Challenge #2: Money to Burn

Some Thinspiration XXL competitors have lost sight of the goal, and become mired in fatty, tasty foods. Thankfully, the commercial market is full of weight loss products to pour our money (and hopes and dreams) into.

Taking reader requests from the most recent survey into account, competitors will follow a commercial diet for one week. Readers will be able to track daily food logs from each of the competitors and, by the next weigh-in, learn which diets work...to induce the most whining and crying.

Competitors will outline their diet strategies before Thursday then execute their plan in the week leading up to the next weigh-in. Much finger wagging and scientific tom foolery to come.

Survey results: Which commercial strategy would you like Thinspiration XXL competitors to test out so you don't have to?

• Special K Challenge - 2 votes (33%)
• Meal replacement shakes and bars - 1 vote (16%)
• The Jared Subway Diet - 3 votes (50%)
• Something expensive like Weight Watchers - 0 votes (0%)

Fatty Weigh-in: Week 7

Competitor	Current Weight	Tally	Total
celestialspeedster	120 lbs	- 2 lbs	- 9 lbs ( - 7.0%)
Doctor Cook	172 lbs	+ 1 lb	- 8 lbs ( - 4.4%)
Flocons	203 lbs	+ 2 lbs	- 9 lbs ( - 4.2%)
Opiate	180 lbs	+ 2 lbs	- 3 lbs ( - 1.6%)
Royal Pinguo	142 lbs	+ 3 lbs	- 2 lbs ( - 1.4%)
Thorn	167 lbs	- 1 lb	- 9 lbs ( - 5.1%)

Masters of the Veggieverse

Vegetarians, embodied by the crafty, but militant and evil Skeletor, are in a constant war with society's Carnivores and Omnivores, embodied by the heroic, but perhaps not so bright He-Man. No one has ever liked Skeletor, but wow-wee, look how thin he is!

Many a friend or acquaintance over the years has endeavored to convince me of the rightness of vegetarianism, and the cruelty of eating animals whose entire lives are spent living in atrocious conditions.

PETA anti-meat propaganda. Not for the light of heart or the full of stomach.

I question how true their conclusions are of the "factory farming" industry in general, but PETA certainly does a good job of pointing out the worst cases.

Strangely, after watching this, while I definitely acknowledge that the video is appalling, I still find myself craving a hamburger or some chicken wings. My love of eating animals is incredibly powerful. To insulate my meat obsession from any potential "crazy" moral decision, I have built up an armada of reasons and strategies to keep eating meat, ranging from the realistic to the absurd. Here are some of them:

1. Avoid the issues. Don't look too hard, or you might find out something unappetizing. I still have never watched Super Size Me, just in case it turns me off of McDonald's.

2. PETA is simply trying to move a political agenda. Vegans and vegetarians are clearly insane. I mean, they don't eat meat! They are also possibly unbalanced, likely due to insufficient meat in their diets. How can I trust this information? I could investigate other sources, but that would violate rule #1.

3. Chickens can't fly. If I eat their vestigial wings, I'm just relieving them of any foolish notions of even trying. It's true that they are probably killed in the process of extracting their wings, but... well, it's time for rule #1.

4. I don't even like chickens. If they could eat us, they would. Worst of all, they go for the eyes.

5. Plants are also alive. They are just so different than us that no one cares what happens to them. Vegetarians look at pigs and cows and are reminded of themselves. I feel no such kinship. If plants had faces and could make noises resembling speech, particularly sensitive vegetarians would starve.

6. Humans are not genetically designed to be vegetarian. It requires much more work to maintain a balanced diet. And I am lazy. I don't want to die of malnutrition. Therefore, logically, something needs to die.
Movie, or appetizer? *looks hungrily at Babe

7. I will become a pariah among my friends if I stop eating meat. You don't win friends with salad, afterall. Not to mention, I will be in danger if I hesitate to resort to cannibalism (in dire situations, of course, not as an enjoyable past-time).

8. Bacon. Popcorn chicken. Steak, medium rare. Lamb. Goat roti. Mmmmmm...

9. The real reason: I love meat too much to stop eating it.

...

