The Daily Gain

How Many of My Top 10 New Year's Resolutions Involve Weightlosswars? Hint it's not all 10!

Posted by petemaughan on December 29, 2011

Let's face it, New Year's reminds us of 2 things...last year and the coming year. It's important to look into the future, coming year. Ponder on things that you need to change and also to commit to following through with your resolutions.

So read on and consider for yourself how many of my Top 10 New Year's Resolutions you think should involve Weightlosswars? Hint it's not all 10!

1. Spend More Quality Time with Family and Friends

Polls and surveys conducted by major polling groups such as Gallup conclude that 50% of people in America vow that their loved ones, but also their friends deserve a larger portion of their time. Family first! Remember that at the end of your life, the relationships with family are some of the only things that transcend the grave. Set up plans to regularly spend quality time with family, get active with friends, and remember that it is simply unheard of for someone to say on their deathbed that they wish they'd spent more time working on that project at the office!

2. Getting in Shape with Fitness

The masses have spoken and have named fitness a reigning silver medalist of New Year's resolutions. Physical exercise brings better health than just about anything besides a healthy diet. Research shows that exercising dramatically lowers the chances for contracting certain cancers, extends your life, gives you an upper hand on resolution #3...wait for it...wait for it..., gets you in a better mood, decreases your blood pressure, improves your chances for arthritis (or improves your arthritis symptoms if you already have it.) Plus it makes you look good, eh! Get started today, get in shape and get yourself ready for a 5K or something fun like that!

3. Yes--Ditch the Belly! (or whatever else part of your body is perniciously clinging to extra fat!)

More than two thirds of Americans are fall into the category of obese or overweight. For that reason, losing weight is commonly a number one resolution for millions. Getting motivating, getting a plan, getting a group, and setting realistic expectations and goals are great factors to sticking to your weight loss regimen. Obviously I'll let you think about the importance of weightlosswars in this new year's weight loss resolution!

4. Stop Smoking
If you've ever had to quick smoking...you'll know that resolving to quit for good and use this year to stamp out smoking, you'll also know that many people say that they felt the same way right before they finally kicked it for good. Tried to stop before and didn't succeed, don't get down on yourself, get down to business. Most smokers try four to five attempts before they ditch smoking for good. Enjoy your life! And look out for the variety of cost-free support programs and services, from hot-lines to smoking cessation courses that are all designed to assist you in kicking smoking for good!

5. Enjoy Life To the Fullest

With stressful lifestyles, it's no surprise that "enjoying life to the fullest" is a popular new year's resolution for many Americans. Consider getting out, trying something new, taking up new hobbies you've always wanted to try. Ever had a pedicure? Give that a shot at a local spa--But for that one you'll probably want to use that as an incentive for one of your other resolutions! ;-) There are recreational opportunities all around so get out and have some fun!

6. Stop Drinking

Okay so we do all know that New Year's is famous for drinking but it's ironic because it's a hugely common New Year's resolution to kick alcohol. Heck, I'm Mormon and as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I don't drink and incidentally haven't ever, but I do realize that it is just not easy to stop! I've helped many people quick drinking but for those hardcore drinkers, it appears that stopping all at once is simply not realistic unless you've got a strong support system and a firm resolution. If you wanna stop, realize that there's support for you. A simple Google search will get you plenty of resources for your area.

7. Ditch the Debt Ball and Chain

Has low finances been your biggest stress over this past year? Join the club. Tens of millions of people in the US have committed in New Year's resolutions to make more money, spend less money, or better yet, do a combination of both. Look, you've just got to know that people can be happy on any income. The most important part about the income is that you spend less of it than you bring in. Do that, and you'll find yourself finally heading in the right direction. Gotta admit I'm a fan of Dave Ramsey, so check out his stuff if you want to really blow your debt away the hard but fulfilling way!

8. Pick Up Some New Knowledge

This resolution can come in the form of a career switch, learning a foreign language, or even something fun like how to clean out the drain without calling a plumber! Just kidding, but really I actually was thrilled recently when I figured out how to undo one of those drains in the bath tub! ;-) Whether you're enrolling in a class, just reading a book on something important, reading the Bible for the first time, or whatever, you'll discover that education is one of the best and also one of the easiest New Year's resolutions because it's the kind of thing that if you pick the right thing it will become infectious.

9. Help and Serve Others

Why is this one on the bottom of the list? Not because it's less important. Being selfish should be the top of the list and in fact, I believe it helps you with all your New Year's commitments. Volunteering can come in many forms. You can start with your own family! Then keep expanding your care, love, and concern for others as you expand your circle to things like Big Brother Big Sister where you can mentor kids, or of course the big flashy stuff like building someone a house. And remember that you may be able to use specific talents for nonprofits that specialize in your area of expertise like dentistry. Nonprofit organizations can really use you to help people who are in need of your unique abilities.

