If you want to lose weight and gain muscle, join a dad bod or a mom bod challenge. The social pressure to hit your goals will be immense. And if you put a financial penalty for not meeting your goals by a certain date, you will be even more motivated to get fitter.
Since graduating from college in 1999, I've weighed between 164 and 173 pounds at 5'10” tall. I'm currently about 165 pounds, 45 days after the start of my Dad Bod Challenge. The lightest I weighed as an adult was about 153 pounds, which lasted all of one year before I gained the freshman 10+ pounds during college.
After college, my doctor also suggested I should be around 155-157 lbs to hit my ideal weight. So for over 25 years I've been telling myself I'd like to lose 10 pounds. And I've never succeeded, only coming close when I grew to 173 pounds during the first year of fatherhood in 2017, and then again during the first year of COVID. After both periods, I ended up losing about 7 pounds at most.
But after hearing about some fellow dads at my kids' school entering the Dad Bod Challenge and losing a ton of weight while also gaining muscle, I was impressed. This could finally be the impetus I was looking for to lose that stubborn 10 pounds!
Let me explain our setup, so you might be incentivized to create your own. After all, once you're financially on track, you should get physically on track as well.
Criteria for the Dad Bod Challenge: Subjective and Objective
There are actually 10 of us in the Dad Bod Challenge. Here are the conditions:
- Challenge duration: Set a realistically long-enough duration to change habits. Ours is 100 days.
- Baseline criteria: Complete a DEXA scan (costs about $40–$70) to measure body fat, lean mass, bone density, and more. You will likely be shocked by how much fatter you are than you think. Submit your DEXA results to a fellow dad, the judge, who determines how much fat you must lose and how much lean mass you must gain or maintain.
- Agree or disagree: After receiving your challenge numbers, you must sign a contract if you agree with the goals. Otherwise, you can negotiate if you have special circumstances, such as a shoulder injury, knee injury, plantar fasciitis, etc.
- Create a financial penalty for failing the challenge: Ours is $5,000.
- Reassess all contestants goals at least half way through the challenge: Get another DEXA scan and report back. The judge will determine whether the contestants need a lifeline through extensions.
- Reward for winning the challenge: Split the winnings from the dads who fail. So theoretically, nine dads could lose and one dad could win $45,000 if no extensions are involved.
The Financial Penalty For Failure Needs to Be High Enough
$5,000 might sound steep, or to some, it might not sound like much. But overall, the penalty needs to feel painful enough to motivate you to lift weights, exercise, and reduce food consumption. A $1,000 penalty would be enough to get me motivated, while another might need a $50,000 penalty.
$50,000 would be a scary number to lose, especially as cash strapped as I am. However, on the flip side, with such a high penalty, there is no way I wouldn't meet my goals.
Overall, we agreed that $5,000 was a high enough penalty. After about 45 days, the judge also offered dads the option to buy an extension for $500 a week, for up to four weeks. If a dad buys the extension and meets his objectives, he gets all his money back and doesn't have to pay the $5,000 penalty.
This lifeline was a great relief for me given my slower-than-expected progress. But I'm also reluctant to take it because I need PAIN AND PENALTY to keep me motivated.
Body Recomposition Is Much Harder
If you think losing weight is hard, try losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. Way harder.
Muscle needs protein and calories to grow. A calorie deficit, which is how you lose fat, starves your muscles of the fuel they need. So the two goals fight each other.
Losing weight on its own is relatively simple. Track what you eat and run a daily calorie deficit large enough to hit your fat-loss target by a certain date. You don’t have to do more. You just have to eat less. Exercise helps, but roughly 80% of weight loss comes from diet. And if you exercise too much, you might overeat.
Building lean mass, which is mostly muscle, requires lifting weights. And not casual lifting. You need to lift to failure, where you can’t squeeze out another rep or two. That usually means at least three sets of 8 to 12 reps, adding weight over time to discover what you can really do.
Getting Older And More Fragile
When I was young, piling on more plates was a fun challenge. Now my joints and tendons ache when I push to the max, and that’s when the injury risk spikes.
Fellow dads have torn biceps, triceps, and pecs, and thrown out their backs lifting. My 70-year-old uncle, who looks like He-Man, tore a shoulder muscle this year and needed surgery. He’s out for at least two months.
If I get seriously injured, I will most likely fail the dad bod challenge. To win, or at least not lose, every dad must hit both his fat-loss and lean-mass goals at the final scan concurrently. You can’t hit your muscle target two months in and then lose it during the final 45 days because you focused only on cutting.
