16 Pounds In 16 Weeks

I should have been blogging this the entire time. I guess I haven't, because it sounded so simple that I thought it was impossible. It should have been something that occurred to me long ago.

At the beginning of the year, a friend sent out this e mail.

Ok, I am throwing down the gauntlet!!!

 

   After getting on the scale yesterday and finding out I GAINED 10

pounds this year, I am officially challenging you to loose some weight with me!!!

 

   All of us could use to loose a "couple" pounds, I have heard everyone mention they would "like" to loose some weight, I even think each of us has, or should I say /HAD/ lost some weight, and hopefully this will get or keep ALL of us motivated to do so. I'm not trying to make it a competition to loose the MOST weight,

Just to LOOSE SOME weight.

   My challenge is not a very hard one. ONE pound per week, for 16 weeks! Broken down, between now and April 26th (a Saturday) there are 16 weeks.

April 26th is also suspiciously close to a couple birthdays I know of, and there is usually a party that goes on that weekend (of which

you are all invited to by the way), so that would be a perfect final

date. (Also, if anyone doesn't make all 16# they *don't get any

cake*!! Ok, you can still have some ribs, but NO CAKE!!)

But, I challenge you (and myself) to loose 16# in the 16 weeks!!

Now 16# sounds like a lot, but 1# per week . . . come on, a good poop will do that!!!! Also, 1# per week is NOT hitting the gym 5 times a week, walking 2 hours a day, eating salad with your favorite water on it. It's more like walking 20 minutes 3-4 times a week, NOT super sizing, I want the side salad instead of the fries, Diet Coke or better yet water instead of regular soda. If those lard butts on Biggest Looser can loose 19# in ONE WEEK, we can do 1# per week!!!

Ya, ya, "work . . . busy . . . cold out . . . tired . . . no time ... get up early . . . stay up late . . ." me too!

Let's do this or I'm going to have to put on the Cheerleader outfit

again, and I don't think ANYBODY wants to see that!!! If everyone turns to the left and kicks the butt of that person we will all get to kick AND be kicked.

My "official" weigh in #1 is 241. That is still down 15# from my max, but UP 22# from 2 years ago!! MY total goal is to loose 70# in 2 years. That's 280 Quarter Pounders, almost 8.5 gallons of water, a bag of cement, a 6" x 6" x 20" solid bar of aluminum, an 8' bar of steel

1.5"x 1.75", a 1x12 tube guitar amp in EACH HAND . . .

I can't carry a loaded backpack that weights 50# for more than a

couple hundred yards, but I can carry an extra 70 pounds with every step?? Go to Home Depot and pick up a gallon of paint in each hand. Not too bad. Now, pick up a 5 gallon bucket of paint, then pick up another one, then walk with them both. That's the difference in weight. Hurts huh!! That's my way of looking at it.

Hope this will motivate you to join me, I know it has me!!! Now I'm going to finish my salad and skip the big cookie!!

Bill 

Gee, that Bill sure is fat, but he does have a point. I had never thought of it like that before. All of these years, wanting to lose weight. If I had just done one pound a week, in one year, I would have lost all of the weight. When you say it, "one pound a week," it sounds like nothing. Two pounds per week is a healthy rate of weight loss. One pound should be easy. I have always thought the weight I needed to lose as one enormous mountain that I had to conquer, not many 1 lb. speed bumps. Maybe it was due to the team effort, maybe it was due to how it was phrased, but this e mail got into my head unlike I have ever been able to get into my own.

In the past, I have always eaten better for a while, drank less for a while, worked out harder for a while, but never all together. It just dawned on me that as I get older, the weight isn't going to lose itself. If I really wanted it, then I'd have to change everything.

So, I did.