Biggest Loser Allianz

Recently, one of my office colleagues was admitted to hospital because of a heart condition. He is a 40 plus male and weighs 129.5kg… yup… he is way way overweight. After being discharged, we (HR) approached him and told him that he really needs to be serious about losing weight as he is walking on a thin line. He has been admitted to hospital before for other health problems because of his obesity, so we thought he needs to do something soon before it becomes more serious. At the same time, there have been some other colleagues who were also interested in losing weight, but of course, just never got down to it. They have asked me for advice before, and I have told them what to do and what not to do, but I guess they tried it for a couple of days and just gave up after that. Lack of staying power is one of the biggest reasons for people not seeing results.

With the hype of the Biggest Loser Asia which is running on TV right now, we thought it would be timely for us to run what we call – the Biggest Loser Allianz. So we called some of the other overweight people in our office and we are happy to announce that we now have 3 participants. These are people who want to lose weight, but breaking their habits and core values is going to be a tough job. Because there are 3 of them, we hope that this will help to keep them on the path for a longer time than just a couple of days. Below is a quick look at their bio. I am using the participants innitials as i want to protect their identity for the moment. So there will be no pictures as well.



So what is the program all about? I was nominated to be the fitness instructors for these people. I started out by asking them to do a food diary for one week. A food diary is basically a way for you to keep track of what you are eating. So everything that goes into their mouth be it a drink or even a sweet, needs to be jotted down. From there, I will review this and come up with a personalized meal plan for them. The meal plan can’t be too drastic, or I will have people dropping off the program in 2 weeks. So it has to be gradual (from their current eating pattenrs & habits) into a much healthier plan.

I am doing my best to monitor their eating but there is only so much I can do. I guess it really comes down to the participants making a conscious decision that they are fed up with the way they look and want to make the change. But that is something they have to do themselves… like the saying goes, you can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink. So I hope there is some competitive spirit among the 3 which will drive them to stick with the changes I prescribe.

I have also planned an exercise routine for all of them. Participant RA is the one that worries me the most. Due to his heart condition and body size, I can’t push him as much. For now, all I have precribed for him is walking for 20 minutes. I will gradually increase this until we can start doing something more vigorous. But so far, just giving the participants the plan isn’t good enough as only RN has been diligently doing it. The rest have not done anything and I hear heaps of excuses from no time to not feeling well. So I realize I have to take a more personal approach and actually force them to meet me after work where we do the regime together. So we are starting tomorrow.

The program will run for 6 months and my job is to motivate them to the best of my abilities. We are also seeking sponsorship from some of our vendors, where the person with the highest percentage of weight loss will walk away with the grand prize… in essence, a carrot for these people to achieve their weight loss goals. Of course we cannot see drastic results like the real show, but that is done in a controlled environment and all the participants do is eat proper meals, work out about 4 to 5 hours a day and rest. But I still have faith that we will see some significant weight loss in 6 months. Will keep you guys updated as we progress along the 6 months, so keep checking back.

For those who are interested in losing weight and don’t know how, here is your golden opprtunity. I will keep posting some updates on their workout routine and meal plan, so that you can follow it as well, for FREE. In essence, you have your own personal Virtual Trainer. Just check out our blog and follow the plan. How simple is that?

So good luck to the participants and those at home. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments and thoughts.