Body recomposition is far harder than doing either one alone. And this is my first time doing it
Haven’t Lifted Weights In A Decade
I hadn’t regularly lifted weights in over 10 years before this challenge.
The reasons were mostly laziness and boredom. I also have a shoulder injury that’s nagged me for at least six years. During COVID, I couldn’t throw a softball overhand without pain, so I mostly played first base and occasionally third. I’d rather not have surgery.
My hope was that going from zero to one would produce big gains. But I needed to be careful. If I hurt myself further, I might not be able to lift at all.
For 45 days, I watched what I ate. I cut way back on sugar and carbs and loaded up on protein shakes and chicken. On top of playing tennis and pickleball three times a week for about 1.5 hours a session, I added 30 to 40 minutes of walking a day.
After all that, my DEXA scan showed I’d lost only 2.6 pounds of fat and gained 1.4 pounds of lean tissue. I expected at least 4 pounds of fat loss, so I was disappointed. But I’m pleased with the lean tissue gain.
The good news is I still have about two months to go.
My Fat-Loss And Lean-Mass Goals
Over the next two months, I need to gain another 1 pound of lean mass and lose 11 pounds of fat. That’s a net loss of 10 pounds, which would put me at about 156.5 pounds. But a DEXA scan can easily fluctuate by half a pound, so my safer target is 156 or less.
I haven’t been under 160 pounds in 26 years, but I’ve dreamed about it, just like how I've dreamt of buying a mansion in paradise. Then reality sets in and bludgeons my hopes into the ground.
Kei Nishikori, a pro tennis player I’ve followed, has played at around 155 pounds at 5'10”. If he can do it, so can I. Of course, he’s a professional athlete who works out five hours a day and I’m a 49-year-old dad who writes. Still, I accepted the challenge.
As a tennis and pickleball player, I want to be lean. Big muscles are nice, but they slow down my speed and hands. It’s one reason you don’t see muscular players on the pro tour. To each their own.
The Social Element And Challenge Dynamics
The best part of a Dad Bod Challenge is the group. Everybody is supportive and brings a different nutrition and fitness background. We cheer each other on and answer each other’s questions. Although, some remain completely silent.
I don’t think anybody is primarily motivated by winning the other dads’ money. Everybody seems motivated by the chance to improve their health.
What’s interesting is that the goals aren’t uniform. We entered knowing the penalty and our own targets, but once the challenge started, we could see everyone else’s.
The judges tried to set fair goals and meet each dad where he was. But after seeing all the numbers, I probably should have negotiated a smaller fat-loss target.
For example, my buddy is two inches shorter than me and started 38 pounds heavier. He has to get down to about 196 pounds while I have to get down to 156 pounds. Our body compositions are different, as he has more lean mass, but losing a similar percentage of fat when you have less of it is harder.
That's life. Which brings me to the lessons a Dad Bod Challenge teaches about money and life.
Fitness And Finances Have Many Similar Parallels
1) It takes a lot of discipline to get fit and build wealth
Getting ripped and wealthy doesn't just happen. You've got to make it happen.
The only reason I exercise is because tennis, pickleball, and softball are fun. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t. I don’t run for fun. I don’t walk for fun, although I do enjoy a nice hike.
This lack of fun is the main reason I stopped lifting weights. If I’m going to lift something heavy, I want to be productive, like hauling rocks and bags of mulch for a landscaping project. Curling a dumbbell in a gym felt pointless.
A Dad Bod Challenge forces discipline when fun isn’t enough. It gets you out the door for a 6 am run before work, or to the gym at 9 pm once the kids are in bed. The challenge also helps you get used to that throbbing feeling of hunger, which may make you more appreciative of the things you have.
Make the challenge long enough, 100 to 180 days, and the discipline compounds until it becomes part of your weekly routine.
Building wealth requires the same consistency. You need the discipline to save as much of each paycheck as possible, and the courage to put those savings at risk. Historically, stocks have gone up in roughly 70% of years. That’s when you feel great about your efforts, like losing fat and gaining muscle. The other 30% of the time, you lose a little or a lot and curse your timing, like getting injured.
Stick with both routines for 10 years and you’ll be blown away by the results. But staying disciplined for that long is hard. That’s where a workout buddy more gung-ho than you helps. It’s also where an automatic 401(k) contribution from every paycheck and an AI investment advisor helps.
2) Everybody has a different starting point in life
Some people are born to wealthy, loving parents. Others are born into poverty, given up for adoption, or lose their parents as babies. Some people befriend the founders of a hot AI company and join before it hits it big. Others join startup after startup that goes bust.
