The 200,000 Calorie Challenge

So I was sitting at 5 Guys tonight, eating way too much food and thinking about how I wish I could lose some weight.  I've been heavier than I am now, in the past, but my weight has been slowly climbing since I got another office job.  My unplanned attempts at diet and exercise just haven't been working.


A few years back (following a friend's surprising comment on my weight) I sat down, started tracking my food intake and exercising.  I lost 50 lbs.  Then I started to regain that lost weight.  I've never really been able to be that effective since then.  I've counted calories in the past, I've exercised.  Hell, last summer I ran/walked a half-marathon.  I've just never been able to discipline myself enough to actually lose weight, even when working at it.  I just like large amounts of junk food too much.

So here's the challenge.  I'm not shooting to lose a specific amount of weight.  I'm not swearing off a particular type of food.  I'm not suddenly going to start a crazy exercise plan.  Instead I'm going to cut, or burn, 200,000 calories!

The rules are relatively simple.  Based on some basic review of my eating habits and exercise, I currently average somewhere around 3000 calories taken in, per day.  I also walk about 1.25 miles per day to work and back.  So that's my baseline of exercise.  For every calorie I eat in a day less than that 3000 per day, I get one point closer to my goal.  Also for every calorie burned through additional exercise beyond the walk to and from work, I get one point closer to my goal.  When I reach 200,000 points I win, and get myself an overpriced, fancy toy of some sort as a reward (haven't exactly decided that, once I do it'll get posted here).

Of course if I eat more than 3000 calories in the day that gets subtracted from my total points.  A trip to 5 guys could cost me days worth of work.  Also to make this interesting I'm setting myself a time limit of 9 months to do this in.  That's enough time that I can cheat every now and then, and don't have to cut my diet down to potentially dangerous levels to win.

This blog is primarily intended to force myself to track this stuff, and to keep thinking about the goal.  If anyone ends up reading it though, I'm more than happy to listen to some suggestions on strategies, meal plans or anything else.  Otherwise it'll just go off into the ether of the internet, and that's fine too.

Tomorrow's day 1, which means that I'll have until July 19th of 2012 to score 200,000 points.  Let the games begin.