Monday, April 02, 2012

Biggest Loser - Family edition

I married into a family that is thin by default.  My sister-in-law barely weighs 100 lbs and doesn't even fit into the extra small clothes at most stores.  I have at least 100 lbs on all of them.  However, all of them, save the 100lb sister-in-law want to lose fat and gain muscle.  They are the unhealthy version of thin.

So last fall, a cousin of my husbands, one of the few who could stand to lose a few pounds, proposed a weight loss competition for the new year.  Everyone would pay in $25 to participate and the winner with the highest percentage of body fat lost, would win the whole pot.  Between my immediate family and my husbands extended family we ended up with a pot around $300.  Not too shabby.

On January 1st we all weighed in, did measurements, and used a Body Fat scale to calculate our starting point. Only I would have access to all the data and my 12 year old niece would be the one to validate everyone's data as we took it.  She was a task master who wouldn't let anyone cheat. Then the games began.  We all had 15 weeks to loose at much fat as possible.


Technically, there were really only 4 people who could win:

Myself, if I could control my eating,
Cousin J, who is a huge health nut and doesn't mind eating bland food every day,
Brother-in-law R, who has struggled with weight, but has motivation issues,
Brother-in-law S, who drinks coke like it is going out of style,
and
my mom, who is the only person who had more body fat than me.

This contest shouldn't have been hard, it was mine to loose.  I had the most skills and resources available to me through work.  I went gangbusters out the door.  I lost 15 lbs in 6 weeks. I was rocking it.

Then stress and depression knocked on the door.  My body doesn't like stress.  Even with eating well, stress would cause me to hold on to every pound.  I've rebounded after last weekend to the same weight I was in the middle of February.  There are 2 weeks left in the competition.  I need to prove myself to everyone in his family that I am not a fat lazy slob.  No one has ever criticized me for my weight, but I can't stand seeing myself in pictures with them, double their size.  I want to prove to them that I am worthy of my husband.

So with 13 days to go, I want to lose at least 6 pounds to get under 240 pounds.  I don't want to be embarrassed by my failure once again to succeed when I have all the apparent tools to succeed.

The catch is that I'm travelling back to Alberta to visit my grandparents, my mom, and my husband.  No one in that province that I visit eats well.  Vegetables are non-existent.  Carbs are abundant.  I'll be on the go for 6 days with little healthy options.

Can I lose 6 pounds?  I'm going to try.

In order to do that, I need to eat healthy tomorrow, so I'm going to get off my fat ass and go prepare a healthy dinner for tonight and lunch for tomorrow.

Then I'm going to go to bed early and actually wake up and do 60 minutes of hard cardio tomorrow morning.

I CAN DO THIS.

I may not win, but I refuse to embarrass myself.

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