18 Days Till Final Judgment...

Well, tonight's weigh-in was interesting all the way around. I don't know what Tanner did - I was probably talking to someone. I went next, and after a week of being UP, I ended up down 1.6 pounds. I'm hoping PHC has something up their sleeve for me. I'll get to what I need to lose in a minute. Tim lost whatever he needed to lose to join us in the 100-lb club. Ashlee dropped 4.something, Lisa and Bronnie both dropped enough to get below the 200-lb mark. Chuck lost 3, Tammy lost a couple, and I don't know what Colin did. Nandy was up .8 and not very happy; Laycee was down, but only by 1.8. She closed the gap some between her and Nandy, but she was looking for more. She worked very hard this week, from what I understand. Sometimes it works that way...

 

Now, for me and the task before me: I currently officially weigh 211.8 pounds. I am about 6 pounds away from breaking the 40% of weight lost; I'm 9 pounds away from hitting the 140 I wanted to lose; and I am 11.9 pounds away from my ultimate goal of breaking the 200-lb mark.

 

11.9 pounds - that's all that stands between me and hitting every one of my goals. 11.9 pounds is the task... an 18-day span is the enemy.

 

It's ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three Weeks To Go...

Haven't posted anything lately... not much news to report.  Weigh-in Monday was so-so for me - 3.8 lbs. But, over the last two weeks, I lost over 12 lbs. on the PHC skinny soup diet, so I can't complain too much. A six-pound-per-week average is pretty good this late in the competition. As I have detailed, I have about 13 lbs. to go to goal. A little more now - I'm up some over the course of this week. I'm on a plateau-breaker for the rest of the weekend. Hopefully it will be enough to get me back down to at least a zero... I really don't want to post a gain this week. I started creeping some carbs back into my diet, and predictably, my weight loss stopped. Actually, it went up, even though I am still not consuming enough calories to cause me to gain. Seems to be some water issues... I was up quite a bit yesterday, but it's come back down some.

 

Today happens to be my 46th birthday... didn't do cake or ice cream... had stir-fry veggies and chicken, and had an apple for dessert. Been a good day - , and my wife, daughter, and son each bought me a gift. I wrote a note to my trainer, telling him that I was celebrating FREEDOM from cake this year. Normally, I would have picked out the cake of my choice, and had some for breakfast with milk, and then as dessert after lunch and supper. There will be a time and place for a small piece of cake, but not before May 14th's final weigh-in.

 

The final weigh-in is three weeks from today. I'm not making any progress towards the goals I have set for myself, but I told Brenda tonight that I'm going to give it my best, and if I fall short, I will still have no regrets. I've changed my life, I've lost nearly 40% of my starting weight, and I've already been able to help others in their journey. If I don't make it all the way to 199, I can be OK with that.

 

Tonight I was walking around in Wal-Mart, getting my 10,000 steps in, and I went by a rack of really cheap suits - the Wal-Mart "George" brand. (I don't know who "George" is - probably some poor soul in Bentonville, Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart.) Anyway, they have always had very limited sizes and quantities of these items, and nothing very large. I walked over, looked at the sizes, and found one that sounded close. It didn't fit extremely well, but that was just the cut of the suit, because it buttoned very easily around my waist.

 

I was thinking tonight about writing a pair of top ten lists, but since I probably can't come up with ten in each category, we'll just do it like this:

 

Things I miss because of ABL:

 

Pizza, hamburgers, milk (large glasses of it, any way), french fries, ketchup (you don't realize how much you depend on it until it's gone!), potatoes, corn, fried cheese of any variety (cheese sticks, cheese wedges). Some of these things may be back eventually, in VERY small quantities on special occasions. Where I went wrong was, the things on this list were pretty much all I ate - the tools that got me to 342 pounds. I will have to learn to eat a BITE, not a BASKETFUL... and some things just will have to be "no way".

 

Things I don't miss, THANKS to ABL:

 

Migraine headaches, high blood pressure, "spare tire", belly rubbing the steering wheel, worrying about exceeding "maximum capacity" on ladders, etc., "plumber's crack", editing myself out of church photo albums because I'm too big, being the only one in the room sweating and out of breath... wow, the list goes on and on!!!

 

If I don't hit my goal... disappointed? Sure. Devastated? NO WAY!!! I appreciate what Charles said on TV - might just take a little longer than the end of the contest to get where I want to be.

Feedback...

These blog entries are going into a memory book, and I include the following two stories here because I want to remember them:

1. Yesterday morning I walked into CVS Pharmacy while wearing my "Biggest Loser" t-shirt. For those of you who have not seen pictures, they look a lot like the t-shirts on the TV show, with the addition of the word "Augusta's" across the top, and three small logos across the bottom for Omni, PHC, and NBC Augusta. I walked to the pharmacy counter; the pharmacist asked if he could help me, and I told him I was picking up one prescription for my wife. He looked at my shirt and said, "Do you work for NBC?" It struck me that he did not look at me with a giant Biggest Loser logo on my shirt and ask if I was in the competition; he wanted to know if I worked for the TV station!