However, for the duration of this competition, I will adopt a half-ass meat-free diet (outside of occasions where it is unavoidable or my willpower is too weak). To be clear, this is not a moral stand, but a further strategy to lose weight. So please friends, do not disown me.

Note: I actually do respect vegetarians. I just love eating meat!

Sleep is overrated...

This weekend: 15k road race, through much of the same route taken during the "Burn to Binge" Challenge, looping from McLeary park out around the Tommy Thomson Lighthouse and back. Ribs and beer, possibly a curried roti and more beer afterward.

Next weekend: huge family BBQ that if last year is any indication I will be pigging out quite literally. It's a pig roast after all. An entire not-small pig slowly rotating for hours over a fire, likely stuffed with sausages and other meats to cook inside. With lots of beer, and yes someone ELSE will be driving. Whichever day the pig roast is not happening I'll be going for a very very very long run through the rural Niagara countryside.

Weekend after: MARATHON!! Oh Montreal, city of my heartbreak. I will destroy you or myself in the attempt. I fear not thine hills and winding roads, signs in two languages and smoked meat restaurants around every turn. I do fear my beer being warm when I get to the finish line. Must find my blue cooler bag and remember the ice packs.

Weekend after that: final Dragon Boat regatta of the season: GWN at Marilyn Bell Park. An all weekend affair that normally leads to a very tired, sore and hungover Monday.

In between on the Monday to Friday area of the calendar there is yoga classes, dragon boat practices, work, training runs I've finally started fitting in, literally cycling everywhere and life in general all keeping me moving. Oddly enough I have not been sleeping a whole lot all summer even as tired as I am from all of this.

Where this all fits in to Thinspiration XXL you may wonder?

I'm hungry. Constantly hungry. A stabbing gnawing hunger that won't go away. It's driving me nuts. I eat, quite a lot actually. But my body is demanding more. I lie down to bed and my stomach grumbles, loudly and with a sinister English accent (FISH's anonymous friend?) and I envision him wearing a black bowler hat carrying a walking stick. And it's NOT John Steed. I fear for my sanity and my yarbles.

Applying opposite tactics to that of Celestialspeedster and Doctor Cook I have placed a whole other level of duress upon my body in a rather short time frame causing my metabolism to respond in kind and as it rightfully should: demanding adequate fuel to burn in ever increasing amounts. It's loud, distracting and ever-present. I was expecting an increase in appetite, but I wasn't expecting a rampaging near-homicidal urge to devour everything in sight. As I make a desperate last-minute attempt to catch up on two months of lost training before Montreal, this feeling is increasing daily and even the "Summer Pig Roast of Gluttony" may not be enough to satiate the hat wearing phantasm.

Doctor Cook and I went for chicken wings this past weekend at an old favourite haunt: All-Star Wings in Markham. Between the two of us destroying an amount of heavily breaded, deep fried and sauce-drowned wings normally reserved for a group of 3-4 people washed down with a pitcher of Rickard's White. That's not the issue in and of itself. The issue is I was absolutely ravenous again less than two hours later.

Weigh in this week can go either way....we'll find out tomorrow.

Headed to the State Fair

Amongst its many culinary delicacies, the Wisconsin State Fair is enticing visitors with the Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger. That's a regular, artery clogging cheeseburger, but with a Krispy Kreme donut in place of a bun. Throw in an extra dollar and you get a side order of chocolate-covered bacon on a stick. (Flocons perks up)

It's a mere 1000 calories, which means that I can have a large glass of milk on the side and call it bupper (breakfast and supper combined).

Survey results: Thinspiration XXL competitors are probably suffering from...

• anorexia - 0 vote (0%)
• bulimia - 1 vote (16%)
• peer pressure - 2 votes (33%)
• Friend Induced by Starvation Hallucination (FISH) - 3 votes (50%)

Memoirs from a bake sale

I spent all of Saturday baking items loaded with sugar and butter. It was all for a good cause, but since I am participating in Thinspiration XXL, I felt a bit like a vegetarian working in a butcher shop. Surrounded by sweet treats for the last 2 days has not been easy. The plus side of it is that I have been desensitized to it all. While the average person may be lured in by the smell of freshly baked cookies, I am immune. (Much like how the inhabitants of Buffalo no longer notice that their city smells like a sewer.) With all the baking and selling, I experienced the strange paradox being surrounded by food, but starving because I couldn't eat it.

