DietBet Weight Loss Challenge

Is it strange for a food blogger to post about weight loss? I'm supposed to be talking about delicious food, not how to not eat it, right? I guess it's not that simple. Maybe it's about how to eat delicious food and still lose weight. Or, maybe it's about my struggles with wanting to eat delicious food and how that conflicts with my desire to lose weight. Frankly, I'm not sure what it's about yet.

What I am sure of is that I've put on quite a few pounds over the last 18 months, and I've stopped exercising. Both of those things are unhealthy and a bit of hypocrisy. And it's time for me to stop.


As a PA student I advise patients to exercise every day, eat small portions of healthy, balanced foods, get their BMIs into the healthy range, and work towards a long, healthy life. Yet, I don't do those things myself.

Before starting grad school I was running on a regular basis, averaging 5 to 6 miles a day. Now I rarely exercise.  I wear a FitBit and often take less than 5,000 steps a day. While I often prepare and blog about healthy foods, I also eat a lot of fast food and restaurant meals, and snack in the evening way too much. Because of these two bad habits, my BMI has increased a good deal over the last year and a half. I have many of the symptoms of obesity that I counsel my patients about. Worst of all, I've gotten into such a "rut" that most of the time I tell myself I don't care. But, I know that's not true.

So, It's time to make a change. Not because it's a new year, or some other arbitrary date, but just because it's time. Carole invited me to try DietBet with her, and I accepted. We chose the January Jumpstart game. Honestly, I don't have a plan for success yet, which is dangerous, so I'm turning to all of you for help.

DietBet is a just what it sounds like. You make a bet, in our case $35, that you'll lose 4% of our initial weight in four weeks. If you do, you're one of the winners. If you don't, you lose the bet. All of the winners get their initial bet back, plus a share of the pot created by those who lose. There's no bonus for losing more than 4%, so you don't really have to worry about what anyone else is doing, and you can cheer all of them on too. You focus on yourself and your goal, which is great. I don't want the extra distraction of having to beat everyone else.

The entire process is online, and there are checks in place to prevent cheating. I might share those on a later post, but this is getting long, so I won't go into it here. I submitted my initial weigh-in with a verification photo on Dec. 31. Here it is:

My final weigh-in photo on Jan. 28 will be 4% lighter.

I will be posting regularly with progress, ideas, meal plans, etc. to keep me accountable. If you have any tips or want to cheer me on, please follow me on Facebook and comment below. Thanks!