10. Get Yourself Organized

It seems like every list of resolutions for the New Year have something about organization in the top ten. But getting organized can really be something that is very attainable. It's something that will make you feel so much more at peace and relaxed in your own home :-). Of course your office will be much easier to work in if you can find the stapler, too, LOL!

Orangutans Research Sheds Light on Human Obesity

Posted by jeffsmith on December 15, 2011

In times of plenty, orangutans found on Borneo (an island in Indonesia) feast on forest fruits, quickly putting on extra weight in advance of future, potentially scantier years, at which times they proceed to live only off as little as leaves, bark and you guessed it—their stored body fat.

The behavior resulting in overeating for a time has been found to be a common occurrence in humans of course, but until now has been rarely found in nonhuman primates such as monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees. However, it has been highly sought after and the study may offer clues into obesity as well as eating disorders among humans, said U.S. researchers this week.

"Orangutans [are fascinating] models for [researching adult obesity in people in that they appear to be the only nonhuman species of primates such as apes who store fat deposits.]” remarked Erin Vogel, who is an evolutionary anthropologist at Rutgers University, her study was published in the journal entitled Biology Letters.

"It [has never] been [previously documented,]" Vogel told reporters on a phone interview.

Vogel along with colleagues have researched and analyzed urine from orangutans in Borneo over five years.

"Orangutans [who inhabit this barren landscape have been shown to utilize this time of plentiful fruit in which] 80% of [tree fruits are in season,]" she said.

"They [consume and consume and consume] and they [become] fat," Vogel said.

Afterwards the orangutans go on a forced light diet during periods when fruit production is at extremely low levels. These times of famine last as long as 8 years!

The research finds that as food became scarcer, orangutans turned to bark and leaves and utilized fat stores to tide themselves over. The research team noticed during these periods significant differences in the orangutans urine.

1st, ketones showed up, which exhibited signs that orangutan bodies were metabolizing fat storages. "[This shows that the apes] are [utilizing these fat storages bodily processes,]" Vogel stated.

Following that came increased nitrogen isotope levels. This was indication that the body’s muscles were breaking down on the cellular level to extract protein energy.

And it is no surprise said Vogel, because “[the animals must obtain their energy from some source,] so they [begin digesting] body tissue, [similar to situations in which humans find themselves impoverished,] or in [cases of eating disorders like anorexia, in which humans’ bodies are put under stress conditions as well and begin to] digest [muscle tissue.]

Research teams followed orangutans around and essentially shadowed them from dawn till dusk.
"[When the orangutans wake, they urinate as a rule,]" Vogel said.

Research teams waited under tree canopy and collected urine samples with plastic sheets and inverted umbrellas which they hoisted over head. This essentially served as collection device doubling as protection for the researchers from urine showering directly on them!

Vogel remarked that the research shows that orangutans clearly have used their capability for fat storage in order to swell survival chances; however this same capability in most humans amounts essentially to a surplus because humans do not forage for food.

"[Humans essentially have this potentially life-saving capability for fat storage,] and now most of us wish we didn't!" she stated.

Additional research studies are slated by Vogel to look into fluctuations in consumption and hormones related to hunger such as ghrelin & leptin. These hormones are used in time periods in which food is either scarce (ghrelin) or plentiful (leptin.) These are coupled with inflammatory cell chemicals used in signaling called cytokines, which are also believed to take a role in human obesity.

Because orangutans are on the endangered species list, this ability to store and use fat at later times are important self-preservation. 50,000 orangutans are found in Borneo along with 7,300 in Sumatra. These are the only two locations where orangutans are still found out of captivity.

Academic Research for Weight Loss Competitions

Posted by petermaughan on December 09, 2011

Academic Research

Weightlosswars was founded on the principles of weight loss motivation and recent research has continued to confirm the effectiveness of the methods. Recently, University of Pennsylvania as well as Harvard University performed related studies.

University of Pennsylvania professor, Dr. Kevin Volpp concluded that participants who received financial incentives for weight loss were far more successful than those who did not receive these financial incentives.

Over a 16 week period, the participants of the experimental group dropped an 13.1-14 lbs on average as opposed to approximately 4 lbs for participants in the control group.

This conclusion shows the remarkable nature of financial incentive for weight loss. Additional studies on “diet bets," "Biggest Loser Challenges" and "Losing weight for money" have led to some municipalities, states, and corporations and nonprofits to introduce financial incentives to encourage their people to lose weight. This method for weight loss has led to a groundswell movement and has resulted in dramatic increases in the number of members on weightlosswars.com

Harvard Medical School professors, Doctors Nicholas Christakis & James Fowler concluded that participants in a weight loss regimen were more likely to lose weight with buddies as opposed to losing weight alone. They specifically found that gaining weight and obesity spreads in a viral manner throughout one’s friend, family, and entire social network, similar to contagious diseases. Gaining weight appears to affect one's friends’ weight gain as well. The Drs. also concluded that these effects were ran both forward and backwards. Weight loss can be contagious among a social network much like weight gain. They found that although it's not automatic, it’s possible to introduce patterns and epidemics of healthy living in a work environment, friend group, or family. They essentially touched on social network weight loss.

