FBC TRAINERS
FOR FITNESS STAFF, INSTRUCTORS, PERSONAL TRAINERS & REHAB, SPORT & WELLNESS PROFESSIONALS
Transformation Challenges Do weight loss challenges really work? BY LOUISE BLAIS
A
Wrong As the facilitator of a twice yearly,
fter countless hours of exer- cise, seminars and logging dietary choices, the mo- ment of truth has finally ar- rived – measurement day.
In the beginning, 12 weeks doesn’t
seem like a long time, but after four weeks it starts to feel like eternity. And then suddenly, you have only three weeks left to lose all that weight. When measurement day finally arrives, some people approach it with confidence, some with hopeful curiosity and some just don’t show up. Regardless of what the scale or tape
measure show, one thing is certain: If people lose weight, they pat themselves on the back. If they don’t, they berate themselves for being weak. Either way, many will celebrate or
console themselves with a few cheat days. And eventually, they will likely gain back the weight. But it’s okay be- cause in another month or two, the club will offer another weight loss challenge and they will join in again. In fact, with what they’ve learned from the previous one, they will surely be more able to lose weight and win this time, right?
32 Fitness Business Canada July/August 2014
12-week weight loss challenge at an upscale, multi-purpose fitness facility, it was my job to organize, market and run the event. Over the years, I ran more than a dozen challenges. I implemented as many tools as pos-
sible to help people be successful. We included educational seminars with the latest research on nutrition, sleep, stress management and exercise in- tensity to maximize weight loss. We encouraged people to perform 300- 400 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week. We offered weekly coaching sessions, encouraged food logging, incidental physical activ- ity, mindfulness, group exercise ses- sions and mini-challenges to facilitate social support, and bi-weekly healthy cooking demonstrations. We did it all, and we did it really well.
So what could be the problem? Checking over the registration list
for an upcoming 12-week weight loss challenge, I noticed something dis- turbing. Although the challenge was open to all of our 5,000 members, at least half of 100 registered had just
completed our previous weight loss challenge and the majority of them had done the challenge before that one! This really got me thinking. If these
challenges worked (they appeared to because we celebrated some great weight losses), why were people partic- ipating repeatedly? And, interestingly, how could one person win three chal- lenges in a row? I would love to report that the re-
peat winners were extremely over- weight when they started and contin- ued to lose with each challenge, but I can’t. Instead the truth is that people were losing weight, gaining it back and then losing it again in a subsequent challenge. All of a sudden, the pride we had in
helping people improve their health dissipated. Were we helping or hurt- ing them? Not content not knowing, I did
some investigating on the effective- ness of weight loss challenges in com- mercial fitness centres. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much research. So, I did what any driven, research geek would do: I applied to do a master’s degree in health science to research this exact topic.
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