In January of 2009, Katy and I were on one of our patented drunken dinner dates agonizing over the fact that we'd both lost a significant amount of weight in early 2008, but had long since plateaued. After realizing that we were both competitive to the point of alienating all of our friends at dinner parties, we decided to have a bet to see who could lose the most weight by Memorial Day 2009.
Looking back on that time, its really incredible how dedicated we were, although if you read a lot of our posts, you'll see we both had our ups and downs. I pulled out ahead early on, but ultimately Katy proved victorious. Altogether, 42.6 pounds were lost, two lives were significantly changed, and one friendship went from a fun work-ish thing to a co-dependent life-partner thing.
We both enjoyed our first skinny summers (aka we drank and ate) and by the fall, we were struggling. Neither of us had really put on weight, but the Former Fatties we used to be would have been ripped by that point. Ashamed at who we'd become, we decided to lose weight the only way we knew how - by fighting each other to the death. Unfortunately we'd grown so comfortable with each other that neither of us posted any significant losses. A week or so before the bet was supposed to end, we called it off, deciding instead to try to invigorate ourselves for the new year. We knew that we had to do something different in order to rejuvenate our motivation.
And so, we've done what all couples do when the fire is dwindling: we've brought a third party into the mix! On behalf of Katy and myself, I'd like to extend a great warm Former Fattie welcome to Elizabeth!
Liz, one of my oldest and awesomest friends, is truly an inspiration. She decided to change her life and has since lost 30 pounds, run a half marathon, and completed a triathlon. Katy and I are really excited to learn from Liz, and to be there for her for all of the support that she needs.
Those of you who tune into the Former Fatties because you love a good blood bath may be disappointed to learn that this chapter of our journey will not be a direct competition. At this point, each of us is looking for something different out of the next few months, so we can't really be directly compared. We will instead offer three different stories, told alongside one another. Hopefully, this will show us and our numerous readers that our struggles are our own, but we are never alone in them. And don't worry, I'm sure we'll sass each other throughout.
We are hoping to set ourselves up for lifelong changes, but this particular chapter of the FF will last 3 months.
In the next few days, each of us will be introducing or re-introducing ourselves. In order to provide some consistency, we have each broken our goals down to our Food Goal and our Fitness Goal. Every Sunday or Monday, we will each address whether we met these goals, as well as a weekly Free Form Goal - which may or may not have to do with fitness/weightloss. The free form goal will serve as a dual reminder: it is not all about diet and exercise, but also, our success and outlook on diet and exercise are always tied to the rest of our lives.
We hope that you'll follow along with us, and share your similar stories, inspiration, support, and sassy antagonizations in the comments section.
Posts always look less boring with pictures, so here is a picture of vegetables and a tape measure:
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