Positive pressure from friends, family, and coworkers has been successfully applied in different areas of health as well. Even such things as electricity and water usage are affected. Reduction of energy consumption in homes, governments, companies and schools. Certain municipalities and state governments have successfully reduced electricity consumption and customer electric bills are increasingly now showing how the customer is conserving relative to neighbors and other citizens. This has effectively turned it into a game to be the efficient house in the col de sac. "People don't realize how strongly the enticement of peer pressure is acting on them," Pete Maughan, a health and wellness professional at University of Texas at Arlington told the Associated Press. "A subtle cue can result in major changes in behavior. And overt cues such as a well-defined weight loss challenge can have strong effects for positive healthy living."

Here at weightlosswars, we have continued to apply and improve our environment of weight loss competitions by applying research by Dr. Kevin Volpp. His conclusions that monetary incentives for weight loss may significantly increase a person's feelings and actions regarding weight loss are being combined with the studies out of Purdue, Harvard, University of Texas at Arlington that that a person's peers affect behavior.

At Weightlosswars, we are thrilled with the amount of weight that our members have lost and find it truly fulfilling that members are dropping weight. We love seeing our members enjoy good company, bond with their family/friends/coworkers, and maintain a lasting post-challenge resolve to keep the weight off and continue healthy habits that were sparked here on weightlosswars.com.

If you participate in a weight loss challenge here on weight loss wars or anywhere else, we welcome your comments about how this has happened for you. We’re continuing to develop case studies that can be used to help others to lose weight in a fun, challenging, supportive peer environment. We welcome any contributions that you feel you could provide to the cause. Contact us with your experiences or research by emailing us below.

Weight Loss Wars LLC
Pete Maughan
Phone: (801) 228-0201
pete@weightlosswars.com
www.weightlosswars.com

Is 'Diet' a Four-letter Word? D*#$!

Posted by viviansumpter on December 06, 2011

Does “Diet” really strike us a 4-letter word? D#@*! Well according to a large number of pundits, when the letters spelled “diet” are pointed toward vulnerable and impressionable young minds in the way it’s used in a controversial new book for children titled “Maggie Goes on a Diet.” But not all the experts in the realm of childhood obesity feel the same about this issue. Some of these experts believe it is urgently important to deal with this issue that this out roar over the word’s use is ill advised.

Here’s a breakdown of “Maggie Goes on a Diet,” fourteen year old Maggie is overweight and to tackle the lack self-worth that accompanies her issue, Maggie begins a diet and as a result goes through a dramatic change from being heavy and insecure to being the teen soccer star of her school. Through diet and exercise and dedication, Maggie develops new found confidence that builds and grows overtime and helps her become the person she didn’t even know she wanted to become.

This divisive children’s story has been met swift and massive rage from parents, teachers, and children’s experts who claim the book has the potential to hinder children’s self-esteem, introduce ideas about unsafe eating habits and lead to children developing dangerous and pernicious neuroses such as anorexia, bulimia, and more. Pete Maughan, an expert on obesity among children states, “It’s easy for armchair critics to make these kind of statements about the book. Unfortunately, sometimes a courageous author comes to the scene and discusses a sensitive topic with children in a way that has great potential, and a healthy message, but because we as adults have become so careful not to harm children, we’ve gone to the opposite extreme and are unwilling to share literature with children that may lead to a healthy conversation about healthy body weight and self-image.”

“Basically, the general public becomes incensed as a result of the book’s title alone, ‘diet’ and how it is clearly taking as audience young girls” says Pete Maughan, MD. He holds belief that this topic frames a message that really needs to be addressed. Maggie’s experience in the book is chalk full of positive information and positive responses to a serious issue. These critics simply dismiss the book as outrageous because the operative word pinpointing her issue, i.e. the infamous four letter word, is shrouded in negative context and other negative controversy because of how some women and girls have negatively approached their own weight loss in negative ways.

“It is absolutely vital that parents learn how they can convey healthy and positive lifestyles to their families. Maggie Goes on a Diet is a step in the right direction as it opens up parents and others to the idea that they need not attach only stigma to this word…We can all get past the fact that dieting does not only mean excessive gaunt and stick-like figures among the anorexic that the word ‘diet’ can conjure up. Diet boils down to referring to what we eat. Just think about the word when you say ‘healthy diet and exercise,’ see what’s so wrong about that?”

Show your children by example and start a biggest loser competition today on weightlosswars.

Biggest Loser Competition Rules - Some Suggestions for a Good Competition

Posted by jeffsmith on December 02, 2011

Want a handful of rules that have been helpful for many of the thousands of successful weight loss wars challenges?

