It takes literally 5-minutes to record and start uploading a video to YouTube, so there is really no excuse not to submit anything unless you are too shy or for some reason are stuck in the 1980’s with no video camera (although they still had VHS records back then!).

But that’s okay. I’m sure the two guys who did enter won’t mind that everyone else was too lazy to enter. In fact, since there were 4 prizes of 1,000 business cards and only 2 entries, I will be doubling each of their prizes, awarding them 2,000 business cards each.

That actually works out to a value of $42.94 each, assuming they go with the most expensive card stocks, sizes, etc. Not to mention the free publicity they are getting out of this very post. It’s like a free paid plug or paid review with their very own video (the strongest medium) and links to their sites. All for something that took 5-minutes of their time.

I apologize if this is sounding like a rant, but it just bothers me because I always hear people complain about how they never win anything or how it’s too hard to make money online. Well, maybe it’s because you’re not willing to put in any effort at all, even if it only takes a couple minutes to grab your camera or phone and record a 1-minute video.

Opportunities like this appear constantly, and won’t always be as easy as this one was, so don’t miss them. This was a perfect opportunity to get free exposure and backlinks to your site or blog as well as win business cards that would help you promote your website or blog even more.

Okay, rant over

The Winners

Congratulations to the 2 winners who did decide to enter. Here are their submissions:

Winner #1: Ryan McLean

Ryan actually submitted a video and ended up winning in my first UPrinting contest giveaway, so he knew just how easy it was to win. He won 500 business cards in that contest but never ended up claiming them.

Now that he will be receiving 2,500 business cards, that should last him for the rest of his life, or at least for 6-7 years. Even if Ryan gave out 1 business card a day to somebody (which never happens), this batch would last him 6.85 years!

Here is his video submission:

Winner #2: Paul Piotrowski

You all know Paul, so I won’t introduce him. He actually states a very good reason for why I should pick him as a winner, so even if there were more submissions in this contest there is a good chance I would have selected him as one of the winners as I can sympathize with his reason

Here is his video:

Submission #3: Sasha McLean

In order to double his chances of winning, Ryan McLean even submitted a video under the guise of his 4-month-old daughter! Unfortunately, I wasn’t actually able to actually count this as a submission due to our 18-year-old age prerequisite, but it doesn’t matter as Ryan won anyway.

Here is Sasha’s video:

The Prizes

Both Ryan and Paul will each receive 2,000 business cards (Ryan will actually get 2,500 due to winning 500 in the previous contest which he didn’t claim yet).

UPrinting is also letting them choose their card size, type of paper, and is offering full colour on both sides.

Here are more details:

• 2,000 Business Cards
• Sizes:  2 x 3.5”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.5 x 3.5” (slim card)
• Paper: 14 pt gloss cardstock, 14 pt matte cardstock or 13 pt recycled uncoated cardstock
• Specifications: Full Color Both Sides

Paul and Ryan can upload your their own custom business card templates, choose from a large number of pre-made templates, or create their own designs from scratch using UPrinting’s U-Design service which will let them add their own logos and custom imagery.

Thanks again to UPrinting.com for sponsoring this little competition.

About UPrinting

UPrinting is a very established (25 years) company which aside from offering business cards online also provides online printing for various stationery and printed marketing material.

They cover a lot of different types of printed mediums including business cards printing, brochures, calendars, letterheads, and postcards to just name a few.

They’re also in the top 500 fastest growing companies in the US as per Inc. 500.

So if you’re looking to get any type of printing done, you know where to go.

Well, they contacted me again a while back and want to run another giveaway with me. Since my blog is bigger now, I asked if I could get an upgrade in prizes, and they were happy to fulfill my request.

So this time, I’m giving away 4 sets of 1,000 high quality business cards (previously I gave away 4 sets of 250). Everybody needs business cards, and even if you already have some, it never hurts to get some more on hand. I personally have a set of business cards for my blog and a set for my corporation.

Any successful businessman will tell you how important it is to network, but what’s worse than getting yourself out there networking, only to have the people you spent telling your company to forget all about you the next day? Business cards are such a reminder and vital for proper networking and branding. If you don’t have any business cards yet, you should strongly consider getting some.

The Prizes

4 winners will each receive 1,000 business cards.

UPrinting is also letting you choose your card size, type of paper, and is offering full colour on both sides.

