Maintain, don't gain.

At one of my former places of employment, they were actually proactive in helping their employees stay relatively healthy.  It was a call center, and if you have ever worked at a call center, you know that there is a whole lot of sitting on your can in front of a computer, and not a lot of reason to get up and move that frequently. 

So, aside from mandatory walk breaks (if you weren't walkin' you were still workin') each day, they had a "contest" of sorts around the Holidays. 

They called it "Maintain, don't Gain".  The way it worked, is you would weigh yourself before Thanksgiving on a scale at the office, and they would write down your weight.  After New Years Day, you would repeat the process.  If your weight was the same, or less than your pre-Thanksgiving weight, you would get a gift - movie passes, gift certificate, gas card (this was back when a tank of gas didn't require a 2nd mortgage) etc...

Unfortunately, my current employeer doesn't have any program like that in place (or ANY health program at all.  That may account for the fact that the ambulance shows up in front of our building about once a week.  I am not joking.)

I decided that I am going to give it a go.  I weighed myself before the weekend of gorging - 197 pounds.  My goal is to be less than that by Monday, January 3rd.  I will regularly post my weight on the blog.  I may even try to find a widget to place in the sidebar to have a running weight loss tracker. 

Unfortuately, I won't get any prize or gift for not exceeding my starting weight - unless the wifey wants to pony up something?

Wish me luck!

p.s.  I found something that hopefully will help me with the weight loss over the Holidays:  Elden "Fat Cyclist" Nelson is holding a contest on his site for people to try to loose 10 pounds by Christmas.  I've thrown my name into the contest.