The "Deets"

Have you guys got it coming to yas! At least those of you who are brave enough to sign up for our Biggest Loser Blog Edition challenge! I'm so happy with those who have stepped up and are just plain sick and tired of hovering around the same numbers on the scale. Now don't be afraid - er, wait yeah BE afraid, whatever gets you where you're goin'.

IT'S HALF WAY THROUGH SEPTEMBER!!! That's pisses me off in the sense that even though my head has ALWAYS been thinking about "getting to goal" here I am no further. FRIG that people - ENOUGH! Let's get it done and over and be done with it already, right Randi??!And no more "enabling" you guys to stay in the same place either! Encouragement is necessary and picking ourselves off the floor is too, but don't make us feel like it's "okay" we didn't if there's no legitimate acceptable reason for it.

We need to re-define our level of commitment.

Food for thought: I stayed cooped up in my house with a broken hip, broken foot, soft tissue injuries, among other things, had to use a walker, raised toilet seat, bath transfer bench and extended shower head for 2 MONTHS while I weighed 240lbs. I didn't let THAT become an excuse, so unless you've got some better excuse to cop out, don't use it. If you are limited physically the way I was, then you had better be on your nutrition game 100%.

So here are the deets of the challenge:

Reporting: I need your current weights as of this Sunday (if your WI is on Sunday, this Sunday will be your start weight. If you haven't already, please email it to biggestloserblogedition@gmail.com. I know it's kind of skewed a little where WI's after that day will be official week 1 results - i.e. mine is on Monday so that will be my "Week 1 weigh-in" even though those results won't be revealed until the next Sunday). Please report your WI's to me as soon as you WI, so you don't forget and have to kick your arse for administrative reasons on top of it. On your WI day, please provide me with the number that's on the scale that day as well.

Timeline: this challenge will end Sunday, December 27, 2008 where the results will be final.
There was a lot of people in favour of keeping this challenge moving through the holidays to the end of the year and that is the last Sunday of the year.

Goals: we are all starting from different places and face different obstacles, so here's what I suggest:

• If you think that it's possible to reach your "goal weight" by Dec. 27th, then by all means set that as your ultimate goal. If you reach your goal by then, or before, you automatically "win" this challenge even though you may not have the biggest total body % lost. Obviously if this happens, there can be more than one "winner."
  
• If you have less than 5 lbs to lose and you really want to be a part of this challenge, you must put up additional stakes. By this I mean that if you acheive your goal say in the first month, then there must be a fitness goal of some sort that you want to acheive by the end of the year. For example, "I want to be able to do 20 free style chin-ups," or "I want to run 5km in less than 30 mins" etc.
  
• If you have a lot of weight to lose, your goal will be to work your hiney off to acheive as much as possible (i.e. full court press) all the way to the end (Sunday, December 27th) at which point, you're going to cry with excitement because you can lose a TON of weight in 3 months in a healthy way. That's not to say that I'm advising you to pull off crazy numbers like BL does - those people are removed from everyday life and have Jillian and Bob kicking their butts all day long, that's a little different. Slow and steady does win this race in the long run, that is a fact.

Support: I've linked all of you to the side of my blog, so I hope that you all visit each other and kick each others arses and applaud where need be. We need to do this together guys and we need to have a presence each and every day. There are a few of you who either don't have a blog or who are semi-private. I would suggest that maybe you can invite the other participants to read your blog by commenting on theirs. If you are having trouble connecting, email me and I'll get the message through. Those of you who do not have a blog, you are still allowed to participate, but it makes it pretty hard for us to check in on you and kick your butt, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to consider starting one! Already there are a few of you who have done so as a result of this challenge, so lets keep the community busy!

Prizes: there has to be a prize(s), but it's not yet determined. Any suggestions from you guys are appreciated. I think if we make a real prize out of this, it changes the stakes in your head, even if you don't want to admit it, right?

Results: I will post the results every Sunday. I am still deciding how this will best be done. I've got a spreadsheet started to track the data etc., but I may end up manually entering in the results in a weekly post. I've also considered starting an entirely new blog for this challenge, so we'll see how it works out as we go.

So that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure things will come up as we go along. Oh and Lynn is getting to work on making us a cool button graphic that we can all paste on our blogs showing that we're participating in the challenge! How fun is that! Oh and if anyone has signed up and you don't see your link under the list on the side, please let me know and I'll fix it!