Here are more details:

• 1,000 Business Cards
• Sizes:  2 x 3.5”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.5 x 3.5” (slim card)
• Paper: 14 pt gloss cardstock, 14 pt matte cardstock or 13 pt recycled uncoated cardstock
• Specifications: Full Color Both Sides

Upload your own business card template, choose from a large number of pre-made templates, or create your own from scratch using their U-Design service and add your own logos and custom imagery.

How to Enter

To enter, all you have to do is record a video of yourself explaining why I should pick you as one of the 4 winners and then upload it to the video sharing site of your choice (YouTube, Viddler, Etc.) and then leave a comment on this post linking to the video.

Remember, most people are lazy and probably won’t enter, so your chances are most likely very good if you just submit a video.

I will be awarding my favourite 4 videos and will be looking for creativeness, energy, and humour, so keep that in mind when making your video.

I’ll be posting all of the videos on my blog when I announce the winners on July 15th.

The deadline is 11PM Eastern (8 PM Pacific) Time on July 15th, 2010. Remember to post a comment in this post linking to your video.

Unfortunately, this contest is only open to US residents, and you must be 18 years or older to enter.

(I actually think that if you’re willing to pay shipping that they will send outside of the US, but am not certain on this… so if you’re outside of the US and really want to enter, let me know and I’ll ask the about this)

Don’t Be Lazy!

Submitting an entry for the competition is easy, and your chances of winning are extremely high. Last time, only 3 people bothered making submissions, even though there were 4 prizes to give away… so if the turnout this time around is anything like it was last time, you’re pretty much guaranteed to win if you just submit a video.

Previous Winners

Below are the 3 winners from the last UPrinting Giveaway in case you needed some ideas or wanted to see just how easy it is to win:

1st place: Ryan McLean

2nd place: Ms. Missive 

3rd place: Chris Brandrick

Thanks again to UPrinting.com for sponsoring this little competition.

About UPrinting

UPrinting is a very established (25 years) company which aside from offering business cards online also provides online printing for various stationery and printed marketing material.

They cover a lot of different types of printed mediums including business cards printing, brochures, calendars, letterheads, and postcards to just name a few.

They’re also in the top 500 fastest growing companies in the US as per Inc. 500.

So if you’re looking to get any type of printing done, you know where to go.

The registrar I used at the time was a company called NetworkSolutions. While you may not have heard of them before, back then they were definitely one of the biggest (if not the top) and most professional domain registrars.

As their name suggests, they now offer more than just domains. In fact, they seem to offer everything under the sun including: domain names, web hosting, e-mail addresses, SSL certificates, online marketing (SEO, PPC, e-mail, etc.), design services, and business apps.

I haven’t used NetworkSolutions in probably 7-8 years, and so when I received the following e-mail from them a couple weeks ago, I was trying to remember why the name “NetworkSolutions” sounded so familiar:

“Hey Tyler,

We wanted to recognize you and your influential, inspiring blog. You went from a simple idea about making a living from the Internet, to your own successful publishing platform with a loyal readership – sounds like a personal Smallvolution to us.

What’s the Smallvolution, you ask?

It’s a movement of people, ideas and businesses that see the big in Small. To us, Small sees possibilities where others see obstacles. Small is agile, passionate and all-around inspiring. At Network Solutions®, we see evidence of the Smallvolution everyday—and you’re the perfect example of it.

To honor your “Small to big” blog story, we’re giving you five Network Solutions Smallvolution kits to hand out to five of your deserving readers so they can make their own ideas become something even grander online.”

Cool!

And so here I am, passing these 5 Smallvolution kits onto you!

The Prizes

Each of the 5 Smallvolution kits include:

• Free Web Hosting package for 1 year (including domain name)
• Access to small business coaches you can e-mail anytime to flush out ideas or
  even figure out a design
• A dedicated support line to answer any technical questions about web hosting

How to Win

As always, I like to make entering my giveaways as easy as possible, so all you have to do enter is:

1. Follow me on Twitter: @tylercruzdotcom
2. Tweet the message: @tylercruzdotcom I’m entering to win a Smallvolution kit at http://www.tylercruz.com/im-giving-away-5-smallvolution-packages/

On June 4th I will be using TweetAways to randomly draw 5 winners who meet the above criteria. Make sure you both follow me and tweet the message above or you will not be eligible.