Since I have baking on my mind, I'll review what I made this weekend. The key to a good bake sale is variety. You want at least one item that someone will want to buy.

Rice Krispies Squares are really easy to make. It's low-hanging fruit in the world of bake sales. It doesn't have a stigma of being too unhealthy, because the main ingredient is cereal. However, people conveniently forget that the other ingredients are butter and marshmallows. In the world of bake sales, nothing is sinless. Every item has sugar and/or butter.

Chocolate chip cookies are standard issue. People buy them because these cookies are comfortable and familiar. These babies are full of sugar, butter, and chocolate... but in fairness, they don't pretend to be healthy. I can't say the same thing for the next type of cookies.

These are oatmeal raisin walnut cookies. These are aimed at the customers that want to eat healthy. These cookies are less honest than their chocolate chip counterparts. These guys are also full of sugar and butter. There's no such thing as a healthy cookie. (But you should still have "healthy items" for those who would believe that eating a Big Mac is okay as long as you drink Diet Coke with it.)

At the opposite end of the spectrum are brownies. Brownies are always good sellers at bake sales because they are aimed at the indulgent customers. They are unapologetic about their sweetness, and contain a stupid amount of sugar and chocolate. Brownies are very dense, and will contain more calories per bite than any other item at the bake sale.

Cupcakes are essential mini-cakes. Cupcakes use the same ingredients as regular cake, but instead of pouring it into a cake pan, you pour it into a muffin tray. In the "evolution of baked goods", muffins and cupcakes diverged into different branches. Muffins are loaded with butter, while cupcakes are loaded with sugar. There are more differences than that, but those are the only ones worth nothing for the purposes of Thinspiration XXL.

These particular cupcakes are dressed up like Super Mario green mushrooms, which I affectionately call "1-upcakes". In the context of the bake sale, this is an eye-catching conversation item that caters to customers who enjoy novelty and creativity. These items may not sell well because they are different, but they will generate buzz. Customers will come to see it, and end up buying other goods.

This is candy sushi. It's another novelty item that is quite creative but labour-intensive. Royal Pinguo helped me make these, and we had fun putting them together. The base is Rice Krispies square mix, topped with candy mango or gummy fish. The nori is fruit-by-the-foot or any long flat candy you can find. Candy sushi tastes like a bad mix of random candy, but it sells because of good presentation and visuals. The majority of sales were made to children. That is another type of customer you want to cater to.

A few months ago, I made chocolate-covered bacon for a bake sale. This item is in the "I dare you to eat this" category. It's sort of like the ultra-spicy chicken wing challenge at your local pub, or the giant steak that you have to finish in 3o minutes to get for free. These items do not sell well, but they may generate buzz and conversation for your bake sale.

Doctor Cook rose to the challenge and bought my chocolate-covered bacon. I appreciated his support, when others made snarky remarks like "I don't want to eat that because I don't want to die." I wonder if that chocolate-covered bacon is the reason why he is participating in Thinspiration XXL in the first place... So to Doctor Cook, I say both "thank you" and "I'm so sorry..."

"Mmm, that was delicious. Now excuse me. I need to go to... the bathroom... for a minute..."

As this competition has progressed, it has been interesting to note the eating disorders some of our competitors have developed. I believe celestialspeedster, for one, is well on her way to anorexia. Surprisingly though, we have no bulimics, unless they vomit in secret (Flocons?). Disturbingly, this disappoints me. I would really like to see the full range of eating disorders develop during this competition. I believe it would be informative to human society or something...

However, the idea of bulimia is not totally gone from my mind. Just yesterday I went for all-you-can-eat sushi, and I considered vomiting afterwards. It was a passing thought, and one that I didn't seriously entertain, but I did think of it. The same thought occurred to me at 5am this morning, after eating some delicious lasagna.


Out of curiousity, I decided to take a couple of different eating disorder assessments with the competitive spirit of Thinspiration XXL in mind. Here are my results:

20 question quiz
Your score is 55. You are at a medium risk of developing an eating disorder. You should seek medical advice and/or professional counselling for a more reliable assessment.

