Here's my updated weight chart:
22 lbs left to goal.

Six Weigh-Ins Left...

That number may or may not be accurate, depending on whether we weigh in on Monday, May 10, and then again on finale weekend. That last weigh-in, we won't know how much we weigh.

 

I had a pretty good number this week - 5.8 pounds down, bringing my total percentage loss to 34.31% of my starting body weight. Over one-third of me is gone - over 117 pounds - and I'm 22 pounds away from my stated goal of losing 140 pounds by the end of this competition. My weight loss chart is almost completely full, with just those 22 little squares left at the bottom of the page. There are two weeks on there that I regret having on there - "no loss" and "up one", but I just marked those with a very small notation on my chart, because I refuse to be defined by two low weeks. By the same token, I did not mark my biggest weeks with any special marks - I just filled in the squares. A little math here: 117 pounds divided by 21 weeks means that, to this point in the competition, I have averaged 5.6 pounds per week. That's almost 3 times the rate of the average weight loss.

 

One of the fun things during this process has been watching my clothes size shrink. If you saw the last video with Nandy and me, you can see how the clothes I used to wear swallow me up now. But I think I'm just about as small as I'm going to get, at least in the hips. All the way around, I feel bones. I'll lose more fat in my thighs and in my belly, but I think my hips are done. Shirt sizes have slowed, as well. I'm a large in most things; a medium in some.

 

Seven weeks from now, I know that I will never see some of these people again, except to maybe run into them at a gym. I will miss them - even those on the blue team, who I only see on Monday nights. Speaking of the blue team - there are pics and videos of them working out outside with Skip and Kristy - I wish I could have had that experience. Maybe one of these days. And a huge congratulations to Colin Heslip, who joined Charles and me as the third member of the 100 club - he'll never see this blog, but congratulations, buddy - it's a huge accomplishment, and I hope your team fussed over you the way the Reds fussed over Charles and myself. Tim will be next, possibly as soon as next week. A couple of the girls still have a shot at it - we may have 5, or possibly 6, people who will have lost over 100 pounds during Augusta's Biggest Loser.

 

 

 

 

Old Clothes...

Nandy and I with our old clothes... big fun!

Collecting Evidence of Your Success...

Since we began with the ABL competition, I have done some things that could be taken as being vain, even though I have tried my best to explain what I was doing. On my facebook page and on here, I have put pictures up of me before I started losing weight, and pictures taken along the way - down 50 pounds, down 70 pounds, down 90 pounds, etc. I write in my personal blog about 3 times a week or so about my experiences. I share my victories (and my defeats) with my friends. And I always feel like I have to write, "I'm honestly not trying to brag or anything..." I have wanted to explain why I was doing what I was doing, but I never could find the words to correctly express my intentions. Until now...

In my email this morning, I learned that Kindle, the electronic book device from Amazon, now has an application that will allow you to download and read digital copies of books on your PC. I installed the application, and the first book I downloaded was "Believe It, Be It: How Being the Biggest Loser Won Me Back My Life" by season 5 winner Ali Vincent. I've been wanting to read it for a while. I read almost the entire book this morning, and in it, she talks about the struggle she had trying to change her mind about herself. She said that she still saw herself as that fat girl, just a smaller version of it. The way she got past it was to begin, to use her words, "collecting evidence of (her) success".

Johnnie tells us there are no moral victories in this competition, and he's absolutely right in regards to the competition itself. There are no prizes for tiniest waistline, smallest shirt size, fastest 5K run, heaviest bench press, best "after" photo, or even for the most pounds lost. But the tiny waistline, the small shirt size, the 5K time, the weightlifting capacity, the photos, and the scales are "evidence of your success". As I've written before in my blog, when I look in the mirror, I still see the guy in the "before" photos. I need evidence of my success in order to re-define who I am.

Nandy and I were at the TV studio Tuesday morning, she with her big ol' pants, and me with a gargantuan suit jacket that used to fit me. Bragging? no... just collecting evidence of our success. My last three weeks on the scale have been like this: no change, down 10, up one. I was not upset or concerned with the "no change" or the "up one", because all along the way, I have been collecting evidence of my success. As I post pictures and statistics about pounds and inches lost, I am not trying to tell the world, "look what I've done"... I'm telling the old self-image in my head and my heart, "look what I've done". My blog, my photos, my ever-changing clothing sizes, my "PR's", my health status - all those things are evidence of my success. The people that I'm sharing those things with are my "witnesses" that help validate that evidence.

