Fit Happens - A Healthy Contest Between Four Fatties (Chapter 1)

Good evening everyone.

You may have seen my Facebook post about this on New Year's Day, but in case you didn't, I joined a weight loss challenge with some friends that I have dubbed "Fit Happens". The fact that it started on New Year's goes against my idea of needing to change things at the start of a new year (I am a believer that New Year's Resolutions fail because people use the new year as an excuse to change something about themselves instead of actually wanting to change).

Nevertheless, the contest started on Day 1 of 2013, with the four contestants (myself, LionEsquire, Hippo & Dave) weighing in at close to a 1000 pounds. In this six month contest, the winner will be the one who loses the highest percentage of weight in the six month period.

The winner of each month (largest percentage lost) gets $10 each from the other contestants, with the overall winner netting $50 from everyone else. While that is a motivator, below is what will keep people from tanking in the contest.

In the event you may be losing the contest by a wide-margin, there is a clause that prevents me and my fellow fatties from tanking the contest and going back to their obese selves.

• If you fail to lose 7.5% of your weight in the contest, you must change your gamer tag (your video-game name/alias) for a year. Apparently this is a big deal in the video game community - I haven't played a video game since one of the Maddens like 3-4 years ago on PS2. Or for people like me (actually the only one in the contest not affected by the above), I must change my Facebook profile picture for a month. 7.5% is feasible - about 18 pounds in 6 months.
• The dreaded fatty clause is if one fails to lose 2.5% of their weight. In this scenario, the loser(s) must go out with the others to dinner in a dress. With how quickly everyone has lost weight so far, I don't see this happening.

I weighed myself today for the first time since the new year and went from 235.6 to 229.2 pounds (6.4 pounds). I'm sure most of it is water weight, but hey, it's progress. I'm actually shocked it was this much, given the fact I was in Vegas for four days, not consuming what many would call a "good diet", unless you think mai tais with cherries and pineapple is a good diet.

However, based on previous quests to lose weight, I know the easiest pounds to lose are the early ones - the later ones are the ones that are challenging. It's going to be difficult to lose in months 3 & 4, if my previous experience to lose weight is any indicator

Some new habits that I'm trying to institute for the New Year (aside from my Vegas trip - what happened there stayed there anyways). These goals are likely to be expanded upon as I progress through the contest:

1. Water, water, water - In the New Year, all I've had back here on the mainland (shhh, Vegas is an island, don't let maps fool you) is water and a couple of White Russians. It's been nothing but water otherwise.
2. Less eating - I still don't have the best diet, but what I've been doing is eating less and spreading out my eating throughout the day.
3. Eating out less - I believe me and Jen have only ordered out once since the year began, which is impressive since we usually end up doing it at least 2-3 times a week.
4. Exercising - I finally started using the gym in our basement. My goal is to use it about 100 times during this contest (which goes till June 30th). I am up to 4 in the first 11 days. I'll sneak in a workout tomorrow before my unofficial birthday celebration at The Shamrock to keep the pace up.

That's it for now. I don't have a timeframe on how often I will update this. I may even interview the fellow contestants at some point to see what they are doing to lose weight and improve their overall fitness.