50 question quiz
Your score: 72%
65-75% There is strong evidence of an eating disorder. You may be suffering from full-blown bulimia, or you may be in the midst of anorexia. Your answers indicate a high risk for further medical and psychological complications. Please seek a full medical evalutation immediately; counselling is also highly recommended. Your health may be significantly at risk.

Worry not though, friends, as if this competition were over, my score would be back in the normal range. I checked.

I challenge my fellow competitors to assess whether they are determined enough to win this competition to develop an eating disorder. Take the quiz!

Another important quiz
My score: 69%

Plug your ears

For no reason other than to serve as a reminder that I really really REALLY should be running more often and I'm very bored on lunch break... 10 more tracks from my eardrumb-numbing ipod selection:

1. Tool : Parabola
2. Radiohead : Optimistic
3. Alice in Chains : Them Bones
4. Nine Inch Nails : Heresy
5. Marilyn Manson : The Reflecting God
6. Nirvana : You Know You're Right
7. System of a Down : Shimmy
8. Primus : Professor Nutbutter's House of Treats
9. Sepultura : Refuse Resist
10. Korn : Somebody Someone

Fluffernutter Cakewich

I present to you the possible reason for a lackluster and reluctant weigh-in: the Fluffernutter Cakewich. That's marshmallow fluff, peanut butter, and angel food cake in place of the usual ingredient, white bread. This monstrosity was created with the help of a Cakewich mold.

Also on the menu that evening: jerk chicken, burgers, corn, roasted vegetables, bite-size cookie sandwiches filled with dulce de leche, and a chocolate cherry ganache pie. Plus, lots of beer. Unfortunately, there is no photographic evidence of any of the aforementioned foods thanks to a feeding frenzy.

I promise a better weigh-in result next week. No, really.

Fatty Weigh-in: Week 6

Competitor	Current Weight	Tally	Total
celestialspeedster	122 lbs	- 0 lb	- 7 lbs ( - 5.4%)
Doctor Cook	??? lbs	? lb	- 9 lbs ( - 5.0%)
Flocons	201 lbs	- 0 lb	- 11 lbs ( - 5.2%)
Opiate	178 lbs	- 0 lb	- 5 lbs ( - 2.7%)
Royal Pinguo	139 lbs	- 1 lb	- 5 lbs ( - 3.5%)
Thorn	168 lbs	- 2 lbs	- 8 lbs ( - 4.5%)

Survey results: Thinspiration XXL would be more exciting if...

• competitors provided 'Before' and 'After' photos - 1 vote (16%)
• competitors recorded daily food logs - 0 vote (0%)
• there were more photos of food - 1 vote (16%)
• competitors were "forced" to resort to cannibalism - 4 votes (66%)

Make the healthy choice. Choose gravy.

Whenever I'm confronted with gravy, while my mouth salivates, my brain yells at me, "STOP! Gravy is bad for you!". However, is this really true? I found myself examining this belief after Friday night, where I and some friends partook in a banquet of beer and poutine.

Poutine: an anorexic's kryptonite

I think few would disagree that poutine, a French Canadien creation of fries, cheese curds, and gravy is bad for you. But if asked which of the 3 components is the worst, most would demonize gravy. This discrimination must stop! Examine exhibit A:

Exhibit A. Nutritional breakdown of poutine.

The gravy is clearly the winner in low calorie content. And this is with roughly equal portions of gravy, cheese curds, and french fries. Clearly these proportions are ludicrous. This isn't some sort of delicious poutine soup, afterall.

Now, a person might note the amount of sodium and shout, "AHA! The salt content will kill you! Gravy is indeed unhealthy!" To address this, I present exhibit B:

Exhibit B. Comparison of gravy and salad dressing. Calories (left) and nutritional information (right) for 100 grams (~6 tbsps) of the various foods. Salad dressings are from Kraft. For nutritional information, fat and carbohydrate content is shown on the left axis (grams) and salt content on the right axis (milligrams).