2. This morning, a couple that used to go to our church, Jim & Louise Boner, came to our spring festival. These people sang in my choir, heard me preach, and even sang in a trio with me on a couple of occasions. They are very sweet people who love me and my family dearly. I walked up to them and talked to them for a little while... about 20 minutes later, Louise saw me again, but this time I was with Brenda. She hugged Brenda, called her name, and then turned to me and said, "ED???!!?!?" She then confessed that when we had first talked, she knew I looked familiar, but absolutely did not know who I was! I saw a few people today who had not seen me in a while, and they all commented on my weight loss, but she is the first one to not even recognize me.

I'm getting more and more of the "you've-lost-enough-weight -- stop!" comments... got one from my mother last Sunday. I told her, "You were on me about being fat for the last 40 years... don't give me grief about being skinny, now..."

This week I should see a little loss... not too much, I'm sure. I'm on the second week of the same diet that produced an 8.8 pound loss last week, but as we have discovered, it doesn't take the body long to adapt to the number and type of calories being eaten. I'm hoping for maybe a 3 or 4 this week.

Been a rough week for my co-leader Nandy, who may be finally surrendering (temporarily, I hope) her lead. She has been one sick girl this past week - bronchitis, among other things - and the doctor gave her a steroid shot to reduce the inflammation. On top of that, she had a pretty good quantity of cough syrup and cough drops, all loaded with sugar. She is discouraged, of course, but as disappointed as she is, she understands that getting her life back is a much greater prize than winning this competition. And she has definitely succeeded in that - if you've seen any of her pictures in my facebook album, or have seen her on TV, you know that she looks great, feels great (when she's not sick), and has totally knocked this thing out of the park. Either Nandy or Laycee is going to win this thing, in all likelihood, and it's going to come down to the wire. There's a couple guys within striking distance of my lead, but it's a little bigger lead than the 1 to 5 pound lead Nandy has nursed for weeks on end now. If she ever reads this (don't think she does, but she will tell me if I'm wrong), I hope she knows how proud we all are of her.

Plotting The Course For The Next Month...

REALLY getting close to the end of this thing now... last night's weigh-in sort of had that "school is almost out" feeling to it. Pictures were being taken, conversations are turning towards the finale, and the post weigh-in speech definitely has that "moving on" flavor to it these days.

 

I'll keep it short - not much point in writing anything about motivation, goal-setting, etc.... I will just update my stats for now. Last night's scale showed that I had lost 8.8 pounds, bringing my total weight loss to 125.6 pounds. I started 5 months ago at 342.8 pounds; I am currently at 217.2, having lost 36.64% of my starting body weight. I am two pounds heavier than my 17-year old son.

 

I have three goals left to reach (other than little "I weigh less than so-and-so" goals), and they are all very close to each other: the first goal is 205.6 - the number it will take for me to top 40% and to become the highest percentage loser in ABL's three years. That mark is only 11.6 pounds away. The second goal is 14.2 pounds away - the 202.8 pound mark. When we began this thing, I told Bridgett Williams of NBC that I wanted to lose 140 pounds, and 202.8 will put me at 140 down. The third goal is 2.9 pounds further away - the 199.9 mark.

 

4 weeks... 17.3 pounds away from hitting all three of those goals.

 

I don't want to make a huge deal of this publicly, but my buddy Nandy, who has led the ladies since week 2, is still narrowly holding onto the lead. By, like, a pound. I don't know if she will win this competition, but she has achieved the impossible over and over and over again. I refuse to count her out until the lights go out at Fort Discovery on May 16.

Reflections On The Daily Grind...

It's been a few days since I've written anything at all, much less anything substantial or profound.

We are getting ever closer to the end of Augusta's Biggest Loser - as of this writing on April 7, there are only 38 days until the finale, which means there are only about 36 days left in which to lose weight for the competition. Thanks to an increase of .8 pounds this week, I still have 24 pounds to go to get to my goal of having lost 140, and 26.1 to get to my ancillary goal of getting under 200 lbs. I've not had too many diet changes, but I met with Donna and Savannah, and we together decided that I would probably benefit now from a major change in the way I've been eating. I haven't been doing anything "wrong", but my body is used to what I have been eating, and it's time to shake things up.

I've been injured again - I was running outside Saturday morning, and I messed up my back. Whether it was the jarring motion or just plain old pinched nerve, it's been bad. Really couldn't get much work done in the gym from Saturday until this morning (Wednesday). Worked up a good sweat this morning, though. Now if I can only get caught up on my sleep... and that will be difficult. It's Masters' week, and I am shuttling my kids to and from an overnight shift making those world-famous pimento cheese (yuck!) sandwiches for the tournament.