If by the grace of God I do happen to come out on top in this competition (and that is by NO MEANS a "given"), I will not regard that as having achieved my goal. My goal is to change my life for the rest of my life - a victory would only be another piece of evidence of my success, no more and no less important than fitting into the next size smaller jeans. If I do not win, that fact simply will not be part of my collection of evidence. To my fellow competitors - do NOT look at winning or losing this contest as the end-all, be-all gauge of your success. Twelve of us were chosen for this competition; ten of us are not going to "win". But all of us can use what we have accomplished as evidence of our success!

Back On Television...

One of the things that people say to me when they find out that I'm participating in Augusta's Biggest Loser is, "Oh, it's so cool that they are providing you all that stuff for free!" Well...  that's not really the whole story. Bottom line, ABL is a marketing promotion between NBC Augusta, Omni Heath & Fitness, PHC Weight Loss Centers, and Pidcock Chiropractic. That means that until this competition is over, our image, likeness, and time pretty much belong to those entities. Part of that commitment is that on Wednesdays and Fridays, NBC Augusta airs interviews with the trainers, nutritionists, and contestants. This piece of business used to be done live on the air, but since channel 6 has taken over operations at channel 26, these segments are now videotaped on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I did my first one the day after I hit the halfway-to-goal point, and I've been on twice since then with our trainer and our entire team.

 

At Monday night's weigh-in, it was discovered that a scheduling conflict prevented the scheduled contestant from appearing the next morning. Scrambling for a replacement, Donna asked Nandy if she could go on in Bronnie's place. Nandy is usually working during that time, but her job has allowed her to re-arrange her schedule when necessary. Well, I received an email on my way out the door, asking me if I would be willing to go on with her. I said that I would; so instead of a segment featuring Bronnie Spinks and her weight loss as a busy single mom, we did a segment with the two leaders.

 

A little backstory is necessary at this point. As I was perusing through the clothing racks at Goodwill (the only way we can really afford to dress ourselves during this weight-loss!), I found a suitcoat Saturday that was in my old size, a 56L. Early on, it did not occur to me to save any of my "big clothes", but when I found this coat, it hit me that it might make a great visual for sometime later on in the contest, possibly at the finale, or in a commercial after we're done. The line was too long Saturday at the store, and I made a mental note to return on Monday and pick it up. I stopped by before weigh-in; the coat was still there, and no waiting to checkout this time. I told Donna about the jacket and how it swallowed me up, and she thought it would be good to show it on TV.

 

Tuesday morning I reported to the studio (on time, I might add) with jacket in tow. I slipped it on to show Nandy, because the jacket wasn't just big - it was jaw-droppingly huge! Nandy had brought an old pair of pants with her, and they easily slid over her clothes, with plenty of room to spare. It was just a terrific morning of great fun, seeing how far we had come. She is about 24 pounds from her goal at this point, and I am around 28 pounds from my stated goal of losing 140 pounds. After we shot the segment with Jay Jefferies (twice, because the cameraman got in the way, Jay couldn't see his cues, and he got tickled), Nandy and I each did our "mid-point" interviews with Mariah Gardener, the promotions manager at NBC Augusta. We also got new Biggest Loser T-shirts - a medium for Nandy, and a plain old large for me.

 

Tuesday evening we had our group session at PHC; I suspect these are supposed to be instructional and motivational (and they are), but they usually evolve into something else. Does anyone remember the old Bob Newhart Show? Not Bob as innkeeper, but Bob as a psychologist. He would hold these group sessions with several of his patients, and those segments were always a lot of fun as they disintegrated into something other than what Bob intended. Our PHC sessions are somewhat like that! Donna had us all measured Tuesday evening because of some new research that shows a correlation between the ratio of waist to hip circumference and risk of serious disease or illness. I fell into the "low risk" range, which was good news. It wasn't all good news, though... they also did my BMI and my body fat percentage, and those numbers still aren't great. I don't remember my starting body fat percentage, but it's currently at 23%; my BMI, which was 44 when we started, is 31. For those of you who are concerned about me losing too much weight, be patient. The plan is for me to drop all the body fat I can, and then to build some of that bulk back up with muscle. That BMI number needs to get down under 25 for me to get into the "normal" range.

One Over Par...

