The Biggest Loser Week 11

March 25, 2008

Continuing my updates for my local gym's The Biggest Loser competition, here's Week #11. Need I remind you that this this past week was a holiday weekend with Easter Sunday a couple days ago. I knew this was going to be a troublesome week for me since I was going to be visiting with family to celebrate Easter. This meant lots of tempting foods. In fact, I ate turkey, 9 pieces of cocktail shrimp, mashed potatoes with butter, corn, and a roll with butter. For dessert I had a couple thin mints, Carvel ice cream cake, chocolate mousse cheesecake with fudge frosting, and a piece of my wife's Easter Lemon Pie with homemade whipped cream. On top of it all, my wife got me a giant 1 foot tall chocolate Easter Bunny rabbit from Bridgewater Chocolate. I cannot resist chocolate. You think you're a chocoholic? The entire bunny's ears and head was gone in less than a day.

Now if you recall, in Week 7, I had a shoulder injury, but regardless I wasn't going to make any excuses for not losing weight. I said I wouldn't gain weight on any week. In Week 7 I wrote, "Anyway, even with the injury I'm hoping to lose at least 1lb per week. I may have a few 0 weight changes, but I'm hoping to never have a weight gain. Wish me luck!"

With my virtual guarantee I would not have a week with a weight gain you're probably wondering how the heck I could eat all that food, including 3 main desserts and a massive piece of chocolate and expect to not gain weight. (Mind you the weigh-in was the day after Easter.) Well, that's a damn good question!

I knew I would want to eat my favorite foods and desserts for Easter, so I did three things. One, I lowered my calories slightly last week. Two, I worked out like a mad man burning anywhere from 400-1000 calories per day in the gym. Third, I used mental motivation by watching & listening to inspiring music and videos this week. Specifically, I have on my Microsoft Zune movie clips from Rocky movies and some of the soundtrack songs.

One of my favorite inspiring movie clips is when Rocky faces Ivan Drago, the giant Russian in Rocky IV. Rocky, the much shorter fighter and of course the underdog had to use his will to overcome seemingly impossible odds.

Duke: [to Rocky] You see? You see? He's not a machine, he's a man, he's a man!
Drago: [to his own trainer] He's not human. He's like a piece of iron.
Rocky 4

I kept telling myself I will not gain weight this week. I will not fail. Irish pride and ego certainly help. While I can't compare my workout ethic to Rocky, I certainly did push myself harder so I could eat what I wanted on Easter.

And the verdict? I weighed in at 173.75, a 1/4 pound loss!! Although the gym rounds up so I stayed at 174 pounds - the same as last week. I'm ecstatic I didn't gain weight, yet ate whatever I wanted.

Here's the full week-by-week recap followed by the Top 5 Leaderboard Standings:

Week 1 (Jan 14th) - weighed in at 198lbs (original weight)
Week 2 (Jan 21st) - weighed in at 189lbs (-9 lbs)
Week 3 (Jan 28th) - weighted in at 189lbs (0 change)
Week 4 (Feb 4th) - weighed in at 186lbs (-3 lbs)
Week 5 (Feb 11th) - weighed in at 186lbs (0 change)
Week 6 (Feb 18th) - weighed in at 184lbs (-2 lbs).
Week 7 (Feb 25th) - weighed in at 183lbs (-1 lbs).
Week 8 (March 3rd) - weighed in at 180lbs (-3 lbs).
Week 9 (March 10th) - weighed in at 180lbs (0 change).
Week 10 (March 17th) - weighed in at 174lbs (-6 lbs).

This week:
Week 11 (March 24th) - weighed in at 174lbs (0 change).

Ok, and now the Top 5 Leaderboard:

1.) Tom/me 12.1% body weight lost (24 lbs)
2.) Joan 8.9% body weight lost (13.5 lbs)
3.) Nicole 8.3% body weight lost (15.5 lbs)
4.) Kim 8.1% body weight lost (20 lbs)
5.) Shawn 5.5% body weight lost (9.5 lbs)

This is the final week, with the final weigh-in taking place March 31st. Joan has been gaining on me and took the #2 spot from my wife, Nicole. Joan's starting weight was only 151, so all she needs to do is lose 5lbs this week and if I lose 0 she's actually beats me by 0.1%. This of course means I need to lose at least a couple pounds just to be safe and win the free year gym membership. I'm going to shoot for 4 pounds this week which will put me at 170lbs. If I can get one more pound and be at 169, I will be ecstatic. That would be >15% weight loss in just 11 weeks!

Wish me luck for this final run to the finish line!