Wildwood Cafe

There are many exciting places to visit accross the country-side. Sometimes the adventure is right out the door, other times it is not even necessary to leave these 4 walls.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

BIGGEST LOSER CONTEST

Just last weekend I made a startling discovery. I could not fit on my nice pants for church. I consider this startling because I thought that my weight and I had an understanding that it would stay where it was and I would stay where I was. (Hopefully you can understand what I’m saying).

The very next day at work Aaron my Engineering boss asked George a question. “What is it that is hardest about getting into a diet?” George gave the correct answer when he said “Getting the ambition to go on a diet”.

To make a long story short, by the end of the day our entire CAD/CAM department received the ambition to go on a diet in the form of a contest. From November 1st to January 2nd we will be battling it out to determine who will become the biggest loser. The weight loss will be measured using the Body Mass Index as a somewhat fair way of determining the biggest loser. The winner will receive his payout from the other participants based on the amount of pounds that he has lost. Work can be pretty gloomy sometimes, so this contest will be a breath of fresh air. (Providing there isn’t any food smells in it)



11/01/06: The weigh in was done in the early morning. Everyone was in high spirits, and there were several spectators who were on hand to witness the beginning of the big event. During the 1st day many psychological ploys were dealt, with little actual effect.

It appears that there are several different strategies’ that will be used during the Big Loser Contest. I will attempt to describe the diet chosen, as well as strengths and weaknesses of each candidate.

Diet:
Aaron: Cheeseburger and Hotdog diet
Dave: Lean Pocket diet
Dennis: Weight Watchers
George: Weight Watchers mixed with South Beach
Mick: Skoal and whatever wife decides
Myself: South Beach

Strength/Weakness/Wildcard
Aaron: Very competitive/Pizza/Likes Shortcuts
Dave: Only one who stands up most of the day/Food/Effect of tricks against him
Dennis: Veteran of diets/already lean from diet he is on/he said he has a secret weapon
George: Favorable BMI/Pumpkin Spice Shakes/Likes to use psychological tricks
Mick: Competitive/already on a diet/No one knows what diet Mick’s wife has him on.
Myself: I will only eat what is allowable/chocolate/Evening low carb cocoa concoction




11/02/06: In reaching into the 5 axis machine Dave re-injured himself from an earlier incident of falling out of his tree stand about a month ago (which has been speculated as a weight related accident). He had to be taken to the doctor and home. Feeling for his situation the rest of the group proposed to bring him pizza to recover his spirits (and any lost weight). As the pizza was in the process of being ordered George commented “and then there were 5”. Dennis and George appeared at Dave’s doorstep with a 14 inch pizza. Dave who was quite groggy from the drugs he was on quite readily accepted the bait.

11/03/06: Everyone is a comedian it appears. Getting someone to buy donuts around here is like pulling teeth. Guess what just happened to appear outside the Engineering office. In other surveillance, Dave did indeed go for the pizza bait. It will be interesting just how much this will set him back.

11/05/06: I'm really stoked about the South Beach style chili that I made for today. If I can figure out how to attach a link I will post it here.

12/01/06: This is the official midway weigh in day. Some of us had encouraging results, and some had to go home disappointed. Dennis did not fare very well at the midway weigh in. His top secret strategy actually had him gaining a couple pounds. Dennis who was the last to weigh in made a comment about the written results of Aaron's weight loss. "Wow he lost 6 pounds!", and in answer to that "No, there is a decimal point in front of the 6". Mick was quite demoralized to find that he was the "exact" weight that he was when he started the contest. Dave, who fell for any bait offered to him in the 1st month surprisingly lost 5 pounds. George and I lost identical ammounts of 7 pounds. It was me who ended up mildly disappointed however, because our BMI results also were identical. I had thought that the BMI would favor the shortest person in the event of a tie, but this was not to hold true. It was George who picked out our weight loss format. I wouldn't quite say that there is a conspiracy here, but this might not be too far above his physcological tricks. His reply after the weigh in was "I guess I'll have to start my diet now".