Well, I finally had a gain... +1 this week. It was bound to happen sometime - I'm less than 30 pounds from my goal.

 

I ate better than I did last week... I exercised more, and with more intensity, than I did last week... I did better with my water than I did last week... but last week I dropped 10 pounds, and this week, I gained one of them back. I was sick overnight, and the fine folks at PHC say that most people, when they are sick with a stomach ailment, actually do tend to experience a gain. No one who has gotten sick has experienced any kind of freakish weight loss for that week - they've either been down very slightly, or up a little bit.

 

We had our church's anniversary Sunday, and that always means a huge spread of food. I brought a four-ounce piece of turkey breast and some jello to eat. I stayed busy in the kitchen fixing drinks, making tea, and taking out the trash. But sadly, my reward for staying faithful this week was a +1. I received a lot of compliments, though - anniversary Sunday usually brings out some people who have not seen me in at least 6 months, or longer. One person thought the old music guy had been replaced with a new guy, so I was told.

 

Our ladies did a great job this week - Tammy is finally out of the 300's, Nandy is into the 160's, and Lisa and Bronnie each lost a few pounds. Charles lost two - was hoping for more than that this week.

 

I had my Chick-FIl-A grilled sandwich tonight when we got done. Tomorrow morning, it's back to work - going to try to push that scale down to around 225 this week. I'm also seriously considering running a 5K of my own next month... we'll see how that works out.

 

I think I'm supposed to go on TV tomorrow morning as a last-minute replacement for a scheduling conflict... if so, it should air Wednesday morning at 6:20 AM. Hopefully it will be up on the NBC website by Wednesday evening. If you're up getting ready for work or school at 6:20 Wednesday morning, and live in the Augusta GA area, tune in to NBC Augusta (channel 8 cable, channel 26 via rabbit ears). It will either be Nandy or the two of us. For you out-of-towners, I'll link to it from this blog if they post it online.

A Few Complaints...

We have been at this now for 131 days, and there are 59 days left to go before the finale. We passed the two-thirds point five days ago. To be totally honest, here's my personal assessment after 131 days:

* I'm tired of taking so many supplements in the morning that I have no room left for breakfast.

* Speaking of breakfast, I'm tired of eating eggs every single day. My stomach actually starts hurting in anticipation of eating them.

* Parsley tea - I've had quite enough, thank you very much.

* I want a hamburger - it doesn't matter what you put in, on, or around a patty of ground turkey, it's not a hamburger.

* I get tired sometimes of the whole competition component of it - can't we all win?

* I get tired of the pain. While it is true that I have more energy and vitality, it has not been without a price. I hurt - sometimes in different places, sometimes everywhere all at once. Every new pain brings with it the fear that I have torn/ruptured/broken something that will keep me from finishing the course, and especially those involving my twice-operated-on lower back.

* I'm tired of my much-diminished social life, especially with our friends at church. We used to go out to eat pretty much every Sunday, and at least another weeknight every couple of weeks. Now the fear of sodium and fat has paralyzed me to the point that I don't trust anything that I didn't cook myself.

* I get tired of having to live up to expectations. No one will voice it, but the fact is that, because I have set such a high mark for myself, I'm expected to be out in front on everything. Run faster, jump higher, more reps, more stamina, more pounds... sometimes flying under the radar looks pretty inviting.

All that being said... this has been the ride of a lifetime, and I can't wait to see how different I will be in two more months!

Home Stretch...

With 61 days left in the Augusta's Biggest Loser competition, I have now lost 112.8 pounds. After having lost not one ounce last week, I dropped a staggering 10 pounds this week. I say "staggering" because while a ten pound loss has not been uncommon, it is very rare for someone to pull a double-digit this late in the competition. Charles did it last week with an 11.8, but those big numbers have been few and far between. This was a big boost for me - now I only have to average about 3 pounds a week to make it to my goal of losing at least 140 pounds. My desire is to lose at least 31 more pounds before the end - that will make the first digit of my weight a "1" for the first time since probably 8th grade!

Some of you may want the nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts of what I did this last week to drop ten pounds... without going into too much detail, I figured that my body had gotten used to the constant barrage of chicken, and it was time to make a major change to jar things back into losing mode. I stopped eating chicken and started eating tuna instead. Not just any tuna - the "very low sodium" tuna. It was a major change for me, and my zero from last week quickly turned into around eight pounds by Friday, and I managed to squeeze out two more pounds before I had to step on the scale tonight.

