Well, a lot has happened the last two weeks. I never blogged about last Monday’s weigh-in because we went to St. Louis for vacation and I didn’t make the time. I did post my weight on Facebook and on daytum.com. I weighed in (again, this is last week) at 245.4 lbs, for a total 5-week loss of 12 lbs.

Then we went on vacation.

First, I decided that even though I had made this silly bet to myself that I needed to keep my mustache until I lost 20 lbs, I felt the mustache has served its purpose. It got me (and Linnea, I might add) on a pretty regular diet and exercise routine this summer. It’s one step better than last summer (we were running, but not dieting that well). Anyway, I also didn’t want this stupid mustache on vacation, or in any of the other summer pictures.

So I shaved it. (Maybe you noticed from Facebook pictures)

Then we literally went on vacation, rather than when I said this above… We had a great time in St. Louis, which unfortunately included lots of good food (and by good I mean good, not good-for-you). Then we came home for a whopping 20 hours, and drove up to visit family (Louis’ uncle had a birthday, and Linnea had a work meeting in the area too). We didn’t do as bad as St. Louis, but the eating still wasn’t quite diet-worthy.

Oh well. We’re back on track now, but leaving again on Saturday for 4th of July festivities (yikes). Then we’ll have a few more days of good dieting before celebrating Louis’ 3rd birthday. I’m assuming some cake will be had. Oh well x3. I’ll get this weight off eventually.

So here’s the damage from our vacation week (I didn’t bold it on purpose…):

Current weight: 247.2 lbs
Total loss: -10.2 lbs (week 5 gain: 1.8 lbs)

I think I mentioned this before: oh well.

I’m not sure why, but I had updated the FatSo page once I started my weight loss, and for some reason, it didn’t update. I just realized this, and luckily WordPress was nice enough to have an autosave feature. So, it’s updated, in case you were concerned why I weighed TBD lbs…

I lost 3.8 lbs this week. Not too shabby after dropping a goose egg last week. This is also the first week that Linnea and I absolutely did not cheat. Hmm, maybe there’s something there…

Anyway, the ‘stache is still going strong, unfortunately. The running is still going fine. We’re on week 5 of 9 (but we started on week 2, and sort-of skipped a week in there somewhere). My only foreseeable problem is I just got a new Weber Performer charcoal grill, and all I wanna do is slow-cook some baby back ribs on it. Talk about fatty… We might splurge for Father’s day, so I guess I better save my flex points.

Current weight: 246.6 lbs (-10.8 lbs total)

Sorry I didn’t post this yesterday. My official weigh-in (Monday) resulted in:

Current weight: 250.4 lbs. (-7 lbs total)

You may have noticed this is the SAME as last week. The bummer was I weighed 248 on Thursday or Friday morning. I guess the cheating days last Sunday/Monday and this Sunday caught up with me. I was debating between using today (Tuesday) as my weigh-in day, since we were out-of-town last Monday, and I used Tuesday to weigh in last week. But, I shouldn’t hide from the non weight loss…

TMI alert: If it’s any consolation, I must have crapped out all the crap I ate on Sunday, because I was at 248.6 lbs this morning, so there’s that.

My weekly weight loss has been dwindling (even counting Tuesday’s weight rather than Monday’s), so I’m going to amp it up a little. No cheating this week, and 5-6 workouts (I only got 2 in last week). Hopefully I can get a good drop this week, I really don’t want this mustache by the time my son’s birthday party rolls around (early July).

Current Weight: 250.4 lbs

Two-week weight loss: 7 lbs

I lost 2.2 lbs this week even though I cheated Sun/Mon. So there’s that. Losing less than 5 lbs per week sucks in terms of mustacheability though… To combat this I’m dropping down to the next level of WeightWatchers points (28 daily instead of 30) 0.4 lbs early. Don’t forget you can keep track of the weekly numbers here.

I know, I’m late! We were out of town until tonight, so I didn’t get a chance to weigh-in on our scale this morning. I can tell you it probably won’t be pretty, save a miracle. I did great most of the week, and even stood strong as we hung with family on Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday. I half-cheated on our date Saturday by eating some chips with spinach dip and cheesecake, but I figured out that I probably still would have had 10 flex points left for Sunday. The problem was Sunday. We had Linnea’s mom to my parent’s house for an early birthday cookout. I was ready to not cheat, but then I was standing in front of a plate full of harvest cheddar Sun Chips. That did it. I ate a TON of chips. The good thing was that being on a diet makes you full quicker, so I only had one burger. So there’s that… But then I cheated again today. Oops. Cheesy omelet in the morning (skipped the hash browns though!) and 1.5 burgers w/ chips for dinner.