I think everyone is aware that we are tired, we are sore, we are stressed, and we are about ready for this process to be over with. Everyone seems to have started getting cranky and sore within the last 2 or 3 weeks. This has been a pretty intense ordeal, but it really has gone by fairly quickly just as Kristy told me it would.

I read something last night that made me appreciate even more the work that we are doing. I saw an interview with Kai Hibbard, a THE Biggest Loser runner-up from season 3, I think. Supposedly the show has cleaned up its act, but Kai told a reporter that while pushing the virtues of diet, exercise, and moderation to the public, behind the scenes at the show was another story. She tells tales of severe dehydration, working out while wearing plastic bags underneath workout clothes, and other unhealthy means of reaching those gaudy, double-digit weight losses. We have been on some odd food plans at times - not for quick weight loss, but to jump-start our metabolism and get things moving again. Some of our contestants have spent a little time in the sauna or steam room, but for short periods of time, and usually with very little to show for it. Our exercise has been intense, but not severe, and usually no more than a couple hours per day (anything past an hour is voluntary). A normal person following a sensible diet and doing a little exercise is going to lose one or two pounds a week, on average; on the TV show, men and women alike are pining for "double digits". Three of us now have lost over 100 pounds in less than 6 months, the same amount of time that a dieter could expect to lose from 25-50 pounds. Well done, everyone!

I will continue on the path of learning to make healthy choices with my life, but I have to admit... I am SO ready for the competition part to be over with!

Basketball Game...

Here is the video from the basketball game we played on March 5, red vs. blue...

Biggest Loser Basketball at James Brown Arena

New Article

For anyone interested, here's the update article that was printed about my Biggest Loser experience in the April issue of the Baptist Bible Tribune:

http://edchavis.net/scan0001.pdf

Give Up Now... For Your Own Good!

Most of my blog posts are primarily for my own edification, a "confessional", if you will. Some of them are explanations of thoughts, attitudes, or actions. A couple of them, like my last one about collecting evidence of your success, are directed squarely at my fellow Losers. This one falls into that category, as well.

My mind is such that, when I see something, I begin thinking about it from a different angle. Our PHC team knows that when Barry releases the statistics each Monday/Tuesday from that week's weigh-in, I'm all over it, pulling out information, keying it all into another spreadsheet, and going over various "what-if" scenarios. By the time I see Mark and Donna at PHC, I know exactly what I want to shoot for that week. This entire experience has been a study in goal-setting for me, personally.

As of April 1, we have 44 days left in this competition (depending on when our last weigh-in before the finale will be held). We all had a picture in our mind 5 months ago of where we wanted to be at the end of this process, whether it was a specific weight, a specific size, or a specific set of lifestyle changes. How close are you to what you wanted to accomplish? Can you finish what you set out to do in 44 days?

If you cannot realistically accomplish your 6-month goal between now and the finale, I would encourage you to give it up. NOTE: I did not say "QUIT"... what I mean is, if you have not re-evaluated your goal since the beginning, and you have no hope of reaching that goal, re-adjust your goal to something specific and attainable in the next 44 days. When we all reach the finale and are standing on that stage, every single one of us will have something to be proud of, no matter where we finish in this competition. If, on that day, you choose to focus on your "failure" in reaching your goal, you are setting yourself up for failure on May 17th, or shortly thereafter. To keep pressing on towards an unattainable goal is not a good strategy. There are several alternatives: you can re-adjust your goal; you can re-adjust your personal end-date; or you can make a change in what's important to you.

How do you know if your goal is unattainable? The best predictor of future performance is past performance, to quote Dr. Phil McGraw. If you've lost 20 pounds a month for the past six months, you are not going to lose 150 pounds in the next 44 days. It's not going to happen; there's no sense in kidding yourself. In order to be attainable, a goal must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Action-related, Realistic, and Time-related. You must know where you are going, there must be a way of gauging your success, you must have the knowledge and tools for getting there, you have to understand what can and cannot be done, and you should be able to track your progress against time.

I say all that to say this: even if you can point to times during this competition where you have not given it your best effort (and we ALL have had those times), give yourself something in the next 44 days that you carry away as a trophy of success, and use it to move forward in your continued success.

Some of you may be saying, "That's all well and good... you can say those things, because you're going to win. You've accomplished everything you wanted to." The first statement is definitely not a given, and the second is definitely not true. I've done OK, but I don't look like what I want to look like; I don't feel how I want to feel, and I am battling many of the same insecurities and inadequacies that I was facing back before November 2nd.

Whether you are in a position to "win", or find yourself "not even close", I want to challenge you to determine what you can achieve between now and the end, and create your own success that will fuel the fire to continue even after Barry, Johnnie, Mark, Donna, and Rob are no longer in your ear telling you what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.