We invited the D&T community to a 12-week weight loss challenge back in October: D&T Melt.
The rules were simple:
Log your weight change from one Sunday to the next. No need to tell us how much you weigh- we’re only interested in the change. Did you go up one pound or down two? After twelve weeks, the person with the largest recorded weight loss would win a D&T-shirt, water bottle, and sticker, or the equivalent value in D&T credit for use in any multi-day event.
That’s how it started. But we’re huge advocates of co-creation and, as always, the D&T community came through with some new and better ways to play.
First off, we wouldn’t use names. Participants were issued a random number as their Melt ID. This way we wouldn’t know who was losing and who was gaining. The anonymity protected us while enhancing the fun. A leaderboard was updated each week with the top five losers and we tried to guess at who they were and what the secrets behind their phenomenal progress might be.
Were they doing keto? Water fasts? Were they men or women?
Were they just lying?
Probably not. This whole experiment turned on the honor system and we built in a high degree of accountability. Weekly weights had to be submitted between midnight and noon and failure to do so would disqualify one from competition. And although we obscured identities with numbers, each of us knew one another, or at least knew somebody who knew somebody.
You know what I mean.
Anyway, later in the game one of the participants offered to donate one dollar for every pound lost to Islah LA in support of their outdoor education initiative. Another participant promised to match the donation and yet another agreed to double it.
We started with seventeen people and ended with eight as folks dropped out or were eliminated. All told the group collectively dropped 105.3 pounds, an absolutely incredible manifestation of brothers and sisters working to better themselves. $412.20 was collected and offered to Islah LA as a celebration of our gratitude for the success that God Most High had granted us in the stewardship of our bodies.
We met on a Zoom call to celebrate our losses and that’s when we got the biggest surprise of all. The person who lost the most weight, 24.2 pounds in twelve weeks, decided to waive any prizes, requesting that the cash equivalent ($83) be donated to Islah LA along with another $1000 of their own money. This brought the total amount of money generated to $1504.20.
None of this money was solicited. None of it requested. This was not a fundraiser.
This was an open invitation for men and women to invest in themselves and there is so much good that comes from making our growth a priority. It’s infectious. When we do better, we want better for others.
In the end, there really were no weight loss tricks or hacks beyond making a plan, staying consistent, and possibly staying hydrated.
Whether we met our personal weight loss goals or not, each of us walked away with new insights into our relationship with food. For many of us there is a strong emotional component. For some of us a hormonal one. Others found that their struggle is mostly cultural. In every case, there was the realization that our bodies tell a story about our ability to self-regulate, the limits of our will, and our need for assistance from beyond ourselves to keep us on the path.
Many consider health to be our greatest blessing. I am so grateful to be part of a community that is predicated on personal and collective growth through challenge.
We’re going to do it again, insha Allah, with plans to start afresh at the beginning of the 8th lunar month, Sha’ban, on or around March 4th.
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