Social media spurring on competition among teams

To get past the slump many team members experienced during week four of the 12-week Fittest Loser Community Challenge, the teams energized the competition — on Facebook. The Fittest Loser Facebook page has become a platform for teams to engage in friendly competition by posting pictures of their workout routines.

The photo taglines and posts gently egg on other teams or cheer their own team on.

Bob Johnson of Batavia’s Weapons of Mass Reduction pumped up his team with words of encouragement: “Seven weeks to go! We can do this!”

A member of Addison’s Club Fit Five shared a photo of the team brandishing free weights and kettle bells with the tagline, “the Ladies are kicking some butt!” The Salt Creek teams responded with a photo of a team workout: “The Salt Creek Rural Park District Fittest Loser teams really brought it this weekend!”

The competition on the Facebook page has translated to the park district workout centers. Several teams are working with personal trainers, and Mundelein’s Park View Fittest completed the 5-K they were training for during week four. The teams reported focusing on the basics: keeping the numbers of calories consumed low and number of calories burned high.

A regular workout schedule combined with healthier meal choices led to steadier results last week, if not the quick results that the teams experienced in the first couple of weeks.

As Geri Estvanik, the team captain of Addison’s Thin It to Win It, puts it, “we now have to ramp it up a bit as the early easy pounds have now left us.”

The teams have begun to put more emphasis on small victories, such as the report from a member of the Bartlett Life Center Gang that she can now easily fit into her bridesmaid dress that a month ago she could not zip all the way.

A member of Salt Creek Waist Management, Susan Weekly, is now wearing jeans she hasn’t been able to wear in two years. Her next goal? “Make them too big!”