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.