GEORGETOWN, S.C. —  They are not competing for $250,000 like on the TV show but $800 is up for grabs to one of the 40 people who are participating in a Georgetown’s Biggest Loser contest that started last week.

Organizer Nannette Moore — wife of local accountant Kelly Moore — said she got the idea for the contest from watching the TV show, The Biggest Loser, and watching her father suffer with lung cancer.

“After seeing what he went through, I told my husband I had to do something,” she said, adding she was worried any illness she received could have been amplified because of her weight. “Kelly and I joined the YMCA and they were wonderful but I needed something more motivating. A little  extra push.”

Borrowing the idea from the NBC program, Mrs. Moore told her husband she wanted to start a local competition.

Last year, the 1st Georgetown’s Biggest Loser competition was held and started with 16 participants. But, the contest stretched through the holiday season and by the end, only four people remained.

Georgetown’s Biggest Loser  2 started last week and will continue for the next three months.

More than 40 people have signed up to take part. Each paid $20 which went into a pot. The $800 collected will be given to the person who loses the biggest percentage of weight in the next 90 days.

 That is all the motivation contestant Jan Avant needs.

“This gives me an incentive,” Avant, who weighed in two weeks ago for the contest. “I am a very competitive. Winning the money is the big thing.”

When asked how she plans to take off the needed amount of weight to win, Avant had a simple answer.

“Exercise exercise exercise,” she said.

Clara Feagin, who lost 25 pounds during Georgetown’s Biggest Loser 1, enough to claim the prize, is in the contest again mainly to offer encouragement and support to her teenage daughter.

Feagin said she was doing a Weight Watchers program before the first contest began, so she just kept doing what she had been doing.

She said she is not surprised the number of people participating has nearly quadrupled since the first contest.

“People saw how good it worked the first time,” she said.

Moore said unlike Georgetown’s Biggest Loser 1, this time contestants will have to weigh in  weekly and if they miss two weigh-ins they will be disqualified.

The group also has a Facebook page which they will use to keep up with each other’s progress and to offer motivation to each other.

Moore concluded by saying she would not be able to put these contests together without support from her husband.

“It is our busiest time of the year and he has been very patient with the overwhelming response that we have gotten.

“We are both very excited and never dreamed it would get this big. To see this many people get involved has been a blessing to us and we just look forward in 90 days to seeing a happier, healthier Georgetown,” she said.

By Scott Harper

sharper@gtowntimes.com