12/11/06: Some of our group had an unofficial weigh in today. I believe Dennis lost the couple pounds he added. Mick was in much better spirits to see that he now has lost a couple pounds. George's diet plan has taken a swing in the wrong direction as he has added back a couple pounds from the original 7 pounds that he lost. I was quite pleased to see that I now am the front runner as the scale shows that I have lost a total of 10 pounds.

12.6 POUNDS WINS IT ALL!

The holidays were a tough obstacle to get around. I marginally kept to my diet, and was fairly certain that I gained a few pounds back from the unofficial weigh in on December 12th. Prior to the weigh on January 2nd, Aaron was asking who he should shell out the money to. The holiday's were a little too kind to him as he actually ended up gaining a whopping 7 pounds. The contest also took a heavy toll on Dennis who already was pretty trim from a diet he was on, he gained 7 pounds as well. The skoal and beer diet did not work very well for Mick. He should consider lite beer. :-) He gained almost 4 pounds. There were only actual losers amongst our group. Easily tempted Dave actually ended up losing 2 pounds. George who was extremely close to my weight loss at the 1st official weigh in ended up fading at the finish line with a total loss of just under 4 pounds. That made me the biggest loser!!! I'm thinking the 3 or 4 meals straight of saurkraut helped considerably when I neared the final weigh in.

I've heard rumors that another contest might be in the works. Perhaps this would be a little tougher for me, because it wouldn't surround some of the most tempting food eating holidays. Now that I've shown a proven way to lose, there might be a few more South Beachers.

As a closing note, Jason at work wanted to be involved in our contest. He is thin as a rail so he knew he had no chance whatsoever in being a participant. He made a prediction on the 1st day of the contest, that he knew who the winner would be. He wagered a free meal to the winner if he did not pick the correct biggest loser. Unfortunately I could not add a free meal to my winnings, as he lucked out and picked me. Just how have I spent my winnings? I think last weekend's trip to Lake Side Charlie's will go a long ways in setting up my losing tradition in the next contest.

6 Comments:

At 4:35 PM, Blogger Jemit said...

WE ARE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU, PAUL.. GOOOOOOOO PAUL!!!
YOU CAN DO IT...AND SOUTH BEACH CAN BE A VERY TASTY DIET..
JJ AND I ARE DOING 'KICK THE PIG'.. I PREFER TO CALL IT DOWNSIZING.. AND WE BOTH HAVE OUR BLOGSITES MARKING OUR PROGRESS. YOU NEED A TICKER FOR YOURS.. HEHEHE
LOVE YA LOTS..

 
At 6:09 AM, Blogger Wendy said...

The South Beach Diet is VERY easy and good for you too. I lost a good bit of pregnancy weight on this one...and you never feel deprived--Good Luck...make sure you post your results! What is the prize for the winner?

 
At 8:10 AM, Blogger Paul Imm said...

As you may have noticed I haven't done an update in a while. Aunt Marilyn an Wendy, thank you very much for your encouragement!

I do like the South Beach diet because it doesn't mean total deprivation from quantity of food.

I will definately check out your weight loss progress on your blog site Aunt Marilyn.

The stakes (Mmm steaks) are going to be fairly decent for the winner. I'm not sure what the exact payoff will be. It was discussed that there could be a minimum 20 dollars per person payoff based off of a dollar a pound, or just the dollar a pound payoff. It appears that no one will approach 20 pounds lost.

 
At 8:43 AM, Blogger Jeremy Stockwell said...

Well???

 
At 7:05 PM, Blogger Paul Imm said...

Sorry about the lag everyone.

I definately haven't kept things going in real time. I probably shouldn't do contests. :-)

Today is actually the 1st that I've linked up with this site since replacing out my old computer.

 
At 7:16 AM, Blogger Jason Nota said...

The one and only time I dieted was late summer of 2006. I did the Slim Fast diet. My original weigh in weight was 229 . By the beginning of 2007 I was down to 191! My neighbor told me that someone had ask him if I had cancer or something because I had lost so much weight so fast. Like most diets after you reach your goal you go back to your old eating habits. I'm 215 now.

 

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