If you're reading this post looking for regular posting, keep moving. I'll be using this post to keep track of GAG's week two challenge, which is as follows:
For every 8 oz of water you drink, you will give yourself 10 points.
For every 15 minutes of activity (NO house cleaning and "normal" activites should be counted here) outside of your normal routine give yourself 10 points.
(For clarification purpose: do not count housecleaning or regular daily activities. DO count all forms of exercise. )
For every day that you track your foods whether it be on your blog via in text or photos, give yourself 20 points.
For every evening you sleep for a minimum of 8 hours, give yourself 20 points!
Tuesday:
Water: 3 24oz bottles of water, or 9*8oz = 90 points
Exercise: none :( = 0 points
Food:
Breakfast: Cottage cheese, Banana. A little less than 200 calories.
Lunch: Catered work lunch of a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, bacon and mayo. Yeah, I know, badness. I'm guessing 600 calories.
Snack: 1/2 apple = 35 calories
Dinner: Lean Cuisine fettuccine alfredo over a pint of cut up cherry tomatoes. 15 small stalks of asparagus with one tablespoon of Parmesan cheese. ~425 calories
Desert: Healthy choice ice cream bar: 100 calories
Total: 1370
Sleep: 8 hours! so 20 points for that.
Points for Tuesday: 130
Food tracking for Wednesday:
Breakfast: Banana, cottage cheese = 200 calories
Lunch: Another lunch meeting, this one at a restaurant. I had a bacon cheddar and tomato sandwich, and even some (totally unnecessary but delicious) sweet potato fries. For food I don't control I like to guess up, and I'm going to go with 900 calories.
No dinner or Snack
Total: 1100
8 hours of sleep (20 points)
No exercise (0 points)
5 glasses of water (50 points)
Points for Wednesday: 90 points
Thursday:
Breakfast: String cheese, Dannon small light and fit yogurt, 140 calories
Lunch: Banana, roast beef sandwich, 300 calories
Snack: Chewy granola bar, 90 calories
Dinner: 1.5 pieces of Purdue perfect portions chicken, 12 stalks of asparagus, 2 cups of broccoli, 1 T of butter used to dress both the asparagus and the broccoli, 550 calories
Total: 1080
8 hours of sleep - sort of. I'm going to give myself credit for going into bed with the lights off and trying to sleep 9 hours before I needed to wake up. It took me hours to fall asleep, but I think it's reasonable to count intention here: 20 points
Water: 10 glasses = 100 points
I still didn't exercise!
Points for Thursday: 140 points
Friday:
Breakfast: Banana, 100 calories
Lunch: Grande skim latte from Starbucks, 130 calories
Dinner: disastrous. Mac and cheese, baguette, actual cheese, two glasses of wine, terrible. I'm guesstimating 1800 calories.
Total: 2130
6 16 oz glasses for 120 points
45 minute walk for 30 points
8 hours of sleep for 20 points
Points for Friday: 190
Saturday
No breakfast
Lunch: Smart Ones baked zitti, green beans with olive oil and garlic, 500 calories
Dinner: Lean Cuisine fettucini alfredo over a pint of cherry tomatoes, 400 calories
Desert: Milk, 100 calorie hostess cupcakes, 250 calories
Total: 1150
8 hours of sleep 20 points
45 minutes at the GYM! 30 points
2 24 oz bottles, 1 16 oz glass: 80 points
Points for Saturday: 170
Sunday:
Breakfast: Banana, cottage cheese, 200 calories
Lunch: 7 ribs. I'm having trouble finding exactly comparable calorie values, but it was less than a half rack. I'm going with 600, but I have no idea if that's right
Snack: 100 calorie hostess cupcake thing, 100 calories
Dinner: 3 cups of grapes, 180 calories (who knew grapes had that many calories? Or maybe it's just that 3 cups is a ton of grapes)
Total: 1080 calories
Exercise: 90 minute walk, 60 points
Water: 3 24 oz bottles, 90 points
8 hours sleep: 20 points
Points for Sunday: 190
Total for the week: 910
Showing posts with label Give a Gift to Yourself 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Give a Gift to Yourself 2009. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Friday, 4 September 2009
Weigh ins, challenges, and what's worth reading
Weight: 250.1
BMI: 42.92
There are lots of great things about being weighing in daily. There's some evidence that weighing in every day (as opposed to less frequently) might be beneficial for losing and maintaining weight. I find it motivating and helpful in staving off binges: there's no time for recovery, no chance to hide my mistakes. But, there are a few parts of daily weigh ins that suck. Like, when you do everything perfectly, like, say, eat 1200 calories and go on a two hour walk, and instead of rewarding you, the scale just says "meh."