The body is similar. Some people are born with fast metabolisms and uncanny strength. Others pack on weight despite working out constantly. Tall, skinny people may struggle to add muscle. Shorter, stockier people may bulk up with ease.
At 49, I'm one of the oldest dads in the group. The youngest is 39. Ah, I remember 39. I was five years into FIRE, traveling the world, and recovering much faster than I do now. I also didn’t have my shoulder and knee injuries. But the challenge gives older dads no handicap. No easier fat-loss targets, no lower lean-mass goals, no extra free time.
Compare your goals to someone else’s and you might get annoyed, because you have completely different genetics. The judges try to set fair goals, but they won’t get it perfect every time.
We can’t control the hand we’re dealt. We can only control our effort and attitude. So compare your progress to your old self and nobody else. If you hit your own goals, you won’t lose. If you happen to win some money too, great. The money was never the point.
3) Pay it forward
What I love about my Dad Bod Challenge is that the creators and judges are fitness fanatics. They’re smart, enthusiastic, kind, and extremely fit. They’ve experienced the benefits of being in shape, so they’re paying it forward by organizing a challenge for 10 dads who are nowhere near as fit.
I’ve learned a ton about how to train, what to eat, how to recover, and how to supplement with protein. One example: spread your protein out, eating about 20 to 25 grams every few hours instead of cramming it all into one meal for better utilization.
Oh, and did you know a tablespoon of olive oil is around 120-140 calories?! Nuts!
I also lost all my excuses. I used to tell myself only people without kids or demanding jobs could get extremely fit. But the judges are dads and successful entrepreneurs. Excuses gone.
Paying it forward is also why I’ve published three times a week on Financial Samurai for over 17 years. No courses, no paywalls, just free content based on my experiences to help you reach financial freedom sooner. When I find a great strategy, like negotiating a severance if you plan on quitting anyway, I find it impossible not to share it.
4) Hard to improve what you don’t measure
Before this challenge, I had never measured my lean mass. I just stepped on a scale. But a scale lies by omission. You could lose two pounds of muscle and think you’re making progress. That's no good, especially for folks over 40 who begin to lose muscle more rapidly.
The DEXA scan showed me the truth. After 45 days, I’d lost 2.6 pounds of fat and gained 1.4 pounds of lean body mass. The scale only showed a 1.2-pound difference, which would have been demoralizing. The DEXA showed real recomposition, but also still a bummer because I thought I would have made greater gains.
Finances work the same way. Plenty of people only look at their income or checking account balance and think they’re doing fine. But income is just the scale. Net worth is the DEXA scan. It shows whether you’re building assets or just shuffling money around while debt quietly piles up.
I’ve tracked my net worth since 1999 and it’s one of the best financial habits I’ve ever built. Whatever you measure regularly, you naturally start to improve.
Empower is what I use to track my net worth once I moved on from spreadsheets in 2012. Mezzi is what I use to track my public investments and gain powerful financial insights to better optimize my portfolio.
Health Is What Matters Most
At the end of the day, I want to build muscle and lose fat to increase my chances of living a longer, healthier life.
That’s primarily why I think more people should join a Dad Bod or Mom Bod Challenge. Even if you miss your exact targets, you’ll likely finish in better shape than when you started.
As a result, you'll likely be in your children's lives for longer on the back end. That's priceless.
In high school and college, I stayed in shape to have the widest dating pool possible. My four years at William & Mary were a blast.
Once I started working, I occasionally exercised to relieve the stress of finance. During my first five years, staying under 170 pounds was a struggle. Eventually I settled into the mid-160s, playing competitive USTA tennis for 10 years and wanting every edge I could get.
Now, I want as much energy as possible to play with my kids. And I want to live long enough to meet my grandchildren. Starting a family so late is one of my biggest regrets.
So if you need a reason to get in shape and change your body composition, organize a Dad Bod or Mom Bod Challenge. Even if you lose, you’ll probably make new friends and end up fitter.
Here’s to 156 pounds or less by December 23, 2026.
Readers, have you ever joined a Dad Bod or Mom Bod Challenge with real money on the line? How big does a financial penalty need to be before it actually changes your behavior, $500, $5,000, or $50,000?
Get Fit, Then Lock In Your Life Insurance
Life insurers notice when you get in shape. Your weight and health history help determine your health class, which drives your premiums. I had my first child two months before turning 40, so my kids will depend on me well into my 60s. Term life insurance is the cheapest way to make sure they’re OK if I don’t make it to grandparent duty.
If you have dependents, check out Policygenius. You can compare quotes from multiple top insurers in one place instead of calling around. The best time to lock in a policy is while you’re young and healthy. The second best time is right after you finish a Dad Bod Challenge.
