This holiday season, my family and I decided that it was time to lose weight. It’s easy to just state that you are going to lose weight, but there’s another thing to actually do it. This sparked the idea for us to recreate a competition like NBC’s hit show, The Biggest Loser.

The basis of the show is for a group of contestants, who have varying but significant amounts of weight to lose, to compete to lose the highest personal percentage of weight (not just the number of pounds). This seemed like the perfect spark for my family to actually lose weight, which others can use to create a fun and different way to lose weight. 

Since we aren’t on the hit TV show, we decided to make up some rules of our own:

1. Incentive. 

$50 each to join. Half of us are college students, so at first we were a little hesitant to put our bar money into this competition, but this incentive could go along way if one of us wins.

2. Start and end date. 

End date: Spring Break, beach bod ready. Having an end date at which you hope to look your best is a great one. Having a start date makes sure that everyone starts at the same time so no one has an unfair advantage.

3. The first weigh-in. 

One by one, we went into the private room so no one could see our weight (it’s the holidays!), stepped on the scale and had someone who wasn't participating record it. Everyone was shocked at how much we weighed, but this pushed us to get down to business and lose that extra weight.

4. Weekly weigh-ins. 

Since half of our group lives in various places, we created a foolproof system for all those sneaky people. You have to take a picture of your weight on the scale, preferably with your feet in it, so we know you aren’t having one of your skinny friends help you out.

5. Create a Facebook group. 

Private of course (you don’t want your crush to see you’ve joined a “Biggest Loser Challenge”). This Facebook group is for motivation. You post something like “I ran 3 miles today” or “Hey (older brother), saw your Snapchat story that you went to Steak n’ Shake and got cheese fries!” ... something along those lines. It comes in handy when you are lying in bed and get the message on Netflix saying, “are you still watching?” after 4 episodes of Scandal.

6. Have a plan. 

It isn’t realistic to do the no carbs, no sodium, no fries (ugh) diet — basically that's just living off air. Create a realistic plan such as working out for at least 30 minutes a day or to stop drinking soda (goodbye Dr. Pepper). It’s easy to create a plan, but sticking to it is the hard part, so make it obtainable.

For everyone looking to lose their freshman 15, beer belly or Thanksgiving through Christmas weight, this is an easy and fun challenge that you can do with friends, family or anyone.    

**As I’m writing this, I’m dreaming of a Steak n’ Shake Frisco Melt and large fry, I’ll let you know what the outcome is.**