Today I was hoping to see the 240s. I worked really quite hard yesterday to make sure I'd get a glimpse of them. But, sometimes, that's just not your luck. So, I'm up .1 pounds.
I'm also starting to worry if I'm maybe being too ambitious with my mini goal. Today's small gain (and the passage of time with the lack of a loss) combine for a scary 2.92 sustained loss for the rest of the goal, which is pretty darn close to the wrong side of reasonable. It's not all lost, though. On July 31st, after all, I was looking at a needed loss of 2.95 to make my last goal, and I made it with time to spare.
I think at this point I'm going to stick with it. It might be a bit too hard, a bit more than I can really do, but I'd rather be pushing myself than feeling like I can slack. If I don't make it, I don't make it, but I'm going to try.
One thing that will be absolutely key is not messing up this weekend. Describing how we're going to handle the holiday is part of this week's GAG challenge. (The second part of the challenge is a recipe, which I will pitifully attempt later in the post.)
My challenge this weekend is going to be sticking on plan with my brother around. He's coming down from Philadelphia on Saturday around noon. Since he's not coming till relatively late in the day, I plan on waking up early and getting in a good long workout. Lunch is probably going to be Five Guys. There, I'll get a little bacon burger with lettuce and tomato. Not the best, but better than it could be. We'll end up getting an order of fries, but I plan to eat not many of them. I'll try to discreetly count them out beforehand. That night we're going out to dinner at Matchbox. I'm planning on the cast iron roasted chicken. I'll eat the carrots first, then the peas, then some of the chicken. I'll avoid all the potatoes.
Sunday morning we'll walk up to the Dupont Circle Farmers market and I'll get some fruit for breakfast. Sunday afternoon and night he's going to be at a friend's bachelor party, so I'll go for a long walk and possibly do a gym workout. We might have to do some sort of breakfast on Monday, but it'll be okay. Both Sunday and Monday will be one meal things, so I can easily make up calories the rest of the day.
As far as a recipe, well, I don't have much experience cooking healthy things for large crowds. So here's a non cooking but still bringing something survival guide:
2 pints of strawberries
1 pint of blueberries
4 packets of splenda
Wash both fruits. Quarter the strawberries. Mix it all together with the splenda, which will help the cut up fruit keep in the afternoon and make it desert-level sweet. Bring a can of fat-free Redi Whip. It's 5 calories for two tablespoons, and the perfect touch.
And, there's my mini-challenge. I'm not sure I enjoy the writing silly response challenges as much as I like the rest of the competition, and may end up opting out of them before too long. The camaraderie (go, team Prancer go!), the competition? I'm there. The drudge homework assignments? Eh, perhaps not so much. (Don't take this as a knock against organizer Mrs. Sheila in any way shape or form. She's fabulously awesome and I'm so grateful she set up the challenge.)
I mean, why do we blog what we blog? If you look at a given post, each sentence and each paragraph has a point, a reason why we wrote it in the first place. Maybe it's to hold ourselves accountable, or to help ourselves figure out something and to help others do the same. Maybe it's to share good news, to (hopefully) make someone laugh, or just to link to something we think is really frigging awesome.