I will probably write a longer entry Tuesday, recounting my half-week in Atlanta and trying to stay on a diet while sitting in a Steak and Shake; for now, I'm tired, but very, very happy and pleased. And grateful to God, because I do not have it within myself to have this kind of success at something that I have failed at my entire life.

A New Top Ten List...

When I began Augusta's Biggest Loser, I did a "Top 10 Things I Can Do Now" list. Now that I'm over 100 pounds down, I thought it was time for a new list, as I'm discovering new things I can do:

 

10. Stand on the back of a pew to take down the missions conference flags without worrying about breaking the pew.

 

9. Walk between two pews in our auditorium (as opposed to scooting sideways).

 

8. Stand on a sitting stool without breaking it or falling off.

 

7. Spend a lunch hour at Steak and Shake without eating cheese fries.

 

6. Real push-ups.

 

5. See pictures of myself at 340-350 and not remember being that large.

 

4. Climb a ladder rung by rung, instead of dragging my bum leg up one rung at a time.

 

3. Run a mile in nine minutes.

 

2. WANT to run a mile in nine minutes.

 

And the number one thing I can do now...

 

Buy clothes without paying the "$2 more for extended sizes" upcharge!

Biggest Loser Doesn't Always Lose...

Well, tonight was a first for me... this is the first week that I have lost nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not one ounce.

 

I guess it's time for me to take the steps myself that I recommend to everyone else when they ask me how to proceed after a week of little or no loss (or a gain). So, here we go:

 

1. Analyze the diet: Did I eat something I should not have? (Nope.) Did I eat too much of something that can slow down my weight loss? (Probably - I do know that I tried increasing my carbs slightly, and that probably had something to do with it.) Did I eat out? (No - aside from my usual Monday night trip to Chick-Fil-A, I've not eaten out.) Did I get too much sodium? (No, I didn't eat anything I didn't cook myself this week.) Lesson for next week: lose the carbs again.

 

2. Analyze the exercise: We did change our exercise routine this week - last Wednesday we started running during our hour with Johnnie; Friday morning we had that basketball game; the physical repercussions from the game did limit my workouts over the weekend, and even this morning's run. Talked with Johnnie tonight about going back to alternating cardio with weight training. He approved, so hopefully I can get back on track.

 

3. Supplements, vitamins, parsley tea, lemon water - the ancillary stuff we have to do. Check, check, check, and mostly check. Gotta get back on the water.

 

Sometimes your body just gets used to what you're doing, and you have to shake things up. I will be making some changes this week, and hopefully will get things moving again. It's coming during a difficult week - I have to take an out-of-town trip for the first time since starting the Biggest Loser. We will be at a church conference that will be feeding the crowd like kings, and I'm going to have to navigate all that.

 

Am I disappointed? Yes. But I'm not upset. Even Barry said, "You didn't lose a dadgum thing and you're still in the lead... good job." My trainer Johnnie echoed those sentiments, and I do understand where they're coming from. I've done the work and had the discipline to put myself in a position to be able to weather a bad week here and there late in the contest. I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, and it will pay off in the end. So - back to work tomorrow morning.

 

One sad note: one of our fellow Losers may not be able to continue in the competition. Colin Heslip should find out tomorrow if he has a blood clot; if he does, he will be forced to drop out. My prayers are with him.

Biggest Loser Basketball Game - James Brown Arena

Broken Mirrors and Face Plant...

As you've read by now, I have lost 102.8 pounds as of Monday night, March 1st. Tuesday we had our group pow-wow at PHC with our weight loss consultants, and, in an effort to get everybody moving towards their goal a little more quickly, they have put our team on a pretty stringent plan for the week. I've been losing well on average, and they gave me the option of the bread and water diet (minus the bread, plus a little chicken and some seasoning) or of staying on the same program I've been doing. As tired as I am of chicken and eggs, I decided that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" was probably the best course of action. So I'm sticking to my usual routine for this week, and if it slows up, I will be making some quick changes.

 

By Tuesday night, Johnnie (our trainer) had had plenty of time to think about the fact that none of us had a very good week, especially compared to the other team. I knew we were in for it Wednesday morning, and, sure enough, he told us all to dress warmly because we would be spending our hour outside. With winter weather advisories humming over the radio and TV waves, we went outside, warmed up (a relative term when you're sucking in 32 degree air), and ran wind sprints in the Omni parking lot until our workout time was up. I enjoyed it (surprisingly, because I've always HATED running), and although my legs are still sore two days later, it was a good workout.