Please note that I will be sending a private tweet to the winners, telling them to e-mail me with a code that I send in the private tweet. This is to confirm they own their Twitter account and so I can give them the details on how they can receive their Smallvolution kit.

I must hear back from the winners within 3 days from when I send the private tweet or I will draw again for replacement winners. I have this rule in place because I am tired of winners not claiming their prizes.

I currently have 1,128 Twitter followers as I write this. I am curious how much of a boost I will get as a result of this giveaway contest.

Good luck!

Our “weight loss quota” for the competition was that I had to lose 12 pounds and Paul had to lose 13 pounds at the final weigh-in. This worked out to 6% for each of our body weight, in order to make it fair.

With a $600 penalty and a possible $600 reward on the line, both Paul and I were very competitive and took this contest very seriously.

Paul’s Weight Loss Results

Paul posted his final weigh-in report in a detailed report complete with video and charts and graphs. With a starting weight of 212lbs, he ended up weighing in at 197lbs which means that he lost a total of 15lbs during the challenge. That’s 7% of his body weight!

I was surprised that Paul made the challenge as halfway through the challenge he had only lost 1 or 2 pounds, and so I had thought I had the $600 penalty prize in the bag.

But I know how difficult it is to lose weight so since he made the challenge I can only congratulate him.

You can view his before and after photos on his post. You can most definitely see a reduction in his belly based on his side portrait. For only 10 weeks that is actually very impressive.

The main reason I chose Paul to run this competition with is that I knew he would step up to the plate and work hard. Paul, like me, is extremely competitive and goal-oriented. Choosing such a competitive opponent may seem counter-productive to winning $600, but the fact is that it only motivates me to work harder and beat him.

Throughout the challenge we would do a lot of little things to piss each other off. For example, I would often SMS him photos of me running around Westwood Lake or text him about my new time or distance records, and he wouldn’t be shy to gloat in losing 1.4 pounds in a day.

Competition is a very powerful tool to harness if used correctly.

Another New Westwood Lake Time Record!

On May 18th, with only 3 days left in the challenge, I knew I had to really start pushing hard if I was going to make the challenge.

Unfortunately for me, it decided to rain that day. I didn’t want to go in the rain, but my options were to either run in the rain or not run at all, so I didn’t really have a choice.

I started off well, jogging a good portion, and then continued to jog every chance I could throughout the rest of the lake. I still walked the large majority of it, but constantly tried to walk as fast as I could. For about 1.5 KM I even “power walked”, swinging my arms in a goofy fashion (just because I thought the extra motion would help me lose more weight). I think that the cadence of my swinging arms actually helped me stay in a more even rhythm to my music and therefore helped me walk faster.

Despite the weather being so miserable, there was a surprising number of people on the trail. I ended up having to jog past a bunch of them in areas where I normally didn’t jog, which also helped me time.

In the end, I finished in 52:39 which is exactly 1 minute and 30 seconds faster than my previous best time! What an improvement! I was so surprised I finished that well – I knew I was doing well and might set a new record, but not by that much.

When you consider that my best time around Westwood Lake last year was 57:55, finishing in at 52:39 really shows how much faster my time has improved.

Here’s a video of me after my new record:

The Final Weigh-In

Believe it or not, but on May 18th, with only 3 days left in the challenge, I weighed 195 at that point which meant that I had less than 72 hours to lose 6 pounds.

Think about that for a second. Just under 3 days to lose 6 pounds. The rules stated that starving and sweating yourself were out of the question, so I couldn’t just simply not eat.

But I did the the next best thing: starting around dinner time with 2 and a half days left, I decided to go on a very strict fruit, vegetable, and water diet. I wouldn’t even allow myself to eat a salad with dressing – just pure fruits and vegetables.

The only thing I did do was add a bit of extra virgin olive oil and salt when I made roasted Brussels sprouts.

This may sound melodramatic, but by the end of the challenge I felt so incredibly weak and starving. My body was just not used to going on such a low calorie diet, even if only for around 70 hours.

Below are the photos of what I ate during the final stretch of the challenge (multiple the apple slices x 6 or so and the unsweetened applesauce by 3-4):

I actually don’t think it’s healthy or natural for people to only eat fruits and vegetables. But to lose weight for the final stretch, I knew I had to do it.

