This January, Bodybuilding.com kicked off its fifth annual Transformation Challenge. With the largest prize to date, the $200,000 contest attracted an astonishing 57,327 entrants from all around the world. The male and female winners each took home $80,000 in cold hard cash. And for the first time in the contest’s history, a “People’s Choice” prize was awarded.
Nina Mam of Santa Monica was announced the female grand prize winner in the Transformation Challenge. She said she got to a point where she was sick and tired of being unhealthy and wanted to make a change. That’s what motivated her to enter the challenge. In 12 weeks, Nina lost a total of 21 pounds.
“Throughout the Bodybuilding.com Transformation Challenge, I felt encouraged to get stronger, not just skinnier,” Mam said. “During this transformation I discovered a deeper, emotional, powerful motivator, that gave me an incredible drive. Proving to myself that I wasn’t a loser, to give everything I’ve got into something for once. This challenge was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life and I knew that if I finished it, I would have a worthwhile breakthrough.”
The annual 12-week challenge was designed to motivate and incentivize participants to achieve their health and fitness goals. Motivated and ready to rock, this year’s winners dropped a whopping 115 pounds, which equated to a loss of over 40 percent body fat. Overall, participants in the challenge shaved nearly 35,000lbs from their waistlines. Of those who entered the challenge, 474 of those who could be classified as obese finished the contest at a healthy weight.
“Our biggest competition is the couch and we want to beat it in a big way,” said Bodybuilding.com CEO and founder, Ryan DeLuca. “We want to empower, facilitate, and cultivate positive change. It’s our mission to fight obesity and disease, bad habits, poor health and most importantly, the couch. We are here to push people to reach their peak potential,” states DeLuca.
With so many participants in this year’s challenge, picking the overall male and female winner was a daunting task. A team from Bodybuilding.com combed through thousands of profiles to discover two individuals that stood out from all of the amazing transformations: Chandler Camden of Park Hills, MO, and Nina Nam of Santa Monica, CA. You can check out their epic reaction when we surprised them with gym bags full of cash here: $200,000 Winner Surprise Video.
