By Haneen Khatib/reporter
Organized by students, the Biggest Loser Club was comprised of students, faculty and staff with health, physical education assistant professor Joshua Tarbay serving as mentor.
“The club fosters peer support, faculty guidance and friendly competition to help the members toward success,” said HPE instructional associate Sarah Matlock, who also participated. “[Tarbay] offered instruction and guidance on nutrition, fitness, workout routines, motivation and weight- loss strategies.”
This is not the first competition for the club, started by Tarbay.
“We started Biggest Loser back in fall 2010 without any success, and then this semester, we had about 75 people sign up,” Tarbay said. “This semester really took off.”
Students were allowed to work out four times a week and could check out heart rate monitors, which recorded all their numbers in calories, heart rate and intensity, Tarbay said.
“It was really up to them to motivate and get going,” he said.
The competition tracked three categories: weight loss, calories burned and duration (time spent working out). Each week, winners were named in each category.
Tarbay credited Leazure, winner in both calories and weight loss, for being the most active and for motivating the group.
“We have another contest starting in January for students to come off the holidays,” Tarbay said.