Exhibit B, derived largely from http://caloriecount.about.com/, clearly demonstrates that gravy is better for you than salad dressing. Even restaurant grade, delicious KFC gravy! It has comparable calories to the fat free variety of salad dressing, less sodium, and more delicious animal fat. Fat free salad dressing is actually inflated in calorie content by addition of sugars. Those sneaky bastards! So the next time you reach for the salad dressing, fatty, grab some piping hot gravy instead.

The media has been deceiving us. People recognized the value of gravy decades ago, but these ads were subsequently subverted to sell cigarettes.

An original gravy ad. Doctors of previous generations promoted it as a healthy drink alternative.

Gravy recently tried to make a comeback with a new "Got gravy?" campaign featuring many celebrities (below Lauren Conrad). But in this case, the powerful dairy industry continues to subvert these ads to their own nefarious purposes.

Recent gravy ad, ultimately crushed by dairy

Get the message out my friends. Say no to milk! Say maybe to cigarettes! And say yes to gravy!

Math over feelings

So far, my food intake strategy has simply been to stay hungry, which has made me the winner that I am today. The downside of this approach is that, in the the throes of hunger, I make terrible choices in food consumption and in my personal life. I hear that the technical term for this behaviour is 'anorexia'.

A food strategy based on an unreliable source like my stomach is bound to eventually fail. My stomach betrayed my pudgy 11 year old self, scarring me for a lifetime with a fear of the return of those wonder years.

In stead, I refer to another childhood source of dread for the solution to my weight loss problem: math. Math will help me definitively calculate my recommended caloric intake.

First, how much do I need to survive? The following formulas determine the Basal Metabolic Rate.

Adult women:
655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)
OR
655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age in yrs)

Adult men:
66 + (6.3 x weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years)
OR
66 + (13.7 x weight in kg) + (5.0 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age in yrs)

My calculations tell me that I should not dip below roughly 1300 calories. Okay, math, I'll trust you for now.

Now, to determine how much I should eat based on my level of activity, to maintain my current weight:

• Sedentary (no exercise, sit at a desk most of the day): BMR x 120 percent (ie. an extra 20% on top of the BMR)
• Light Activity (no exercise, on feet during the day, eg. shop work): BMR x 130 percent
• Moderately Active (exercise 3 or more days a week for 30 minutes or more): BMR x 140 percent
• Highly Active (exercise 5 or more days a week for 30 minutes or more): BMR x 150 percent

My calculations give me roughly 1700 calories, but I am trying to lose more weight so I will bring it down to 1600.

Now, it will be up to me to record everything I eat and calculate my daily rate of consumption. Already, my faith in biology has been destroyed. I hope that my trust in math is not misplaced, lest I be forced to turn to religion.

Words from a loser: Slow and Steady

Once again Speedster is still firmly entrenched up top and now that Doctor Cook has found a scale and removed the question mark regarding his weight I am officially on the bottom of the group of competitors.

Honestly I take my slow and steady progress as a great personal victory, not being on the bottom as a painful weekly defeat. So ha! Chew on that!

I haven't been this light since 2005.

In recent memory (May 2009) I was dangerously close to that magical number that would designate me as a Clydesdale in triathlon events. A mere pound or two away truth be told. This is not something abhorrent, I would have raced a duathlon in the Clydesdale category with pride. It just would have hurt a lot more.

Half the challenge of any race for us larger types is lumbering one's own bulk along for the ride. It ain't easy.

Before this competition began, at the first team weigh-in for dragon boating this year I was a pack mule of 188. Just a touch under my normal "winter weight".

Dionysus would be proud. I have lost weight steadily week by week without compromising having a good time this summer. I am not one to starve myself when there are alternatives. Lack of fuel makes me tired and cranky and no fun at all. The alternative: eat something dammit!

Just make it something GOOD that is actually worthwhile. No crap will be tolerated by my tastebuds and stomach. They are my harshest critics.

More salads are thrown into the mix and junk food like chocolate bars and chips becoming almost completely absent in my diet is nice. Sure I miss some things, I never really consciously gave up the really GOOD chocolate (Just Us! bars from Nova Scotia...yummy!!) but when money and backpack space is tight...some things just stay on the store shelf.