Here is a handy handful of biggest loser competition rules for you to consider. And if you want to get started with your own biggest loser challenge here on the site for the dirt cheap $10 that it takes to create the competition, here you go, too, click here: Start a Competition & Apply some Biggest Loser Competition Rules right now!

Weight loss challenges are not just a popular TV series about weight loss, they're a real movement that your office, family, or friend group can tap into. Here on weightlosswars.com we were founded in January of 2004--a full 9 months previous to when the biggest loser show went live in October of 2004.

So now with the perpetual new year looming once again right up ahead. Why not hit up your HR department to start your own office challenge. Or heck, if you ARE human resources. You might be looking for some guidance to run one. So here on weightlosswars.com, we've automated the entire process so you can be up & running in a matter of a few minutes.

Then once it's up, you'll be able to manage it all from within weightlosswars as well. Which brings us to the administration and the rules part.

Okay so let's get down to the skinny: If you want to run a challenge with with coworkers or friends or family, here are some some universal rules for running a weight loss challenge that you can pick and choose from:

1. Consider Requiring the competitors to pick a scale and weigh in on the same one throughout the whole contest.

2. For fairness, you can choose to use weight loss as a percentage. Of course you'll want to note that you won't have to worry about doing these calculations because weightlosswars does these calculations for you and each competitor in the stats section. It's as simple as each contestant entering their weight on their own profile. This information is kept private and they can choose to show it off to the world.

3. Pick a fun competition name! If doing a team based challenge, let the teams create creative names that describe themselves in a fun way. Remember that on weightlosswars.com each competitor can also choose their own creative and unique username if they want to add to the fun.

4. Set starting dates that are far enough out that you'll be able to get the word out to enough people. But don't set the date so far out that people lose interested. Many of them will be itching to get started losing weight once they get the idea of the biggest loser competition in their head!

5. Pick a length of time that gives competitors enough time to lose weight. The most typical weight loss competition length is 12 weeks. This is also a standard length for many weight loss programs such that people will be able to make some real progress. Some will want a longer competition in order to lose more consistently over time. So you can balance the desires and goals of your people. The longer the competition, the less motivated people become over time, so you'll want to keep in mind that you'll need good ways to keep people motivated.

6. Sending invitations can be a fun part of the competition itself because of weightlosswars' proprietary "Smack-talk" invitation engine.

7. Consider setting a cash prize pot that will turn some heads. For the most committed participants, require everyone thrown a specific dollar amount into a pot such as $10, $20, $50 or even $100 or more. Weight loss wars can keep track of this amount so that people will see what the amount of money they could win by being the biggest loser.

8. Consider weekly prizes to keep people involved even if they don't feel like they're going to be the ultimate biggest loser in the competition. If you're doing an office competition, consider having the company match that amount or handle weekly prizes that will give good buzz and excitement. Many companies give away iphones, ipads, gym memberships, bikes, and vacations as weekly and final prizes.

9. Consider that you can set up your competition to be an individual or a team based challenge. The team challenges bring more group participation and motivation, and they're super simple to organize on weightlosswars. All you need is for people to self-organize into teams of specific amounts of participants. For example, you might allow coworkers to create teams of between 3 and 5 members. You might consider having offices team up against other offices.

9. Remember to HAVE FUN, Eat healthier (or how about just eating less), and put in some good time exercising.

10. Specify a weigh-in day of the week each week or a period of days. For example, if you wanted to allow competitors to weigh in on any day of the weekend or any day between Friday night at midnight and Monday night at midnight, that would allow people to choose the best time for their optimal weight. They won't want to weigh in when they're feeling "heavy!" So if they have a couple days, they can get ready.

11. You can also make a decision as to whether you want to prepay the $10 entry fee for each participant in the contest (i.e. for all company employees). Or on the contrary you may want to consider letting each contestant put more skin into the game by paying the $10 entry fee themselves.

12. It's a good idea to allow people to join the competition "late" after the official start date when the body weights will start registering weight loss percentage. If you let them join anytime up to within the first few weeks, they may need play catch up to drop as many pounds as their counterparts who started earlier, but they can do it! Many people will want to join in when hearing about it and it's good to let them join late.

13. You may want to think about splitting the prize pot if you're doing one. There are many creative ways that prize pots have been split, such as 100% to the biggest loser. Or 70% to 1st place loser, 30% to the 2nd place loser, etc. Or you could consider donating 50% of the prize pot to a charity of the biggest loser's choice and the 50% goes to the biggest loser them self. Other competitions award everyone who loses weight at all. Still others require competitors to reach a base percent loss, such as 5% and if they reach this amount, they share in the "big pot" to the exclusion of those who don't reach this minimum goal. You get the picture that you can get creative here.

14. Consider making weekly weigh-ins requires, but allowing a few misses so contestants aren't inclined to give up after just missing one weigh-in. It's been proven that competitors who weigh in regularly, (at least weekly) lose significant amounts more and also are more likely to keep it off!

