How Being Competitive Could Help Your Diet

Are you a competitive type? I know I am. When I worked in data entry as a student (not exactly a competitive job!) the HR manager was a little taken aback about how keen I was to win during the games on the team-building day…

In many areas of life, we do better by co-operating than by competing. But sometimes, a bit of friendly competition is exactly what we need to spur us on towards our goals.

If your dieting motivation is flagging (or non-existent), if you keep planning exercise sessions which you never stick to, or if you find yourself slipping back into bad habits, then the will-power boost that comes from getting competitive might be just what you need.

Here’s some ideas how:

Find a Dieting Partner

If possible, find yourself someone to compete against. It helps if they’ve got similar goals to you: perhaps you both want to lose weight and exercise regularly.

Your dieting partner might be a colleague, a friend, your spouse, one of your offspring (if they’re over eighteen), or even someone you’ve met through a dieting website or forum.

To begin with, try picking a specific challenge for each week. In general, it’s easiest to get that competitive spirit going if you’re both chasing for the same target. You might try some of these week-long challenges:

• Eating five portions of fruit/veg each day
• Exercising three times
• Going for a half-hour walk every day
• Not eating any chocolate
• Not drinking any alcohol
• Keeping a food diary each day

See who can make it through a week! If it’s too easy, add in a second challenge – or make the target a harder one.

Of course, even if you “lose” the challenge, you still have won: you’ll probably have made far better progress than you would have done on your own. Maybe you didn’t quite hit five-a-day every day, but six days out of seven was considerably better than you were doing before.

Avoid Competing on Pounds Lost

One word of warning: don’t start getting competitive over the exact number of pounds lost. Even if you and your dieting partner are the same starting weight and gender, there are still metabolic and hormonal factors that can affect weight loss.

Stick to competing on things that are under your direct control.

Competing Against Yourself

If you don’t have anyone to be a dieting partner, or if the idea of competing against someone else makes you uncomfortable – you can still use your competitive spirit. But now, the person you’re trying to beat is going to be … yourself.

A good way to do this is to keep a food and exercise diary for a week, to see what you’re currently achieving. (Don’t feel too discouraged if it highlights some bad habits: these are good starting points.) Then, set yourself some weekly targets as before. Make them challenging but not too tough. You might try:

• Eating one extra portion of fruit/veg each day, compared with last week
• Cutting out dessert on three nights of the week
• Fitting in one extra exercise session this week
• Moving up one level on the cardio machines in the gym
• Making each exercise session five minutes longer

You don’t have to make huge changes or set overwhelming targets: just give yourself small challenges that you can meet with a bit of effort. Track how you’re doing each week, and give yourself a slightly harder challenge for the following week!

Are you a competitive type? Have you ever found that competing with someone (in a friendly way!) has spurred you both on to greater success?

Written by Ali Hale

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1. How Other People Affect Your Diet
2. Getting Your Diet Off to a Great Start
3. The Latest Silly Fad Diet: “The Baby Food Diet”