Family Weight-Loss Competition:
The decorations are back in the attic, the ball has dropped, and 2013 is upon us. What does this mean? It means we are only six months away from lying by the pool, sunbathing at the beach, and going to weddings every other weekend. In other words, we are six months away from needing to look our absolute best. Over the holidays, in fact, I was asked to be the best man at a friend’s wedding in July. As he listed the other groomsmen off to me, I thought to myself, “Those guys are about as big around as my wrist. Well, I’ll be damned if I’m going to look bad in wedding pictures.” Ah, vanity – the all-time greatest workout motivator. So, I set a goal to lose 60 pounds by the wedding (7 months away). Upon sharing my goal with my family over Christmas, they too decided to set weight loss goals. And being that my family is hyper-competitive and has a history of gambling addiction (kidding…maybe), it wasn’t long before we were betting money on it. The result? If I don’t lose 50 pounds by June 1st, I lose $500. My oldest brother, mother, and father all set their own personal weight loss goals as well, and they have the same $500 consequence if they do not meet them. If I lose my 50 pounds, I get to keep my $500, and further, I will split any money from people who do not reach their goal.
Initial weigh-in:
Okay, the moment of truth. We decided to weigh-in the day after Christmas to kick-start things the week before the New Year. For many people this is a scary realization of how much they have let go during the holidays. Because my weight has fluctuated between 190 and 280 during my adult life (my closet is practically a Men’s Wearhouse), no number really ever scares me – except maybe 281 and higher. Nonetheless, I stepped on the scale and it displayed 263.5 pounds. So the goal is set – I must weigh 213.5 pounds or less on June 1st.
Strategy:
Being a numbers person (I write standardized math tests for a living), I took a mathematical approach to my weight loss goal.
- 3,500 calories per pound x 50 pounds to lose = 175,000 calories to lose
- 175,000 calories to lose ÷ 157 days = 1,115 calories to lose per day
So, I need to create a 1,115 calorie deficit each day to reach my goal. I found some online calculators to determine my basal metabolic rate (BMR) which tells me how many calories my body burns each day simply to function. After checking a few, each one averaged to about 2,400 calories. But let’s get real; this is really about how much food I get to eat and how much I have to exercise. To give myself a target number of calories to eat and to burn each day, I used some basic algebra (shout-out to Mrs. McRae, my 6th grade math teacher!) and solved for “Food” – mmmm, food.
Food – BMR – exercise = -1,115
Food – 2,400 – exercise = -1,115
Food – exercise = 1,285
Food = 1,285 + exercise
In English, this means that I get to eat about 1,300 calories plus however many calories I burn through exercise. The nice thing about having a target number that you get to balance with food and exercise is that it allows my life to fluctuate day-to-day. If I don’t have time to exercise one day, I know I have to be pretty restrictive on my food intake. If I know I’m going out with friends for dinner and drinks later, I hop on the treadmill in the morning for an hour. Clearly, these are all rough estimates, but it’s generally in the right ballpark and it works for me. I have found the MyFitnessPal app available for iPhones and Droids to be extremely helpful to keep track of my calories and to keep me honest.
Breaking a Big Goal Into Smaller Goals:
Anytime I have a large goal in mind (like losing 50 pounds by June 1st), I find it helpful to break it down into smaller mini-goals along the way. This keeps me on the wagon. Based on my goal, I need to lose a little over 2 pounds each week. So, I bought a scale and put it in the bathroom at work. I then set alarms on my phone’s calendar for weekly weigh-ins right before lunch from January all the way to June. For example, on January 22nd at 11:15 am, my calendar will sound off loudly and the screen will read “Must weigh 254 or less.”
I need as much help as I can get, so having my phone and my co-workers remind me about weighing in on the scale is helpful (annoying, but mostly helpful).
