Biggest Loser

One of my coworkers had a brain storm a couple weeks ago. She thought it would be a good idea to have a weight loss challenge at work, modeled after the biggest loser TV show, modified for office use. Basically, people would pay $5 to enter, they would weigh in with the receptionist in our office, and would set a goal for how much they want to lose over a two month period. At the end of that time, the person who loses the highest percentage of their goal (including going over, so if you set a goal to lose 10 pounds and lose more than that, than your percentage would be over 100%) will win the money. We had 17 people sign up, so the pot is at $70. Not bad.

I signed up.

I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to. I want to lose weight, for sure - for those of you who don't know me, I won't post a before picture (unless maybe I get brave when I'm done losing the weight), but know that I want to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 pounds (maybe more) (oh, and not in two months - overall. In two months, I set a goal of 18 pounds). Fun.

So yes, I wanted to lose the weight, and I wasn't doing very well at it on my own (the call of junk food was much more powerful than the desire to once again be thin). But if I joined this challenge I would have to weigh in with someone I work with. Meaning they would know how much I currently weigh. (shudder) But I thought about it for a few days, and I finally bit the bullet, paid my $5 and joined. Whew. The first weigh in is done, and that one is the worst - from here on out the number will only get smaller.

And I'm one day into the challenge, and so far I'm doing great. Here's hoping I keep it up.

And don't worry - this isn't going to become a weight loss blog. It is in the forefront of my mind, though, so I will mention it from time to time. And for some reason now I feel compelled to tell you how I gained all this weight in the first place.

I've always had to fight to keep a reasonable weight. When I was in high school, I was a slim 135 or so (only about ten pounds over my ideal), but I thought I was oh so fat. The dramatics of teenager-dom. Once I got out of school and started working for a living, the weight went up a bit, peaking at 165. When I got there I joined Nutri-System, paid a small fortune and lost 40 pounds to get to my ideal of 125. I was a size 4! It was great. And I managed to maintain for a while - not 125, but I stayed at or under 140 for a long while, which was fine with me.

Then my mother started getting sick, and eventually she developed brain tumors and was going to die. Stress is not a friend to weight loss, let me tell you. Neither is depression, and when my Mom died, I went into a depression that it took me 2 1/2 years to climb out of. And I ate my way through it, so woo! That 140 didn't stay for long, and it hasn't been seen in about seven years.

Well, the bad stuff is in the past, and I am happier now than I have been since my Mom started getting sick in about 1996. There is no longer any reason to hold on to the weight, no longer any stress or depression reason to keep overeating. Now it's just habit. And that habit is going to be broken. I have a ways to go, and I'm going to do it right, so it's going to take a while to get back to that comfortable 125-140 range. Like I said, this is not going to become a weight loss blog, but I will probably be posting small updates from time to time (hopefully one of those posts won't be that I quit working toward my goal). I did great yesterday (and lost two pounds overnight, woo! I know that was just water weight and that I won't continue to lose something everyday, but it was great to see it this morning), and I am going to work hard to do great most everyday from here on out, and if Jamie and Sarah don't mind, I will be bugging them to tell me no when I want to eat something I shouldn't. They saved me from scarfing a bunch of angel food cake last night, for which I am very grateful.

And when the weight is all off, maybe I'll post an after picture. I can't promise a before, though. We'll see. And if any of my three or four readers (I love you all! Thanks for reading me!) want to give me support through my comments from time to time, I would appreciate it more than you know.