Until now, losing weight has been about feeling better.  But, after a recent visit to my doctor, losing weight has become mandatory.  So, instead of treating my weight loss like a ’side-project’, I’m going to have to treat it like the “most important thing in my life”.  Why?  Well, the doc says that my sleep apnea is pretty severe and that the only way to improve my sleeping will be to lose weight, and a lot of it.  I need to lose 40 pounds, and I need to lose it pronto.  My doc prescribed some Lunesta so that I can get some sleep, but he’s also suggested a strict diet an a strict exercise regimen.  Needless to say, all caffeine and simple sugars must go out the door.  Lots of healthy fruit, vegetables and lean meat.  No late night snacking.  In other words, every bad habit that I’ve struggled with for the last 15 years, I’ve got to figure out how to change.  I’m still down almost 20 pounds this year, and that’s encouraging, but I’ve got to keep going.  I need to decrease my calories, increase my exercise, and really, really focus.

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I have a doctor’s appointment this morning at 9:00 AM.  As I mentioned before, I have sleep apnea, and I’ve really had a hard time lately.  I’m not sleeping and as a result I’m exhausted.  Hopefully, the doctor can help me out and I can get back “in the game”.  As it is, I’ve been living on less than 4 hours of sleep, per day, for the last four months, and I feel like I’m dying.

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Two of my good friends and I have decided to compete against each other in a “Weight Loss Challenge”.  Grand prize?  A new putter for the guy who loses the highest percentage of weight.  Here are the details:

1. The challenge began last Monday.  Since we all live in different cities, using the same scale would be impractical.  So, we are all using our “home” scales.
2. After establishing initial weights, I created a spreadsheet using Google Documents.  I created columns for our names, starting weights, current weights, and percentage lost.  Here’s the spreadsheet with fake names and numbers.
3. I’ll email the guys every Monday and they’ll send me their current numbers.  I then enter those numbers in the spreadsheet so that we have a current view of our progress.
4. We started in July and we will have a “midway” winner declared in December.  He’ll receive a round of golf, paid for by the other competitors.
5. Next July, challenge ends and a champion will be declared.  The other guys will come together and purchase a putter for the champion.  Maximum value will be $100.

So, there’s the setup.  Three big dudes who are trying to lose weight.  (I’m actually, weight-wise, the smallest of the dudes.)  So, why did we go with percentage lost instead of pounds lost?  To keep things as fair as possible.  If one of my friends reaches his goal weight, he’ll have lost over 120 pounds.  There’s no way that I could lose that much, considering I’m 31 pounds from my “initial goal weight” and 60 pounds from my “final goal weight”.

I’m excited about watching my friends lose weight and I hope to win the challenge.  But, I’m really not all that “competitive”.  I just want to see us all get healthy.  Seriously, if I lose 60 pounds and come in last place, I’m still a winner.

Was that the cheesiest line ever written by a man?  Yes, NCN, I do believe so.

Off to the gym I go!  Wish me luck.

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I’ve just returned home from a week at church camp.  I spent a week as camp-director.  The work was exhausting but I managed to focus on my diet and I even managed to get a bit of exercise.  (By the way, I always misspell the word “exercise”… shouldn’t it have a “z”?)  I’ll have an official weigh-in Monday morning, but before I left, my weight had ballooned back to 239.5 lbs!?!  Yuck!  It felt great to be eating fresh fruit, granola, and nuts.  In fact, the only meat that I’ve eaten in the past seven days was a little turkey on a couple of small sandwiches.  I could easily become a vegetarian.  I’ll weigh-in tomorrow and let you know where I stand.

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I remember when I was getting out of debt, I’d login to my old blogger account, update the No Credit Needed site, and I’d ALWAYS have some progress to report.  Those, my friend, were the “good old days”.  Now, I login to No. Calories Needed, and I think to myself, “Hmmm… I haven’t been eating healthy foods, I haven’t been counting calories… why in the world do I have a weight loss blog…”.  Clearly, after stalling for a month, I lost whatever motivation that I once I had.  Clearly, I have weight loss issues.  (If YOU had a blog about weight loss that MANY of your friends knew about, wouldn’t YOU be motivated to go ahead and lose the weight?  Yes, YOU would, because you are a sane, normal person.)  I suppose that I should be proud of the weight that I HAVE lost.  My body apparently loves the number 231, 235, 232, and 237.  Why?  Because, no matter how many calories I consume or how much exercise I get, the scale always reads one of those four numbers.

So, in a last-ditch effort to lose weight (and restore the legitimacy of this blog) I’ll just go back to a very, very basic diet.  I’ll ditch the diet soda, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and head back to the gym.  Surely, other people have broken through these types of ‘funks’ and lost weight?  We shall see…

By the way, I did NOT write this post so that you would leave a ‘You can do it, NCN’ comment.  I’d LOVE for you to leave a comment, but I’m not whining.  I’m actually not depressed about not losing weight.  I’m perplexed?  confused?  Does any of this make sense?  I just want to lose a little weight and feel better, and my mind seems to be working against me.  Hopefully, it’s just a matter of doing the right things, over and over, until the results start to come…

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