Hello and welcome! Starting Monday 8/23, lurker and I are competing in a 'biggest loser' challenge on another forum. For those reading this who don't know, lurker is my wife of 4 years today. I don't know if she'll see this thread -- she doesn't read the dynasty forums. I'll put a link to this in my signature, but she might have signatures turned off, unless she's heard that she can selectively ignore them. Maybe she'll see the title of this thread on the main screen, but I think she has Off Topic bookmarked, so she might not even go there. Anyway, if she does read this -- hi lurker, happy anniversary!
So here's the formula used to determine the winner:
(% weight loss * 100)/(BMI @ game's start) * 1000
It's made up by a bunch of actuaries, so I figure they know what they're doing. It's also needlessly complicated -- the times 100 and times 1000 are just stupid IMO, but whatever. I guess they make the numbers larger and more fun. When this was done last year, the winner had a little under 500 points. There was a side bet that went along with the contest, everyone put in $50, and everyone with over 300 points would end up getting some of the money, depending on how far over 300 you were (the 300 goal was set before the contest started). I played last year, and participated in the side bet, and lost -- I actually gave up fairly early on. And lurker was going to participate, but she found out she was pregnant on the day of the sign-up, so she wisely decided not to.
Weigh-ins are on Monday. The elimination schedule is not set, but it'll probably be that for a few weeks there's no eliminations, then after that, the people who have lost the least, or don't report their results, will get eliminated. The contest ends either 12/13 or 12/20. The guy running the contest seems like kind of a flake, and hasn't decided that stuff yet. No American will be eliminated the Monday after U.S. Thanksgiving, and no Canadian will be eliminated the Monday after Canadian Thanksgiving. At least, that's what the guy running the contest says. Then he goes on to say no Canadian will be eliminated October 11, which is the day of Canadian Thanksgiving. That doesn't seem helpful to Canadians, who will probably weigh-in in the morning anyway. And do Canadians pig out on Thanksgiving like we do? No matter -- I'm not as concerned about the contest, the point is to have more points than lurker when the contest ends.
Now me. I weighed in at 191.8 pounds on Monday. That's probably higher than it had been recently -- the week before, I'd been eating a lot of crap, partly as a last hurrah, and partly to gain a little more weight and skew the results. However, looking at the data I kept when I weighed myself often in 2009, I was at 191.8 or more on 81 out of 168 days, so almost half the time -- so this weight isn't crazy or anything for me. Combined with my height (5'8") and this calculator
Healthy Weight: Assessing Your Weight: BMI: Adult BMI Calculator: English | DNPAO | CDC, that puts my BMI at 29.2. I know better than to put lurker's info up here, but I figure it will be okay to post her score, so y'all can know how I'm doing against her.
I'm starting by using that 300 number as a goal, and working from there. Based on my weight and BMI, it looks like I'll need to lose 16.8 pounds to get it, which puts me at a nice round 175. Seems good. I can of course adjust it based on how well I'm doing, too.
I'll also be using this thread for advice and support -- I figure I'll enter in what I've eaten, maybe count calories when I can, and what kind of workout I'm doing. I really have no idea what kind of workout I should be doing, so if anyone can help there, it would definitely be appreciated!