The Competitor in Me

This year I ended up going to the Penny Arcade Expo in Boston. I didn't just go actually, I enforced which meant that I got to meet a lot of people responsible for organizing and running the event. It was a lot of fun meeting a variety of nerds with interests different from my own. We stay in touch with each other via a forum available to past and present enforcers.

Yesterday I came across a thread that announced a challenge: who could lose the largest % body fat by PaX Prime (September 3rd)? To say that I've let myself go this last year is a bit of an understatement. I've gained about 15 pounds and my goal is to lose all of it by PaX Prime.

Just to give you a little bit of a background, I used to look like this:

Oh god oh god why. It was fairly strange - I was overweight yet confident. Don't know how that happened.

Through a bit of competition, I ended up looking like that.

But now I currently look like this.

Kinda nerdy. That's okay.

I currently weigh 167.2 lbs (the scale is a lie) and my goal is to get back down to my original weight two years ago (153 lbs.) through healthy means. That means incorporating a lot more vegetables into my diet, cutting down on carbohydrate consumption (hard as a vegetarian), and doing it in a healthy way rather than a self-destructive way.

I have 20 weeks until PaX Prime. I will ideally lose 17 pounds of fat and gain a few in muscle (really hard to do actually). Feel free to follow my moments of strength and weakness as I try to avoid cupcakes and the freshman 15 at my new job.

I'll be recording what I eat and how it feels to be offered tons of free food but turn it down. Stay tuned.