Inspiration...

One week to go before the halfway mark in our Biggest Loser competition... if you had told me in November that I would be down 80 pounds before the end of January, I would not have believed it. There are people, men included, that get all the way to the finale on the television show without losing that much weight. If I hit my goal by the time our finale rolls around, I will have surpassed the very first winner on The Biggest Loser, who lost 122 pounds, or 37% of his body weight. By Monday's weigh-in, I will already be at 25%, with three months left to go. Somehow I don't think my win will net me a quarter of a million dollars, but I am gaining something much more valuable than that - I'm getting my life back!

 

I think today was Infirmary Day at our workout - Nandy is still battling back from her injury from 3 weeks ago (although doing much better, thankfully); Lisa has something going on with her; Tammy is working with a bum knee; Charles is having back problems... I think Johnnie had four different workouts going for seven people this morning! I've worked hard this week - double workouts on Tuesday and Thursday. I'm going in on those mornings by myself, and then in the evenings with Nandy, who had to make a schedule change. I miss the camaraderie in the mornings - and when I work to keep up with Nandy, I WORK! If she comes back full-strength from this injury, and STILL has the lead, I think she will officially be the most determined person I have ever met. I can think of ten reasons why she should have never been able to get in the lead; however, not only is she beating all the women, she is beating almost all the men, as well. Definitely a source of inspiration.

 

Through circumstances that I did not play a part in, I got to meet up today with another person who inspires me. Kristy, the season one winner who became the season two red team trainer, asked me to help her with a video she is submitting in a contest. Kristy and I go back a ways - she was a teenager in my youth group back in '93 - '95. I don't know if she particularly liked me much back in the day, but her example is what inspired me to submit an entry for Augusta's Biggest Loser. I was as nervous as I could be - I felt like a star, or a hero, was coming over. I had no reason to be nervous, though - she totally put me at ease, and seemed genuinely impressed by my progress in the competition. She's the only person I know personally who has been through this entire process, and it has been SO helpful to bounce stuff off of her, as well as Skip, her co-winner who she connected me with via facebook. When I write to the world on facebook, "I'm doing well", she's the person I can write and say, "I'm not really doing so well - need some help here." She has been as generous with her time as she can possibly be, and I will be forever grateful to her for her help throughout this competition. Helping her with her video is only a tiny dent in repaying her- thanks, Kristy, for all your help!

 

Gotta give a pat on the back to my buddy Charles, as well. For those of you who don't know, Charles is my only male teammate, and we spend time grousing together when the girls are all talking about... well, whatever it is they talk about. We're all pretty open on our team, but there's just some places you don't care to go, if you know what I mean. Charles is about to wrap up an absolutely horrible schedule at his workplace, and we were really dreading what kind of mood he would be in. (For those of you who don't know, the Augusta Futurity is going on right now - about 2 weeks of non-stop rodeo action - bull-riding, cutting - the whole nine yards. Charles is responsible for making sure all those people, as well as the attendees, get fed every day.) I gotta say, Charles, you have been amazing this week in spite of what all is going on in your life right now. You will get a break soon, and when you are out from under all that stress and the extreme hours, you're gonna start dropping weight like crazy. You may be trailing me a little in this competition right now, but in drive, desire, and will-power, you've got me beat. Well done, sir- you are another source of inspiration for me, like it or not.

 

I started a new food plan today - the "Millennium Meltdown", which is not nearly as chocolatey as it sounds. Basically, I'm meat, veggies, and grapefruit for the next couple of weeks. No carbs. No cheese. No snacking. But on the plus side - I got to eat turkey bacon with my eggs this morning, which honestly was just about the most amazing thing I've put in my mouth in three months! Burned it a little bit, but I didn't care. Bacon and eggs for breakfast - whoo-hoo!!!!

Eighty Pounds Down...

On the left is me, on the night we found out we were chosen for Augusta's Biggest Loser. I am explaining to everyone who I am and why I want to lose weight. On the right - same guy, 80 pounds lighter. The camera doesn't lie, but when I look in the mirror, I see the guy on the left more than the guy on the right!

