Real Estate’s Biggest Loser

Phoenix Real Estate Blogging Godfather Jay Thompson recently succumbed to my nagging and has created the Real Estate’s Biggest Loser Challenge.  The title is dutifully misleading, as he isn’t looking for the worst real estate agent, or the agent that is the biggest waste of air and natural resources, but instead he is looking for the person (and they don’t need to be a real estate agent) that will take on the dubious task of losing the most weight.

That’s right, a weight loss challenge.  I feel somewhat to blame, as I know Jay used to be an avid cyclist.  However, for as long as I’ve known him he has yet to accept a single invite to go for a ride.  These invites most often occur via Twitter, intermixed with reports on my latest ride/race/bike happening.  And FYI, if you aren’t following me on Twitter, this is yet another poke to give it a shot.  I promise I won’t bite.  I might nag a tiny bit, however.

My plan

Personally, I have about 15 pounds I would love to lose.  Since turning 25 I’ve been a bit over 200 lbs.  Never higher than 218 lbs, but never lower than 205 either.  For the last 8 years, cycling has been my primary solution to stay in this range, but I pretty much eat whatever the heck I want, figuring 5 or 6 hours on the bike each week will cure my sins.

For the next 2 months, I’m going to get serious about my diet and kick up my exercising a tad.  Today I tried a non-fat, no-whip at Starbucks.  It was fine, but I think I’m just going to go all the way to a drip.  Heck, I’ll save $2/day at the same time.  The social aspect of Starbucks is still too compelling to give it up completely, so a drip it will be.  And french fries are now out.  100% gone.  If I can work in a salad, that would be nice.

On the exercising front, between cycling and Ninjitsu (martial arts), I’m already working out 4 days a week, but Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are currently free.  I’ve decided Thursday nights I’ll be setting up my road bike on my trainer and spinning for at least 30 minutes.  Spinning on a trainer is extremely boring and past attempts resulted in 30 minutes as my meantime to boredom.  Given the short challenge, it’s 30 minutes for just 8 Thursdays.  I’m going to watch The Office anyway, it might as well be on the trainer.

In the spirit of full disclosure, this morning I weighed in at 214 lbs.  That’s about 3 lbs lower than I was in July, which I attribute to a heavier training schedule for the Tour de Tucson.

How the challenge works

If you might be interested in the challenge, here’s a rundown on the details:

Weigh in is Friday, December 5, 2008.
Challenge ends: February 1, 2009.
Winner:  By percentage loss, who lost the most weight.
Prize: Winner gets to designate the charity in which each loser contributes $50.

The biggest winner:  One lucky charity along with every person that joins the challenge.

My goal:  Get below 210 lbs.  That’s a 2% loss.
My charity:  Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Finally, because at least half of the fun will be tracking our progress, I created a wiki for participants to track and smack:  You can find the wiki here:  rebiggestloser.pbwiki.com.  It’s free to join/use the wiki and should add even more fun to the challenge.  Of course, there’s no substitute for a little smack on Twitter, and I’ve started using the hashtag #rebiggestloser, for tracking purposes.

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