It’s week four of the weight loss contest. If you recall, I’m having somewhat of a contest with my brother in law where we set a target to lose 17 pounds each at the rate of a pound a week. If either of us weighs more than we did the previous week, we have to pay the other person $10. At the end of the contest (in Nov) if either of us isn’t at our goal, we have to pay the other $10 per pound that we are off.
I’m disappointed to tell you that I had to pay my brother in law $10 last week. It’s a long story but is filled with many mouth stuffing incidents. You see, they had a party out at the lake. I drank too much and ate too much after being good all week. That was all it took to pop my weight back up prior to the weigh in. During the party I actually found myself thinking, "This is so much fun, it’s worth the $10". Talk about terrible.
Besides that one "slip up", I’m actually doing well. We are keeping a spreadsheet with the weekly weigh in numbers and I have charted those out so that we can follow our progress along a trend line (goal vs actual). I was above the line once (when I had to pay my brother in law) but I’m now tracking on the line and should be able to keep myself below it from here on out.
Psychologically it was quite painful to pay the $10 to my brother in law. It wasn’t because of the money, but was more because I had gone in to this with the goal of not paying him anything. I underestimated how strong the temptation to eat and drink would be. I suppose it’s a good lesson for me and I’m hoping to use that week as a reminder of why I need to keep on track. I’m still much happier to pay my brother in law for slipping up than to pay a weight loss company every week.