15. Develop a culture where people are free to trash talk, and can lay it on nice and heavy with those who they have a good relationship with, But also make sure that there is lots of support and encouragement going around as well. It is found that talking smack can add to the fun, competitive nature of the competitions. And it has been shown to spark weight loss as people get fired up.

16. Consider requiring competitors to write a nice, positive comment on the competition wall once per day, or once per week. This encourages people to watch for the wins and successes amount their fellow competitors and also gives them a chance to razz a friend for having lost the lead that week!

17. Members of the competition will find a fun and strange sense of accomplishment as they lose even just half of a pound. This is further magnified as they can view their own personal weight loss graph and as they can view their percentage lost on the competition leader-board. Here they'll be able to compare their own loss percentage to their competitors in real time!

18. Consider having the contestants write a journal entry about how they're doing and how they're feeling. If they choose, they can publish this publicly, or they can keep it private. Either way there are 10's of thousands of stories that you can read on weight loss wars from others who have published their stories in the adventures in health section of the site. Read, get involved, get inspired, relate with others' struggles, and learn how others have overcome their weight loss woes on weightlosswars.

Calorie Counting Tips

Posted by petermaughan on November 30, 2011

First, Let's Start with: What is a Calorie?

A calorie is a unit of energy that your chemistry professor would call a Kilo-Calorie. It's the amount of energy to raise 1000 grams of water 1 degree Celsius.

In these scientific terms, it may have to do with raising the temp of water, but in nutritional terms, a calorie really means the amount of energy in a specific amount of food which could be in the form of a carbohydrate, a protein or fat.

Technically, the unit we call calories in nutrition is actually kilocalories, so a single calorie is technically 1/1000'th of the amount of kilo-calories on the food labels. So go tell your friends that the yogurt they're eating contains 8,000 calories and I'm sure you'll get a good laugh, but then you'll have to explain it to them, too!

For convenience, food labels doesn't state ‘kilocalories’ but instead they simply write ‘Calories’ with a capitalized “C” in front which represents ‘Kilocalories.’

Counting Calories for Weight Loss

The principle behind losing weight by counting Calories is pretty simple but that doesn't make it easy. Just think Calorie intake versus Calorie output. If you eat more Calories than you burn during the same period of time, then your body has to find somewhere to store the excess calories unless it is going to send them out.

So what does your body do with extra Calories? You guessed it, your body will store these for later use. Some of teh storage forms include sugars for immediate use, proteins for use in the body functions, and the body also stores the excess as fat as we're all well aware of. That’s how we put on pounds if we aren't mindful of the Calories in-Calories out concept.

On the other hand, you drop the pounds you've added through excess Calories by burning the stored fat. You do this by burning more Calories during a period of time than you ate.

So losing weight really boils down to burning more Calories worth of exercise and activities in a day than you ate in Calories that day.

So to start you'll need to know how many Calories you're burning in a day. You can do this by visiting our weight loss calculators.

As you settle on a number for your daily Calorie needs, you'll consider your age, sex, weight, height and also the amount and level of activity that you participate in. These factors all go into consideration in arriving at an accurate figure.

Of course you would also want your Body Mass Index (BMI) to be within 19 & 25 because that is the healthy zone for most people (excluding people like body builders or people with high amounts of muscle). Anything above that range puts you into the overweight category and anything below that could also suggest that you're underweight.

Okay so that said, a single pound of fat on your body typically takes about 3,500 calories to burn off. So if you want to lose 10 pounds of body weight, you'll consider burning a total of 35,000 Calories. But don't worry, when you start looking at how many Calories you're consuming, you'll be happy to find that you'll be able to cut this amount out of your diet.

So next then, how can you achieve this? Well that just depends on how quickly you wanna lose the pounds! As an example, if you cut back 350 Calories per day from what you were consuming previously, you'll drop one pound of weight in 10 days. (350 X 10 = 3,500.)

…But if you wanna lose more than one pound of body fat in 10 days, then you could consider eating 700 Calories less per day i.e 700 X 10 = 7,000 Calories. This would take it down to 2 pounds in 10 days. And I know this may sound like it's too slow for what you want, but you will really start seeing results from doing this on a consistent basis.

How do you Count Calories in Food?

Essentially, to successfully use Calorie restriction and "count Calories", you'll need to have a good idea of how many Calories are in your food that you're eating on a regular basis as well as any food you consume at special occasions.

Here's a basic outline:

Carbohydrate – 4 Calories/gram
Protein – 4 Calories/gram
Fat – 9 Calories/gram

But you really don't need to look at this as much if you focus on the total Calories in your serving. A the same time you'll begin to realize that some foods pack a lot more in Calories than others of course... i.e. sweets, junk foods, etc.

Fat holds twice as many Calories as carbohydrate and protein. So foods high in fat will add up quickly.

But there is theory and way of approaching weight loss that doesn't buy into the fact that avoiding fat will get you the weight loss you want. But we won't get into that. We'll just focus on the fact that if you restrict your Calories through discipline, you'll get the results.