All of you people who stop by and read this blog, I adore you guys. I read your blogs, if I know about them, and comment if I can. There are others who read regularly but leave no footprints beyond showing up on Google Analytics. Every single one of you I know seems awesome from everything I can tell, and I'd be willing to bet on the coolness of those I don't. Because I have these awesome readers (not many, but awesome nonetheless), when I post stuff, it ought to be things that are worth reading. The simple act of posting something says, Trust me guys, I think this is worth your time. And, seriously, "Cut up some fruit and toss some artificial sweetener in there so it won't spoil"? That's not worth reading.
What if I had a better recipe? Would that be worth reading? Well, it might be, but I have no experience whatsoever with this. At 23, I'm just on the cusp of adulthood, and I've only lived as a post-college grown up for a year. I have not once in my entire life tried to cook something healthy for a large group of people. Sure, I could post a recipe I find online and hope it will be good, but I can't vouch for it, I can't say, trust me because I just won't know.
I posted what I was going to do with my brother and the "recipe" not because they were illuminating, helpful, or fun, but because I'm a dirty, dirty point whore. I love accolades and credit of all kinds. When I used to play video games with my brother as a kid, I could spend ages jumping up and down trying to get on a box to get on another box to get a single coin. "Hadley, it's not worth it," he'd tell me, but by gosh if there was a coin there I wanted it. Because that's who I am. I don't do things half way.
So, I'm going to have to figure out what I want to do as far as the challenges. I'm sure, down the road, there will be ones that I have an interesting take on that will work as normal posts. But for the rest? I just don't know. Maybe I'll accept that doing all the mini challenges isn't for me and just pick and choose a few. Maybe I'll cordon them off with a "WARNING: Lame post of Lameness" title so you unsuspecting readers don't accidentally wander in. Another theoretical option would be to actually research all the challenges enough that I could do a good job on them, but since the effort required would be far inordinate to my amount of care, that's just not going to happen.
Sigh.
The contemplation shall continue. Do you guys think you have an implicit contract with your readers to provide, well, posts that are worth reading? How would you approach the whole mini-challenge thing: try to do them all, or ignore all but the ones I find of interest? Do you have any experience with challenges and mini challenges in the past? And last but not least, how totally lame was that "recipe"?
Anyway, I hope you all have a fantabulous Labor Day Weekend. Enjoy your day off (if you get one) and take some time to treasure your family and friends. In all my "how I'll deal with food issues this weekend" shpiel, I left off how incredibly excited and happy I am that I'll get to see my brother. At the end of the day, there really is nothing more important than the ones we love.
BMI: 42.92
There are lots of great things about being weighing in daily. There's some evidence that weighing in every day (as opposed to less frequently) might be beneficial for losing and maintaining weight. I find it motivating and helpful in staving off binges: there's no time for recovery, no chance to hide my mistakes. But, there are a few parts of daily weigh ins that suck. Like, when you do everything perfectly, like, say, eat 1200 calories and go on a two hour walk, and instead of rewarding you, the scale just says "meh."
Today I was hoping to see the 240s. I worked really quite hard yesterday to make sure I'd get a glimpse of them. But, sometimes, that's just not your luck. So, I'm up .1 pounds.
I'm also starting to worry if I'm maybe being too ambitious with my mini goal. Today's small gain (and the passage of time with the lack of a loss) combine for a scary 2.92 sustained loss for the rest of the goal, which is pretty darn close to the wrong side of reasonable. It's not all lost, though. On July 31st, after all, I was looking at a needed loss of 2.95 to make my last goal, and I made it with time to spare.
I think at this point I'm going to stick with it. It might be a bit too hard, a bit more than I can really do, but I'd rather be pushing myself than feeling like I can slack. If I don't make it, I don't make it, but I'm going to try.