I am no longer afraid of dying in the marathon, now less than a month away. I'll just go slow, knowing I have a bottle of La Fin du Monde waiting for me at the finish line. If it takes me six hours then so be it. The lessened load on my joints is already a marked improvement especially when I'm not grumbling with hunger which only makes other discomforts more noticeable.

We all need fuel to keep going. It gives us the strength to carry on.

Even a tortoise. Ain't 'e cute?

Trepidation and vindication

A number is a powerful thing: simultaneously capable of either destroying and confirming your confidence in weeks or years worth of belief. In this sense, my weight is also a number, and that number is good.

For the last few weeks, I have been incapable of finding a scale. I have to admit, a part of me shied away from looking all too hard to find one. My first Thinspiration weigh-in was quite disappointing. I was confident that I had lost weight. But then I was weighed, I was measured, and I was found... not wanting. Not only had I not lost weight, but I had gained a pound. And this was after subtracting the weight of my wallet and other items in my pocket. That's right, I actually weighed them. And my confidence in my strategy and my chances in this competition were brought into doubt. All on account of a number.

The strange part was that there was other evidence of weight loss that should have been irrefutable: looser clothing, clear evidence of having ribs, and a general feeling of being very very hungry. But it wasn't enough to be sure I was actually succeeding. I still believe my initial weight, pre-competition, is falsely deflated, or rather dehydrated from a particular arid day within my body. Nonetheless, I found myself strangely nervous this past Sunday when together with Thorn and celestialspeedster, we discovered a scale.

The fact that this scale was in use for measuring the weight of furniture was not particularly confidence building. However, against all odds, I have lost weight. Approximately 9 lbs from my starting weight. Our measurements during the last competition have confirmed it. And I feel great!

Further, I am back home again, away from fatty restaurant food, and ready to crush my opposition! If only I can find the energy to get up... sooo hungry and weak...

Fatty Weigh-in: Week 5

Competitor	Current Weight	Tally	Total
celestialspeedster	122 lbs	+ 1 lb	- 7 lbs ( - 5.4%)
Doctor Cook	171 lbs	- 9 lbs	- 9 lbs ( - 5.0%)
Flocons	201 lbs	- 2 lbs	- 11 lbs ( - 5.2%)
Opiate	178 lbs	- 1 lb	- 5 lb ( - 2.7%)
Royal Pinguo	140 lbs	- 0 lb	- 4 lb ( - 2.8%)
Thorn	170 lbs	- 0 lb	- 6 lbs ( - 3.4%)

Survey results: I find Thinspiration XXL...

• educational - 2 votes (28%)
• offensive - 2 votes (28%)
• charming - 1 vote (14%)
• caught between my teeth but easily removable with a tooth pick - 2 votes (28%)

Challenge #1: Burn to Binge results

In terms of strategy for the first Thinspiration XXL challenge, the majority of competitors had none. After weighing in, everyone, minus Royal Pinguo who could not attend, went for a run. Opiate ran 17 km, Thorn and Doctor Cook ran/walked about half of that, while Flocons and celestialspeedster resorted to the 30 second sprint, 1 minute stumble cycle that Halle Berry reputedly used to prepare for Catwoman.

The competitors made their way to The Burger's Priest (1636 Queen St. E.) on rubbery legs. Flocons, Thorn, Doctor Cook and celestialspeedster had the cheeseburger combo that came with fries and a drink. Opiate passed on the fries and doubled up on meat instead. Everyone marveled at how fresh the burgers were.

Doctor Cook was 'kind' enough to bring a jar of Strawberry Fluff back from Boston. Combine Fluff with peanut butter on Wonderbread and the result is a fluffernutter sandwich. After some beer and sake to wash the pink marshmallow down, the competitors returned to the scale.

Competitor	Pre Binge	Post Binge	Total
celestialspeedster	123 lbs	124 lbs	+ 1 lb
Doctor Cook	172 lbs	171 lbs	- 1 lb
Flocons	211 lbs	208 lbs	- 3 lbs
Opiate	176 lbs	176 lbs	- 0 lb
Royal Pinguo	DNC	DNC	DNC
Thorn	171 lbs	173 lbs	+ 2 lbs

Flocons has won Challenge #1 and his reward is looking like Halle Berry...in Monster's Ball.