the stupidest $400 I've ever won.

I won my contest. I lost twenty pounds, barely edging out the guy who went in weighing 191 and decided to starve himself on a lemonade diet. he dropped fifteen pounds, meaning I beat him by 0.15%.

I've learned a lot about my coworkers. mostly that I really don't like them. and don't get me wrong, I didn't like most of them to begin with. pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

we decided to end the contest a day early because the district manager (who had thrown in an extra hundred to the prize) had to leave for california early in the morning. since we weren't going to give him an extra several days of weekend, and it didn't seem fair to make him lose a day, it was agreed that we'd all just end a day early.

turns out that was a mistake. one person complained it wasn't fair, that we all signed up for thirty days and blah blah blah. the guy lost three pounds. he wasn't in the running, and it just pissed me off.

the guy I barely beat lied about his progress, and kept talking smack about how he had lost seventeen pounds (nine in the last week) and how he was going to win, blah blah blah. so I essentially starved myself the last two hours. I ate a small lunch and very little else. I went to the gym and nearly passed out from trying to swim too many laps. I had to do anything I possibly could do to win.

and then the fucker tried weighing in without his shoes.

it's that sort of petty bullshit that was going on. one guy was intentionally weighing himself down previous weeks, planning to shed all the weight in his pockets for the final weigh-in. two skinny kids tried starving themselves even though they weren't fat. the most overweight guy in the contest (271 pounds) actually GAINED weight as of last week's weigh in and refused to weigh in today. guy was easting big macs and fries for lunch several times a week. people saw $400 up for grabs and tried to win, fuck the spirit of the competition, fuck their health, and fuck anyone who tried getting in their way.

I limited my diet to reasonable portions of vegetarian foods, avoided anything fried, cut beer out of my diet entirely for the whole month, and went the gym harder and more often than I'd ever been. I did everything I could do to meet my goals, and I did it with my original game plan of being healthy, up until the last 24 hours. and I'm pissed that I had to abandon my gameplan to lose those last two pounds.

making matters worse is that I'm coming down with a bad cold, and starving myself and pushing too hard has made it worse. I didn't sleep well last night, I've been overly irritable, and I really don't much care for most of my coworkers anymore.

and the worst aspect? the bitchy coworker who kept putting tons of junk food (cookies, cakes, chips, etc) out on the grazing table all month, trying to derail everyone's efforts, has decided that I have to buy lunch for the whole branch with my winnings. fuck her.

I'm putting three hundred in savings for our trip to hawaii, and the other hundred will go towards our mariners weekend. miyuki got free tickets from work for tomorrow's game, and they're pretty good seats. my dad called me today tho, and said he got our company's owner's tickets for sunday's game. six rows behind the third base dugout. these are REALLY sweet seats. I'm hoping it'll make up for the fact that we'll be forced to watch carlos silva and miguel batista pitch for seattle, and they're likely to lose both games...

the hardest part about tomorrow's game will be avoiding beer at pyramid for dinner and then during the game. it's still within my "diet month"... at least I can have a beer on sunday if I want. and the way they've been playing this season, I'll want. guaranteed.

weekend update

the weight loss competition is going well. I'm down fifteen pounds in just over three weeks, good for a 6% weight reduction. I was originally hoping to lose 10% (25 pounds), but I'm thinking I'd settle for twenty pounds, or 8% and be just fine with that. realistically, I won't lose another five pounds in the next week. I've definitely plateaued. first week I lost nine pounds, second week I lost seven... last week I only dropped one.

I've started swimming at the gym, so I'm hoping that will kick things up a bit and I can drop another two or three pounds. the way things are shaking up, if I lose two or three and no one else loses more than five, I walk away with $400. the odds of anyone dropping five pounds in a week is slim, but I want to try to drop another couple just to be safe. that $400 would go into our vacation fund.

we've decided to use my parents' timeshare in hawaii this year, so we're going to need everything we can save up. airfare alone will be $1500 or more. even with free lodging, the trip could cost us three grand by the time all is said and done. we're taking miyuki's mom with us.

that was part of the weight loss goal. I figured if I could drop twenty pounds in may, and another ten in june, that would get me down to 220 by my birthday. if I could drop another ten in the three months before the trip, I'd be down to 210 and be in the best shape I've been in for over a decade. it's an audacious goal, but I think it's doable. we've been really good about going to the gym, and the diet has been pretty consistent. I haven't had any meat or beer in 23 days, and plan on gradually reintroducing it to me diet after the month is over. I'm only allowing myself one bad meal a week after the contest ends. my first "bad" meal will be a gyros, btw.