One thing that will be absolutely key is not messing up this weekend. Describing how we're going to handle the holiday is part of this week's GAG challenge. (The second part of the challenge is a recipe, which I will pitifully attempt later in the post.)
My challenge this weekend is going to be sticking on plan with my brother around. He's coming down from Philadelphia on Saturday around noon. Since he's not coming till relatively late in the day, I plan on waking up early and getting in a good long workout. Lunch is probably going to be Five Guys. There, I'll get a little bacon burger with lettuce and tomato. Not the best, but better than it could be. We'll end up getting an order of fries, but I plan to eat not many of them. I'll try to discreetly count them out beforehand. That night we're going out to dinner at Matchbox. I'm planning on the cast iron roasted chicken. I'll eat the carrots first, then the peas, then some of the chicken. I'll avoid all the potatoes.
Sunday morning we'll walk up to the Dupont Circle Farmers market and I'll get some fruit for breakfast. Sunday afternoon and night he's going to be at a friend's bachelor party, so I'll go for a long walk and possibly do a gym workout. We might have to do some sort of breakfast on Monday, but it'll be okay. Both Sunday and Monday will be one meal things, so I can easily make up calories the rest of the day.
As far as a recipe, well, I don't have much experience cooking healthy things for large crowds. So here's a non cooking but still bringing something survival guide:
2 pints of strawberries
1 pint of blueberries
4 packets of splenda
Wash both fruits. Quarter the strawberries. Mix it all together with the splenda, which will help the cut up fruit keep in the afternoon and make it desert-level sweet. Bring a can of fat-free Redi Whip. It's 5 calories for two tablespoons, and the perfect touch.
And, there's my mini-challenge. I'm not sure I enjoy the writing silly response challenges as much as I like the rest of the competition, and may end up opting out of them before too long. The camaraderie (go, team Prancer go!), the competition? I'm there. The drudge homework assignments? Eh, perhaps not so much. (Don't take this as a knock against organizer Mrs. Sheila in any way shape or form. She's fabulously awesome and I'm so grateful she set up the challenge.)
I mean, why do we blog what we blog? If you look at a given post, each sentence and each paragraph has a point, a reason why we wrote it in the first place. Maybe it's to hold ourselves accountable, or to help ourselves figure out something and to help others do the same. Maybe it's to share good news, to (hopefully) make someone laugh, or just to link to something we think is really frigging awesome.
All of you people who stop by and read this blog, I adore you guys. I read your blogs, if I know about them, and comment if I can. There are others who read regularly but leave no footprints beyond showing up on Google Analytics. Every single one of you I know seems awesome from everything I can tell, and I'd be willing to bet on the coolness of those I don't. Because I have these awesome readers (not many, but awesome nonetheless), when I post stuff, it ought to be things that are worth reading. The simple act of posting something says, Trust me guys, I think this is worth your time. And, seriously, "Cut up some fruit and toss some artificial sweetener in there so it won't spoil"? That's not worth reading.
What if I had a better recipe? Would that be worth reading? Well, it might be, but I have no experience whatsoever with this. At 23, I'm just on the cusp of adulthood, and I've only lived as a post-college grown up for a year. I have not once in my entire life tried to cook something healthy for a large group of people. Sure, I could post a recipe I find online and hope it will be good, but I can't vouch for it, I can't say, trust me because I just won't know.
I posted what I was going to do with my brother and the "recipe" not because they were illuminating, helpful, or fun, but because I'm a dirty, dirty point whore. I love accolades and credit of all kinds. When I used to play video games with my brother as a kid, I could spend ages jumping up and down trying to get on a box to get on another box to get a single coin. "Hadley, it's not worth it," he'd tell me, but by gosh if there was a coin there I wanted it. Because that's who I am. I don't do things half way.
