Ok ladies and gentlemen its almost time to get started again! About 2 weeks or so until the new season premiers so its just about time to start getting signed up and forming the teams for this upcoming season.

For those that may be new to this group, we follow along with the airing of Biggest Loser's season 15 in the US. We are split into teams and have weekly challenges and weigh ins, the challenges usually being based on the challenges done on the show. Weigh ins and challenges must be completed by the time of the first airing of a weeks episode (usually 8pm EST on tuesday, but may change this season). It will be your responsibility to report to your coach your weight and your challange participation by those times or risk being penalized. Whether you are new or not so new to this challenge, please make sure you read these rules and information about the challenge. I get at least 5 PMs a day with questions that have already been answered in a thread, so Im going to compile as much info as I can to have it all in one place. This will be very similar to last years challenge with some minor changes

I am doing the same thing as last season and requiring you to "sign up" to participate - this basically because alot of people last year joined the group and didnt know what they were joinging and didnt participate and we still have so many people actually as members of this group that may not want to participate in this challenge. There is no way to delete people without "banning" them and i dont want to do that. That is also why i am creating a brand new group this season

additionally I need some coaches as well! Coaching isnt that hard (and im sure some of my previous coaches can chime in and answer any questions) but basically you would be the liason between your team and me - reporting to me everyones weights and challenge participations. You (and only you) can create weekly threads for your particular team to encourage participation. Some also message their team individually, give additional challenges, and check up on everyone daily but these arent required . each tea w ill consist of 10-12 players

So if this is somethign you'd like to join just comment here! I need your full screen name, age, approx amount of weight you need to lose, and any other pertinent information (major injury, friend whose team you want to be on, etc)

I am looking forward to getting started soon and excited to have a great challenge again! Thanks everyone and please let me know if you have any questions! In the meantime, PLEASE read the rules here so you have an understanding of what you are getting yourself into



1) You must be willing to participate in this weight loss challenge for the duration of season 15 - approximately 4 months. That means weekly weigh ins and challenge participation. If you dont have the intention of sticking with this program for the duration, please do not sign up. It is ALOT of work to do this challenge and we all have fun with it, but it is a waste of my time, the coaches time, and your teammates time to have people in the group who dont really want to participate

2) We will only be accepting new members until Sunday Oct 6th. If you join after and wish to participate, please feel free to post in open threads (not ones directly related to a specific team or the weigh in). We will create a "weight list" and add members from that as other members drop out. If we get enough people on the list and someone is willing to become a coach, we can create a new team. No new teams will be formed after the second week of competition. Adding weight listed members after the second week is at the discretion of the coaches.

3) you are responsible for weighing in to your coach every Tuesday morning. If for some reason you know you can't please try to do it Monday and get it to your coach before official weigh in day. You can do that by email or PM, whatever is easiest but being friends with your coach on MFP might be good extra motivation. SOME COACHES MAY HAVE DIFFERENT REQUIREMENTS. Please pay attention to what your coach tells you. They have to report to me by 8 pm est on the show night. Some may be in different time zones and not have computer access at this time so they may ask you to report by monday at midnight, or something else that works best for them. Please be understanding of this and work together. On a side note, one of our most successful teams last season had an official weigh in day of monday.

4) If you miss a weigh in and had not already told your coach you would be, your weight loss would be recorded as +1 pounds, and count against your teams percentage lost - This is meant to encourage accountability rather than a punishment. **You however will be required to PM me with your weight for that week, even though it is late. That is done so that we can have an accurate weight for that week to calculate % lost in the coming weeks

5) if you miss a second weigh in unaccounted for, you will be "voted" off your team. This may seem mean, but the point of this group is to compete in our own biggest loser competition, and it is not fair to the other members of the team who are consistently working hard, or to the people who had to be wait listed for the competition. If there are people on the weight list at this point, they will be moved up to replace you. I will try to let coaches know the day before someone is going to get kicked off to remind them, but it would be helpful if coaches noted these missed weigh ins in their own records/spreadsheets

6) There will be weekly challenges based on the challenges from the episode. These challenges will vary in time given to complete (1 day to the full week). You are responsible for reporting your completion of the challenge to your coach by the given time. Points will be given for attempting and completing the challenge, with 0 points awarded if a challenge cant be attempted due to injury, sickness, etc). The only negative points will be if you simply do not report any involvement in the challenge. Please try to check the official weekly thread on wednesday morning for the challenge. We often do challenges that last the entire week and its hard to do a 7 day challenge when you check it on day 3

7) Bonus points are accumulated for being biggest loser of each team, being the team with the highest weekly weight loss, and for completing challenges. We will keep track of points throughout the season and they can be used to for some of the raffle prizes at the end of the season or just for bragging rights!

8) Scoring system - I will have a main spreadsheet where I and the coaches record everything Each week, your coach will send me your team report looking something like this:
name weight challenge
Aprilstar480 150 completed
Jordannalana 123 attempted
mcdebbie 252 exempt (out of town)
soccerella DNR DNR (Did not report)

The challenges are scored on a scale of -1 to 2.
- 1 is when someone doesnt report at all or just didnt attempt it because they didnt feel like it
0 if you let your coach know you cant do it for whatever reason (out of town, injury, etc - I didnt feel like it doesnt count and would be a minus 1!)
If they tried to but coudlnt do it all then they get 1 point,and if they finished it completely they will get 2 points.

weighing in on time gets you 1 point
If your whole team weighed in on time you get 1 bonus point
If the team challenge total is above a 5 you get 1 bonus point ( ie three people completed it and one was injured is a total of 6 points, so everyone would get 1 bonus point)

3 points for being your teams biggest loser in a given week

5 points for being the biggest loser overall in a given week

You dont need to keep track of points, I'll do that for you, just wanted to let you know how we do some of the scoring.


9) No cheating! If you forget to weigh yourself before you went to work on tuesday morning, dont lie and say you lost 2 pounds once you log in on the computer at work. If you tried to complete a temptation challenge, but slipped up and had a piece of cake, dont tell us you did it with no problem. Everyone slips up every now and they and in the long run, the only person you're hurting is you. Side note - The coaches and I arent stupid either. The first year we had a recipe posting thread and people claimed they participated in the challenge, yet didnt post. Um, we can check that haha. This goes for coaches too. I need you all to be like Jillian! If someone on your team doesnt respond to your request for updates, then dont just fill in that they did it. Its not fair to everyone who is trying their best

10) Rudeness will not be tolerated - towards me, the other coaches, other teams or members. No derogatory remarks or personal attacks. You will be removed from the group. As I've said, this is alot of work and I do have a fulltime job and other things going on. I try to be on here and keep things updated as much as I can. Occasionally I or another coach makes a mistake though. Name calling and cursing will not get me to fix it. If you see I messed up, a PM or post in the thread is fine, but there is no need to become hostile and rude

Lastly and most importantly - motivate your team and other BL15 members and most importantly, stick with it and have fun!