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Ok, so James has brought up the general format and covered the motivation aspect. Time to start discussing specifics. I am going to present the rules of the 52DC that we are looking to borrow and modify. These are not absolutes and are very much open to input and discussion. This is our challenge, we should fit it to our needs so if you any ideas please share them.

For those of you that frequent or used to frequent the mens health board you are most likely familiar with the challenge. The way it works is every person sets their own goals when they signup and simply works to reach their own goals. This isn't a "Biggest Loser" style competition where there is only one criteria (ie. weight loss) because overall those style competitions aren't really fair unless every person starts off at the same point and we all know that that isn't the case. Some of us have a lot of fat to lose, while others are nearing their goal, or even looking to add muscle. I would also like to add that this isn't just for people that are "Living Large" I want this to be open to anyone at JPs regardless of goals, the more people participating the greater the competition.

In the 52DC at the end of the time they rank people based on how close they came to their goals and award medals, ie anyone over 95% success gets a gold etc. That is a good system and I would like to continue it however I also want to have a hard number ranking, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and a few people have mentioned putting up prizes. Of course everyone who participates and works hard to reach their goals is a winner for putting the effort but for those of us that are highly competitive I think a ranking system will provide that extra motivation to stay true to the goals. The beauty of this setup is if you don't care about being first you can still participate and strive to hit your own personal goals.

Also there will be check-ins, most likely weekly but we can make them 2x a week or something else if people think it would be better. At the check-ins you have to list your progress towards your goals. Someone will be designated to keep track of all progress and we can give weekly standings if people want them. Also regarding the check-ins, if they are weekly for example we will have them every Monday. There will be a 1-1.5 day check-in window, meaning that if check-in is monday you have till Tuesday at noon to post your progress. If you fail to check-in you are given 1 strike, just like baseball, 3 strikes and you are out. This means you are no longer qualified to win a prize or be ranked. However this does not mean you cannot continue to post your stats and have them tracked. I will continue to track your progress and will still provide your final results at the end of the challenge.

Goals: This is where I feel we could use input from everyone. The 52DC used the format of Clean Eating days, number of workouts, number of cardio sessions, and a personal goal. These are good goals to set but I think other then the clean eating and workouts others should be optional. However I think we should set a hard number of goals per person (ex. each person has to make 5 goals). In regards to the clean eating they have it setup in 1/2 day blocks, that way if you mess up for 1 meal that doesn't negate your entire day. I am sure everyone knows the feeling of, "Well, I messed up, in for a penny in for a pound." I would like to avoid that at all costs. some other possible goals are weight loss, fat loss, BF% change. If you have other ideas please share them. We will also need to come up with some form of scoring system, possibly some form of weighted percentages. (ie. .5 point for every pound lost, 1 point for lb of fat lost etc.)

So these are the general format and rules of the competition, like I said it is all open to discussion but please discuss now, we want this underway by June 1st so we need to get the details finalized and set up by then.

Also if you are willing to help setup and run the competition all help is appreciated