So, I'm going to have to figure out what I want to do as far as the challenges. I'm sure, down the road, there will be ones that I have an interesting take on that will work as normal posts. But for the rest? I just don't know. Maybe I'll accept that doing all the mini challenges isn't for me and just pick and choose a few. Maybe I'll cordon them off with a "WARNING: Lame post of Lameness" title so you unsuspecting readers don't accidentally wander in. Another theoretical option would be to actually research all the challenges enough that I could do a good job on them, but since the effort required would be far inordinate to my amount of care, that's just not going to happen.
The contemplation shall continue. Do you guys think you have an implicit contract with your readers to provide, well, posts that are worth reading? How would you approach the whole mini-challenge thing: try to do them all, or ignore all but the ones I find of interest? Do you have any experience with challenges and mini challenges in the past? And last but not least, how totally lame was that "recipe"?
Anyway, I hope you all have a fantabulous Labor Day Weekend. Enjoy your day off (if you get one) and take some time to treasure your family and friends. In all my "how I'll deal with food issues this weekend" shpiel, I left off how incredibly excited and happy I am that I'll get to see my brother. At the end of the day, there really is nothing more important than the ones we love.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Tuesday Weigh In (with Bonus Pictures!)
Well, today is my official Tuesday "side of the blog" weigh in. It's also the first day of the GAG challenge and their official weigh in day. (It's pretty damn convenient that they sync up.) And the results are:
Weight: 251.6
BMI: 43.18
I'm required by GAG rules to post a scale picture. I took one (I swear!) but forgot to email it to myself this morning so I could post from work. So, I can't post it now, but I will be posting it as an addendum later in the day.
I did, however, remember to email myself both my before photos, taken on July14th when I weighed 270.5 (I don't have any at 278), and ones I took this morning at 251.6. I'm hoping you guys will be able to tell which ones are before and which ones are after on your own! Well, here goes:
Weight: 251.6
BMI: 43.18
I'm required by GAG rules to post a scale picture. I took one (I swear!) but forgot to email it to myself this morning so I could post from work. So, I can't post it now, but I will be posting it as an addendum later in the day.
I did, however, remember to email myself both my before photos, taken on July14th when I weighed 270.5 (I don't have any at 278), and ones I took this morning at 251.6. I'm hoping you guys will be able to tell which ones are before and which ones are after on your own! Well, here goes:
I (stupidly) turned a bit in the profile photo, so the difference is barely noticeable in that one, but I think you can really see the difference around my tummy in the first one. A substantive difference from "beach ball" to "slightly deflated beach ball" if you ask me! My butt/fat right above where a butt ought to be also looks way better in the profile picture, now that I'm really looking at it.
And those are my progress pictures. Now I really should try to crank the rest of this post out before I change my mind and have a "what was I thinking posting photos?!?!" moment. So, I'll just say one more short thing:
Today is Tuesday, September 1st. I'm creating a super short term challenge for myself to get to 250.2 (exactly 10% of my starting weight) or below by this coming Saturday when my brother visits. It's only 1.4 pounds and incredible doable. If I step up the workouts and eat cleanly, I should hit it. Let's start the challenge off right, turn up the pressure, and be done with that first 10% before I see my brother.
Edited to add the promised scale pic:
And those are my progress pictures. Now I really should try to crank the rest of this post out before I change my mind and have a "what was I thinking posting photos?!?!" moment. So, I'll just say one more short thing:
Today is Tuesday, September 1st. I'm creating a super short term challenge for myself to get to 250.2 (exactly 10% of my starting weight) or below by this coming Saturday when my brother visits. It's only 1.4 pounds and incredible doable. If I step up the workouts and eat cleanly, I should hit it. Let's start the challenge off right, turn up the pressure, and be done with that first 10% before I see my brother.
Edited to add the promised scale pic:
Monday, 31 August 2009
I need to be less scared
Before I get into regular posting, I just wanted to say that work stuff has calmed down quite a bit and thank you guys for your supportive words. The weight loss blogosphere really is filled with such wonderful people, and I greatly appreciated your thoughts and sympathy last week.
