Guam - The Blas clan of Barrigada, known as Familian Dero, loves to spend time together, whether it's playing cards, celebrating a birthday or just gathering to make new memories.  The family is ringing in the New Year in a big way after accepting a challenge posed by two family members.

Anthony "Noni" Ma'ano said, "My brother and my cousin were just sitting back one day watching the family realizing that the family wasn't eating healthy or didn't look too healthy so they decided a friendly competition would be the motivation to put us on track to eating healthy and exercising right."

Those who chose to participate agreed to contribute $50 and the day after Christmas, each weighed in-committing to get healthy.  The individual who loses the most percentage of body fat will win the pot that is now close to $1,000.  The idea to reclaim their lives, came from Ma'anao's brother, Wes, who recently left for a deployment in Afghanistan.  "Making my brother proud is definitely one of the motivators for this.  He's never really asked us for much but for him to sit back and ask us to be healthy, is enough for us to do it," he said.

Others, like my husband J.P. Aguon, joined the competition, to fulfill a promise made to his father, who passed away suddenly in July of last year.  "He's always made a comment to me, 'John, slow down on your eating' and to live a more healthy life.  I'm trying to take it to heart with him because he always wanted to see us grow and watch our kids grow so I'm doing it for him," he recalled.

But eating healthier and making time to exercise is proving to be a challenge, as Javier Atalig said, "It's not no easy task to lose weight.  It's easy to gain. It's very hard to lose but if you set your mind and your goal, you can do it believe me, you can.  I've lost three pounds since Christmas."

Jenei Aguon says it's all about taking it one step at a time, saying, "Stop sleeping after work; we've been eating a lot of brown rice and we just recently went shopping and we bought a George Foreman grill."

And the results of their battle of the bulge will be revealed when wes returns from Afghanistan in five months during another weigh in to determine who is the biggest loser in the family.

The series premiere of the Biggest Loser: Families airs tonight on KUAM-TV8 beginning at 7pm.