"Better your BMI" Competition at work

tacey21

I had a conversation with a girl at work who apparently used to be a fitness model and tried to figure out how she found the motivation. She said she liked to self-compete. I love to compete... just not against myself.

But that reminded me of how at my old work we had a better your bmi competition to get ready for bikini season. $15 buy in, winner takes all. So I started prodding around work and a lot of people are on board to do the same thing there, only over the winter season. Preventative measures, you know

Everyone is on board, but we want to know the fairest, most accurate way to gauge BMI.

I did a little research online... which proved to be very counter productive.
BMI formulas are said to be taken on average and not very accurate...
Calipers are said to be accurate only when you purchase a professional caliper and are trained to use it.
The Omron Fat-Loss Monitor's reviews said it gives widely different percentages depending on the time of day used, last time you ate, what time you peed, how you hold it, if your clothes are on or off... etc.

I know the MOST accurate way would be a BodPod, but again, not practical.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to go about this?
Right know I feel like we should probably just do all three and average it.
Help!

carbonboy

Just to be clear...BMI and body fat percentage are two very different numbers. Calipers, body fat scales, immersion are all ways to measure body fat percentage. BMI is just a number based on your height and weight, and generates a number that will categorize you on a scale. For instance, my BMI is 20.8 (in the normal range), but my body fat percentage is around 7%.

tacey21

Embarassing!
Okay. Well. It'll be a body fat percentage loss competition. Or. Whatever. Just trying to make it a healthier way to compete. You know, so people arent starving or chowing laxatives or whatever. Not that I think any of them would do that... but... Okay.

lovelylinz

sounds like a really good/fun/motivating idea! I did that with a group of my girlfriends before but we just did "most weight lost." At the end we never weighed in or followed through but we were all the skinniest I ever remember any of us being!

lovelylinz

sounds like a really good/fun/motivating idea! I did that with a group of my girlfriends before but we just did "most weight lost." At the end we never weighed in or followed through but we were all the skinniest I ever remember any of us being!

carbonboy

sounds like a really good/fun/motivating idea! I did that with a group of my girlfriends before but we just did "most weight lost." At the end we never weighed in or followed through but we were all the skinniest I ever remember any of us being!

"Most weight lost" is fine too...but those who have more to lose have an advantage doing it that way. We've done something similar at work, and we just did the greatest percentage lost of your starting weight wins. That levels the playing field a little.