Anyway, let's get down to business:
Weight: 252.6
Yesterday I weighed in at 251.7, so in many ways 252.6 isn't the best number that ever was numbered. But I don't mind.
I'm still sort of in shock at how low the numbers are. I don't really think of myself as weighing in the 250s. And the craziest part is that in the not too distant future, I'm going to be in the 240s. I'm still sort of amazed that I am doing this and that this is going.
I've noticed myself slacking a bit of late, though. I think part of it, honestly, is the starting tomorrow GAG challenge. While I obviously don't want to ruin my streak by having a week to week gain or holding steady, I don't want my lowest ever weigh in to be tomorrow per se.
I actually read a paper about this one time: one of the effects of weight loss competitions (things like office competitions and the Biggest Loser, etc) is that people tend to gain weight right before the competition starts. They do so both because they're about to experience a period of relative deprivation, but also because it increases their competitive advantage. While I'm not doing that, I'm definitely not planning to avoid sodium like I generally do the night before my weekly weigh in.
I'm a little on pins and needles about one part of the GAG competition though: the need to post a picture. While I know I said last week that I was fine with it, I've started to become really self conscious about the idea. After all, I did take some before pictures early on for this blog, only to decide to not post them in my abject horror about just how wretched I looked. I do know I look better than I used to. I wore particularly tight clothes in the before picture with the idea that I could use them again in future sets and see the progression from "ridiculously tight" to "about right" to "way too loose."
Logically, I don't know why I'm so afraid of posting a few progress pictures. It's not like you guys don't know I'm fat. It's not like you're going to say, "Oh, her tummy's too big, I don't want to read her blog any more." And yet . . .
I really need to stop being so afraid. I need to suck it up, accept that I need to post a picture for the GAG challenge, and just go ahead and do it tomorrow. Yes, my body is still a horrific mess, but that's okay. It's not about what I look like now, it's where I'm going.
Also, I seem to have inadvertently crossed the 25 pounds gone mark since I last wrote, so there's a small (and happy) bit of victory.
Anyway, let's get down to business:
Weight: 252.6
Yesterday I weighed in at 251.7, so in many ways 252.6 isn't the best number that ever was numbered. But I don't mind.
I'm still sort of in shock at how low the numbers are. I don't really think of myself as weighing in the 250s. And the craziest part is that in the not too distant future, I'm going to be in the 240s. I'm still sort of amazed that I am doing this and that this is going.
I've noticed myself slacking a bit of late, though. I think part of it, honestly, is the starting tomorrow GAG challenge. While I obviously don't want to ruin my streak by having a week to week gain or holding steady, I don't want my lowest ever weigh in to be tomorrow per se.
I actually read a paper about this one time: one of the effects of weight loss competitions (things like office competitions and the Biggest Loser, etc) is that people tend to gain weight right before the competition starts. They do so both because they're about to experience a period of relative deprivation, but also because it increases their competitive advantage. While I'm not doing that, I'm definitely not planning to avoid sodium like I generally do the night before my weekly weigh in.
I'm a little on pins and needles about one part of the GAG competition though: the need to post a picture. While I know I said last week that I was fine with it, I've started to become really self conscious about the idea. After all, I did take some before pictures early on for this blog, only to decide to not post them in my abject horror about just how wretched I looked. I do know I look better than I used to. I wore particularly tight clothes in the before picture with the idea that I could use them again in future sets and see the progression from "ridiculously tight" to "about right" to "way too loose."
Logically, I don't know why I'm so afraid of posting a few progress pictures. It's not like you guys don't know I'm fat. It's not like you're going to say, "Oh, her tummy's too big, I don't want to read her blog any more." And yet . . .
I really need to stop being so afraid. I need to suck it up, accept that I need to post a picture for the GAG challenge, and just go ahead and do it tomorrow. Yes, my body is still a horrific mess, but that's okay. It's not about what I look like now, it's where I'm going.
