Big Winners and Losers

Today, my family and I have begun a "friendly" competition to get into shape and lose weight. Based on prior competitions in my family, friendly can be interpreted as "most likely to result in someone pouting in a corner" because we aren't notorious for being good losers...or winners for that matter. 

My sister celebrating a win...subtle, yes? In case you are wondering, this was a three-peat, which explains her white-girl gang signs.

It's a fairly basic competition, you pay $25 to start, each week there is a side pot consisting of additional contributions for gaining weight or failing to exercise at least three times in the week. Then person with the highest % of body weight lost each week wins the side pot and the person losing the most % of body weight overall wins the main pot.

Since I am on maternity leave, I am experiencing some major Excel withdrawal, so I saw this as an opportunity to build out a workbook to track everyone's weight and exercise. This is exactly why I have earned "Geek of the Week" multiple times at work - I'm aware that I am a huge nerd, you don't need to tell me. This workbook isn't my best work...but it's pretty sweet. People turn red when they gain weight from week to week, there is a weekly winner and a calculation of their winnings, I learned how to use INDEX AND MATCH together!! I doubt that my family is going to appreciate the subtle beauty of these calculations, but whatever...

Anyway, in true nerd girl fashion, I have downloaded several apps from the Apple Store, including myfitnesspal, RunKeeper, and Grocery Gadget. My goal is to actually use them, because for me and weight loss, accountability is half the battle. As a working mom of one kid, I had a hard enough time getting exercise into the day while resisting the temptation to order pizza, Chinese, or stop at California Tortilla on the way home - adding an infant to the mix will only make my day shorter and my desire to cheat stronger. So tonight, I spent the evening weighing, measuring, and searching the Internet for low carb, low calorie, low fat dinners that will still be yummy enough to pass off on a three year-old. I've researched healthy diet options for nursing moms, I've made my grocery list, I've scheduled alarms on my phone to remind me to eat every couple hours to keep my energy and milk supply up, I've even pulled out the Slim In Six exercise videos that I paid an ungodly amount of money on six years ago. I am ready to win. I mean lose.