Biggest Loser competition at work

We have one at my workplace (a municipality in Canada), one in the Spring and one in the Fall, but we call ours the Biggest Winner. We all pay $10 to register, but that money goes to a local organization that helps financially challenged children and youth enroll in organized sport and leisure activities (baseball, dance, archery, whatever). This way, we help each other, and some kids who may not have been able to participate now can.

We do not have a big chart with our weights and progress being public, and because the only prize is the glory of being the winner, or a member of the winning team, it keeps away that nasty trend of people doing crazy liquid diets and potentially dangerous things to their bodies just to win. Also, having some privacy means that maybe people who may not have signed up now would.

We are lucky and have a Wellness Division and a staff member who is there to encourage and motivate and inform as he takes all the weights and body analysis - and let me tell you, it sure works. We have had some great success stories, and soon I will count myself amoung them as I have lost 54.5 pounds while doing this (started MFP after I began the weight loss thing).

Anyway, to make a long story short, if done right, having encouragement and support at work can be a positive thing. Done as a money grab glory fest, it can actually be worse than doing nothing at all.

We havent done one at work, but I have done several at my gym. I work in a small office, and everyone in the office goes to the same gym. So, we all participated in at the gym. It was great. It was done based on percentage lost. I placed 3rd in one, and won the one that finished 2 weeks ago. They are normally only last 6-8 weeks at my gym.