Giveaway Winners

Well, it was difficult to decide, but I finally made up my mind on the First Ever Jack Sh*t, Gettin’ Fit Giveaaway. If you missed it, I pledged $100 of my own hard-earned moola to the person who convinced me they would best use it on their weight-loss journey. The responses were stirring and inspiring, heart-breaking and gut-wrenching, but I finally decided.

Polergirl said... Hey Jack, I'd give the money straight back to you and say 'Well done mate, we're so damned proud of you - go treat yourself.'

Okay, that’s a wrap. Thanks everyone for playing. Run along now…












Hmmmmm… didn’t think I’d be able to get away with that.

Like I said, I got some inspiring entries, and a few that took me by complete surprise.

How about this one from Tony at The Anti-Jared?

I have a good life. I make a good living and so does my wife.

But I have something we can do. Why don't you take that $100 bill and I will do the same.

With $200 why don't we start a website to promote other weight loss blogs.

See, mamavation is for moms. Blogher is for women. Fatbloggers.net is for guys. What about a community that takes everyone? You and I are unique. We know how to promote blogs. We see so many great blogs out there and wonder why they are not as popular as they should be. We have enough people who would love to join. Anyone could do it, weight loss, fitness, whatever.

We can come up with a creative name and use hashmarks on twitter

@Jacksht have you read @antijared's post #bloggerbaby

With $200 and our talent, we can find other talent as well. I am sure that the Mizfits and Dietgirls would support it as well.

But it would go farther. Because everyone would make it that way.

We both know $100 is a great giveaway, but the 45 minutes of joy or inspiration you give in the morning is priceless (I am a slow reader).

I kind of feel the same way about what I write. There are so many more great bloggers out there. So many who have a great story, yet never get recognized. Yet, when you comment on someone's blog, do you realize it is like a superstar saw them?

I do not know. I was going to write somethiing snarky, but I already have a Wii Fit.

I’ve already emailed Tony about this, because really…how can you say “no” to a proposal like this? I told him I’m in, but as far as I’m concerned, this is above and beyond this little giveaway of mine.

Then there was Sean from The Daily Diary of a Winning Loser’s entry:

I would use the $100.00 to apply for a dba and then use the remaining to open a business checking account. This currently unnamed company would start from that 100 dollars---with a mission to travel and spread weight loss motivation and inspiration throughout the world via low cost weight loss seminars, books, and a comprehensive website full of useful tools and resources. This company would be unlike any other in the weight loss industry---focused more on the transformation of it's members, than the bottom line on a profit report.

I dream of founding this company---and spending the rest of my life sharing not only my story---but sharing the wonderful stories of so many people like you that have the power to inspire change.

It's gonna be magical. You read it here first, my friend.

Hard to say “no” to that, too. Except for the fact that I think Sean will do this with or without my cash infusion. It’s a great idea, Sean, and I hope you’ll persue it with the same gusto that you used to attack those nachos in the bad ol’ days.

Then there were a few entries that pushed for the money to go to charitable endeavors. The most compelling of this group was this one:

Lainey from Shrink said...

Well, Jack, what I would do with your $100 is ask you to donate it to my current cause: a 5K (3.1 miles) walk for cancer research known as the Underwear Affair! The purpose of the Underwear Affair is to find cures for cancers below the belt. On top of that, I'll have to get busy exercising and get in shape so that I don't have to take a nap every kilometre. Your $100 would help with that. There is a button on the sidebar of my blog for donations if you pick me! :-D

Come on, Jack, I even converted kms to miles for you, lol! If you don't want to donate (although Dawn from Fixing Myself Thinner did, and I know that you want to be cool like Dawn), I would be thrilled if you mentioned it on your blog, since you have approximately 7 gazillion readers.

Am I asking too much? :-D

I’m going to make a donation to Lainey’s Underwear Affair today and I hope you will too if you can. But again… this is outside of the scope of what I wanted to do with this giveaway.

The most surprising? How about this:

anne h from Carb Tripper said...

Jack - I would give it back to you, and match it $100 and let you pick TWO winners!

Apparently, Anne was serious (well, not serious, but you know what I mean…). I was so touched by Anne’s generosity that I decided to match her contribution.

So now I’ve got three $100 winners to pick, plus someone to give a $50 Dick’s Sporting Goods gift certificate and a few others to give some odds and ends from my office, including healthy stuff companies have sent me to review that I was entirely too lazy to review.

So check back this afternoon and let’s lay some cash on some worthy folks…