Years ago, I had a “diet race” with DCE from Weekend Pundit (we live in the same town) and we both started out around 245. For weeks, every Monday, we’d put up that week’s weight loss results. Yes, I won. The sad thing is that after a while, we both put it back on. Two years ago, I said that it was time, AGAIN, to lose the weight and I went from 257 lbs down to 187. Pretty much have kept it off for a year (some ups, some down). And that presents a problem for me as all the “easy weight” for me is already gone. To lose additional weight is going to get HARD to do.
So, what’s the challenge this time? Tom Murray from the Government Integrity Project and I are challenging each other to lose weight because we need to do so. Each of us has chosen our own target weight and the goal is to get there safely. That means no starving oneself for days – not only because it isn’t healthy but doing so also puts the weight right back on when you stop dieting and neither of us is looking for that to happen.
Who knows, maybe there should be a following challenge to keep the weight off so as to have our bodies do a more complete “reset”? Not clear on this yet (mostly because I just thought of it).
Rules:
- Every Monday, get on the scale first thing.
- And then, to show accountability, report into the other what their current weight is that morning.
- I’ve got a spread sheet to track the changes and to calculate the percentage to the starting, target, current, and total weights for each of us. Compute the total percentage towards the target goal.
Sidenote: yes, we are losing different amounts of weight so to “normalize” the results. I’ve already lost most of my “easy” weight so my target is 178 lbs – a little bit more than when I was in college decades ago so my “drop” is 17.6 lbs. Tom’s starting weight is much higher but as he gets going (which he has promised to do), he’ll be dropping a LOT higher poundage in the beginning (because that’s generally what happens). But that’s where doing the achievement percentage will help as Tom’s target is just a tad below 70 lbs.
- HOW we lose the weight is up to us individually. Me? I’ll just cut down on my ice cream eating and my other portions (soup for lunch works very well for me). Tom says he’ll be working out and eating a bit less.
- I’ll put up two thermometers to show our progress (or lack thereof)!
- As the weeks go by, older updates will just slide down this page (so a lot of “bumping” of this post to each new Monday).
- First one to target weight, however, gets a steak dinner at a nice place, courtesy of the other.
I’m hoping that the ‘Grok readership will spur us on and keep up going. We started last Monday so today is the first result:
My amount this week may be a “best” as I’m expecting that my loss amount will go downward after this first week (I’m just continuing a present diet and not starting from scratch). Egads, if I start to fall behind, maybe I’ll have to even exercise, too!
