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Is this fair???

I had a weight loss challenge with my boss , we both started similar weight around 105.5kg each , the challenge was for 63 days and the loser paid the winner 1k as a incentive
We did the challenge to improve our health choices and change our eating habits , fitness ect

I trained hard getting up to running 5km a day which I proud of and ate healthy and got to 89.4 kg over 15kg loss

We weight ourself 48 hours b4 the weight in day I was 91.5 and my boss was around 93kg

Come weigh in time he come in at 88.2kg beating me by more than 1kg losing almost 5kgs over 2 days

I caught him spending hours and hours in the sauna , he has lost water weight not the reason of us doing the challenge ?

Have I been robbed or it it fair?

What are your thoughts?

No one can lose 5kg in 24 hours
9 Responses
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Avatar universal
5kg in 24 hours its too hurry I think. Someone can suffer for this if lost 5 kgs within a day.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Hi Brooke, yes it was in AUD , down under.

Thanks for the responses he obviously has done the wrong thing, but still in denial saying there is nothing wrong with what he has done, maybe I should show him some of these responses so he can see for himself.    I appreciate everyones input, and needed some feedback from a neutral point.
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
I don't know what good it would particularly do to show  him people's comments. He sounds like a guy who would justify his behavior by saying there were no specific prohibitions on sitting in the sauna and starving oneself (and taking diuretics or whatever else he did). In other words, he would say the bet was just on who lost the most weight by a certain day (whether the weight stayed off or not) unless it specified that the weight had to stay off for a certain time period. I'd be curious to know whether he added weight two days before the final weigh-in to lull you into a false sense of security, piled on a whole bunch of methods in the intervening 48 hours to lose a lot of weight in a hurry, or found a way to get the scale to weigh light on the weigh-in date. But even if he wasn't that blatant, he certainly violated the spirit of a bet that was supposedly about losing weight in a healthy way in order to maintain the loss.

What you might do instead of showing him a bunch of Internet responses is to ask him to weigh again right now, and if he is still at the weight he was when he "won" the bet, you can pay up without feeling cheated.
134578 tn?1693250592
I just looked up the dollar, and see that at least 20 currencies (including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Liberia, Namibia, New Zealand, Singapore,Taiwan) are called a dollar, and that they have widely varying values. If you were writing in to say this bet was in US dollars, I would be extremely indignant for you at the level at which your boss cheated you, because a thousand dollars US is nothing to blink at no matter how much money you have. It's a lot of money to lose on a bet when someone cheats! But if this is a currency where it takes, say, $500 dollars to have a nice dinner out for two with wine, then while he still cheated, at least you don't have quite as much insult added to injury.

That said, morally your boss is a sack of s---.

For one thing, a boss should not be wagering with an employee. There is a possible coercion level even if they like each other, because there is a power imbalance in the relationship. For example, if he would ever sue you for the balance of what you so-called "owe" him, your defense in court would be that you were trying to be a friendly employee who looks good to the boss. The coercive nature of the relationship would be seen by a judge as a reason to negate the bet. (I'm not saying he would sue, but am saying that even something as fusty as the law recognizes that agreements that are coerced should not be enforced.) And subtly or not, the boss is using his power relationship over you. Even if he did not rely on it to set up the bet, he is now using it to try to keep you on the hook to pay up and not to simply demand the $500 back.

Secondly, he either cheated in how he lost the weight in the last two days (that is, cheating the intent of the agreement, which was presumably for health) or he cheated in the weigh-in 48 hours before the end of the bet. It is hard but I don't think impossible to lose 11 lbs. in 48 hours, but he would have to have done a lot more than sit in a sauna. I think it would have taken diuretics, starvation, and possibly something to give him the runs.

