How do you do a weight loss challenge at work?
CircleCare
When you are on a weight-loss routine, it is challenging seeing others in your office eating whatever they like. When you see others eating all the yummy stuff like hamburgers, double cheese pizzas, ice cream, donuts, it becomes challenging to stick to your diet plan.
Losing weight is much more challenging than losing it at home or at the gym. Many people at the workplace eat anything they like, whether it’s fast food, or their favorite sweets, and ice creams. Encouraging the people at your office to join you might help you to relieve them of some temptations.
You can set up a weight loss challenge in your office to create a healthy competition. Although only one person will win, others in the challenge will also benefit and improve their health. Let us explore the best ways you can use to plan a workplace weight loss challenge.
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Set the parameters
The first step to a weight loss challenge at the workplace is to set the parameters for the challenge. You need to find a person who can collect the data from participants, such as their weight at the beginning, weekly changes, and the final weight every weekend. You can choose a honest person and is willing to spare some time to collect the data of participants.
Set the timeline
Establish a start and end date for the challenge. You can take the advice of the participants about the duration of the challenge. Usually, 8 to 12 weeks is good to see some significant improvement in the participants. Also, these periods are short enough that participants won’t lose interest and focus.
Invite the participants
You need to talk to the people in your office and invite them to the challenge. Communicate with others, how the weight loss challenge will benefit them, and improve their fitness by taking the challenge. If your office has a low employee strength such as less than 50 employees, you can talk to them personally or float an email about the challenge.
However, if the employees are more than 100, you can create and distribute flyers, drop emails, or paste a flyer in the pantry near the water dispenser.
Individual or team-based
You can conduct the weight loss challenge in two ways- Individual and team-based. Team-based programs can help you create higher incentives and also stick to the plan easily. Participating in teak makes the competition more social, as the participants will not let their teammates down. If the employees are less, you can take the individual challenge as it will be challenging creating teams.
Create the ground rules
It is better to calculate the results based on the total weight loss percentage and not with total pounds lost. Overweight people can lose weight faster than the participants with healthy weight. Therefore, you should calculate the results based on the percentage of lost weight. You can take the number of pounds lost by a participant and divide the amount by the beginning weight to calculate the percentage weight lost. Also, people appreciate it if their actual weight is not publicized.
Have a coordinator
It is best to have a coordinator to work for the weight loss challenge. He or she can help arrange the weekly meetings, weight measurements and other things. They will also be responsible for finding special locations for additional occasions as needed.
These activities can include anything such as organizing the restaurant reservations for dining on weekends and keeping track of everything for the participants.
Communication with people
As the host, you will also be the primary coordinator in charge of ongoing communications, schedules, and deliveries.
Don’t assume that just because someone agreed to complete something next Friday, they will. Some people feel uncomfortable saying “no” and may have agreed to do something they didn’t want to do. It is up to you to ensure that all assignments are completed and on time.
Weighing scales
You need to install one or two weighing scales in the office premises, depending on the number of participants taking the challenge. They can use these scales to check their weight anytime, and you can use them to take the readings weekly for the participants. If you want to place them in the washrooms, it will be best to install waterproof weighing scales as there are not affected by the splashes of water.
Some Exceptions
You should not consider the weight lost by the participants by unhealthy methods like starvation, dieting pills, and water pills. Do not consider the people who take certain weight-loss medicines or supplements to lose weight. It is best to separate the people taking medications and people doing the challenge with only food and exercise. Choose the winner from the second group of people who take natural foods and exercise as the base for losing weight without any medicines or supplements.
Conclusion
These are the steps you can follow to take the weight loss challenge at the workplace. Organizing the challenge will help you to create a good reputation and evolve as a fitness enthusiast. It can also help you achieve appreciations and appraisals in your career. Others will improve their health and fitness, which means the weight loss challenge will benefit every employee.
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