How to Do a Weight Loss Challenge With Friends Effectively
Doing a weight loss challenge with friends may seem like the perfect solution to stick to your health goals.
Yet in our experience, most weight loss challenges organized by friends aren’t actually successful at helping you achieve your goals.
We’ll discuss why weight loss challenges with friends often fail and then provide step by step instructions to help you create an effective weight loss challenge with friends that is fun and allows you to reach your goals.
Why Weight Loss Challenges With Friends Often Fail
Here are a few of the most common reasons why weight loss challenges organized by friends often fail.
#1: The Goal is Unmeasurable and Not Time Bound
“Lose your lovehandles” is not a clear goal – it needs to be a specific number that you can track.
Without a measurable metric, you can’t hold yourself accountable.
Additionally, track “input” metrics (action items you do daily) rather than “outcome” metrics (like pounds lost).
Tracking outcome metrics can be dangerous because it can encourage extreme dieting and unhealthy behaviors.
#2: Lacks Frequent (Daily) Progress Checks
Even if your goal is time bound and quantifiable, you’re likely going to miss the mark if you aren’t tracking progress frequently enough.
Frequency is important because even just two days where you don’t adhere to your weight loss plan can set you back significantly for the week.
And, it’s hard to develop lasting habits if you’re inconsistent.
#3: The Challenge Focuses on Exercise Rather Than Nutrition
The average restaurant meal has 1,200 calories.
According to a study by Harvard, you only burn between 453 to 670 calories (depending on your weight) if you run five miles at a pace of six minutes per mile.
So you’d have to run almost 10 miles (at 6min/mile) to burn a single meal at a restaurant!
This is why some sort of nutrition accountability is essential for a successful weight loss challenge.
#4: Tracking Mechanisms Are Manual And Imprecise
We discussed that it’s important to track action items and focus on nutrition.
That’s why most weight loss challenges involve food logging.
But there are some problems with food logging:
The Problem With Tracking Meals Through Manual Logging
Instead, consider using a wearable device, like a CGM, a heart rate tracker, etc., that automatically tracks your inputs (e.g., blood sugar).
The data is also immutable (can't be cheated), which will come in handy for the next step.
#5: There Are No Stakes
If you want to do a weight loss challenge with friends, it’s probably because you need some extra accountability to stay consistent.
Yet even with an accountability partner, simple check-ins usually aren’t enough to keep you on track.
The solution to ensure the weight loss challenge doesn’t crumble is to have meaningful (often financial) stakes.
Given that the stakes are meaningful, you'll need to have accurate, immutable data to track action items (like a CGM).
How To Run an Effective Weight Loss Challenge With Friends
Now that we’ve discussed the common pitfalls of weight loss challenges with friends, here is a step by step guide to run an effective weight loss challenge with your friends.
Step 1: Select a Challenge Platform
While you could run the entire challenge in a group text, we encourage you to use a challenge platform because you need a solution to:
- Track and prove progress (ideally daily)
- Agree on stakes
- Communicate with group members
You could use a tool like stickK, though tracking everyone’s progress is tricky. And it’s easy for people to lie that they did a workout or met their nutrition goals.
This is why we built Wearable Challenge.
Participants wear a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) for 14 days and stake $20/day to stay under 120 mg/dL (a healthy glucose level).
Eating high sugar/carb foods often spike blood sugar, making CGMs a highly effective weight loss tool.
And with $20 at stake each day, it trains consistency.
How Wearable Challenge Works:
Step 1: Join Wearable Challenge and Connect Your CGM
If you don’t have a CGM yet, we’ll give you links to get one.
Step 2: Stake $20/day for the 14 day challenge to stay under 120 mg/dL
If you eat excessive sugar or carbs and your glucose level spikes above 120, you’ll lose your $20 daily stake.
Step 3: Participate in the Group Chat
Challenges are cohort based and you’ll have access to an SMS community.
Why Wearable Challenge Is Excellent For Running Weight Loss Challenges With Friends
You can join Wearable Challenge now if you need a consistent accountability partner who makes it impossible to cheat.
Step 2: Define The Daily Goal and Timeline
We discussed that it’s important to:
- Track specific action items rather than results (e.g., calories consumed rather than total weight) and
- Track those action items daily rather than weekly as even a few days off the plan can have a significant negative impact on your end results.
It’s also a good idea to set a deadline so that you have a goal to work towards. Consistently living in a caloric deficit is both demotivating and unhealthy.
Example Goal:
Action Item: Keep blood glucose under 120 mg/dL
Timeline: 14 Days
Step 2: Agree On The Stakes and Tracking Mechanism
Most weight loss challenges fail because of a lack of incentive or imprecise/cumbersome tracking.
So add a monetary incentive where people stand something to gain or lose.
Additionally, instead of manually tracking calories consumed, use a wearable device to ensure you have real, hard data that’s precise and impossible to cheat.
We recommend using a CGM and/or heart rate monitor to track nutrition goals and exercise.
Example Stakes and Tracking:
Stakes: $20 per day
Tracking Mechanism: CGM data
Step 3: Communicate Regularly
The point of a challenge with friends is to experience the journey with someone else.
Hopefully, your friends are motivating, and it also gives you the opportunity to share experiences.
How do they handle difficult situations, like eating out while traveling or attending a friend’s birthday party?
To communicate on a regular basis, consider starting a WhatsApp group or use a service like GroupMe to stay connected.
To further inspire friendly competition, announce weekly who is currently winning.
Example Communication Options:
- GroupMe
We use GroupMe SMS for Wearable Challenge, so if you join you’ll have the opportunity to chat with other people in your cohort.
Step 4: Record What Works
The purpose of a weight loss challenge isn’t to lose weight – it’s to build a healthy lifestyle that therefore allows you to lose weight and keep it off.
Create a journal and record not just what you’re eating and how you’re working out, but also how you navigate challenging situations.
Step 5: Celebrate The Win
If there isn’t an end date in sight, you’ll find it more difficult to stick with the challenge.
And, it’s unhealthy to stay in a caloric deficit permanently.
Even if you don’t win the group prize, reward yourself for making it through the challenge. The more accomplished you feel after the experience, the more likely you are to do it again and ultimately turn it into a healthy lifestyle.
However, instead of celebrating by going out to dinner or having a large, unhealthy meal, consider rewarding yourself with a trip (even if it’s local), a day at the spa, or something else that’s unrelated to food.
Example Celebration:
- Spa day
- New workout clothes
Set Up a Weight Loss Challenge With Friends Today
If you want to do a weight loss challenge that allows you to reach your goals, join Wearable Challenge today.
Here are the main benefits of Wearable Challenge:
- Free to join
- Impossible to cheat (CGM data doesn’t lie)
- $20 daily stakes make every day count
- Effortless tracking (no manual logging thanks to CGM integration)
If you’ve been struggling to lose weight and constantly find yourself disappointed that you cheated on your diet yet again, Wearable Challenge is the solution you’re looking for.
It’s ruthlessly effective and helps you become the best version of you.