Also, I seem to have inadvertently crossed the 25 pounds gone mark since I last wrote, so there's a small (and happy) bit of victory.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
A Challenge and a Visit
Weight: 254.1
BMI: 43.61
I'm up .4 day to day but not going to stress it. I barely got any sleep and I ate macaroni and cheese last night (not ideal, but okay in terms of calories range).
I was having problems sleeping last night, so I ended up trolling blog land and stumbling upon the Give a Gift to Yourself 2009 challenge. After reading through the rules and debating it a bit, I decided to sign up and maybe get involved. I've been looking for a more organized thing to participate in in blogworld besides just commenting/following etc. I tried joining Operation Fat Blaster, but I've sort of been having problems finding my way around the site, figuring out how to get involved, etc. The 16 week GAG challenge (yes, that's how they're abbreviating it) seems like it might be a nice fit. An extra bit of motivation, extra bit of community, something slightly new to do. I hesitated over the fact that we need to post a picture, but since I've been thinking that I probably ought to post a progress when I hit 250 anyway, I figured I'd get over it and just agree. I'd encourage you all to go check it out if you're into challenges. You must register before September 1st, so if you want to get in, now's your shot.
Yesterday my brother told me he's coming down to DC for a friend's bachelor party on Labor Day weekend. He asked if he could stay with me (I said of course) and is going to come down early for it so we can hang out a bit. I haven't seen him since the end of June.
My brother is amazing. He's the only one in my family who's not overweight. (My mom's heavier than me, and my Dad's on the chubby side.) He's my inspiration in so many ways. He's such a hard worker and such a nice, wonderful guy. I always wish I was more like him.
I saw my parents about a week and a half into my diet, but I haven't seen any members of my family since then. I doubt the changes thus far will be noticeable to a casual observer like my brother (24 pounds might seem like a lot, but it's only 8.6% of my body weight). If he did notice, I doubt he'd comment. It's just not something he'd say. Still, it seems like a big deal. I'm excited/happy/worried. I guess we'll see what happens.
BMI: 43.61
I'm up .4 day to day but not going to stress it. I barely got any sleep and I ate macaroni and cheese last night (not ideal, but okay in terms of calories range).
I was having problems sleeping last night, so I ended up trolling blog land and stumbling upon the Give a Gift to Yourself 2009 challenge. After reading through the rules and debating it a bit, I decided to sign up and maybe get involved. I've been looking for a more organized thing to participate in in blogworld besides just commenting/following etc. I tried joining Operation Fat Blaster, but I've sort of been having problems finding my way around the site, figuring out how to get involved, etc. The 16 week GAG challenge (yes, that's how they're abbreviating it) seems like it might be a nice fit. An extra bit of motivation, extra bit of community, something slightly new to do. I hesitated over the fact that we need to post a picture, but since I've been thinking that I probably ought to post a progress when I hit 250 anyway, I figured I'd get over it and just agree. I'd encourage you all to go check it out if you're into challenges. You must register before September 1st, so if you want to get in, now's your shot.
Yesterday my brother told me he's coming down to DC for a friend's bachelor party on Labor Day weekend. He asked if he could stay with me (I said of course) and is going to come down early for it so we can hang out a bit. I haven't seen him since the end of June.
My brother is amazing. He's the only one in my family who's not overweight. (My mom's heavier than me, and my Dad's on the chubby side.) He's my inspiration in so many ways. He's such a hard worker and such a nice, wonderful guy. I always wish I was more like him.
I saw my parents about a week and a half into my diet, but I haven't seen any members of my family since then. I doubt the changes thus far will be noticeable to a casual observer like my brother (24 pounds might seem like a lot, but it's only 8.6% of my body weight). If he did notice, I doubt he'd comment. It's just not something he'd say. Still, it seems like a big deal. I'm excited/happy/worried. I guess we'll see what happens.
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