Contests are meant to be motivating. They motivate through competition. Consider the size of the viewing audience of shows like The Biggest Loser.
Contests always have winners–and losers. Contests can be fun, especially if you win the prize, as long as it’s the prize you wanted. And that’s where trying to lose weight in a contest can trip you up.
If you are a food addict or an emotional eater, you probably have put on some extra pounds. That happened to me, and when I was in my thirties I decided to try a popular weight loss system.
The program worked well for me. The packaged food was palatable, and all I had to do was to follow directions and check in for meetings and blood work every couple of weeks.
What I was learning about my body and metabolism was helping me understand myself more, and my food addictions seemed almost non-existent. And the pounds were coming off.
When I had lost 22 pounds, had my flat stomach back and was feeling on top of the world, my counselor reminded me of something.
One of the incentives to losing those last few pounds was that a member could win back half of their original investment if they could hit the weight goal by a certain time.
I chose a weight that was too low for me but it was a contest and I was sure that the $150 prize would be enough to make my body obey my will. Yeah………..right.
The contest did work for some, I guess. Maybe they weren’t food addicts who overate because of emotional stress. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I wasn’t able to lose those last two pounds because of the pressure I put on myself trying to win that contest, and so I didn’t get the money.
It left me with a sense of shame, and it took much away from the earlier success I felt from feeling so alive. Why could someone else do it and not me? What difference did it make anyway?
I hadn’t figured it out yet when a big blowout with my ex-husband, who frequently made me feel like a loser, sparked a two-week eating binge and that was the end of that.
I did get to enjoy my slimmer figure for a couple of months first, but that contest spoiled my success with the weight loss program.
Once I transferred my attention to the cash prize, I forgot what my goal had been–to learn how to eat so that I could reach and maintain a healthy weight and thus, enjoy my life more.
Motivation is important but when it comes to losing weight, making it a contest might put unnecessary pressure on you to go after something you don’t even really want.
Contests have time limits. Good health does not. It takes a lifetime, and every day you remain alive is another chance to live a better life in the best of health, or at least on the road to it.
Whether you are an emotional eater, a food addict, or just someone who overate too many times or got lazy and stopped being physically active, if you’ve gotten a little too fluffy lately, you might want to take off a few pounds.
The only thing you need to win is your good health. If you have that, you won’t have to worry about your weight or anything else. You will have it all. It really is true.
No contest in the world can promise–or deliver–more than that.