I'm not doing this for me; I'm doing it for the money

Slightly Disappointing says...

249.8

Let me tell you exactly what this means to me:

Lots.

1st and foremost the company I work for doesn't want to pay medical expenses, and because they don't want to pay medical expenses they promote good health.  Part of that promotion is that if you obtain a healthy BMI you get $100 back from them.

I am about 3 kinder gardeners and a mature goat away from being a healthy BMI.

However, they have a deal for people like me.  If I lost 10% of my weight then I too would get $100.  When I weighed in last year I was 280, which means I had to get down to 252 within a year, which means, well, I'm $100 richer.  That's awesome.  Do you know how many Oreo cases one can buy with a $100?

Har. Har.

Here is the other thing, I remember living with my friend Stacey and stepping on her scale and weighing 252, which prompted a diet that if I could just lose a pound per week, I could get down to 200.  This was successful all of one week.  Point being that's the earliest I remember being above 250...and that was 5 years ago.  Let me tell you, when you weigh over 250 for that long...and eventually balloon up to 285, you never ever ever ever ever again think that you will weigh less than 250.  This is a pretty big victory for me.  I am the skinniest my girlfriend has ever seen me.

Oh, but I'll go on, every day I go to this site... http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/av.htm which will tell you what weight % you are.  You would think the highest you can get would be >99%, however it appears as though the highest is >98%, and if you put in a gargantuan weight it doesn't even give you a statistics.  It tells you to check your inputs.  When a diet site thinks that you are too fat too actually exist, you've got some problems.

Not that it ever got like that for me.  I simply stayed at >98% no matter how much weight I've lost.  Basically if I stood in a room with 99 other 29 year old 5'10 males they couldn't guarantee that I would be the fattest person in there, but they could pretty much guarantee I'd be at least the 2nd fattest.  It's not such a great thing to think about when you start losing weigh and the site tells you Nope!  "Still the fattest!"

But now?  Oh but now.  Now I am at 98%  As in the site is pretty sure there would be TWO people in the room I could scoff at and wonder how they could ever let themselves go like that.  "You'll never catch me over 250!" I'll whisper behind their fat asses.  Besides this I think I could make fun of the people in the 1 or 2% range because, well, gross.  Really, that's all this comes down to.  Giving me the ability to judge others.

You though I was done?  I'm not.  I went to a Polynesian style dinner the other night and was encourages to wear a Hawaiian shirt.  "But I don't have one that fits" I said.  Ohh, silly me.  I hadn't worn the shirt in YEARS, however that night it fit exactly as I remember it fitting: slightly too small.  I love that shirt.  I'm going to wear it all of the time just like I did over 5 years ago.  My girlfriend hates Hawaiian shirts, but that's O.K.  as I continue to work and harden my body and get rid of the fat, well, that will just make it more likely that she will rip the shirt off of me whenever I see it.  In other words, JUST ANOTHER WAY TO WORK OUT.

O.K.  You demand a picture, I'm sure.  And I have one for you, though once again I'm certain I look exactly the same.

Here is my 275 pic and my 250 pic side by side...

Sigh....I know...no different.  Anyway, I know it's different so screw all of you.  (clearly by all of you I mean Lorraine:)

O.K. On to some serious news.  We have been joking about Bear and Wife for some time now, but unfortunately after a little internet investigation, I've learned that there actually was a tragedy.  Several weeks ago there was a major car accident, in which neither was able to survive their injuries.  News like this hasn't hit the blogosphere, I mean how could it?  But I still think it would be a nice thing if maybe someone posted some sort of tribute in the comments of their blogs.  It might mean something to those family members who are left behind to see that their gifts did in fact touch the world.  OF course you can find the links right here on the main site.

O.K.  This sappy stuff isn't allowing me to lose any weight.  Back to progress.  See you soon.

Move Over Lorraine

I don't mean to be stepping on Lorraine's toes here by posting over her, however this is my time to write about my weight loss efforts.  Please look below this post for Lorraine's efforts from before.  Because of that, I'll keep it short and sweet.

Oh and you'll notice I've added my myfitnesspal.com weight loss tracker to the sidebar.  When I started this blog I was 285, when I started myfitnesspal I was 271, so that's the reason the number is 14 pounds off.

I am at 255, and still pushing every day.

My clothes I usually wear for the photo op are dirty, so please accept this new wardrobe to show how hugely obese skinny I have become.

Do I look any skinnier?  Nah.  This is all demoralizing and pointless.  Off to Taco Bell.

The Socially Awkward Weight Loss Program

Lorraine: Apparently Lily and Bret aren't dead. This comes as a big surprise to me. I would've placed bets on the certainty of Lily drowning in a pool of vodka and Bret drowning in his own blubber. Alas, it is Bear and Wife who are most certainly dead.

No matter; we should start this post with good news. You last heard from me just over a month ago. I had ballooned back up to 148 and managed to get back down to 143. The good news is that I'm now at 139 pounds. I broke the 140 barrier.

All you other dead bloggers can eat it. And by "it," I mean whatever it is you eat that keeps you fat and gross.

I wish I had some concrete weight loss methods to share, but the truth is that my most recent success has more to do with my own timidity and social awkwardness. One component of shyness is that I hate eating in front of other people.  If I could bottle that and sell it to you guys, I totally would.

See, at my last job (Paper Folding USA) I mostly worked by myself in a corner cubicle that no one came into. When we started this blog, I discussed my third-grader eating habits- lots of refined sugar and artificial flavoring and working there didn't help my cause.

At PFA, sine I had little human interaction, I spent almost all of my lunches munching on zebra cakes or putting away trays of chocolate chip cookies, while I worked at my desk. Add to that cookies for breakfast and a skipped dinner, and you basically have my diet for the year and a half I was there.

Fast forward to my current situation, in which I am working a new (real) job that requires socialization. There is nowhere to hide my gross snacking habits. There is no way to avoid the lunch time human interaction. Everything changed and I was nearly forced into eating like a regular human being.

This probably sounds ridiculous. I know that it is.

Regardless, I did start to eat smaller portions. People made comments about how little I ate, what a small stomach I must have, and they wondered if I wasn't going to supersize or add a dessert. I answered no, no, no, more due to embarrassment than anything else. One month later, though, I've started to believe these things about myself: I can eat like a fully functioning adult, but I don't have to eat enough for 2 or 3 adults.

I guess that this was a valuable lesson to learn.

The skinniest I've ever been in my adult life was 138 and I am one pound away from it. It makes me absolutely giddy. Maybe if I jump around enough in (sexy) happiness I can shed that pound too.

My next goal is 135. I will be in Chicago in 35 days for the 20sb Summit and that is my deadline for this goal. Not at all because I want everyone to meet me when I'm unfluffy. (Yes.)

I'm not even sure this post made sense. For some reason, trying to convey that I've lost weight because I'm socializing was harder than I originally anticipated. No matter. The main point of the post was another four pound drop.

Coming up next time: My take on the couch to 5k program., which I've just started. I mean, if it doesn't kill me that is.