Well, the group has been through nine weeks of training—those that are left, that is. Typically, we’ll see about half drop out for one reason or another. At this point, it’s been much more extreme.
Out of the 29 Biggest Losers that started nine weeks ago, just six made this week’s weigh-in! I know a couple others are out of town, but that’s perhaps the lowest weigh-in ever.
I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. Since we’re doing pretty much the same workouts, I have to conclude it has something to do with the timing.
The workouts are on Friday nights, and I know it’s tough to get here sometimes, especially on Friday night. But in the past, we’ve had some large groups, so that can’t be the only reason.
Perhaps it’s just the time of year. It is summer, after all, and the heat index is up there, too. I like the summer workouts because we can get outdoors, but when it gets too hot, we start staying inside and using the equipment here.
That’s what we did this week. Usually in Week Nine, I’ll take the group out to the football field and they’ll run/walk a quarter mile and then do 25 pushups, 25 body squats, and 25 sit-ups, four times.
This time, they did the quarter miles on the treadmill and went into the mat room for the pushups, body squats and sit-ups. Pretty nice with that air conditioning! Oh well, they still did the work.
They probably wouldn’t burn quite as many calories as they would have done if they were doing it all outside, but we didn’t have to worry about heat sickness this way. I used it as an opportunity to have them try to go faster than usual on the treadmill. So it all worked out in the end.
For the Biggest Losers that were there, it was a great workout. It was quick, but very effective. Most finished in under twenty minutes. But the main thing is that they’re finishing what they started.
After getting started, the hardest thing for people is learning how to stick it out. The first month is painful as your body is getting used to doing the work. The next month, you’re feeling stronger, and it doesn’t hurt as much. You’re also getting some results.
I don’t worry much about the people that make the weigh-ins at this point. I worry even less about the people that still make the workouts. By now, they’re getting strong, and they know they can push themselves much more then they used to. They’ve also made eating right and exercising smart a daily habit.
These are qualities that will serve them pretty well, especially once they’re out on their own. If there’s a common mistake I see with people working out, it’s that they tend to keep doing the same routine, without any variation at all.
It’s really good to better to change it up, and do different things. It’s good for your body and it’s good for your mind. Your body likes it because it gets stressed in different ways, and so it has to develop more. Your mind likes it because it’s something new.
Of course, if you drop out of a program, it’s going to be kind of tough to change it up and do new and different things. So maybe the most important thing lesson to learn is…DON’T QUIT! If you quit, you don’t get what you want.
One who hasn’t quit is Cheryl Clark, our Biggest Loser this week. She lost 3.1% of her body weight and 6.2 lbs. She’s had some weeks where the scale wasn’t as kind as she’d have liked, and like many women, she’s also learned she needed to be eating more.
Cheryl’s been pretty persistent though, and it’s been paying off. To date, she’s lost 18.2 lbs in nine weeks. With three weeks to go, if she keeps this up, she can be down about 25 lbs for the 12 weeks.
Second place went to Michelle Clark, who lost 1.3% and 2.0 lbs. Janice Johnson was third, losing about 1.0% and 1.8 lbs. Vanessa Becker was fourth, losing 1.0 lb.
Next week, depending on weather, we’ll do either the 5 K challenge or teach them an advanced Level IV workout. Either way, it’s going to give them another chance to step it up. See you then!
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