Friday, March 27, 2015

Fitness Challenge 2015 #5

This should probably be called #5 and #6, since I totally missed last week's update. But I'm not going to bother. Instead, I'll just report on what's going on.

The reason I missed last week's update was because Friday happened to be my niece's wedding. I was off work so I could attend it. I, therefore, didn't weigh in last week. On top of that, I ate really poorly over the weekend. It started with all the wedding food: cupcakes, Mission burritos at the luncheon, soda, punch, and so on. Then, the day after the wedding, my brothers and sisters all wanted to get together again before they left town to head back to California, so we met at a local Mexican restaurant, and I had more of the same.

I did finally weigh in for the contest when I got back to work on Monday, and was distressed to find that I'd gained weight from my last weigh-in ten days before. I'd gained three pounds. So, ten days wasted, ground lost in my quest to catch the leader, and the likelihood that I would fall into despair at such a result.

I'd dropped to third place after the last weigh in, when someone had amazingly lost 3.5% in one week. Now, after gaining three pounds, I've dropped all the way to sixth place. I used to feel secure in the fact that, because of the way the rules were, I was firmly in a cash winning position. But now that's no longer the case. The way the rules work, there's an overall winner, and then a lead male and lead female winner. Since the guy who has been entrenched in first place all this time is a guy, even in third place, I would still have come away with money. But now I've dropped to third place among the men. There's no money in that. I really needed to step it up.

Despite how sh*tty my life has gone recently, especially this week, I didn't allow myself to fall into that emotional eating/comfort eating pit. So many times this week did I want to eat something to make me feel better, but I fought it off. It may have to do with my new secret weapon: M&M's.

I picked up a couple of bags of them last week to use as mini sugar shots when I'm really craving something bad. I used this to my advantage the last time there was a weight loss contest that I won, and, after having several difficult days, I decided I was missing something important. Just like last time, I keep the bags of M&M's in my car's trunk, and when I go out to grab some, I only allow myself four to six M&M's at a time.

It's seeming to help me fight off cravings that I get sometimes. There were a lot of days that I came home from work simply ravenous, and I lost control and ate a ton of food, until my stomach was so full that it actually hurt. I would do it two or three times a week, which was really killing my progress. But this week, I didn't have one of those days.

When I weighed in today, I had lost those three pounds that I gained last week. As well as five pounds on top of that. I'm now down 7.64 percent. Not sure where this puts me in the rankings, but if everyone stayed completely flat this week, I would be back at third place in the contest. It's progress, at least. Where I should have had none. Hopefully, I can keep it up and catch that dang guy that's in the lead.

A cool thing that's besides the contest, I have lost 33 lbs. since January 1st. 10.5% of my weight. Eat your heart out Clay Dugger (you might as well, you'll never catch me).

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