I decided to try my one-on-one training session at the gym tonight, we got one freebie when we enrolled several months ago, and I never used it. I figured it'd give me a little intro to some of the machines I've never used. turns out it was just a sales pitch. I was only shown how to do a half dozen leg exercises (the part of my body I need to work least), given numerous lectures on building "lean muscle" and the evils of cardio, and then got over twenty minutes of hard sell for signing up for more training sessions. at a minimum of forty dollars per session (with a year long commitment) and a recommendation of several training sessions per week, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing in their faces. even with doing a single session each MONTH (which seems kind of pointless, if I'm going to the gym 12-15 times a month), I'd end up more than doubling my financial commitment.

I'm sorry, but I'm taking the tack that ANY exercise is better than none, and if I'm not going to get "ripped" or "cut" doing my own thing, even if it's just half an hour on an elliptical four times a week, so be it. I'm also not convinced they had my best interest in mind, since they were REALLY pushing weights and slagging cardio pretty heavily. weights take help, any idiot can use a cardio machine. when the guy starting telling me that my target heart rate should be 120-160, I called bullshit on him. my resting heart rate is between 100-110. always has been. he told me when I get in better shape, it'll get back to "normal" of 70-80. even when I told him that when I swam 4000 yards a day in high school, was in the best shape of my life I still had a high pulse and my mom needs medication to keep her pulse in check, he wouldn't budge. I'm thirty years old, therefore my heart rate should be exactly the same as every other thirty year old. whatever.

the funniest bit was when they asked me if I'd ever take my shirt off in hawaii, thinking it would shame me into wanting to throw hundreds of dollars a month at them to give me six pack abs and eighteen inch guns. they obviously did not know who they were dealing with. I have zero shame with being a tubby bitch. if other people don't want to see my pale, hairy flab, that's their problem. if I leave my shirt on in hawaii, it's because I don't want to get sunburned, not because I'm ashamed of how I look.

I think I'm done.

so the habs just got eliminated in pathetic fashion. the mariners had their two "ace" pitchers trounced on back to back days to fall into last place in their division.

I think I'm ready to swear off sports for good. I invest too much of my happiness into the success of "my" teams, be they geographic (mariners), nationalistic (koivu/finland) or simply nostalgic (habs). my teams never win.

the habs finished first in their conference for the first time in nearly two decades. they had a hotshot rookie goaltender who seemed poised to follow in the footsteps of ken dryden and patrick roy, leading his surprising team to a championship in his rookie campaign. it didn't happen. they barely survived their first round matchup against boston, a team they had dominated (11 straight wins dating back to last season) and looked outplayed five of the seven games. they looked like utter shite against philadelphia, another team they should have easily beaten and pretty much owned in the regular season. instead, they're eliminated in five, and last night's game was fucking ugly.

I'm stuck hoping the penguins win the cup, since I placed a sports bet in vegas last year on them and would at least win some money. that, and I fucking hate the red wings and stars.

the mariners are a completely difference scenario... they're more or less ALWAYS sucked, but I've been going to baseball games as long as I can remember. they overachieved last year and gave their idiotic management the idea that maybe they were close to contending. so said idiotic management traded five players, including a future all-star outfielder and their second best pitcher out of the bullpen, for a very good but very fragile pitcher. the guy has already missed four starts. of, and their outfield defense SUCKS because of that trade. jj putz, their closer, got hurt right out of the gate and the bullpen has blown ever since, whereas having george sherrill in there would have been a great anchor to hold them over.

we have tickets to a couple more mariners games this year, and I do enjoy going out to the ballpark. but I'm not going to be turning the channel to the games anymore, and I'm not going to participate in fantasy sports after this season.

I'll reconsider my position AFTER one of my teams manages to win a championship. in the meantime, my collection of jerseys is going into storage for the foreseeable future.

now I need a new hobby.