Also, he is a dishonest person who went out of his way to prevail in this bet by means that are at the very least, not in the intent of the bet. As I said already, if your skills are in demand elsewhere, in your shoes I would sure as heck go elsewhere. If this is a big company, I would report what happened to a higher-up, giving the facts including the sudden weight loss at the end. And I would say good bye. It cannot be comfortable to continue to work for someone who you feel cheated you.
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
I only want to say one thing about this -- there's nothing wrong with being friends with your boss.  Or your superior.  There might be something to that part of it if it were a very large corporation where management and employees don't live in the same world, but even this is morally wrong and just another way of trying to maintain medieval class differences.  If you work in smaller businesses relationships are just closer, as everyone knows everyone else in a more similar way.  I managed small businesses for many years, and grew up with a father who was part owner of one, and these types of businesses just don't have the formality of large organizations.  If we take this power imbalance thing too far we're going to get out of balance the other way.  We are all human beings, and the fact someone makes more money than you do or is higher in an artificial hierarchy doesn't negate your mutual humanness.  Just sayin.'
Avatar universal
Given the unanimous verdict here, I think we should all go with you and beat him up.  I mean really, who cheats on a friendly wager and not only that but one that is about getting healthier?  What a creep.  As to your question, I think someone already said nobody could lose that much true weight in that short a period of time -- if what you're saying is true, and again, we're not there to know for sure, it has to be water weight.  Fighters do this all the time to make weight, then they gain it all back as soon as they rehydrate right after the weigh-in.  Your question about Olympians isn't actually apt, though -- a regular athlete, even a regular normal person who works out hard or plays a sport hard, is very unlikely to easily lose weight -- they're probably don't have a lot to lose.  Some athletes do run large -- think Serena Williams or linemen in American football -- but again, even they couldn't lose that much weight in such a short amount of time under normal circumstances because normal for them is working out about as heavily as you can work out.  Dieting is a slow process.  The only quick ways to lose weight is to lose water weight if it took place in that short a period of time.  An Olympic athlete, as you describe, is so fit they just don't have the weight to lose -- most of them are in fact trying to put on weight in the form of muscle, not lose it.  I've worked out pretty hard for most of my life and though I'm no athlete, I've never lost that much weight except once, which is when I stopped taking an antidepressant that caused me to put on a lot of weight.  In a period of weeks I lost about 30 pounds of the nearly 50 I had put on by using the drug.  I didn't lose more than that because I had also put on more muscle.  So again, if what you say is true, and I have to say, this is one of the most fun posts in the years I've been on here in that nobody's sick which is great, he cheated.  What you should have done is weighed him again the next day, because if he continued to not drink water and sweat it off he would get very sick and injured by depleting his electrolytes.  Many a fighter has lost a fight because of having to sweat out water to make weight and not being able to rehydrate in time for the fight.  
Helpful - 0
649848 tn?1534633700
COMMUNITY LEADER
Richie76... I do not believe it's possible to lose 5 kg of fat (which should be the goal when losing weight) in 24 hrs no matter how time is spent in the gym doing cardio and other training.  Even muscle wasting doesn't take place that quickly...

What your boss did was unfair and unhealthy.   I agree with the others that you should not owe him any more money and if possible I would try to find a different job because if you can't trust him to do a simple weight challenge honestly, how can you trust him to be an honest employer?
Helpful - 0
134578 tn?1693250592
Richie, what currency is it that you are talking about? You're using the metric system, which suggests not the U.S., but also the dollar sign. I'm trying to understand how much money is at stake.
Helpful - 0
2 Comments
Apologies money is done , half paid he won’t get the other half but I am very disappointed as what has happened on the trust stakes and work relationship ect

He said he used the sauna heavily but said the reason he lost the 5kg was a lot of cardio and no food is a 5kg loss possible without sauna / water loss
I was asking what currency because I wanted to know what the bet is worth. If you don't want to say what country, could you at least give a clue as to what percent of, for example, a weekly paycheck the $500 represents?
134578 tn?1693250592
I would tell him that you feel the bet is off and $500 is all he is going to get from you, and also in fact if my skills are marketable elsewhere, I'd look for another job and would not hesitate to tell him that it is because you feel he cheated on the intent of the bet. I agree that you did get a lot out of the contest, maybe that alone is worth the money, but I think you are never going to work as well again with a person you think cheated.
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
Can a human lose 5kg in 48hours by just training and not eating and if so how long would they need to train to create that deficit?

I have read not even a Olympian training 10 hours a day can make that happen ?

Avatar universal
If in fact he sweated out water -- and we don't know if that's what he did or not, we weren't there -- the way fighters do to make weight, as soon as he drank a normal day's worth of water the weight came back again.  If that's what he did, you got robbed, and don't owe him a thing.  If you're going to have a contest like this, make the rules in advance if you're going to bet real money on it.  You know, he could also have started popping speed and stopped eating, but that isn't healthy.  Neither is sweating out your electrolytes.  So if it was for both health and weight loss, and to promote permanent lifestyle changes, if this happened as you say I declare you the winner and he not only owes you the money but also a dinner on him at the best restaurant in town.
Helpful - 0
3 Comments
On the other hand, in the long run, you did get a lot out of the contest, though you may have lost a friend.
Thanks for the response he admits he used the Sauna but believes he lost the majority of the 5kgs in 48 hours from not earning and hard trading long duration in the gym working out

I pose another question how much of a weight loss deficit is the max someone can make In 24 hours if it was not water loss??

Is 5 kg loss in 24 hours possible if it was not water? And if it is how much calories must be burnt?
5 kilograms is about 11 pounds, right? The only time people lose that much in 24 hours (or even in 48 hours) is when something is irregular about their body (such as, they are ill and have diarrhea and vomiting) or when they are doing something extreme on purpose. Did your bet specify that nobody was to sit in the sauna or take a weight-loss product or diuretic? Obviously it would not be in line with the intent of the bet if that is what he did, or if he found some way to just blatantly cheat the scale, but probably he would say to you (if you address this issue directly) that there was no prohibition in the bet about the method.

134578 tn?1693250592
Have you paid him yet? If not, have a talk with him right away and propose the two of you weigh again right that moment (the time of your talk) and if he is still down as low as he was, pay up. If not, you don't need to pay. (He should, but if he's willing to sit in a sauna to win the bet, he probably won't.)
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
Hi Brooke I paid him half $500 still owe him $500 been over 1 week since date of weigh in our relationship is strained as I feel disappointed as he would go to that extremes to win or prove a point and was a sitting duck , should have known better when he asked to check a weigh in Sat morning 48 hours b4 weigh in , then he loses around 5kg in last 24 hours

He wants the other half of the bet I am reluctant to pay the other half for obvious reasons
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