Using your food labels and the internet or a handy app for your phone, you'll be able to easily sum up how many Calories are in your food. Fiber gets a lot of attention because fiber content in food really doesn't count towards Calories because it isn't digested. On the contrary, it's healthy for your digestive track and helps your overall health in that manner. But make sure you understand that you'll be more regular if you start adding a bunch of fiber to your diet.

Here on Weight Loss Wars you can track your Calories through your stats section. Right alongside your body weight, you'll instantly see the correlation between reducing Calories and your body weight going down as well. Add to that the element of weight loss competition at work and you'll have the great ingredients for weight loss success.

As an example, if you wanted to go crazy and really start to understand Calories in your food that come from fat, protein, and carbohydrates. You could look at your nutrition label and see 20 grams fat, 10 grams protein and 30 grams carbohydrate. Just multiply each gram of fat by the number 9, each gram of protein by the number 4 and each gram of carbohydrate by the number 4. Then add them up to get the total Calorie content in your food.

So in that example, it would be approximately 180 + 40 + 120 totally 340 Calories for that food.

There are lots of online calorie counting apps and programs that remove the headache of counting your Calories. Most of these will easily handle Calories in Vs Calories out and will take into account your level of physical activity. Just faithfully do what Weight Loss Wars' Calorie App tells you to do and enjoy the results – a new lighter you.

Some of the Latest Weight Loss Success Stories on Weightlosswars

Posted by viviansumpter on November 29, 2011

"Being part of a Team on weightlosswars has been the most amazing and supportive experience I've had in ages. But possibly even more important was that it finally made something that I have dreaded become something I am excited to participate in! I had been unable to motivate myself on a weight loss program, and weightlosswars was the perfect spark that launched me into a competition and into losing weight. I feel much better about myself now because I have stuck with it. Weight loss wars has several things that I have used to increase my accountability factor. For example, I have requested my trainer at the gym to be a motivator for me in which she gets reminders to check up on me. That was extremely helpful, but also the daily support from other team members in the weight loss challenge I've been participating in have been completely invaluable. We were doing it together, (we were losing together and not gaining alone as weightlosswars' slogan says!) not alone—and it WORKED FOR ME FINALLY! Thank you for this wonderful weight loss competition AND support site!"
— Erica L. J.
Springville, Utah

"Just like so many...I've been "meaning" to lose weight for many many years but I just got in the habit of eating too casually. I ate essentially whatever I wanted because that now that I'm a grown up, I no longer have parents holding me back. Because of this my weight has really crept up. So when the chance to join a Weight Loss Team in a weight loss team challenge on weightlosswars came up, something made me respond deep in the recesses of my mind- I'm so incredibly glad I did. The great thing about weightlosswars has been that I don't wanna spend an hour per week going to meetings because I'd rather spend the hours working out or spending time doing outdoor activities with my family). At the same time, I realize that one of my major issues that has held me back from weight loss success in the past is real accountability. I've discovered that with Weight Loss Wars I get both moral support because every single last ounce lost is excitedly celebrated. But also the struggles on the rough days bring encouragement from team mates, pats on the back, and hugs. There's constantly this support group available in my weight loss challenge. Reporting daily calorie logs, weekly weigh ins (and sometimes I weigh in even every day because I'm so happy and excited to be sticking with my plan) has been invaluable and inspiring to help me keep on track. I'm going on 21 consecutive weeks losing weight!!! Can you believe it?! That is almost 6 months of this and I almost want to say that I'm just getting started. This is a first for me and in the first weight challenge I lost 21 pounds! As well as since then I've lost an additional 33 lbs and I'm on my way to where I wanna be... in fact I'm so happy that I'm only a dozen pounds from my goal weight!"
— Sarah P.
Sacramento, CA

"I was looking for biggest loser challenge ideas because hitting the trail and restricting my calories to lose weight has been such a long, painful, and tedious thing for me in the past that I have given up each time. But my Weight Loss Wars competition and the weight loss competition aspect have been great motivators this time around. When you're alone in the weight loss monotony it is just too easy to sneak in an extra soda or snack. But when you've got a team to report to and the outcome of the team's weekly effort could be determined largely by you, you think twice about finishing the snack or even reaching for it in the first place. Where I have felt low in the past and have been ready to quit, the Team support has been able to pick me up and keep me going."
— Peter C.
White Plains, New York

"Woo Hoo! Finally something that hits at the nerve that gets me going! This is working people! I'd attempted just about every weight loss plan out there it seems and nothing seemed to motivate me to finally drop the weight like weight wars has. I thrive with the daily accountability that my particular weight loss competition has required of me. I noticed that some of the weight loss competitions require weekly weigh-ins and that is great (and I almost wish that I was in one of those competitions some days but I've really enjoyed the daily requirements in this challenge.) And having a team group that have really gotten to know me in my little particular weaknesses as well as my small and large success milestones has been a secret formula. Thanks to my fellow weight loss competitors, I'm now 82 pounds lighter!"
— Jennifer T.
Chicago, IL

