30 Day Challenge - And the winner is...

First, a review of the rules:  The purpose of the 30 day challenge was to see who could lose more weight in a month; me or my good friend known as Big D.  The idea was to create a challenge that was tough, motivating, and also allowed both players to be in control of their own destiny.  The result was setting a goal of 15 pounds.  If both players lost at least 15 pounds, then whoever lost more received $1 (for bragging rights).  If however the goal was not met, then the loser paid $20 for every pound short of 15!  The stakes were high but as long as you lost 15 pounds, the most money you could lose was a buck.  Both me and Big D. had advantages and disadvantages which made it an interesting bet.  Could my family support and stable schedule beat out Big D's youth and his advantage of not already being on a diet (everyone knows when you start a diet you get great 1st week numbers)?  The answer was discovered at 7:00AM this morning...

My performance over the month was very good.  My wife helped me to remain accountable for ALL my calories and I learned that in the past I have grossly underestimated what I was taking in.  For the duration I held my calories constantly at 2000-2100.  I did go out to eat twice during the challenge but on both occasions I behaved reasonably well.  As far as exercise went, I did start to slack off a little in the end.  In week 3 I missed a few workouts, but only in the name of doing other activities that required exertion.  In the last week I caught a nasty chest cold and didn't workout one bit.  I should probably cut myself some slack because it was a really bad cold, but I do think I should've found a way to get some exercise in.  The lack of exercise in the last week really had me nervous, but there were some signs of doing well such as people noticing I looked thinner and being able to adjust my belt in one notch.

Big D's performance was also very good.  He avoided fast food completely and also only ate out a couple times during the event despite making 2 trips to visit his girlfriend in NY.  He ate several small meals each day, got plenty of protein, drank lots of water, and avoided salt as much as possible (I did actually give him some advice before we started and was happy to see he listened).  For exercise he walked his dog every day and went to the gym as much as possible to workout on a bike (he even went to some spin classes with his girlfriend when he was out of town).  At the start of the challenge he was walking 3 miles each day and by the end he was up to 6!  I was actually amazed at how much Big D. changed his ways during the challenge.

When Big D. arrived at my house this morning we both talked about how we thought we might come out.  I thought maybe I hit about 10 pounds.  I had been sick all week and felt extremely bloated like I might be retaining a bunch of water.  Big D. thought he might hit about 12 pounds but said there was no way in the world that he hit 15.  Then he accused me of trying to mess with his head and he mentioned that several people at work had noticed I lost weight.  I did truly think that I only lost 10 pounds (12 max).  We flipped a coin and I lost so he made me get on the Wii scale first...

FogDog Starting Weight - 288.1
FogDog Final Weight - 270.9
FogDog Total Loss on the 30 Day Challenge - 17.2 Pounds

You could have knocked me over with a feather!  Of course now Big D. was convinced that I had been messing with him (truly I was not), but he congratulated me on hitting such a high number. 

Next was his turn; after posting such a big number, clearly you could see he was really worried that he was going to lose...

Big D. Starting Weight - 256.4
Big D. Final Weight - 235.0
Big D. Total Loss on the 30 Day Challenge - 21.4 Pounds

The winner by 4.2 Pounds ... BIG D.!

To be honest, I was thrilled to see how well he had done, and was happy to give up the dollar.  I had told him a few days before that he deserved to win.  Don't get me wrong, I worked hard to lose my weight, but I was already on that path; I simply amped up my efforts.  Big D. made a total transformation and to me that was quite impressive!  More importantly, I think Big D. recognizes what he needs to do to keep the weight off and that's a victory in itself.

Although I lost the bet, I still have plenty of things to celebrate and I am thrilled with the results.  This weigh-in brought me a bunch of victories all at once:

1. I met the 30-day challenge goal
2. I hit my mid term goal of 275 and now get my reward (bring on the mountain bike!)
3. I helped to inspire a friend to make some healthy changes
4. I have now reached a weight that I have not seen since before my freshman year in college
5. Finally (and this is the biggest one for me) I have now crossed over the half way point in my journey to 199!  I started at 349 a couple years ago so 275 was a big number for me.  I cannot, and will not be stopped!

