Thirty-one determined NRPA employees participated in the second annual “New Year, New You” weight-loss challenge. The contest: Along with healthier eating habits and exercise, lose the highest percentage of body weight during a 10-week timeframe. NRPA further incentivized staff to participate by throwing in $1 for every pound lost to be distributed between the top three individual competitors and awarding a day off to the team that lost the largest amount of weight.  

We kept the rules simple: In order to compete, you had to join a team with at least three but no more than 10 participants. Private, confidential weekly weigh-ins occurred Wednesday mornings, and each person was tracked by percentage of their body weight gained or lost (no actual weights were ever revealed).  

The preliminary weigh-in happened January 8, with an initial total of 5,667 pounds being logged across five teams. When the final weigh-in took place March 19th, staff had lost 271.5 pounds, or roughly 4.79 percent of the starting weight. The individual winner was Graphic Designer Matt Brubaker, losing 16.63 percent of his body weight, while Team Flab-U-Less took first place among the teams.  

Martin Dease is NRPA’s Human Resources Generalist.