"I really just needed an outlet for being myself but also being accountable to a group who cares about my success. I've tried weight watchers, but you have to pay monthly just to be involved. Here on weightlosswars I've been given the support to lose this weight from my fellow competitors and also my team mates. I find myself making better choices about what I'm eating because I know I'm gonna have to tell my team members what I ate today."
Anonymous
Dallas, TX

"I just wanted to thank weightlosswars for helping me participate in a weight loss competition. They have been the best for me at helping me lose weight. They helped me set up my little weightlosswars profile at the beginning, helped me reset my password, and even more importantly, they have helped keep me focusing on the weight loss challenge instead of having to weigh in at work like I had to do in the last biggest loser challenge at work I participated in at my company. The people I'm competing with this time in our company team weight loss contest have been communicating on the competition "wall" and they have been the ones who understand me and what I'm facing as I try to get my scale to stop sticking! lol. The challenge has been fun, I've only lost 11 pounds, but that is truly the most weight I have dropped in over 12 years so I'll take it! This competition has been a really great help and motivator."
— Justin C.
Lindenhurst, Illinois

If you have a success story on weightlosswars, please tell us about it so we can share it with the world!

Weight Loss Motivation to Overcome Emotional Eating

Posted by viviansumpter on November 25, 2011

Weight-loss Motivation to Get Control of Emotional Eating

Discover how you can get motivation to curb emotional eating. Avoid sabotaging your weight loss progress and get tips to take back control of your consumption habits.

By Vivian Sumpter

Sometimes the most powerful cravings for food occur when you're right at your weakest point mentally and emotionally. Maybe you turn to food for comfort when you're faced with a difficult problem, stress or boredom. This can happen both consciously or subconsciously.

Of course emotional eating will sabotage your weight-loss efforts if you don't take steps to overcome it. Emotional munching often also progresses to eating far more than you need, and unfortunately this is typically too much of fatty, sweet, or just plain high-cal foods. But don't worry, there is also help to overcome this kind of emotional eating, because if you take the right measures to regain hold of your food habits, you can get back on the train with your healthy weight goals.

Relationship between mood, food and weight loss motivation

At its heart, emotional eating means that you eat as a way to forget bad emotions like stress, fear, or loneliness. Traumatic events in our lives can trigger bad emotions that lead to emotional eating. And even everyday mundane events can disrupt your weight-loss efforts. These trigger events can include:

-The passing of a loved one
-Dissatisfaction with employment
-Inability to find a job
-Excessive debt
-Boredom
-Lack of spare time

Even though some actually consume less when faced with poignant emotions, some turn instead to bingeing. You could quickly consume whatever's close, without even having a chance to enjoy it. In fact, your feelings may have become so connected to your eating that you instinctively grab food or drink to calm yourself.

Food also gives some people the desired distraction when they're worried about upcoming life events like marriage or also when they're stressing about a looming conflict.

Whatever feelings move you to overeating, the final result is too often the same sad outcome in which the feelings eventually come back, and you're left now bearing not only the original pain, sadness, and stress, but also the new added load of guilt from setting back your goals for health. For many people it leads to a horribly unhealthy devil's circle in which emotions spark overeating, you get down on yourself for gaining weight instead of losing it, which leads you to feel even worse, and you turn to overeating once again. The cycle continues.

Tips to Motivate You Back to the Path

Although strong negative feelings can spark emotional eating, you can take preventative measures to keep yourself from falling into these emotional eating traps. Try these:

-Control and temper your stress. If stress gives way to emotional eating, try a trick to manage your stress, like yoga, prayer, or diversion with positive activities like a good jog.

-Have a food reality check. Ask yourself: Is my hunger really based on my body wanting food to function or is it just emotional? For example if you just just ate but your stomach is rumbling, you're probably not hungry physically, so try ignoring it just long enough with a diversion for it to go away.

-Keep a food journal. Track what you eat, how much of it (in calories and portions), and how you feel when you eat as well as how hungry you feel. This way you can find patterns in your eating that will help you conquer. You can do this right here on weight loss wars in our weight loss journal section in which you share your successes, struggles and stories. You can choose to keep these private or make them public.

-Get motivation and support for weight loss. Get involved in a weight loss challenge here on weightlosswars. Find a local support group. Ask friends and family to help. Check at work to see if there is counseling available.

-Battle boredom. Instead of munching when you're not even hungry, divert yourself by taking a walk, watching a movie, playing with your cat, listening to some tunes or reading a great novel.

-Remove temptation. Don't keep all your favorite munchies within reach!

