My Girlfriend Is Putting Me Up To A Point-Based Fitness Competition And These Are The Rules

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Last night, I sat in the living room of my girlfriend’s sister’s house eating pizza and drinking craft beers. I’m not ashamed of this because sometimes you need to trash your body with beer and pizza in an effort to keep you honest. But in the middle of taking a bite of pizza, my girlfriend’s sister brought up a fitness competition that she’s doing at work with her coworkers. I noted that I would crush that competition and she immediately denied my confidence by saying that her and her boyfriend could both beat me. “I can’t even imagine you working out,” she said. It’s a valid point as I rarely work out, but my competitive nature kicked in and I committed to engaging in the aforementioned competition given I had control over the rules and the prize was worth it.

Below is the email explaining the rules separated by sections. The rules are fairly simple, but overall TL;DR version of the competition goes as follows:

Each day is worth 100 points. Count 100 for day off and full points for meal off. At the end of the week, multiply score (700 is a perfect score) times 1.2 (or an additional 20%) if you met your weight loss or fitness goal. Add 10 points to total after weight loss bonus (if achieved) for getting in your weekly score by 9am every Monday.

Weight Loss goal: 1% of total body weight

Simple? Well, kind of. The point of the competition isn’t necessarily weight loss and we’re creating a separate fitness goal for my girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend because he values gains and has no intention of losing weight, which I respect.

Before we get into the rules, please note: this is a not a competition that pits me against my girlfriend; this is a team competition that will pit us against her sister and her boyfriend – and I plan on absolutely demolishing them.

Here’s the way we can gain points.

Exercise – 20 points – Must be at least 20 minutes a day, must actually be sanctioned exercise (stretching does not count)

Sleep – 10 points – Full CONSECUTIVE 7 or 8 hours (we need to decide on 7 or 8, technically the official rules say 7 but I am fine doing 8)

Water – 10 points – Drink 3 Liters of water per day (coffee and tea do not count, no crystal lite and shit)

Good Habit – 10 points – everyone must reply with their new good habit by Sunday night prior to game starting. Actually has to be something that is a good habit and beneficial to you

Bad Habit – 10 points – Achieve points any day you do not do your bad habit (i.e. biting nails, cussing, gossiping, texting while driving, etc.) Must be emailed by Sunday night

Meals – 40 points total (10 points per meal) – Meal includes a fist or cup sized portion of carbs, palm sized or 4-8 ounces of protein, 2 tablespoons or thumb size of healthy fat. Snack must include two of the three (protein plus carbs, carbs plus fat, etc.) *No fried food, incredibly processed shit, alcohol except on your meal and day off

Why we’ll win this portion: My girlfriend meal preps with the ferocity of a bride preparing for her wedding day while our counterpart’s refrigerator is normally filled with rotting lettuce, bottles of champagne, and a jar of half-eaten month-old pickles. If I can max out on meal points (which I will), everything else is gravy (not literally because eating gravy is not allowed).

Oh, and we have an Ambien prescription so that’s an easy ten points every single day.

While we’ll lose this portion: Exercise. I’ve worked out twice in the past calendar year and both of those were spin classes that I approached with a brutal hangover. Granted, this is only twenty minutes per day so I can go run a lackluster mile and pretend to thrash abs on a yoga mat for ten minutes and I’ll be set to jet. I don’t know what “sanctioned” exercise is,
but I sweat walking down the street so I’ll be damned if they deny me points based on my sweat output alone.

The alcohol is where it gets tricky, as spelled out below.

Alcohol: Only allowed on day off, and meal off (1 portion only on meal off)

*Proposed addendum to alcohol rule: Each player may earn an addition portion of alcohol for at least 20 minutes of added exercise per day up to 5 portions (i.e. Lily works out 40 minutes/day on Monday-Friday, she is allowed 6 drinks on her meal off on Friday night)

Just kidding. I made it thirty straight days without drinking for Whole 30 so if I get cheat days and allotted drinks at meals, I’ll be fine. I literally don’t even need to read these rules because I’ll go sober for the sake of winning if I have to.

Does all of this seem fairly simple? Yes, it does. But there are also ways to lose points in the form of penalties.

Penalties!

Alcohol – minus 25 points – every portion consumed not during day off or meal off (excludes drinks from addendum)

Snacking – minus 10 points – every time! This does not include the officially sanctioned snack. Players make snack on as much celery and cucumbers as they want throughout the day

Scale – minus 1 point – every time you step on the scale AFTER the one time allowed per day

Changing your habit (bad or good) – minus 50 points – just like don’t do it

Collusion -minus 20 points – per time. Seriously, if you cheat I will know and I will be pissed. Don’t do it.

Why I won’t be penalized: Like I said, I’ll go sober if I have to. Having bragging rights on these two means more to me than getting drunk over a four-week span.

I also step on the scale once a day and that’s after my pre-shower morning business meeting in my bathroom every morning. Weighing yourself at night is devastating to your mental state and with a brain as fragile as mine, I know I’ll stick to mornings.

Why I’ll be penalized: I snack hard. I don’t even like snacks, but if I see a rogue fruit snack that fell out of our snack drawer, I’m probably going to eat it.

Updates to come. This competition doesn’t start until Monday, so I plan on just getting rip-roaring drunk all weekend so my Monday weigh-in is shockingly high. Stay tuned, stay turnt. .

Image via YouTube

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Will

Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.

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