Biggest losers win for charity

Carnlough’s Biggest Losers 2013, organised by local man Seamus Lee, saw six teams of four people compete to lose as much weight as possible – all while raising money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

The competition ran over seven weeks and involved weekly weigh-ins, walks, a boxing class and team challenges. Weigh-ins were held every Sunday afternoon followed by either a team challenge or a group walk, on a Tuesday nights there was a boxing class and then throughout the rest of the week teams had to meet up independently to walk, run or train.

By the end of the seven weeks, the teams lost a collective total of 322.8lbs – which is just over 23 stone.

Seamus told the Larne Times: “During the first week I had the participants carryout a seven-day detox plan to rid the body of all toxins and stop cravings for sugar, alcohol, processed foods, etc. Another plus was massive weight loss in the first week, with some participants losing as much as 14lbs.

“After completing the detox, the nutritional guidelines set for the remainder of the competition seemed much easier. We completed four walks over the seven weeks, including Glenarm forest walk, Glenariff forest walk, Carnfunnock woodland trail walk and our final walk was from Glenlough Community Centre in Carnlough to Glenarm and back over Straidkilly Road.”

The team challenges took place every other week and included a keg challenge where particpants had to carry a keg around a quarry walk, a rowing challenge, a soccer challenge and a dodgeball challenge. On the final week, the teams took part in the Ecos 5k parkrun in Ballymena.

The team challenge winners were the Orange Team which consisted of Gerry Thompson (captain), Patrick McCormick, 
Mairead Feeney and Conn Rodgers. The individual winner was Charlie McAuley who lost 34lbs and dropped 12.6 per cent in body weight.

The honour of Carnlough’s Biggest Losers 2013 went to the Blue Team, made up of Gerry Burns (captain), Diane McAuley, Lisa McCambridge and Ryan Tabb, who between them lost a total of 82.4lbs and dropped 9.4 per cent in weight.