Anyone else competing?

My girlfriend and I are competing to lose weight . . . with a couple of caveats. We both promised to not skip meals, to not be unhealthy about how we chose to do it, and to give each other support as we go through it.  We're going to do it month by month.  The winner in October gets a $100 clothes shopping spree paid for by the loser.  We're going by percentage, rather than straight pounds.  She weighs about 100lbs less than I do.   We both found this website independently and both find it useful.  My company has a "Biggest loser" competition as well, but several of the competitors "cut weight" rather than actually trying to lose it.

Anyone else find that competing helps motivate them to lose weight?

I tend to stay away from competition when it comes to weight loss.  Too much negativity can be introduced in my experience.  The school system I work for did a similar type competition where teams competed and it got ugly fast.  If your numbers weren't in line with the rest of the team, some snippy e-mails went out pretty much calling you out in front of everyone.  And the management team took time to all work out every day even though if us grunts did it, we would have been called to the carpet for taking too much time during the day from our work.

Being male, I especially don't compete with other males.  How I lose weight may be totally different than another guy and it is not like a sport.  Health is much more important than competition.