Challenge Accepted

A local company has issued a challenge to Kansas City ... the KC Slimdown. Basically, teams of 4-6 people compete to see which team will have the highest percentage of weight loss by Oct. 9, 2011. The winners get a trip to the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa.

Since Abigail and I are so competitive, we called up friends and started a team.  We plan to win, of course. This morning, 4 of our 5 team members met at the local farmer's market to go for a morning walk and get to know each other. The contest officially starts tomorrow.

We all had to officially weigh in at a local YMCA and received free t-shirts and tape measures (The shirts say "Challenge Accepted" on the back). It's a great idea to get friends and co-workers together with the goal of getting healthier. Each of the members of TUFF STUFF is shooting to lose at least 10% of our weight during the contest.

We walked two miles this morning, burning about 150 calories.  Then we hit the farmer's market for fresh veggies to eat this week. I'm excited to have a team to help me out of this plateau. I've lost a couple of pounds already! Another teammate and I weigh about the same, but I think she's thinner. Abigail has dubbed it a contest between the skinny girls. I don't know about that - I'm really competing against myself, but I'll happily serve as someone else's motivation if they need it!

Anyway, I sent an email to my teammates yesterday with resources I found most helpful while losing most of the 50 pounds I've lost so far. Since the resources are probably useful to others who stumble upon this blog now, I'm going to repost them in their own entry for 50n50 readers.

And to my competitors, see you at the finish line!

I've got friends in low sizes :-)

One of my law school buddies, Megan, is a beautiful 5'8 with amazing shoulders and a stunning face structure. She recently had bangs cut and WOW - what a hottie.

About the time I started 50n50, she started focusing on losing some weight, too (though she didn't need to - she was in her healthy range - she just wanted to get back to her undergrad days). During the past year, we've shared recipes and swapped stories about our cooking trials and triumphs.

I'm happy to announce that Megan has lost 30 pounds since she started focusing on her weight!

She has gone down at least two pant sizes and last night was generous enough to offer up a bunch of her old pants to me - because I can now fit in a size 6! (The 6s are from Old Navy and Megan says they run big, but I've been wearing 10s most of the summer so I'm still excited with the 8s she gave me for fitting and was super ecstatic about the 6s!).

When I first met Megan - when she was wearing a 6/8 - I immediately put her on my list of "skinny friends." I don't know how or why I do that, but I put my skinny friends in a different category in my head - maybe I just assumed that they couldn't relate to certain aspects of my life because they were skinny. Do you do that with your friends?

Anyway, while trying on the clothes that Megan was wearing when I met her and labeled her skinny, a weird thought occurred to me. If I met myself today, would I put myself in the skinny category???