We’ll see what happens in the morning, but I’m assuming this mustache is staying quite a bit longer than the 4 weeks I was hoping for.

… and it looks like more than 3 to go before I can shave this stupid mustache

Oh well, I should be happy about losing 4.8 pounds. The week went well, as I mentioned in the last post, and now onto another week. Today will make 4 straight workouts without a skip, and I’ll be starting to play racquetball on Thursdays, making it 4 workouts/week, so that’s nice.

Don’t forget you can keep track of my weekly numbers here.

Current weight: 252.6 lb

I went to a friend’s birthday party yesterday, and I didn’t even cheat. Due to the mustache I’ve decided to try my best and forgo the weekly cheat day I’ve allotted myself in the rules. Because of this constant facial motivation, I’ve been able to save most of my flex points throughout the week.

(If you don’t know about WeightWatchers, I get 30 daily points – based on calories, fat, and fiber – and 35 weekly flex points to use whenever.)

Thanks to the ‘stache, and the few workout points I’ve been getting, I only used 6 of 35 flex through Friday. So basically I was able to eat 2 burgers, drink 4 light beers, etc., and still have 8 flex points left for today (Sunday)! To add to that, we went to McAllister’s Deli for lunch today with a bunch of friends after church. Guess what I got? A freaking salad. Granted, it was still 10 points (and not that filling), but I’m at my usual post-lunch points of 15, which is nice.

I’m doing pretty rock star right now, all thanks to the ‘stache. I’m hoping for a 5-7 pound loss this week, so we’ll see in the morning. The first week is always the easiest, so the more the merrier.

I’m beginning to wonder if this mustache has secret powers…

First, I’ve only eaten 4/35 flex points in 3 days this week. Second, Linnea and I have worked out BOTH Monday and Wednesday. Third, Linnea hasn’t cheated on her diet either (both out of my support for her and her not wanting to be the reason I cheat and have this mustache longer).

Then, you can add to the list the fact that I just found out yesterday that I am receiving the MechSE Teaching Fellowship to teach ME 371 (Mechanical/Machine Design II) again in the fall. This conveniently comes with stipend for TWO semesters, making my next year set (minus summers).

I’m of the opinion it’s the mustache. Hopefully the powers rub off before I shave it, because there’s no way in hell I’ll be keeping it past the summer (or past 20 pounds, which will hopefully come much sooner).

I was originally going to just have update posts every Monday (since that’s how often I’ll be weighing-in), but I decided there’s just too much to talk about. In case you were wondering, I still look like an idiot. Well, I take that back. I personally think I look like an idiot, which works well because even if people think it’s awesome, I still feel extremely self-conscious about it. This has led me to notice the following early mustache effects related to this weight-loss attempt (in addition to thinking that everyone is staring at my hairy upper lip, wondering why there’s no chin hair joining in):

1. I actually started working out and dieting on the day I planned to (yesterday). Normally it’s pretty easy to come up with some excuse why I should start working out “next time.”
2. I am taking my diet more seriously than ever. The first time I tried WeightWatchers, I lost almost 40 lbs in 3 months without even working out. Since then (and yes, all but 5 of those pounds are back), I’ve never been able to string together consecutive weeks on a diet, because it was so easy I thought I could just “try again next week.”
3. I’m not even “rounding down” my WW points either. I’ve ALWAYS done that on WW.

The list is short for now, since it’s only day 2, but I thought it was important to share how my strong desire to get rid of this mustache has motivated me. The biggest thing is point #3. Every time I’ve been about to take “just a little more” for the same amount of points, I haven’t. I didn’t even do this the first time I lost all that weight, so it seems like the mustache is working. We’ll see if it keeps up. If you know me, you know I won’t break my rules or quit, so I guess if the mustache embarrassment stops working, I’ll be stuck with a mustache all summer. That would really blow.

One last thing!

I’m not sure if I mentioned this yet, but it was really hard to shave off my goatee. Is this just in my head, or would you guys reading this have just as hard a time rocking a mustache? Please leave a comment!