For those who are curious...Season 29 rules :)

SEASON 29 RULES & GUIDELINES!!!

1. Season 29 will begin on Tuesday, February 14th. It will last 8 weeks and our final weigh in will be on Tuesday, April 11th.

2. The buy-in fee this season will be $25. This is a singles season. Fees should be sent via Paypal to Jillyslosers@gmail.com with the note “Season 29 buy-in fee” and your name. All fees MUST be paid by February 21st. Make sure to mark your payments as being sent to family and friends to avoid any PayPal fees.

3. This season we are going to do something completely new and hopefully fun! We are going to have a RACE!!! The first person in the group to reach 5% weight lost will win $100. The 2nd person to reach it will win $60 and the 3rd person to reach it will win $40!! But here’s the catch! To get your money, you have to KEEP IT OFF the whole season! If you somehow reach 5% lost after 4 weeks, but then slip down to 4% by the end of the season, you forfeit your winnings and they move down the list. Make sense? So you not only have to reach the goal, but hang onto it! (NOTE: IF two people reach it on the same weigh-in day, the tie-breaker will just be their exact % lost. If by some miracle they lose exactly the same %, we’ll figure something else out)

Now I know not everyone HAS 5% to lose. So everything else is going to be challenge based this season!! Only $200 of the prize pot will go towards winners and EVERYTHING ELSE will go towards awesome challenge prizes! The more participants we have, the bigger the prizes! I’m hoping that doing both formats will give everyone something to be motivated by!

(NOTE: All prizes are given after challenge rewards are paid and 10% is taken out of the pot for myself as insisted upon by you brats a few seasons back *grumbles*. Thank you lol)

NOTE: For those of us who are current group members returning for season 29, there WILL be a gain cap between seasons this time. It will be a 3lb cap. What this means is that if you weighed in yesterday at 200lbs and you weigh in next Tuesday at 205lbs…your official starting weight will be 203, which means those first 2lbs you lose won’t count towards your 5%. This will hopefully help keep us all from going too crazy in between seasons!

4. Regarding weigh-ins: We have mandatory weekly weigh-ins every Tuesday. (Why Tuesdays? Because that's the day that The Biggest Loser aired on NBC when I started this group and it's just stuck!) Your weight picture must be posted by midnight MST to count! (Let me know if any issues arise. I’m pretty reasonable.) Please weigh in under the same circumstances every week (morning/night/clothed or not, etc)

As for strikes...you are allowed 1 missed weigh-in per person (yes I’m being more strict on this, but I’m not completely unreasonable. If there is an emergency…talk to me!) On the 2nd missed weigh-in, you will be disqualified and you will not get your $ refunded. (You may continue to stay in the group and weigh-in but you will not be eligible to win any $ or prizes either from challenges or the final weigh-in)

Remember that weigh-ins must be a picture of the # on your scale with your FEET showing. Not just a post of your weight. I understand people take vacations and sometimes use different scales. This is fine…HOWEVER…you MUST use the same scale for your starting and final weights so that we can be sure of accuracy. And in the case of THIS season…when you hit your 5% goal, it MUST be on the same scale you started with for it to be accurate.

5. Before pictures are MANDATORY. The pictures may be with or without a shirt (you'll notice more of a change if you do it without and after our bootcamp rules, I think most of you are comfortable with it now!), but they must be full body pictures. (I highly recommend everyone take a shirtless before pic that they at least keep for themselves even if they don’t share it. You’ll be glad you have it one day!) If your before picture is not submitted within the first week of competition (by February 21), you will be disqualified. (If you submitted an "after" picture for season 28, that will count as your "before" picture for season 29)

Those who win prizes at the end of the season will not receive their prize money until an AFTER picture has been submitted and they must do so within 48 hrs of the winning announcement.

NOTE: Newcomers to this group always worry that their pictures posted in the group will show up for the public to see. This group is secret. As long as you are on the group wall BEFORE posting your pictures, no one will see them but those in the group. Your pictures will show up on your own feed when you view it, but I promise you no one else can see it!

6. Starting and final weights will be confirmed with a KEY WORD. This is to ensure that starting and ending pictures are truly taken on the day of the weigh-in and not before. I will post the KEY WORD in this group the night before the first and last weigh-ins. It should be written on a piece of paper or notecard and placed at your feet in the front of your scale before taking your picture.

7. As always, we will be doing weekly challenges this season. They will all be health and fitness related and depending on how many people we have this season…should come with some pretty awesome prizes for the winners! Challenges are NOT mandatory, but you can’t win if you don’t try! So give it a shot  All challenges will be pinned weekly at the top of the group page as well as posted under the Files tab in their own Season 29 document for easy reference.

8. Points system: I’ve decided to keep doing the points tracking this season since it seems to really help those who participate in it. The points system is a tracking sheet (either print out or automated excel) for tracking food/water/activity, etc. More info below! This season, tracking points is NOT mandatory, though if you choose to do so, you must submit your weekly points totals to me via FB messenger by midnight MST each Tuesday night. The person with the most points at the end of the season will win a free buy-in to Season 30 of Jilly’s Losers in April!!

9. Remember that this group is about gaining health and losing weight through eating right and exercising. Extreme/fad diets are not allowed. Weight Watchers, Ketogenic and things like that are fine, but no pills/drops/powders etc. (Protein shakes are fine). If you do a cleanse, it may not be more than 3 days long.

10. This group is only for those who will be actively participating in the competition this season, so while I hope everyone will stick around, please know that if you choose not to join us this season, you will be removed from the group. You are always welcome to join us in later seasons :)

POINTS SYSTEM DETAILS!!! (borrowed from sixsistersstuff.com) -There is a weekly point calendar for each of the 8 weeks. (It will be posted as a separate document under the “Files” tab on the group page) Print it out and use to track your points and weight loss. If you prefer to use an excel spreadsheet that will do your math for you, Cody Mecham made one that I’ve adjusted that I will post as well for you to download.

-Beginning on Week #2 there is a double point challenge (highlighted in yellow)

-You can exercise each day, but you will only receive points for exercising 5 days a week. At least one of your workouts must include strength training of some sort.

-You can avoid carbs after lunch every day, but you’ll only receive points for doing so 4 times in a week (Carbs in this case is referring to the obvious…breads, pastas, cereal, grains/oatmeal etc, sweets. Fruits and veggies are FINE!)

-You can choose to not eat sugar/treats each day, but you will only receive points for not eating sugar on 5 days (everyone needs a free day or two!).

-You only need to eat 4 total servings of fruits/veggies this season. Mix it up however you like.

-There is a sample food journal that you can use or you can use your own kind of food journal to keep track of what you eat.

-Daily contact with teammate: It’s amazing the strength that comes from encouragement from your teammates! We said that you could email, call, or text someone in the group to encourage them to have a healthy day. It helps knowing that you are all in this together and makes you accountable for what you do or don’t do. Posting or commenting on the group page also counts. Hitting LIKE does NOT count!

-Example of weight loss points: You will get 5 points for maintaining your lowest previous weight AND 10 points for each whole pound. For instance, if you gained weight, you will report 0 points AND you don’t get any weight loss OR maintenance points in future weeks until you return to the lowest weight you had already achieved. If you maintained your previous lowest weight, you report 5 points. If you lost 1 pound, you would get 5 points for maintaining plus 10 points for that pound, so you would report 15 points. NOTE!!!!!

Points totals MUST be either emailed (jillyslosers@gmail.com) or messaged via Facebook to Jill Tracy by midnight MST each Tuesday in order to be counted. With such a large group, I’m afraid there will be no exceptions. If you forget to tell me one week…they won’t count. I’m sorry!