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Accountability.
Most weight-loss experts agree accountability is one of the most powerful motivators for weight-loss success. It’s like anything in life, when others are counting on you, you’re going to try harder. Take a ladder, for instance. If no one’s on it, and you’ve been told to stand at the bottom and hold it, you might half-heartedly put one hand on it, and surf your phone in the other. But now let’s put your kid or grand-kid on the top of that ladder. There’s no phone surfing now, is there? You’re going to hold on as tight as you can to that ladder, because that little guy is counting on you. When we take this concept and apply it to weight-loss, we get the same results. People tend to have a much stronger sense of commitment. And that’s where Biggest Loser competitions and other similar weight loss challenges come in. They’re a clever strategy to put “accountability” into play, amping up the chance for success.
James and I wrapped up our very first Big Loser competition this spring. We pitted the staff of a motorhome dealership in Canada, The Hitch House, against each other. Half were placed on my team, “Team Stef,” and the other on James’ team, “Team James.” Each week, the teams were given challenges: how many jumping jacks can you do in a week, how many steps can you accumulate on your pedometer, how long can you hold a wall sit, etc. They were also weighed weekly, and their weight loss was added up as a team score. So we’ve got accountability AND we tried to make losing weight fun. It must have worked since the teams lost over 50lbs over the 12 weeks of the competition. That’s a pretty hefty amount of weight, and we couldn’t be more proud of the hard work that went into losing those 50lbs. Great job, gang!
In the end, I’m excited to report it was Team Stef that reigned as the winner of the team challenges; way to go, Team Stef! And! We also crowned our Biggest Loser. You’ll meet Ashley in the video, and will hear her teammates talk about how nutty things got around there during the competition. Check out the video, and hear Ashley’s advice on how she was able to achieve weight-loss success.