Tips for a Great Diet Competition at Work

Posted by petermaughan on November 23, 2011

The office can definitely a place where people end up putting on a few pounds. And that's no surprise, right? With all the sitting at desks, munching at your desk, December office parties, ordering lunch as a group, and don't forget the baked goodies co-workers bring in especially in December. We all know what desks to visit if you have a craving for something sweet because they have a jar of goodies sitting prominently there for you to grab. And so it goes that it's no wonder extra weight starts to creep onto our own personal scale. So that said, instead of getting bigger and bigger at our job, consider losing some weight together by starting a Biggest Loser-style challenge at your office.

To learn how read more.
There are several things to consider when you wonder how to start a biggest loser at work.

1. Choose a starting date on which everyone gets weighed that day at the office or at home. It’s important to have a start date so that you have a basemark to use in the calculations. It’s also good for buzz because people will be talking about it that day and the days leading up to it. You could consider recording the numbers on a chart that the weight loss competitor gets to hold onto. Oh, wait, NO DON’T DO THAT!!! Remember that on weight loss wars, the stats for each person competing are recorded easily, quickly, and privately online.

2. Next choose whether you’ll be requiring weekly weigh-ins or just a single grand-slam weigh-in on the final day. Now, you might be tempted to choose one single weigh-in on the final day because you don’t want all the hassle of reminding people and getting their weights, but once again, remember that on weightlosswars.com you don’t have to worry about that. Additionally, weight loss wars competitions have a feature allowing the administrator of the biggest loser at work to email everyone in the competition with just a single click.

3. Choose a final date for the end of the biggest loser competition. Make sure that the competition goes for an amount of time that gives the weight loss contestants to make real progress in chipping away at their weight, but don’t let it drag on so long that coworkers become disinterested in the challenge. Most common lengths are 2-4 months, with 12 week biggest loser at work competitions being the most common.

4. Then of course, you’ve got to figure out what the office Biggest Loser will win as far as prizes go! A couple options to consider are that everyone from the office can put $10 or $20 into a pot and the winner wins the grand prize total of the entire pot. You could also do it as a wager like everyone chips in to buy the winner a massage, a gym pass, etc. Once again, weight loss wars’ features come to the rescue by allowing you to specify and track prize pot money while retaining complete control over the prize money (because weight loss wars does not accept nor handle the actual cash involved in the competition.) For distributed workforces that are located at more than one office, you might consider using paypal to handle prize money.

5. Remember that it doesn't matter how many pounds each weight loss warrior loses — it's more about the percentage of body weight lost compared to the starting weight. You’ll find that even though it’s a competition, people will trash talk all day long, but when it comes right down to it, people will encourage each other, support, and motivate each other to eat healthier. You may also notice a significant decrease in the 3 p.m. runs to the doughnut shop! Some of the skinniest people in the office may find themselves all the sudden all alone on these convenience storeand doughnut store runs! You’ll notice the strangest things like people spontaneously assembling into groups to work out during lunch or groups of walkers taking to the sidewalks around the office on lunch breaks.
Remember that weight loss is aided immensely by a little healthy competition! This can be just what you need to help you ditch old habits and get sparked onto the path that brings you back much closer to the weight you had in high school!

Peter Maughan, a graduate of Brigham Young University, is a weight loss expert with over 7 years experience in workplace health and wellness and university settings. Recently he became certified in adult weight management. His internet presence addresses important weight loss issues such as motivation, weight management, and taking those crucial first steps that lead to success in weight loss. He is the owner of Weight Loss Wars, which is the largest weight loss competition company in the nation with over 120,000 weight loss competitors.

Get Ripped -- For all those boys who wanna go from over weight to getting ripped...

Posted by viviansumpter on October 12, 2011

Who wants to Get Ripped in 4 Weeks? My boyfriend was getting ready to do a weight loss wars competition and he came across this blog which showed him the Exact 2 Step Secret that Hollywood Actors and Ultimate Fighters Use for getting Shredded Fast!

If you're interested, check Out How my boyfriend used this Mike guy's system and Got Ripped In Less Than 30 Days… Anyone Can Do it, and it's based on a couple simple ingredients which he shares on his site...

"Forget protein shakes, forget $300 workout DVDs. Don't blow your cash on ANY of that stuff...you don't wanna have to live 24/7 in the gym, either! It all starts with RISK-FREE products that Hollywood Actors and UFC Fighters use.... and they cost my boyfriend under $5! because he used this Mike guy's site.

His name is Mike Jamieson, he's 24 years old, he looked alright before, slightly overweight, and then after he did this program he looks ripped as you can see. My boyfriend did the program, too. He is 38 and he did it so I guess you'll know it works for older guys like my man as well.

He'll get into his story and what he used on the site, you can check out how much his body changed within just a month...

Now, the nice thing is that you can start this program and get ripped and you can use it in conjunction with a weight loss competition. Using this program you can work smart and efficiently to drop pounds, add tone to your abs and look good after just 30 days of being in a competition. Then you'll be able to win a weight loss challenge along with getting ripped all at the same time!