Looking Ahead... But Not Too Far Ahead

For anyone keeping score at home, I dropped another 5.2 pounds this week, bringing my total lost to 80.4 lbs, having lost 23.45% of my starting weight. My current weight is 262.4, down from 342.8 on November 2nd. When I began this competition, I stated that I wanted to lose 140 lbs. I have 59.6 pounds to go to reach that mark, and if I can sustain at least a three pound-per-week loss from now on (I've never had a week lower than 3 pounds yet), I will be at my goal weight of 200 pounds before the finale on May 15, and will have lost 41.42% of my starting weight. 41.42% is a higher percentage than the majority of the contestants on "The Biggest Loser", and is actually a higher percentage than the very first winner (37%), who got to spend three months on the Biggest Loser ranch with Bob, Jillian, doctors, nutritionists, etc. For one more week, at least, Nandy Cordova and I are still the leaders. I think it's been 10 weeks for me, and 11 for her. With the exception of one week, the red team has had the male and female leaders from the very first week. Charles, Lisa, and Tim (the only blue team member to have the lead for a week) have all held top honors one time. I have a little margin for error; but there are a couple of blue team ladies who are trying their best to take the lead from Nandy (who, I might add, is on her third week of no running or biking because of the injury she sustained three weeks ago).

 

Until that day arrives, I have a lot of work to do, though. Seems like the pounds are harder and harder to shed the further I go!

Red Team...

Me on Day One- November 2, 2009 - explaining who I am and
why I want to lose weight.

Just the six of us - Ed, Nandy, Tammy, Bronnie, Charles, & Lisa.
They never took our group "before" picture, so this is the
very first time we've ever all been in one shot!

The red team, with our PHC consultants and our trainer, Johnnie

Good News / Bad News

Well, this has been one of those good news / bad news weeks:

 

Good news - we had a really good workout Wednesday morning.

Bad news - I did something to my right foot that hurts really bad today.

 

Good news - found a solution for, shall we say, "stomach distress".

Bad news - it didn't work.

 

Good news - I picked up a pair of size 40 jeans (down from 50) and a size L shirt (down from size 2x or 3x).

Bad news - Uh - no bad news. There's never any bad news with buying smaller clothes!

 

Good news - the fine folks at PHC were happy for my new clothing sizes.

Bad news - the fine folks at PHC weren't nearly as happy with my weight on the scale (see "stomach distress" above).

 

Good news - I did really good with following my diet plan so far this week.

Bad news - just when I got it all together, they changed my diet. Again.

 

I just hope that come Monday night at weigh-in, my wheel of life stops on "good news" instead of "bad news"!

Latest Video

Posted this over on facebook, but for anyone who may follow me here but not there, here's the latest video from NBC:

Click here to view video in a new window:

Bigger Things in Life Than 3.2 Pounds...

OK, so this week's weigh-in wasn't spectacular, and it wasn't great. For me, it probably qualifies as an "OK". I wasn't happy with it, but I wasn't mad about it, either. In looking at the big picture, I've lost 75.2 pounds in 73 days. Seven pounds a week is a pretty doggone good average. I'm 24.8 pounds away from having lost 100, which I hope to achieve by mid-February. I'm about 10 pounds away from having lost 25% of my total starting body weight. In three weeks we will be halfway through the Biggest Loser competition. I don't know if I can drop 24.8 pounds in the next 21 days or not, but how cool would it be to have dropped 100 lbs. at exactly the halfway point! It's not impossible, but it's a pretty tall order.

 

Two really cool things happened this Sunday. First, our church secretary decided to put together an informal accountability group for weight loss - it's up to each person to find their own food and exercise plan, but we are having a contest to see who can lose the most by June. I don't qualify - I have a 75-pound head start! But I offered to come talk to the group about some basics as they were signing up Sunday night. Twenty-five people signed up to try and lose some pounds and inches with me! I am now writing a daily (hopefully) email on nutrition and fitness. (If you are interested in receiving it, drop me a line at echavis@lumpkinroad.com - you don't have to be part of our church group to get it).

 

The other cool thing that happened Sunday was that I had to go to Wal-mart Sunday night and walk out the rest of my 10,000 steps. When I was finished, I went to the men's section to try on some pants. The blue jeans I picked up about a month ago are already getting too big for me, so I grabbed a few pairs and took them into the dressing room. When I started this process 73 days ago, I was about a size 50 waist (I say "about", because I was wearing 48's, but testing them rather heartily). Sunday night, I slipped into a size 40 pair of jeans, and they buttoned and everything!

 

Three pounds was not a great weight loss, but it was a great week! Now onto the task at hand... 24 pounds in 21 days....

Relax...