On the morning of the final day (final weigh-in was 10pm), I weighed in at 190lbs, meaning I had lost 4-5 pounds during the past 48 hours, but still had 1 more pound to go.

I was actually very confident that I would lose that pound just by sitting around and continuing with my diet, but as the clock ticked by and I kept weighing in at 190, I knew I couldn’t take the chance of losing the challenge by only 0.5 – 1 pound. That’d be one bad $600 mistake.

So even though I felt incredibly weak and tired, I forced myself to go out and do Westwood Lake one final time. When I got there, I fully intended to set a new distance record by doing 16KM. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to set a new time record, but could possibly toughen it out to do a new distance record.

Unfortunately, I was just way too weak to do that. I did my usual one lap around (6KM) and had to stop. My time was incredibly slow too, which just shows how weak I really was. Walking (rather slowly I might add) the whole way, I finished in at 1:07:02 – a full 15 minutes slower than my previous time.

But efforts didn’t go unrewarded. Just by casually walking the trail, I lost another 3-4 pounds, weighing in at between 186 and 187. It seems almost impossible to lose 3-4 pounds by only walking 6KM, but that’s what happened so I don’t know what to tell you.

Since the final weigh-in time was 10PM, I still had to wait about 11 hours, which absolutely sucked. Especially since I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before and woke up around 3AM.

After eating, I ended up weighing in at a final 187 lbs!

On March 11th, I weighed 204 pounds, which means that I lost a total of 17 pounds in 10 weeks! That’s over 8 percent of my body weight!

Below is a 5-minute video showing my official final weigh-in, as well as a funny ending:

Here is my official starting (before) photo:

Before…

And my after photo wearing the same clothes 10 weeks later:

After…

What do you think? I personally think there’s hardly any difference between them, haha. But I can see a very slight change. It’s weird though because you’d think that losing 8% of your body weight would have a more visible effect.

I would probably have to lose another 17 pounds to see a very noticeable change. But that’s not going to happen! Because…

It’s time to eat!

I won’t be living off this stuff, but I do need to fulfill my cravings. For those curious, even though I felt like I was starved half to death by the end of the challenge, I only ended up eating the poutine and half a Whopper as that filled me up plenty.

The next day I went out and ate a small pizza at Boston Pizza, and last night after badminton I ate a sub from Subway.

Soon my cravings will be fulfilled and I can get them out of my system, so it’s not like I’ll be eating like this everyday. But for now it’s chow time.

Here’s an update on my Westwood Lake and weight loss charts:

Westwood Lake Time

(Note: Times are for first 6KM only)

Weight Loss Status

While I didn’t end up winning $600 from Paul since he made the challenge as well, I did make $25 in a side bet with Wesley – one of my blog commenters. I would have made another $25 from Lee Ka Hoong but I didn’t go ahead with the bet because I wasn’t so sure I was going to make it at that point.

While I’m positive that I’ll regain a good portion of my lost weight by this time next year, my hope is that I can keep half of it off. Then I can do another weight challenge next year and up the antes once again.

Now that this challenge is over, I have another heads-up challenge between me and Paul brewing. This time it’s strictly “make money online” related and I’m sure all of you will love it. It has nothing to do with affiliate marketing either. Stay tuned, as it will be launched very soon.

I checked the calendar a few minutes ago and discovered that I was actually saying that wrong day in my past post and video titles – it is actually 1 day more, so that’s fixed in this title now.

I’d like to remind you that this competition between Paul Piotrowski and myself is not just any ordinary friendly weight loss challenge. If one of us doesn’t meet and maintain our weight loss quota on May 21st, 2010 at 10PM Pacific Time, we will have to pay the other person $600 out of our own fat pocket.

As a reminder, the competition states that I must lose 12 pounds within 10 weeks and Paul must lose 13 pounds within 10 weeks. This works out to 6% for each of our body weight, in order to make it fair.

As I write this very sentence, there are only 20 days, 5 hours, 53 minutes, 10 seconds left in the challenge, which means that both Paul and I have to really focus and make things happen before it’s too late.

Paul’s Weight Loss Status

Since it has only been 2 days since I last posted an update on this challenge, there isn’t much to report on Paul other than his weight.

