35-Day Challenge

With my 15-pound short term goal met and no further change at today's weigh-in, it is time to embark on a 35-Day Challenge, during which this blog will be on hiatus. The challenge? Overcome an extraordinarily difficult five weeks and post a losing number at the end of it. The losing number has to be at least a pound, and I would love to see a number in the 20x's (i.e., 208), although I concede this is probably shooting too high.

In the next five weeks I will be taking three mini-vacations, going to numerous special events, celebrating my birthday, cooking out for the holiday, and starting grad school. Good food will be plentiful, and stress will be high at times. The challenge is to show that I can still lose weight when I don't have the convenience of tracking calorie intake or motivating myself through this blog.

No matter what happens, this will be a learning experience and excellent training for similar situations that arise in the future.

The next weigh-in will occur on 09/26/2012.

Lamenting the loss of Shawne Merriman

You absolutely hate it when things like this happen. Shawne Merriman, who appeared to have successfully fought back from a two-year injury, was cut yesterday by the Bills. Merriman stated on many occasions how happy he was in Buffalo and it showed through his efforts off the field to bring in free agents. Even though Merriman rarely played for the Bills (although he was involved in the landmark win over the Patriots last year), his contributions to the team off the field can't be quantified. It's true that without him the Bills would not be the team they are today, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. He is directly responsible for persuading starting linebackers Nick Barnett and Kirk Morrison to sign here. He also had a hand in the Brad Smith signing. And, without this talent on board, Mario Williams, and later Mark Anderson, likely would not have signed either. You can see right there the kind of impact he had, and even though he'll never see this I just wanted to take this opportunity to state that football, and any profession, is not all about what you do when people are watching. What you do behind the scenes can have just as much of an impact. I really looked up to Shawne and I will miss having him on the team. He was a spirited leader and motivational speaker. It's a really sad day for me because I know being on this team meant a lot to him. I hope he can catch on with another team and do well for himself this year.

-2.1

I weighed in this morning at 216.2 pounds, a loss of 2.1 pounds from last week, bringing my total weight loss to 15.8 pounds. This means I have actually met a goal! And I did it with one whole week remaining. We better mark the occasion. I don't meet goals.

Just because I met my short-term goal doesn't mean I stop the journey! No way. I have about 40 pounds to go before I reassess what I look like. I have a friend just slightly taller than me who also has a large structure (like me) and weighs 180. He looks great, so I think I might look pretty good at 175. I should at least look decent enough to be a person.

Daily calorie totals for the next week will be posted here. It better be a good week. I need all the cushion I can get, with three mini-vacations coming up.

-1.1

I weighed in this morning at 218.3 pounds, a loss of 1.1 pounds from last week, bringing my total weight loss to 13.7 pounds, which is 1.3 pounds short of my 15-pound short-term goal, with two weeks remaining.

It looks like I'm going to do this! I've had 7 consecutive weeks of weight loss.

Daily calorie totals for the next week will be posted here.

This week, there will be no calorie total for Thursday, as I get to take the day off work to be active (I work at Active Network, you see, and we get to take two paid ActiveX days per year -- one for activity, one for charity work). So, I will be exercising more and likely eating more.

These folks are saying some good things

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/most-shocking-diet-myths-044400667.html

-0.2

I weighed in this morning at 219.4 pounds, a loss of 0.2 pounds from last week, bringing my total weight loss to 12.6 pounds, which is 2.4 pounds short of my 15-pound short-term goal, with three weeks remaining.

I like where I am, and I'm actually satisfied with this weigh-in. It was a challenging week with a lot of special events. To come through it with no gain and actually an ever so slight loss is an accomplishment.

Daily calorie totals for the next week will be posted here. It should be a good week.