So far this week, I have lost basically nothing. Again. Yes, I know this is about the fourth time in the last five weeks I have started a blog entry with that sentence. Last week after I had only lost a little by Friday, I was panicking. But this week I decided, along with my counselors, that I need to get back to a "normal" diet. I've been eating tons of protein, done a couple of "plateau busters" along the way, and pretty much eliminated most carbohydrates from my diet. I'm hoping to be down some by Monday night, but if I'm not, it's not the end of the world.

 

Two things, I think, have caused this attitude shift. One is the fact that last week, I hit the halfway point on my weight loss, and that was a huge victory for me. 72 pounds from November 6 - January 11 is terrific; some official "Biggest Loser" contestants don't have that kind of result. I now have nearly twice that much time left in the competition to drop the other 68 pounds of my original goal. As of this writing on Friday, January 15, there are 120 days remaining until the finale. The other thing is that I have been able to build up a fairly good lead over the last couple of weeks, and a week or two here and there of low losses is not going to cost me the lead. Every week when we get the results emailed to us, I sit down and do the calculations - where I'm at, where my competitors are at, etc. - I know exactly how far in front I am at all times. I do this for my female co-leader, as well. The only day the lead truly matters is May 15th, but I'll take all the other days I can get - those days are motivators for me.

 

My "que sera sera" attitude has had no bearing on my workouts. I try to work every day as if I am trying to catch up to the leader. The workouts since last Wednesday have been pretty tough; this morning I was in a sweat at 6 minutes into the routine. Yesterday I tackled the Stairmaster machine and wrestled it for 20 solid minutes, the default workout time on that particular machine. I argued with myself for the last 10 minutes - "good Ed" was sitting on one shoulder, urging me forward; "bad Ed" was sitting on the other shoulder saying, "10 minutes is good enough - you've never gone 10 before." I had this conversation at 10 minutes... at 7:43... at 5:51... even at three minutes left, I was still debating within myself as to whether or not I could do it. Saturday morning I will have this internal fight with myself all over again.

 

I also have still not eaten anything that I'm not allowed to have. There have been times when I accidentally went over on a carb, but it wasn't anything I couldn't eat. I haven't had a slice of pizza, a French fry, or a cheeseburger since the first of November. Even if I don't ultimately win, I want to be able to say "I gave it everything I had", and "I never went back to my old way of eating." Finishing well is more important to me than finishing first.

 

Now that I have hit the halfway point, my next two weight loss goals are: 1) to reach 255 - that will make me lighter than a friend of mine; and 2) to reach 242.8 - the 100-pound mark. I hope to hit the first mark in about 3 weeks, and the second in about 5 weeks. I'll keep everyone posted!

 

 

 

Red Team Video

Red team (most of us, anyway) on channel 26 last Friday morning:

Click here

Monday's Weigh-In

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory..."

Thursday afternoon at PHC, their scale showed that I had lost less than one pound. I was discouraged - they had just adjusted my diet to include a few more carbs than I had been eating, and now they were putting me on a "plateau buster" that included little more than chicken and eggs. We were invited over to a friend's house for supper Friday night, and she graciously cooked what I could eat (although I felt really bad about "phoning in my order" of chicken and eggs). As we met together for our weigh-in and compared notes, I found that most of our group of 12 is on some combination of chicken and eggs.

I was hoping against hope that I had dropped at least 6.6 pounds - that was the number that would put me at 70 pounds, halfway to the goal that I stated at the beginning of the competition. Since my 0.8 at PHC on Thursday, I have been working my head off at the gym and at home, even walking and running around the outside of a shopping center at 28 degrees Saturday morning.

I walked into the weigh-in room (I always go second, for some reason) and Rob, the manager of the other PHC location, said, "You look about eight pounds thinner this week." No clue what made him say that, but I got on the scale, and Barry said, "It is eight, but it's more than eight. It's 8.6 pounds". WOW...

With tonight's 8.6, I have lost 72 pounds in two months, and 21% of my starting weight. The six of us on the red team have lost 303 pounds. I told my trainer Johnnie that tonight's loss left me with only 68 pounds to go in order to reach my goal of 140 pounds. As usual, he raised the bar, and challenged me to forget about 68 pounds, and to go for another 100. That would put me at 170, a weight I have not seen since probably eighth grade. All of this is great news that I get to go to the TV studio tomorrow morning and share - it should air Wednesday morning, I would presume, during the 6:00 AM news broadcast on channel 26.

