Bacon Strip Mall: Running - New Weight Loss Challenge at Work

I actually like this stuff now. Seriously.

While the Holiday Season is a joy for most everyone, there is also the difficult underpinnings of busy schedules and rich lavish meals with family. Why is that hard? Well a guy like me gets soft. Going into the Season this year I was genuinely concerned that all the efforts towards positive change - started in August with my first 1/4 mile run in well over a decade - was in jeapordy of becoming just a memory. In the past I have not been able to make it through the Holidays without significant weight gain, as the draw of food and an uncontrollable appetite have caused a lot of trouble. Before Thanksgiving at work, I weighed 248 pound after the Fall weight loss challenge.

As of this morning, I weigh 251, a gain of only three pounds.

I can't begin to tell you how happy that made me! The most important thing is that I only gained three pounds, rather than a double-digit number. And I have not been able to go out for my walks and runs as much over the Holidays either, which means had I been able to keep up the activity I probably would not have gained any weight at all! I'm fine with these numbers given the circumstances.

A coworker proposed that we have a new weight loss challenge to start off the year, with a goal that we each lose 8% of our body weight by April. Because I want to keep the momentum, I'm in. Will I win? Don't know; my goal weight is 230, 21 pounds less than I weigh now. Ultimately I want to weigh 200 pounds; my doctor - when informed that I had lost 23 pounds already - announced, "I don't care if it takes you two years to hit 200 pounds, so long as you're doing it." It actually helped!

On the last challenge my weight loss slowed towards the end. That means I'm at a spot now where the body wants to hold onto what I have, rather than shed what I obviously don't need. I'll need to trick it, walk it, run it, sweat it, and feed it differently this time around. I need to win by losing...what irony.

See you on the other side of 230!