think they knew jack about counting calories and b) they could't sustain the craziness.

Not to be all corny and stuff but if people "cheat" they're usually the "losers" in the grand scheme of things. Like, having $150 is nice, but having a healthy body is better.

Duck_Puddle

If you want people to follow certain behaviors, reward behaviors. If you want people to achieve results, reward results. 100% of your competition is a reward/punishment system based on the results achieved (pounds gained or lost). If you want people to focus on building healthy, sustainable habits, design your reward system around that. Award "points" for physical activity, eating fruits/veggies or whatever. But you can't reward results and punish for negative results and expect people to focus on something other than results.

MityMax96

My office would do some weight loss competitions as well....
I never joined in, as I would always lose.

The person with more body weight, can lose a lot of it fairly easy compared with someone who is about where they should be.