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. So for over 25 years in a row, 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.…