As some of you may have read, I lost my first Biggest Loser contest at work, which ended two weeks ago, after the guy who was in second place lost 16 lbs of water weight the last week to pull ahead and beat me by a little more than 1% body weight lost. The previous weigh-in, I had the lead by 1.5%, and even lost 12 lbs the final week myself, but that wasn't enough.

Instead of using the Month Bitches threads to track my progress this time, I decided to start a log to keep it one place.

This time around, we have about a dozen people signed up (I don't know the final number yet), with a $20 buy in. You set a goal (at least 5% body weight loss), and if you hit your goal, you get half your money back. Winner gets at least half the prize pool, depending on how many people hit their goal. If there is money left over because of people not hitting their goal, there may be lesser prizes for 2nd and 3rd place, at the discretion of the organizer. Fine, whatever.

Initial "official" weigh in weight: 277.2. This is with clothes on, no shoes, and after drinking a couple pounds of water this morning, and carbing it up this week. 5'9" tall.

I was 257.6 at the end of the last biggest loser two weeks ago, so I've packed on quite a bit of water (and a little fat) in those two weeks. My actual non-dehydrated weight was probably closer to the high 260s then. I was 267 last Friday, and 271.5 this morning before I drank anything and without clothes.

Stated contest goal for half my buy in back: 250 (almost 10% loss). This is doable without too much difficulty while still keeping me honest. About 2.3 lbs per week, especially since I'm packing at least 5 lbs of excess water weight right now.

Actual goal: win the ****ing thing this time. The guy who won last time is in it, but doesn't have as much body fat as last time. He's about 200 lbs, about my height. He started at 226 the previous time. So I still have a bunch more reserves to tap.

let us gogogogogo.

Here's a graph of the previous contest, for those who are interested:

gl!

Goodluck. I hope you took some before and after photos. They're going to be worth $10,000 to some H&F book author by the time you're finished

glgl

brian basically second leveled you or what?

I don't know what that means.

your plan was to load up on fluids to inflate your weight the weeks leading up to the final weigh-in to slow him down, right? first level. but it seems like he did the same thing and it may have gotten you to cut it a bit short on the final weigh-in, whereas he went all out ftw. second level.

That was Crazy Mike, not Brian. Brian was the guy who gained weight. And I don't think he cut anything short the last few weeks. He was running out of fat to lose at the end, he actually started looking fairly thin at the end. So he cut water weight drastically the last week. He used to wrestle in high school, and knew what he was capable of. This was the first time I've ever done it, and only dropped 12 lbs the last week. I knew he was going to cut water weight, and I thought the 12 lbs I lost would be enough to keep my lead, but it wasn't.

If I had to do the first contest over, I don't know if I could have lost another 4 lbs the last week, because I was pretty darn thirsty before weigh in. I wasn't willing to go far enough to get cramps, headaches, and muddle-headednes that he ended up doing from dehydration. What I would have done, however, is start the cardio from the beginning. I lost at least an additional 0.5 lbs per week when I started the cardio, which would have put me in the lead if I had done it from the beginning instead of waiting until week 8.

And that is what I'm going to do this time.

One other thing I'm doing this time is keeping a little notebook with me at all times and writing down everything I eat, and then entering the data into fitday to track my calories. Before I was just going by memory of what I ate every day and estimating. Yesterday I ate 1000 calories. So far today I'm at 340.

Doesn't this mean they're on the same level?

probably

What's so crazy about crazy mike? Is it "he's not at all crazy, ultra straight edge so it's lol calling him crazy mike?"

or is it "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, watch as crazy mike rams his fist through a windscreen just to know what it feels like crazy?"

He's a middle aged guy who dehydrated himself so much that he was loopy-headed, had no voice on the final day because he had no saliva left, and suffered from headaches for a couple days just to win a couple hundred bucks. In total, he drank no more than 2 liters of liquid total over the last 5 days, and still worked out for an hour a day during this time. It was like 90 degrees on final weigh in day, and he said he even considered bringing his bike into work to go out and ride at lunch time and lose some more water weight.

thats insane, how did he not die from this

Losers whine, crazy mike gets **** done! GO CRAZY MIKE!

I'm down 10 lbs since Friday morning, and that's not even considering the clothes I was wearing and all the water I drank before my Biggest Loser weigh-in at work. This is morning-to-morning (after bathroom) weight. I've been peeing like a racehorse the last couple of days.

My average daily caloric intake the last 3 days was 1200 calories, which isn't bad considering yesterday was Father's Day and we went to an Indian restaurant. No rice, no nan bread, just some chicken tikka masala, some tandoori chicken, and some vegetable curry. I estimated that alone was about 900 calories. I ate about 1500 cals total yesterday, which is what my limit is on a weekend day. I'm trying to keep my daily calorie count otherwise at 1000.

Just to play devil's advocate, is this cycle of severe caloric deficit+water weight loss followed by binge eating healthy?

???

I don't know. I've only done it once so far. I do know that what ISN'T healthy is for a middle aged guy to be in the upper 200s at 5'9" with a family history of heart disease. And this biggest loser thing makes it so much easier for me to lose the weight, with the competition and the money aspects of it helping me to stick to my diet.

So I figure whatever motivates me is OK by me, as long as I'm getting enough protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids which I do since I'm eating basically only chicken, fish, lean beef, vegetables, flax seed oil tablets, and low fat cheese. Speaking of which, those light mozzarella string cheese sticks really help out with the dieting. 60 calories each, with 8 grams of protein. 2 or 3 of them keep me fairly satisfied for a couple of hours when I'm hungry.

gl!

Great job, sir. I wish I had your motivation.

Week 1 results. I jumped out to an early lead. I could have been even farther ahead if I didn't drink anything before I weighed in, but I've been working in the yard in the heat all week putting in a patio, so I had 16 ounces of water and a can of Diet Pepsi before I weighed in. Lost 15.4 lbs since initial weigh in.

I don't plan on dicking around. I want to keep widening the lead every week. My average daily caloric intake this week has been 910 calories. I write down everything I eat in a little notebook I keep with me. No weight workouts or cardio, because I've been doing a lot of shoveling dirt, gravel, and sand, and hauling patio blocks around all week.

Poor Orhan

Is crazy mike in? Is he Mike D?

Yup, he's Mike D. Paul S and Sandra S, who are in 2nd and 3rd, are new to this round, so I don't know what they're capable of.