 

The rest of Wednesday was uneventful; Thursday I went to PHC, and it was that time of the month - time for us to be measured again. When people talk about losing x-amount of inches, they add up the total of inches you have lost from various parts of your body to come up with a number. For the men, they measure your chest (on an inhale and on an exhale), your waist at the level of your belly button, your waist right above your pants, your biceps, and your wrist. For the ladies, I think they add the thighs. One of my teammates can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's how it works. I took my measurements home and discovered that during the first month of the competition, I had lost 15.5 inches. During February, I had lost 19.5 inches - proof on paper that I had gone through one of those phases where the scale doesn't reflect the loss, but the clothes do! I am really proud (and also stunned) that since beginning this competition, I have lost nearly 18 inches off my waist. I even lost half an inch off my wrist this last month, a number that had not changed since November. My watch and my wedding band don't fit anymore.

 

After leaving PHC, I went to the gym to work out (I usually don't work out in the evening, but circumstances prevented me from going Thursday morning. I grabbed a treadmill next to a wall, and started walking. The walls at Omni are large mirror panels, with a six-inch mirror panel at each seam. I happened to catch my reflection simultaneously on the wall panel and the seam panel, and it made me look like I was much wider than I really was. That wider image is still how I see myself in my mind's eye when I look in an ordinary mirror - I still see that guy who was always the largest person in the room. It was kind of startling as I moved back and forth in front of the mirrors and made myself go from fat to thin in the blink of an eye.

 

This morning we got to do something that my teammate Charles had been wanting to do for a long time. Charles is in charge of food services at the civic center and Bell Auditorium (excuse me, the James Brown Arena - it will always be the civic center to me, just like Lake Thurmond will always be Clarks Hill to us old-timers in Augusta). The Harlem Globetrotters are due to appear next weekend, and Charles managed to secure permission for us to play full-court basketball in the arena at 5:30 AM this morning. He got us in the building, secured a ref, and we went to town against each other for two halves. Good thing the civic center had us sign waivers releasing them from responsibility, because we had our share of injuries this morning. I was probably the least injured - got a raspberry on one knee and a big ol' strawberry under my chin. Several of us got tangled up going after the ball, and I ended up with it in my hands, but in trying to avoid landing on Ashlee (blue team member with a hurt back right now), I tried to sail over her and ended up on the floor, face down, chin sliding across the hardwood, and the basketball stuck right where my stomach used to be. Someone (probably Donna from PHC) arranged for an NBC Augusta news camera to be there to shoot some video and a little "face-time" for each team, which will hopefully see the light of day sometime on TV. It was a great time with both teams together, a ton of fun, and I appreciate the effort Charles went to in order to get us the time. With 10 weeks until the finale, everyone has been stressing, and it was a lot of fun to get together over something besides "how many pounds did you lose this week". (In full disclosure, our team lost. With the notable exception of Charles, we were a bunch of klutzes on the court!)

Technical time-out again - reposting the ABL logo so that my blog links will have the right icon.

Pics and Summary from 3/1/10

Monday night was a big night for me - as I stated earlier, I crossed the 100 lb. mark. For some reason, it happened to be the night that a camera from NBC showed up to shoot some "filler" video, I assume to put with the interviews that we are all about to do down at the TV station. We had to step on the scale, face the camera, and act happy no matter what the number on the scale was. For most of our team, those numbers weren't good. Mine weren't great - just enough to push me over the 100 lb. mark, plus a couple to spare. 38 pounds to go to reach my initial goal of losing 140 - a couple more would be nice, to get me down to (or below) 200. I haven't weighed 200 pounds since about 6th grade! For the record, my exact weight Monday night was 240 pounds, and I had lost 29.99% of my starting weight. I could have sneezed before getting on the scale and pushed it to 30%!!

A Milestone...

So... tonight was weigh-in... I broke the 100 lb barrier!! I've now lost 102.8 pounds in just under 4 months, nearly 30% of my starting body weight. My current official weight is exactly 240 pounds, and I have 10 weeks left in which to lose the other 40 pounds. I'll write more later, because it was a weird weigh-in tonight.