Kari Sweeney, 30, of Sun Prairie, WI, works for a fitness company and had lots of opportunities to get healthy, but she struggled for years to get motivated. Last year, with the help of co-workers and MyFitnessPal, Kari broke through her barriers and lost 17.4% of her body weight! Read her story in her own words below:
Every year, the place I work runs a Biggest Loser contest. For the last five years, I’ve participated and have given up or stopped weighing in within the first month of the competition. I would get discouraged from not losing weight and even gaining weight.
This year was different. This was the year of the Purple Cobras, as we called ourselves. We were encouraged by our employer to choose three other people as part of the team competition where we would all earn points for completing plank and wall sit challenges, completing a food journal and for weighing in on time every week.
Starting January 2nd, the first two weeks was the food journal challenge. Enter, MyFitnessPal. We decided, as a team, to use the app to track all of our food and exercise and share our journals with one another all in the name of healthy accountability. (And the occasional lighthearted banter about how many cupcakes one of our teammates could eat and still lose weight that week!) The exercise equipment we use (Matrix Fitness) also automatically shared our workouts on the app, which was super convenient and encouragement to exercise!
After the two weeks were up, we all loved the app so much that we kept going. Liking posts, commenting, motivating one another to be better and make good, healthy decisions.
Over the course of 12 weeks, our team of four people lost 96.4 pounds and our honorary member (my mom, who is also now a loyal MyFitnessPal user) lost an additional 16.4 pounds!
The competition ended March 26th. Team Cobra took home first place in the team competition. One of our members held a five minute solid push up plank. One of our members won the wall sit challenge, holding it for three minutes and 30 seconds. One of our members (me! the one who had given up five years in a row) won the title of biggest loser with a 17.4% body weight loss. The other three members of the team won the “Lose to your Goal” prizes.
The MyFitnessPal epidemic in my circle has grown – to friends, neighbors, more co-workers, significant others. We’re continuing our journey to maintain the healthy lifestyle that we’ve built with through the last 12 weeks of encouragement. A big part of that was MyFitnessPal, so for that we thank you!
Kari and her team, The Purple Cobras, before and after the challenge.
Kari, before and after the challenge.
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