I’m The Biggest Loser

Since I’m not about to get into a sports bra and pose, Ali (from last season’s Biggest Loser) will have to do. 

Our fabulous and creative neighbor, John, (responsible for all things fun in the neighborhood:  Halloween decor, backyard campouts, all the street hockey equipment), has come up with something “fun” for the adults in his life.   He sent out an email after Christmas inviting us to participate in his version of The Biggest Loser. 

Here are the rules:

1.   You contribute $25.  The winner takes the pot ($350 for us).

2.  You get 1 point for every day that you:

a.  Have a good eating day (however you define it…for me, it’s eating around 1900 calories per day due to the extra nursing calories I get).  You get 0 points if you have an okay day and you get –1 points if you “garbage out” as John puts it.

b.  Exercise (7 points max per week)

c.  Sleep 7 hours a night (thus, Ryan’s sleeping goal referred to in the whiny-wife post)

d.  Keep your personal goal.  It can be whatever you want…for me and Ryan it is writing down everything we put in our mouth and calculating the calories.

**That 4 points possible per day.

3.  You get 5 points for every percentage of weight loss.

4.  You get 1 bonus point (per week) for turning in your point total by Monday at 5pm.

5.  You are honest with your competitors.  The person with the most points wins.

This is really working for us (I’ve only missed one point in all of January) because

a.  I’m super motivated.  I gained way too much with Faith and cannot fit into anything.

b.  We weigh on Monday.  I’ve never done that before…I’ve always weighed on Friday or Saturday and so I goofed around on the weekends, figuring I had lots of time to make up for it.

c.  This competition rewards the work you do, not just the weight you lose.  I can’t fudge a little and hope that I lose weight anyway…if I’m not eating according to plan, than I lose the point for the day. I can’t always control how much weight I lose but I can totally control my points per day. 

d.  I can’t take days off.  I’m the queen of “days off” and have figured out that, at this age, I really can’t take days off (read: blow my diet by at least 2000 calories) and still lose weight.  I just can’t.

e.  I really want that money!  (I am currently in 3rd place, because there is a girl that is blowing everyone out of the water…I’m hoping slow and steady wins the race.)

In January I lost 10 lbs. Kind of a drop in the bucket, but this thing goes for the next couple months, so I have high hopes for long term results.  I love doing it with Ryan (he’s one point under me in 4th place) and guess what?  I feel a lot better when I’m not eating cookies all day—who would have guessed?