I signed up for DietBet on a whim six months ago.
I was pushing 70kg (154 lb), after steadily climbing my way up through the 60s over the past three years. Venturing into the 70s was NOT on my to-do list for 2014.
Signing up for DietBet was not the first time I'd tried to reverse my steady weight gain. I'd occasionally tracked my calories and excersized here and there, but I never stuck with anything for more than a week or two. I thought having money on the line might change that. I chose a DietBet 10 because I wasn't confident I'd be able to lose 4 percent in only a month. 10 percent in 6 months seemed like a better pace for me... but...
Once I started the DietBet, I found out I'd have to lose 4% a month to win the first few rounds, anyway! Here's how that went:
Round 1:
Diet betting was like MAGIC! For the first time ever, I could actually resist binging on sweets every night! I even had enough motivation to confine my alcohol consumption to date nights or dinner parties, rather than grabbing a glass of wine anytime the characters on TV did. The first round started right before Valentine's Day and my birthday, so I didn't even get serious about my diet until well into the second week... And I still won! I'd like to thank drinking lots of water, my pink tread mill, consciously staying on my feet more at work, and finally being okay with losing weight SLOWLY. I didn't even try to eat only 1200 calories a day, I just tried to come in under "maintenance." I also asked my boyfriend to teach me how to snowboard - something I never thought I'd want to do. I was feeling pretty good about myself around this time, losing weight and trying new things.
Round 2:
Here in Japan where I teach, March is the end of the school year. That means lots of dinner and drinking parties to attend! I actually had one every weekend that month. I also took a quick trip to Taiwan. Even though I walked a lot, I made up for that in calories consumed! The scale kept going down, but not fast enough. I lost Round 2.
Round 3:
After my loss, I was so confident I'd get back on track and win Round 3. The weather was nicer; I was walking to work now. My mom came to visit, and my itinerary was mostly a list of delicious foods to try. We walked a LOT to get to all of those foods, and also while sightseeing, shopping, and using public transportation. But I was still surprised when I finally got on the scale and saw that I had continued to lose weight - all that walking triumphed over all that eating. But I lost Round 3, too. But hey, I was still losing weight, so it wasn't really a loss.
Round 4:
I'm definitely going to win Round 4, I said. This is where I catch up, I said. I was walking regularly. Gardening. I felt like I was eating okay, but I wasn't tracking calories faithfully. And this is where I plateaued____________. I lost 0.4 kg that month.... less than a pound. Lost Round 4, of course.
Round 5:
The plateau continued into Round 5. Then one day at work, I wrote out a meal plan for myself. I followed it. I bought myself some shiny new running shoes and cute workout capris, which inspired me to start C25K again. And before I knew it, I had BROKEN THE PLATEAU. Hallelujah! It was funny, the scale only moved a few tenths of a kilogram, and all of the sudden coworkers right and left have noticed and are commenting on my weight loss.
I started avoiding carbs as Weigh-In Day approached, and !!!!!! I made it!!! I won Round 5! I can not express how happy that made me. I was down to 135 pounds!
My post weigh-in treats have bumped the scale back up, but now I'm back on track with jogging and working on reining in my diet again so I can win the big one. This month's goal weight is the same as last month's, but Weigh-In Day falls in the middle of an American family vacation, right after a visit to Seoul (and I so travel for the food) and a week of Japanese summer festivals (read: street food and beer). So no procrastinating this time. Let's conquer Round 6!