As of this morning, Paul has lost a total of 6.2 pounds. That means he lost 2.4 pounds in the last 24 hours! Shit!

I’m pretty sure it’s because he started running at night, whereas before he was only dieting.

With only 20 days left in the challenge, Paul still has to lose 6.8 pounds. That means that Paul needs to lose at least an average of 0.34 pounds every day for the next 20 days straight.

My Weight Loss Status

Weight loss can often be mysterious, surprising you by shedding off weight when you didn’t expect it, and tacking on more weight when you expected the opposite.

Unfortunately for me, the weight loss gods decided upon the latter in my case over the past couple days as I weighed in at 196, a gain of 1 pound. What makes this so surprising to me is that it happened after my very long trek around Westwood Lake yesterday (see below).

It’s very discouraging and is actually starting to give me serious doubts on whether I can make this weight loss challenge in time. It’s certainly not the first time that I’ve regained weight during the challenge, but to not have lost any weight after yesterday is just so disheartening.

I think that I need to focus on my “diet” again… I’m going to try to make sure I eat breakfast everyday again and really try to eat more times per day, Filipino style.

I think I’m doing more than enough exercise-wise, so maybe it’s the eating I need to concentrate on at the moment.

New Distance Record: 15KM! (9.3 Miles)

Yesterday morning I woke up and checked Paul’s weight loss status (as he updates every morning on his blog) and saw that he had lost 6 pounds… that’s a loss of 2.2 pounds in one day!

That really annoyed the hell out of me for some reason… and so even though I didn’t get a good night’s sleep and wasn’t feeling all that energetic, I decided to go out to Westwood Lake for another run.

Unfortunately, it was a miserable day out yesterday, with strong wind and rain which is a bad mix. The lake is situated at the bottom of a heavily forested mountain, and so all the huge trees amplified the wind into strong gusts at certain open points of the trail. In fact, they were so strong in some areas that I felt like I was taking two steps forward and one step back.

However, the majority of the trail was protected by being inside the forest which kept me mostly dry and blocked the wind. But the wind and rain certainly slowed me down.

As a result, I finished the first 6KM in 58:53 which is not a new record for me, but isn’t too bad so I was satisfied with it. But the 6 pound weight loss of Paul kept re-entering my mind and so I decided to continue on to set a new personal distance record.

My previous record was 14KM which I set on the final run of last year’s weight loss challenge, so I wanted to do 15KM.

I actually managed to do the second lap without too much difficulty, and even jogged a couple stretches. However, the final 3KM really started to take their toll on my feet; they felt like cement. My cardio wasn’t hit too hard (mainly because I only jog very small portions of the trail) and my legs were perfect, my feet were just tired of getting stepped on, heh. I also had a growing blister growing with every step on my right heel.

But in the end, I made it! A new distance record! Sure, I walked most of it, but you’d think the distance would still help with weight loss, wouldn’t it?

Starting on my second lap, I started to text message Paul with my distance at every KM mark just to piss him off

Here’s a video of me on my final KM back to my car (which is why I’m walking very slow):

When I got home I actually lost 2 pounds, but regained it back fairly quickly after consuming a lot of liquid.

On the last day of my challenge I think I’m probably going to try for another record, trying to hit the the 16KM mark. The only downside is that the final weigh-in is at 10PM, meaning that I would have eaten dinner and drank a lot of fluids, meaning that the walk may not help at all.

Here’s an update on my charts:

Westwood Lake Time

(Note: Times are for first 6KM only)

Weight Loss Status

I gained a pound during the past 48 hours. I’m not happy about that. But tomorrow is “Sunday” badminton which always gives me an insanely good workout, so I’m optimistic to see tomorrow’s results.

However, I still have to lose 7 more pounds during the next 20 days (and keep it off) or I’m out $625 (I made a side bet of $25 with one of my commenters). So that’s 6.8 more for Paul, and 7 more for me. Things aren’t looking too good for me at the moment…

I’d like to remind you that this competition between Paul Piotrowski and myself is not just any ordinary friendly weight loss challenge. If one of us doesn’t meet and maintain our weight loss quota on May 21st, 2010 at 10PM Pacific Time, we will have to pay the other person $600 out of our own fat pocket.

