Setting up a weight-loss competition is a way to motivate your group to reach its goals. You can make the competition a team effort, as is the case on popular television shows like "Celebrity Fit Club" and "The Biggest Loser," or you can have each person compete individually. It is important to have a reliable way to track the progress in the competition to keep people informed and interested. Does this Spark an idea?
Preliminary Details
Decide how often you want to track the progress of each participant. Many weight loss competition coordinators prefer to gauge process at the end of every week to allow each participant ample time to make progress. Choose a specific day to do a weigh-in of each competitor, preferably on a weekend day when everyone can convene. Decide on the duration of the competition (the number of weeks). A good, solid competition will last about 12 weeks. Finally, determine if this will be a team or individual effort.
Instead of tracking pounds lost, consider tracking the percentage of body weight lost. Take the weight lost to date, divide it by the beginning weight and then multiple that by 100.
Chart
You can track your weight-loss competition using a traditional written chart. Post the chart, which can be a simple piece of construction paper, on a wall in the weigh-in room. Use a marker to list each competitor's (or team's) name on the left and then draw in horizontal and vertical lines to delineate columns and rows. List the starting weight in the first column, then fill in the remaining cells with the weight lost (or percentage of weight lost) for each person each week. Use additional sheets of construction paper when you run out of room. Create a special "totals" column after the final week, which will list the winner. Dress up the chart with stars, paint, glitter and pictures of the participants.
Excel
Set up a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel to track the weight-loss milestones for your competition. Create a column for the name of the participants, another for the initial weight, then another for each week of the competition (for example, Week of 10/17, Week Ending 10/24, Week Ending 10/31). Insert the weight for each person at each weigh-in day in the appropriate column. Add another column at the very end of the spreadsheet that calculates the total weight lost to date and highlight the winner. Email the updated sheet to everyone who is competing each week so that they can keep track of their progress and the competition.
Tags: weight lost, each person, each week, construction paper, each competitor