So my hat's off to Big D. for a great race.  By the way, we've already started planning the next challenge and the first rule we decided on was when we weigh in, if our starting weight is higher than our current weight from this morning there will be severe penalties.

To my other friend DJ (whom I have a longer term bet with) I'll say this:

I might be way ahead of you now, but don't give up! All it takes is a spark to get it going again and I know you can do it.  If you need a little incentive, just start thinking about how much money you are going to owe me if you stay where you are at.  I'm going on vacation in Maine in July and if I can keep it going, I might just be stopping by your house to collect!

To all the rest of you out there, I hope this story inspires you to keep on going.  It may be hard and it may be slow, but the small victories are what keep us going.  Just keep chipping away at it and don't let the setbacks rule your journey.  If you don't give up, you too will get to feel what it's like to hit your halfway point.  Trust me on this, after hitting that mark, my resolve to see it through to the end has never been stronger!

Now I'm off for a vacation so I probably won't be back in the blog world until next weekend.  My goal is to not gain any weight while I'm gone and I will be resuming my normal weekly weigh-ins (and catching up with everyone else's blogs) starting next week.  Good luck and stay Strong!

30 Day Challenge Week 3 : Fringe Blogger

In case you haven't noticed, I've started to become what I call a fringe blogger.  There just aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things I want and need to do, so something has to scale back.  I do truly enjoy blogging and I hope my articles inspire others, but for now I've decided to scale back a little.  Where I used to write 3-4 articles each week, for now I'll be trying to get out 1 or 2.  This would bother me if not for the fact that I'm backing off on the blogging mostly because my physical activity has really taken off!  This 30 day challenge was a great tool for me, I really feel great these days.  That has translated into a lot more activity around the house and that is just helping me all the more! 

However, even though I'm scaling back on the writing, you can be assured that I'm still reading the blogs I'm following.  I haven't been commenting lately because I'm having issues with my work PC, but I try to keep up with everyone's blogs during my lunch hour. 

On the weight loss front, I would like to mention that yesterday I had to adjust my belt up a notch!  My wife says that my weight loss is noticeable and I'm dying to find out how much I've lost.  One more week to go on the 30 day challenge; we weigh in on Friday morning.

I mentioned before I started the challenge that I was dropping from 2500 calories per day to 2000.  Since then I've discovered that I am quite satisfied at that level (assuming I post a big loss next week).  I really haven't felt like I was starving and I really haven't noticed a big difference in how much less I'm eating.  In the second week I tried dropping down to 1800 calories for a couple days.  I ended up feeling run down and generally miserable by the 3rd day, so I quickly went back to 2000.  Figuring out how much you should eat is a process and is as unique for each person as a fingerprint.  To all of you out there who are still struggling to find your "zone" I would stress "just be patient and listen to your body".

As far as my exercise routine goes, week 3 has been a little slack.  I've missed a couple workouts, but I don't feel all too bad because the misses were in favor of doing other active things.  Granted 30 minutes on the elliptical is probably more rigorous than a round of golf but I need to enjoy the exercise I'm getting too.

Eating in week 3 has been exceptional!  I've stayed in between 2000 and 2100 calories all week long.  I also had a couple small victories that made me proud and had my wife believing that I truly have changed my ways.  First, she bought a dozen cookies for the kids early in the week.  I considered having one a couple times in the evenings, but at 190 calories each I just couldn't do it.  I'm happy to say that the kids ate the last of them last night and I never did have one.  The second victory came on Wednesday; we got a free lunch at work for hitting our monthly targets last month.  We each got a sub, chips, and a big cookie and there was soda to drink.  I'm happy to report that I ate my 6" sub and chips, had water instead of soda, and brought my cookie home for the kids.  The total for lunch was only 585 calories (the cookie itself would have been another 480).  All afternoon that cookie was begging me to eat it, but I refused and it felt great to be able to bring it home instead.

So now I'm into the last week of the 30 day challenge.  During this last week I plan on exercising as much as possible.  I'm playing golf on Saturday and the weather is supposed to be nice all weekend so I'm planning on making the most of it and getting a lot of outdoor activities in.  I might not hit the 15 pound goal, but I'm sure going to give it the college try.  Stay Strong!