I'm a Loser

Today, the school nurse announced a Teacher Biggest Loser contest. If you want to join, you put $5 into the Prize Fund. You weigh in every week (from now until Spring Break, in April). You then have to pay for any weight you GAIN, if you skip a weigh-in, and if you drop out before the end of the contest. The teacher with the highest percentage of weight loss wins all the money in the pot (whatever that may be by April). (I responded to her email announcement of the contest with: "So, are you saying we're all a bunch of heffers then?")

And you know what, we have some shady teachers, too. Our first weigh-in has to be sometime this week, and already she had teachers stuffing their pockets and eating huge meals right before they went to get weighed for the first time. Tactically speaking, there are 2 benefits to that: 1) If you "pad" your starting weight, it will look like you lost more weight than you actually did that first week and 2) The higher your starting weight, the more you HAVE to lose and therefore, you could get a higher percentage of total weight loss (which, again, is how the winner is decided).

I'm going to go in on it, but I wish they'd started this earlier: I've already lost like 15 lbs this school year and now, I'm only aiming to lose another 10 lbs or so. That means that even if I DO hit that goal, the most I would/could lose was 15% of my starting body weight. And some of the other teachers are quite a bit bigger than me, which means they have more weight TO lose and would therefore end up with a higher percentage. (Does that make sense?) In other words, even if I kick ASS, I'm not going to go much higher than 15%, and so some of the, um, curvier/stockier teachers would, in theory, be able to top that. Their max potential is higher than mine.

But, hey--if I DO lose that 10 lbs, then I guess that's all that really matters, right? Even if I'm NOT the Biggest Loser, I'm still a winner.

No, f*ck that. I want the money.