Attaching the electrodes of knowledge to the nipples of ignorance.

For most of my life, I’ve been overweight to varying degrees. As a child I can clearly remembering my grandma buying pants for me that were “husky” size. At the time, I thought it just was something cool, but it was for overweight kids. Looking back at some very old (and non-digital) photos, I was a pudgy kid, probably not terribly so, compared to the kids today, but still. Even when I was running 20 KM per day, I was overweight. Like, what the hell?

The precedent was set.

Sometime in 2003, I topped out at 270 pounds (122 KG) and freaked out. My body mass index was 38.7 and started to work on eating healthier. Tracey also wanted to lose weight, so we worked on it together and we managed to loose a pile of weight – I bottomed out at 161 pounds (73 KG).

The problem was, I lost the weight *too fast*, and I developed gallstones, which I can tell you under no uncertain terms are no fun whatsoever. I managed to dodge the bullet of having surgery to remove my gallbladder (I like it exactly where it is, thank you very much). An epic battle of was waged to rid me of the gallstones, which I totally won, but that’s another story.

Over this summer, Tracey and I both crept up in weight, due to our being real busy with work, bad food planning, and lots of yummy order-in.

That brings us to now.

When we got back from our lovely vacation, it was time to get back into eating healthily, with smaller portions, and less processed foods.

Back in July, I did up a post and video about my Easy Soup that I’d started to make.

After about two months of careful eating, calorie counting and meal-planning, I have lost 14 pounds, reaching 180 pounds (81.6 KG).

The Challenge:

So here’s what I’m thinking; My target weight is 155 pounds (70.3 KG), which I believe to be safely attainable by continuing on the road I’m on, and probably arriving there by March or April. I would like to specifically challenge David Peralty, a friend who writes for more web sites that I have kilos to loose, to loose his first twenty five pounds while I loose my last twenty five (which is from my understanding, the hardest).

This is not a race to see who can loose the weight – I’d be happy if he could loose the 25 at the same pace I am. This is about supporting each other while we work on eating healthier, exercising more, and loosing weight along the way.

In fact, I think I’d open this up to anyone else who’d like to participate. I’ve added my current weight and latest exercise on the right hand side of the blog so you can all keep an eye on me. To participate, send me an email with your blog, and I’ll add it to the list of participants.

What you need to do:

Currently, I update my weight and exercise on the side of my blog, so I think it would be reasonable to ask for at least weekly updates on your own blog or twitter account (try using the hashtag #25lbs) or other publicly accessible location on the Internet. I’ll take a photo of me on the scale and post it to Flickr. Actually, I have created a Flickr Group so we can all do this, keep it clean, kids. I’ll be linking to your blog/Twitter/etc, so I wouldn’t mind a link back to this post:

What I am doing

I’m obsessive about counting (points to my M&M Colour Distribution Research Project), so I count my weight, my caloric intake, and my exercise. I use a white board on our fridge, and some custom-built database freakyness, but Tracey uses About.com’s Calorie Count web site, which works very well. Tracey’s account and mine. Admittedly, I don’t update mine much, but this is about what works for you.

As I mentioned before, We’ve been focusing on meal planing (soup!), healthy portions *and* food, and exercise. I’m going to start getting back into regularly doing Push-ups, sit-ups and leg-lifts.

Hopefully, with my tracking software, and some encouragement from y’all, I can get back into the rhythm.

Lastly, this doesn’t end when I/we loose our twenty five (or whatever amount, really) pounds. Once it comes off, it stay’s off. Sure, we’ll fall down from time to time, but you get back up and get back to it.

List of Participants

• Me (goal: 25 lbs)
• Tracey Vibert (goal 20 lbs)
• David Peralty (goal 25 lbs
• SuzeMuse (goal 20 lbs)

Additionally, there is now a Flickr Group with discussions, thanks to David for getting the discussions started.