And so is my buddy Joe.

Joe and Spencer are not the biggest losers.  That title is reserved for Ali.  But they are a couple of big losers.



Spencer started losing weight about a year ago, starting out at 267 pounds.  Since then, he has lost a ton of weight!  He currently weighs in at 185, for a total loss of 82 pounds.  At 5'11", that puts him right in the heart of where he needs to be.  He is working hard to drop ten to fifteen more.  When you ask him how he did it, he will tell you that he just made slight adjustments to his lifestyle.  No pop.  I haven't even seen him down a beer in a while.  He eats a lot of the same things, but he eats a lot less of it.  He is even eating vegetables.  I never thought I would see Spencer eating a vegetable, but he does.
He is also riding his bicycle more.  He does some weight lifting, and some pilates. 
The worst part is that he is now kicking my butt on the bike.  But I can live with it, since he is doing so well.

Here are some pictures of Spencer at 267 pounds.

   

And here is Spencer today.  EASY LADIES...



Joe started losing weight for a contest his doctor was having.  Whoever loses the most weight would win a flat screen television.  Now I don't have to say this, because it goes without saying, but most guys would do anything for a big screen TV.  Joe just happened to drop about 60 pounds in three months.  I asked him how he did it, and the answer was interesting.  He dropped his calorie intake to under 1000 calories a day.  He tried to stay closer to 800.  A lot of experts think that it is both dangerous, and ineffective, to consume such a small amount of food.  But Joe did his research.  He found that more and more doctors are advocating very low calorie diets for people who are quite obese.  Yes, your body can go into starvation mode if you don't do it right.  But once you're used to taking in so few calories, the weight comes off.  And the proof is in the...uh...DIET pudding.  Joe is down 60 pounds, and he won that TV.

I don't have very many pictures of Joe, but here is one from an evening when he and Stephany came over to the house.

 

And here is a more recent look at Joe:

Thanks to their inspiration, I am a loser too.  I put on a lot of weight in the past year.  No time for cycling.  No desire to go to the gym.  Oh, and I like to eat.  A LOT.  So I gained weight over the past couple of years.  Like, 60 pounds.  Although I am not as big a loser as Spencer or Joe, I am a loser, and every day I am becoming a bigger and bigger one.  I started the day after Easter--that was six weeks ago.  So far, I am down about 25 pounds (although I'm not sure because my scales suck).  I still have a long way to go, and that can be discouraging when you're trying to maintain discipline. But I feel like I get plenty to eat, keeping my calorie intake under 1500 a day.  And I am hitting the bicycle a lot too, trying to log over 100 miles a week.  Last week, I burned more than 7200 calories on the bicycle alone.

Now, I've got a long way to go to be on the same level as these guys, and I don't want to jinx it by putting up before and after pictures too soon.

But what the heck, I'll give you a little peek.

 On Easter last month

 25 pounds down

To quote one of my favorite bands from the 70s and 80s...
"Here's to all the losers...because all of the losers win."  DeGarmo and Key

How is your weight loss plan coming along?  Are you a loser too?