One last piece of news - if you've followed my blog, you've read about Nandy, my co-leader. Nandy bruised her Achilles' tendon and tore some muscle fibers Friday morning, and is wearing a boot to immobilize her ankle. Johnnie has worked up some exercise routines for her to do while she is recovering, and she still lost over 4 pounds this week. Our losses mean that we are both still in the lead - Nandy has led the women for 8 weeks, and I have led the men for 7 weeks.

I got in the car and headed home, thinking my day could not get any better. Then I had one of those "where's a cop when you need one?" moments. This little green car flew by me on Bobby Jones tonight, and no sooner had I thought, "where's a cop when you need one?", when I saw a set of blue lights fire up way ahead of me. As I approached the cop... yep, you guessed it - he got the guy that left me in the dust.

All in all, it was a perfect evening!

P.S. - I guess it's time to change the photos at the top of my blog - I don't look like that guy anymore!

And It All Comes To a Screeching Halt...

I thought I was "stuck" during week 5... that was nothing compared to the "stuck" I find myself in now. I have worked hard this week in the gym (and out of it), gone through 2 changes in my diet this week, and watched a teammate damage her Achilles' tendon. Saturday I did an hour and a half in the gym between the treadmill and the bike; the kids had to be up on Washington Road to sign up to work Masters' week, and the rent-a-cops informed me that I could not go in with them to help them with their paperwork. So I bundled up and did laps around the entire perimeter of the shopping center - walking along the front side, running along the sides and the back for nearly an hour. Then I went home and did The Biggest Loser Last Chance Workout video. Sunday, I went back to the gym between the morning service and choir practice, and got some time in on the treadmill. My shoulder has been hurting since Monday, my knee has been hurting since Wednesday, and my back has been hurting since Friday. Tonight I had to face yet another food fellowship at church, where I ate absolutely nothing.

 

And I'm stuck. As in, no weight loss.

 

Skip and Kristy told me it was coming, and to just be patient through it; if I keep doing what I'm supposed to be doing, the weight will start coming off again.

 

I don't want to be patient, though... I have my eye on my next goal. I'm SO close to hitting the halfway-to-my-goal mark, only 2 months into the competition. I will get there, just not as soon as I wanted to.

 

I know I've disappointed some people this week... but I'm giving it my all.

Almost Halfway Home...

As of these photos, I'm only 5 pounds away from halfway to my goal:

Time to Re-focus...

I didn't do bad this week - but I felt like I had. I lost 5.6 pounds, and even though I was expecting more, I guess I can't complain too much. We are about 9 weeks into the competition, and only once have I lost less than 5 pounds in a week. I have a goal this week of 6.6 pounds, because that would put me at having lost exactly 70 pounds in the first 66 days. That will leave me with 70 pounds to lose in the next roughly 123 days. I feel like getting halfway done in a third of the allotted time is pretty doggone good.

 

But am I doing my best? Could I be doing better?

 

Johnnie challenged us all this morning to dig deep and give our very best effort in light of the tremendous opportunity we have been afforded. There are things I could be doing better... things that need more attention... things that may mean the difference between holding onto the lead and letting it slip away. I'm off to a pretty good start, I think. I've eaten right, at the right times, drank my gallon and a half of water, walked my 5 miles, and worked my tail off in the gym. I want to do my very best, and if I do that, I can face the scale with no regrets next Monday.

Pay It Forward...

Participating in Augusta's Biggest Loser has opened up new ministry opportunities already. I submitted an article for publication in a Baptist pastor's magazine (the monthly magazine published by the Baptist Bible Fellowship), and it made it into January's edition. Through a combination of that article, and my presence on facebook, I am beginning to hear from pastors, former classmates, etc., who are looking for help, advice, and accountability in the area of managing their weight. I'm hoping to have my story published in some form in the Augusta Chronicle's religion section - a Baptist pastor who is trying to lose weight is a novelty, as we Baptists (particularly here in the South) are noted for our love of starchy and sweet foods.

 

I've not addressed the moral aspect of these issues thus far, because overweight preachers do not generally have much to say about their own shortcomings in this area. But the hypocrisy of denouncing the evils of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs while joking about our ever-expanding waistlines is too overwhelming to ignore forever. Maybe when I am at, or close to, my goal weight, I will feel more able to address these issues. Our pastor's wife suggested maybe eventually doing a Sunday night series of messages, not to condemn, but to offer hope.

 

Weigh-in is tomorrow night (Monday)... I don't think it's going to be as good as I hoped for, but still should be at least a 4 or 5. How can I be upset with that?