Football league for fat people works well!
A team could get thrashed 6-0, but they may still win because they may have more players who've lost weight.
Losing weight is hard, and anyone who has struggled with it will tell you so. Everyone needs a little incentive and support when trying. If you’re a guy, there’s a lot less stigma attached to playing football than dieting. Thus, MAN v FAT was born — a five a side football league with the aim of collective weight loss.
The founder, Andrew Shanahan, told indy100 that players are weighed before the game by a weight loss coach: “The score on the pitch is half the weighting of the overall results — the other part of the scoring is the weight loss for that week.”
A team could go on and get thrashed 6-0, but they may still win because they may have more players who’ve lost weight. The scores for weight loss are calculated by how many players have lost weight, how many have hit targets and whether certain players have hit consecutive targets.
This means, you don’t even have to play if you don’t feel comfortable running or have mobility issues — you can still help your side win through weight loss.
Alongside the football, players receive support through forums, weight loss professionals and each other: “They get support through, online mostly, peer support groups, run through WhatsApp mostly, where the teams cheer each other on.”
The team sport aspect is what really drives weight loss though: “I think that’s the key to it, hugely — I don’t know if you’ve ever had issues with your weight or had times you wanted to lose weight, but the key thing, especially for men, is knowing that they’re not the only person doing it.”
The scheme’s trial was successful in the extreme — 95 per cent of players lost weight and 62 per cent hit their target of five per cent body weight loss. The average weight lost was just under two stone.
www.indy100.independent.co.uk