I am a competitive person. It took me about 24 years to figure that out but now that I've pinpointed this characteristic in my personality, I see how obvious it has been all of the years. I remain a closet competitor. It's like that whole unspoken rule about running on a treadmill next to someone. If I'm running on a treadmill and you're next to me, you bet we're secretly racing.
That's how my 24 years of my life were spent. I may not have told people we were competing but you better believe that we were. The whole competitive streak in me is a hard pill to swallow especially because I lost almost all of these secret competitions I was having with other people lol.
Back in 2009 when TJ (my husband) and I were overweight from my pregnancy (he gained sympathy pounds lol), I read about a weight loss competition happening in our town. Even though it scared me to join a contest like this without really having actually worked out before (aside from lazily doing cardio and lifting light weights incorrectly), TJ and I attended the meeting for this competition and both ended up signing up. It was so exciting that we made the decision to lose the weight, get healthy and do it together!
Fast forward three months, TJs in the best shape of his life (he was seriously ripped!) and although my results weren't as amazing, I still lost inches, 15 lbs and gained a ton of fitness knowledge and know how. It was exhilarating to be in competition with other people and TJ and I were amazing at motivating one another to eat right and workout! We finished the competition with high hopes for competing again the next year. Unfortunately my hubby was in a car accident later that year (can't believe it's been nearly three years..) that left him paralyzed so he was not able to do the weight loss competition as a participant the next year. Since his accident, fitness and health have kind of sat on the back burner for him since its so much harder for him to get cardiovascular exercise in (he loved running when we were in that weight loss competition)! Although...I have to brag here...with my aggressive persuasion, he entered a full marathon (42.2km) handcycle divison this last September and had an amazing finishing time of 2 hours 29 minutes. I was sooo proud!
But recently we both decided that things needed to change in our household. We both have a few lbs we can stand to lose. I'm more interested in just tightening everything up and seeing the inches go down every time we do measurements.
So, being that we're both competitive people, we decided to have a friendly competition between the two of us. We sat down together mid-October and set out some guidelines for our competition which we decided would last 12 weeks.
1. One "cheat" meal per week.
2. Sundays are to be used as meal planning days for the rest of the week.
3. $1 to go into a communal jar for every pound and inch lost.
4. $1 to go into aforementioned jar for every workout completed
5. $5 to go into jar for every week of perfect nutrition (aka only one cheat meal taken)
6. Weigh-ins and measurements weekly on Wednesdays
7. Must use MyFitnessPal app for our phones to log exercise and food daily
And the "unspoken" rule that we both will follow is NO SABOTAGING! We are in this together, the addition of the competitive side of things is just because we both hating losing and it is more motivating for both of us to have someone to compete against. I'm constantly checking TJs profile on the MyFitnessPal app to see if he's logging his food while I'm at work and making sure he's on track. I want us both to succeed!
Now, the prize. We have been talking about where our next family vacation is going to be next year. We went on our first family vacation this past summer to Banff and Calgary, Alberta and it was amazing! We want to go somewhere farther and hotter next time. I, personally, am aiming for Disneyworld while TJ wants to go to the Dominican Republic. The winner of our challenge will receive the communal money jar (which, by then, will hopefully be very full!) which they will use towards their dream vacation! I'm very much looking forward to our trip to Disneyworld! ;)
We have now been doing this competition since Oct. 17, so just under a month and a half. In that month and I have, I have lost 7.2 lbs and 9.5 inches and TJ is down 5.25 inches and 7 lbs. We're giving each other a run for the money.
Speaking of money, check out our communal money jar! It's starting to get nice and full:
Would your significant other do a challenge like this with you? It's an amazing way to stay motivated and get yourselves (and your family, if you have one) healthy! The key to sticking with it is keeping your end goal in mind. I just keep thinking about how hard I'm going to cry (from happiness) when Melina sees her favorite Disney princesses in real life at Disney! But, you know what? If TJ does win, the Dominican Republic wouldn't be a terrible vacation either! It's a win-win for both of us because no matter who wins, we will have managed to save some cash to go towards an amazing vacation where we will make priceless memories! We are both very excited about this.
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