About Me

Buffalo, New York
Approximately 100 Million Americans are obese, and I am one of them. Now that I'm married with two young children, I'm starting to take my health more seriously. But while I've been converting steaks and chicken wings into love-handles and a gut, close to a Billion People Worldwide have been going hungry... What if we could do something about both problems?
I've started this blog to chronicle my own weight-loss and efforts to raise money and awareness to battle global hunger. If weight is an issue for you, I hope you'll join me; and if it's not, I hope you'll support me or someone like me as we work to lose weight so others can gain it.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Official 5 Month Update

I just got home from seeing my doctor and the news was pretty good! Here is the official update:

My Current Weight: 296 pounds
Change Since Last Update: lost 6 pounds
Total Change: lost 73 pounds

My Current Pledges: $82.75 per pound
Amount Raised: $6,040.75 (over 23,000 meals)!!!

So I've officially reached my original goal of 70 lbs., a month early! I gave people the option to cash out early if they want/need to, so from here out calculating the amount raised may be a little complicated as I figure out who will be paying now and who will continue their pledges. The amount raised will get a little bump when I do a more accurate count too- two people made pledges with incentives for hitting my goal and I have one small bonus gift to add in.

The best part is that the impact has spread. In addition to the others mentioned last week, I talked to a woman who collected pledges and lost 20 pounds! I've also heard about several more who were thinking about getting involved, so hopefully I'll have a few more updates in the next couple weeks.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Week 21

My official 5 month weigh-in is one week from today! I don't want to count my pounds before they're shed, but there is an excellent chance I will have met my 6 month goal by then :)

My Current Weight: 302 pounds
Change Since Last Update: lost 4 pounds
Total Change: lost 67 pounds

My Current Pledges: $82.75 per pound
Amount Raised: $5,544.25 (over 21,000 meals)!!!

So I only need to lose 3 pounds in the next 7 days to hit my 70 lb. goal a month early. I'm pretty excited about that. I'm also excited to be able to share a couple updates about other impact: one person who was inspired to get healthy hit his goal of losing 30 pounds in 3 months; another collected pledges from friends and family and has lost 20 pounds (of her target 30) with about a month to go.

I'll try to get a few more updates from others in the next week or so, and look for my official 5 month weight on the 20th!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Week 20 Update

Its hard to believe that its been twenty weeks already! June was a bit of a rough patch but I'm back on track with my weekly posts and still losing weight. Here's where we're at now:

My Current Weight: 306 pounds
Change Since Last Update: lost 1 pound :(
Total Change: lost 63 pounds

My Current Pledges: $82.75 per pound
Amount Raised: over $5,000 (almost 20,000 meals)!!!

So, losing weight at a regular pace is for the birds. After 20 weeks, I'm averaging just over 3 pounds lost per week- which is pretty good, though it would have been better if it weren't for the occasional week where I gained weight. Either way, 1 pound in a week is kind of disappointing. Its an inopportune time too because I just announced (last Sunday, in church) that I expected to reach my original goal (of losing 70 lbs.) a month early, and that people could cash out after my July 20th weigh-in if they need to...

The good news is that I have 12 days til then and only 7 more pounds to lose. As long as I stick to my diet and get a little more exercise I should be alright.

Friday, July 1, 2011

New Milestone

Well, its been less than a week since my last post- so I'm back on track with weight-loss and blogging :)

This is an unofficial post, but my home scale has been pretty accurate so far, so I'm pretty excited about this:

My Current Weight: 307 pounds
Change Since Last Update: lost 7 pounds
Total Change: lost 62 pounds!

My Current Pledges: $82.75 per pound
Amount Raised: over $5,000 (almost 20,000 meals)!!!

Only 8 more pounds to my goal! Unless something goes seriously wrong, I should have no problem hitting it a month early. I'll have an official weigh-in in the middle of July and (since I'll probably already be over the goal) I'll give people a choice to either "cash out" then or stick with it for one more month with me.

Since recovering from all my dental work, I've been really good about not eating any junk food... at all (there's a delicious looking frosted lemon cake in my fridge right now that I haven't touched, and I skipped going out to ice cream with Angie and Asa last night) but I'm really craving it. I think when this is all over I'll lose an extra 10 pounds just so I can go eat 10 pounds worth of cake and ice cream :)