Baby weight

It seems Brian and I both have some "baby weight" that we could stand to lose. So one month ago we decided to start a weight loss challenge. Here's how it works: We will track our weight on the 26th day of each month and whoever has lost the largest percentage of body weight wins. (The percentage measurement is key because Brian and I have different weight starting points!)
Brian did one of these challenges last year with a friend, and he had some pretty good success. Their competition got derailed, though, sometime after a month in which the "winner" was the person who gained less over the past 30 days! I like to tease him about that, but both of the guys did pretty well most months.

But we all know how easy it is to let the number on that scale slide back up. Brian and I are both prone to stress-eating, especially from the candy bowls in our respective offices. And in Brian's job, there's a lot of other temptations like lunches out and "Den pops," which are half-gallon-sized sodas sold for around 75 cents on campus. I can understand the allure of the "deal"... but I also know that hundreds of calories hide out in a drink that size. I also have some temptations to avoid around the newsroom, including cakes from a co-worker who likes to celebrate almost every employee's birthday by baking. It's a sweet gesture, but I've had to learn to decline the frequent slices.
The stakes for the competition Brian and I are in are as follows: The winner each month gets to pick a weekend day and basically rule our schedule. The winner gets to choose what we do — projects and fun stuff — and what we eat all day. We all know how much compromise is involved in every day of a marriage, so the prospect of being the final say for a day is enticing. And we have grand prizes on the horizon. We're planning to run the competition until Nov. 26 — our anniversary and the seven-month mark in the challenge — at which point the winner of the most months gets to choose a high-priced electronics "toy." Right now I'm pushing for a GPS watch, but that may change, and Brian is working toward a Wii game system. (And before you chime in that his prize is something we both can enjoy, I'll point out that he could use the running watch, too. AND he had the opportunity, and still does, to pick a Kindle as his prize... but he changed his mind.)

So, today marks the end of Month 1... and the winner is: We don't know.
We forgot that it was a weigh-in day until after Brian had already eaten breakfast this morning. We're trying to keep the weigh-ins fair by doing them first thing in the morning... so we'll find out tomorrow. But Brian hasn't tried very hard this month, by his own admission. He's not expecting to win — and is already strategizing how he's going to get ahead next month. I've been doing pretty well over the past month, thanks in part to the half marathon I finished training for and ran. Hopefully I can keep the pace up!
Our competition is pretty good-natured. But we're both competitive, so I'm expecting to see some major results in those scale readings over the remainder of the year. I just need to steer clear of that dang candy bowl!