I had several goals for this shorter 7-week Biggest Loser. One was to jump start their weight loss with an overall more intense program. I also wanted to give them more opportunities for group workouts. Finally, I was hoping we could increase the completion rate of the participants.
About half the group regularly participated in the extra boot camp and kickboxing classes, which was pretty good. In the past, most Biggest Losers tended to avoid boot camp.
Our completion rate improved too. While we've had lots of people finish 12 week programs, the completion rate was always around 50%. This was for a variety of reasons. We ended this particular group with right at an 80% completion rate, meaning 80% of the group were still working out regularly, including the last week.
Now, two of the finishers had some trouble getting there for the last couple weigh-ins, but I included them because they were still staying in touch and had both lost significant weight. One had a trip to Arkansas, and the other kept having conflicts due to meetings.
If I take them both out of the math, we're still at 67% which is still up quite a bit from 50%. But their success and continued effort merited inclusion. Usually, when someone stops, they stop everything. So I counted em.
But what about the actual weight loss numbers? How did they stack up? It's hard to compare. One way to look at it was to compare the winner's 7 week numbers, to what she did a year ago in the longer 12 week program.
Tracy Whitaker won 1st place overall, and has participated in two Biggest Losers. She lost a little more than 30 lbs in her first 12 week program, only to find out she was expecting. Surprise! That's an average of 2.5 lbs per week.
After delivering her baby, and joining us a year later, she just won Biggest Loser "22" by losing 23.2 lbs in 7 weeks. That's an increase to an average of 3.3 lbs a week. It was also 15.6% of her body weight.
We'll never know if she would've averaged more in those last two weeks a year ago, had her circumstances been different. But even if she had, it couldn't have been much higher than her current 3.3 lbs per week. So for her, 7 weeks was just as effective, if not more.
Betsy Higginbotham finished in 2nd place overall, losing 13.2 lbs and 7.2% of her body weight over the 7 weeks. She was a particularly hard worker, always taking the extra classes. She'd also lost about 30 lbs prior to starting the 7 weeks, which makes it an even bigger accomplishment. It's always harder to lose, the further along you get.
There were also two people who lost a little more weight (Christy Henry, 20.2 lbs and Mark Clark, 14.0 lbs), but they didn't make the final weigh-in, so it wasn't "official." Still, that was pretty good.
Trent and Alyssa Horner interestingly tied for 3rd place, both losing 6.5% of their body weight and 13.4 lbs and 9.4 lbs respectively. Since they're a married couple, it was likely a happy ending for both of them.
The other participants lost an average of 10.8 lbs a week over the 7 weeks, if I include the two that missed the final weigh-in. This is right at 1.5 lbs a week, which is pretty good, and about what we normally see, I think.
In the end, the main difference was that more people were able to commit to and finish the shorter 7 week program, even though it was more intense. This should hopefully set them up for more success as they set new goals!
Next week, I'll tell you about the new group that started the same night, and some words of advice the recent winners had for them. The goal for this next group is to get them through the holidays. Off we go!
No comments:
Post a Comment