Tag: food

The Do It For Yourselfie Challenge

My good buddy John deHaas and I have been friends for several years.  We talk just about every day and recently I realized we were in the same headspace in regards to wanting to loose weight.  My struggles with my weight going up and down are well documented on this blog and I am always looking for something to light that fire under my hinder and drop some pounds.  With John feeling the same way I figured, why not have ourselves a little challenge?  So that’s what we’re doing.

Starting today, and running though Memorial Day (Monday, May 25) John and I are having the Do It For Yourselfie Challenge!  We will do our best to lose weight from now until then and then in May, see who is the winner.  We are looking at percentage of body weight lost, not total pounds and we are aiming to lose the weight in a healthy manner.

It’s not even the end of Day 1 and of the challenge and already there is a lot of trash talking and texting each other pictures of horrible food (candy, donuts, etc.).  But it is to be expected when there is so much on the line.  Ah yes…what is being wagered.

John and I both think that Selfie Sticks are one of the stupidest things on the planet.  We both enjoy going to theme parks and will often take photos of people using Selfie Sticks and text them to each other.  So, the loser of this little wager will have to go to a theme park and take a selfie of themselves with a Selfie Stick.  The loser will also have to have someone take a picture of them while they are using the Selfie Stick.  Both pictures must then be posted to the web.

So there we go.  Game on.  I can’t wait to see John’s Selfie Stick Selfie in May!

Also, John currently has a Go Fund Me campaign going on to help fund his musical.  If you have a moment, go check it out!

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Let the diet start tomorrow…

Okay.  Enough is enough.  If you want something done you have to make a change.  The change starts now.

A little backstory.  In 2004 I weighed 222 lbs.  The day I saw that on the scale was the day I decided to make a change.  Using Weight Watchers Online, over the course of a year and a half I was able to lose over 70 lbs.  I actually got too skinny.  To the point where I would get woozy every time I would stand up because I have low blood pressure.  So I went from my lowest, 148 lbs, to about 152 lbs.  And for several years after the day I reached 148 lbs, I was able to keep the weight off.

During the last year and a half, however, due to professional and personal stress and a lovely bout of depression, I have returned to my favorite friend…food.  I now weigh over 170 lbs and I feel (and, to me , look) like crap.  The clothes in my ‘new sizes’ I bought are tight and I cannot stand to look at myself in the mirror.

Last year during the advent calendar I tried to make myself a challenge to loose weight during the month of December, but it failed miserably.  I feel part of the reason it did was because I ‘felt’ I was doing it publicly with the ‘Do you know the secret?’ thing but I really wasn’t doing it publicly because it was a secret (duh).

Recently, I’ve been feeling worse and worse about my ballooning weight and tonight I decided it all changes and it’s going to change publicly.  Or at least, publicly through this blog.  🙂

Here’s my goal…by October 21, I want to lose as close to 10 pounds as possible.  I think this is an attainable goal if I’m focused on eating right and exercising.  It’s also a small goal.  I’m not saying I want to lose 20 or 30 pounds.  Just 10.  And not even exactly 10, as close to it as I can get.  9 is got.  So is 8.  Lower than that…well, we’ll see.  1 or 2 pounds is NOT acceptable.

Why October 21?  Because something is happening professionally then that I hope I’ll get to announce later this week.  It’ll involve travel and I want to make sure I don’t have to go out and buy new clothes for this adventure.

How am I going to do it.  First, exercise.  I’m actually pretty good at this.  I run daily.  Just about everyday for 30 minutes.  Sometimes more.  I’m going to step that up and add back in the Wii Fit.  Every.  Single.  Day.  Just as I’ve committed myself to writing 500 words a day, I’ll commit to exercising right.

Exercise doesn’t do you any good though if you run and then eat a huge burrito with sour cream and guacamole.  So the other component is eating right.  A much harder thing to accomplish.  I was thinking about it tonight and I think in order to accomplish part to I’ll have to become one of ‘those people.’  Those people who take pictures of their food.

So, starting tomorrow, I’m going to start taking a picture of everything I eat.  I’m not going to clog my Twitter, Facebook or Instagram feeds with these though, they’ll all be posted right here.  I’ll just do one post at the end of the day that shows everything I ate.  It’ll be a picture of the food before I eat it, you jerk! 🙂  I’ll also post what exercise I did that day as well.

I promise to be honest.  If I slip and get the , aforementioned, burrito, you’ll see a picture of it and you are welcome to publicly shame me.  Also, every Wednesday, I’ll post my weight so we can see how I did.

Here’s to hoping that by making this public, it works.  They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit.  I’ve got 20.  I’d better get going.  But first, one last cookie. 😉

Thanks for reading!

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