The Contest

It's a bit late to mention the contest (as it started in early December), but we are currently still much closer to the start than the finish. The Contest is a weight war shootout between myself, Jen, and my sister.

The span: 12/1/07 - 3/31/08
The metric: percentage of body weight dropped from 12/1/07
The prize: it varies (see below)

If Jen wins, I have to take her on a weekend trip to a city of her choosing (she says it would likely be a city she hasn't yet been to). While we are there, our nicest/most expensive meal will be billed to Laura.

If Laura wins, then Jen and I share the cost of flying her down for an Austin weekend trip.

If I win, then Jen and Laura go together to get some as-of-yet-undetermined thing for my house (art, some small furniture item, a room painted, whatever; something of comparable cost to the weekend trips above).

Laura is maintaining the spreadsheet tracking progress. Weigh in is each Monday morning, with each of us emailing her to report our percentage delta from the initial weigh in.

I have a long way to go (although am actually in the lead, at -1.95%), but didn't backslide nearly as much as expected from all of the holiday eating.

12/1: 195.4 lbs
12/8: 193.1
12/17: 191.2 (my birthday, and also the day we switched to Monday weigh ins; the last day of the competition is a Monday)
12/24: we all decided to skip the Christmas week!
12/31: 191.6 (only +0.4 lbs over the holiday!)

I asserted to Jen that I thought the winner of the competition would be 'at least in the upper single digits.' We'll see. If I were down 8%, for example, that's would leave me almost exactly at 180, which is still pretty heavy by historical standards (but then again, March is not too far away, and -15 lbs is not anything to sneeze at!). Too soon to be picking out the house item just yet...