In early January, I made some radical changes to my diet and exercise routine. Lest you think good health is enough of a motivator for me, please be assured it is not. But a good healthy competition is another thing entirely. And a company named DietBet banks on the fact that I and other freakishly competitive people like me (read: the Dilettantes) will be successful with their weight loss model.

The DietBet website turns dieting into a fun competition. And by "fun" I mean "lets you risk losing a pile of money to ensure that you lose weight." DietBet put up $5,000 dollars that I, the Dilettantes, and five other bloggers were all competing to win. And if we were successful at losing 4% of our body weight in one month, the winners (losers) would share the pot and a percentage of the winnings with a charity of our choice. We all selected DC Central Kitchen because we love what they do, and it somehow seemed perfect we were eating less so others could eat more. (Can you tell I’m in marketing? That was an awesome sound bite.)

So for 31 days (that's 744 loooooong hours), I cut out alcohol, sugar, processed food, wheat and dairy (except for creamer in my coffee) and I exercised. A LOT. Thanks to the advice I received from the motivational and hilariously funny Shut Up and Run, who provided a Biggest Loser-esque exercise plan for me from the SUAR headquarters in Colorado, I really amped up my workouts.

Not to say there weren’t some challenges. I had to do without alcohol on my birthday during an extremely stressful month at work and while a few friends were going through some very difficult times. I may have also written a somewhat bitter status update of “not drinking Guinness at the Auld Shebeen” while out at an Irish bar with some friends early this month.

But perhaps the biggest challenge of all was discovering once again that every woman in the gym locker room mistakenly thinks she is protected by some sort of cloak of invisibility. On my first night back to the gym, I saw a whole lot of nudity and learned about a positive pregnancy test, frequency of marital relations and perimenopause. I’m embarrassed just writing about that kind of oversharing — says the woman with a weekly column, two blogs, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. But I write about innocuous things like bikini area laser hair removal and my parents driving through a car wash naked. I would never write about something so private.

Anyway, after all of this, it all came down to our weigh-in last night. And true to our freakishly competitive form, we were all successful at losing at least 4% of our body weight. And because I'm on a roll, I'm going to continue with my healthy habits to get back to my fighting weight.

Or at least until the Dilettantes decide to find a replacement member who is a lot more fun.