Monday 28 June 2010

It's began!

No turning back now :)

I weigh 12 stone and 2.2 pounds, Miriam weighs... I can't tell you, it's private for her.

Nothing more to add

Sunday 27 June 2010

Over £200 pledged for Woking Hospice!

Wow! What a response! I've had people at Semmco, Pit Stop Cafe, Noodle Nations and Maria shop pledge together over £200 and it's still growing. I am so excited for this challenge!

Tomorrow is the first weighing. Miriam is coming over in the evening and we'll be using my posh Tanita scale. I will take the measurements in both stone and lbs and kilos. This will be repeated each Monday.

There is one part of our "rules" that after speaking to our supporters we may possibly change. Because this challenge is not all about us, but mostly about the charities it would be unfair to leave the loser's charity completely with nothing. We may then split the winnings in such a way that the winner would take 50% of the loser's money. This way there's all winners and both sides' supporters are happy. On the other hand if there was no challenge, there would have been no money anyway and therefore one might argue that the "loser's charity" wouldn't had been any worse off than before.

I think that this we will need to have a chat about with Miriam, but perhaps anyone watching our challenge has a say on the matter? We would be thrilled to have your input on this.

Keep popping in, there will be at least one update after each weighing.

Saturday 19 June 2010

Weight Loss Charity Challenge (duel)

Me and Miriam have a double bet on. We both have to lose 5kg (11lbs) each in five weeks and the one who loses more at the end of it wins. Stakes are high, as charities are involved...

It all started last year when I ran my Weight Loss challenge with HL. Miriam was my first contestant. I wasn't participating, I was only running it. I had already brought my weight down and didn't need to go any further. Miriam managed to lose about a stone in the twelve weeks and we have become good friends.

In November I started working in an office again and let loose all my bad eating habits. The weight slowly crept on until it reached 76kg - a 7kg increase. It's not bad considering it's only about 1kg per month (I had to keep fooling myself that it's not bad).

I knew I had to do something with it and remembered a colleague in one of my previous jobs who did a weight loss collection for Comedy Relief. He signed people up and when he lost weight as he'd promised we all paid up. He lost weight, Comedy Relief got their funds and we all felt better about ourselves.

Recently I suggested such a challenge to Miriam, but because my trousers had not been buttoning up for quite a while now (when sitting down - making me very uncomfortable), I decided that we both should do it.

This meant that both of us had to chose a charity; Miriam chose Christians Against Poverty, and I went with my bosses suggestion - Woking Hospice. We both have to lose 5kg or 11lbs each to be able to collect money from our friends who will be "betting" against us, and, here's the best part: if I win, Woking Hospice gets both of our collections, and if Miriam wins, her charity gets the funds.

There are only two ways to motivate someone: a carrot or a stick.

In this case the carrots are:
  • losing weight
  • feeling lighter
  • feeling good about helping the charity
and the sticks are:
  • competition with each other
  • responsibility to the charity
  • friends keeping on our tails to pass the funds to "their" charity
Here I will try to keep an update of our progress. We will be working together, rather than against each other. The challenge starts on Monday 28th June and last weighing will be the 6th August.

Keep popping in to cheers us on and follow our successes! (no failures allowed!)