Throw away because as a woman on the internet I don’t want anything about my body or weight on my main.
My sister (30F) and mom (55F) had the idea to do a weight loss competition as a motivator to keep on the goal. They are arranging one between family and friends. Everyone who enters puts in $100 and whoever loses the most weight by June 1 wins everything.
My sister is trying to get as many people into this as she can. More people to encourage each other and more motivation from the bigger pool of money. I get that.
… But I (26F) am only 5’2 and 135 lbs. I am chubby, sure. But I don’t have *that* much weight to lose. Losing 10 lbs would be nice. Hell I could lose up to 30 lbs before starting to become underweight. But that’s *up to*. Several of the people entering this competition could lose my entire body mass and still be considered obese.
I know that’s not super likely, but my boyfriend is 330 lbs and I have seen him drop 15 lbs in a week from just water weight. How am I supposed to compete with that? Spend months stressing about calorie deficits and macros vs someone fasting for a fraction of the time? I don’t see it as fair or healthy.
My mom and sister kept poking me about it and I kept telling them no. Politely at first, but as they kept trying to persuade me by talking about getting healthy, how its important to support and encourage others and how they know I could use $1000+ (last I knew they had at least 10 people).
Eventually I had to tell them that I wasn’t going to pay $100 to enter a competition that is only fair if you’re obese. I’m already healthy enough as is, and $100 isn’t nothing to me like it is to them (that amount is pocket change for my parents, brother, and sister).
I know they’re just trying to find motivation to do something I know is hard. I’ve done it before in my teens (my mom even accused me back then of being anorexic but that’s another whole thing) and still try to be healthy.
They (mom and sister) think I am being mean/bitchy (for pointing out they’re obese), pessimistic, and overly negative. But I only told them that since they kept pushing me after I already told them no to joining.
Going by numbers isn’t actually fair. To be fair it would have to be the percentage lost. 10% of your body weight, etc…. That said, if you’re not comfortable with it, don’t do it. Cheer them on from the sidelines!
NTA for saying no!
Came here to say this. Percentage of weight lost is only way it’s fair.
Also, men tend to lose weight faster so competing in a mixed gender group would already put OP at a disadvantage.
It sounds like there are a lot of body image issues going on here, you’re definitely best off staying well clear of the whole thing.
NTA
NTA. You’re not even chubby or overweight at all. You are a normal healthy weight. There’s no reason for you to lose weight, so why would you join a competition. And yeah even if you were going to, you’re right that rules judging by total pounds lost rather than say percent of body weight are not fair. But more basically there’s just no reason for you to participate.
NTA. But why don’t you suggest they do a percentage of body weight lost or something scalable? Should be an easy sell, you can’t be the only one declining bc you understand math and they want as many as possible, right? But otherwise, oh well. It makes no sense for you, you’re basically just donating $100
Don’t loose weight as a competition. Every person has different metabolism and making a competition out of it is not healthy (nor fair). I have tried to loose weight for long, and would also love to weigh less, but in my case it has shown out that I actually have some health problems, so my body is much better suited for building strength (muscles also weigh more than fat), and I feel amazing whenever I stick to the workout. You could make a goal to work out and stick with it until June 1st. And then give yourself a pat on the back from being healthy and strong. NTA
NTA.
The competition sounds incredibly unhealthy. Losing weight as fast as possible is not a good idea. You want to change your diet in a way that’s healthy and sustainable, not hunger yourself to some lower weight and then yoyo back to the old weight or more (which almost always happens).
Your mom and sister should just keep their unhealthy diet to themselves if they want it so much.
Do it as a percentage of body weight. Totally not fair otherwise.
10lb from a starting weight of 135ib is ~7.4%
The same 10 lb is only 5.6% if your starting weight is 180lb
Your BF 15lbs of water weight is 4.5% of his 330.
Also, NTA
Even percentages are not fair. 20% of 300lb is easy peasy, 20% of 130lb is near impossible. The only fair way is to create brackets of starting weight. 120-180, 180-300, 300+ or whatever. Split the prize 3ways
It would be far more fair if they judged the winner by percentage of weight lost, not number of pounds.
So if you want to join but don’t want to be disadvantaged, you have to change the math. It shouldn’t be measured in total number of pounds dropped but in total % of body weight lost.
For example, if you lost 25 pounds you would have lost 18.5% of your original body mass. If your bf lost 50 pounds he would only have lost 15% of his original body mass. Therefore you win for most significant weight loss even though he doubled your number.
Or you do both and split the money in half. One winner is total number of pounds and one winner is most significant change. Tada!
If they want a healthy competition all of them could get like cheap fit bits and see who can rack up the most steps in a month. There are even ones that allow you to compare scores with friends. That would seem to me a fairer and healthier way to compete around improving health.
The only way this could be fair is if the weight loss is measured as a percentage of your original body weight. And even then, it’s not fair.
NTA.
Simple. Ask them how much they need to lose for their target weight. Then whatever they say, give them a number lower and tell them what your end weight would be. I.e., they say oh I wanna lose 50lbs, you say, well if I lost 40 lbs id be 95 at the end, so id be underweight AND id have spent 100 for no benefit.
Point out to them that if you lost the amount they were aiming to, it would be dangerous. Use their logic against them, with a tual numbers they cant deny. Then ask them if £1000 would be worth you ending up in hospital for malnourishment and starvation.
If they dont drop it after that, it just makes them… well, I cant say ill get banned 🤣