As a reminder, the competition states that I must lose 12 pounds within 10 weeks and Paul must lose 13 pounds within 10 weeks. This works out to 6% for each of our body weight, in order to make it fair.

As I write this very sentence, there are only 22 days, 23 hours, 7 minutes, and 29 seconds left in the challenge, which means that both Paul and I have to really focus and make things happen before it’s too late.

Paul’s Weight Loss Status

Late yesterday, Paul posted an update on his weight loss.

For the first 35 days of the challenge he basically made minor changes to his diet, and did nothing else. As a result, he basically lost no weight.

During the past 12 days, in order to really kick things up a notch, Paul went on a hardcore diet. I’m actually pretty impressed with how strict his diet was/is – he’s eating a ton of fruit and vegetables and is only drinking water. He also cut out all meat except seafood.

He actually took photos of a bunch of the foods he has been eating over the past 12 days which you can view in more detail on his post.

I personally like how the 5th photo is unlabelled and unidentified. Must have not tasted too good…

Anyhow, as of yesterday morning, Paul has lost a total of 3.8 pounds… so he only lost 0.4 pounds during the past 9 days! However, yesterday he was at –5.4 which was a new weight loss record for him in this challenge so far.

With only 22 days left in the challenge, Paul still has to lose 9.2 pounds. That means that Paul needs to lose at least an average of 0.41 pounds every day for the next 22 days straight. I like my odds

What I’ve Been Doing

As usual, I’ve been sticking with my regular routine of doing my “daily lists”, going to badminton thrice a week, and doing Westwood Lake whenever I can push myself to do so. I’ve also been continuing to avoid unhealthy food such as fast food, pop, etc.

Since my last update, I also increased my daily walk by another minute. Yes, it’s only a minute more, but don’t underestimate incremental increases!

I’m actually considering replacing two of my badminton nights by going around Westwood Lake instead. The badminton club that I go to during those 2 days has really gone downhill during the past year, and I never get a workout when I go there anymore. The Sunday badminton club is still awesome though, kicking my ass every time. I may also try going to a new club on Wednesday nights, as I hear it’s made up of most of the same players of the Sunday night group.

Another New Westwood Lake Record!

Time flies, and I was surprised that I actually hadn’t done Westwood Lake in 8 days. So after eating my Mini-Wheats this morning I went to the lake with Lisa.

I really surprised and even frightened her today because she always beats me by a good margin, and I rarely see her beyond the 1.5KM mark. But for some reason today my body felt really good cardio-wise, and I managed to always keep her in sight all the way to the 4KM mark. At one point around the 2KM mark I even jogged for a stretch and actually felt not too bad… almost good!

However, she disappeared at the 4KM mark and I didn’t see her again until right before the 5KM mark. When she did see me again though, she couldn’t believe it as I had never closed the gap anywhere near that point before. She ended up beating me in the end, but overall I did really well today, walking at a very brisk pace and jogging several stretches.

In the end, I set yet another new personal best time! My last best time was actually during my previous run, making these back-to-back records which is great.

The crazy thing is that I actually had more gas in the tank during the last half a kilometre and could have actually jogged a good portion of it, but instead just walked briskly the rest of the way back. My thinking was that I didn’t want to beat my time by too much as it would only be that much harder to beat it again next time

I ended up finishing in 55:04. That’s over 2 minutes faster than my previous best time!

In fact, during my first time around Westwood Lake this year 5 weeks ago, my time was 1:10:12. Today’s time was over 15 minutes faster! Maybe there is actually something to this whole fitness thing after all…

I had enough energy to go around a second time, but as a reward for setting a new record I let myself relax instead.

Here’s an update on my charts:

Westwood Lake Time

(Note: Times are for first 6KM only)

Weight Loss Status

I only lost 1 pound during the past 9 days which isn’t the best, but it is progress so I’m satisfied with it. It also means that I have lost 9 pounds during the past 5 weeks which isn’t too shabby if I say so myself.

However, I still have to lose 6 more pounds during the next 22 days (and keep it off) or I’m out $600. So that’s 9.2 more for Paul, and 6 more for me. Let’s hope Paul doesn’t make it so that he has to pay me $600!

There is more than just public humiliation on the line in this competition. If one of us doesn’t lose our weight quota on May 21st, 2010 at 10PM Pacific Time, we will have to pay the other person $600 out of our own fat pocket.

As a reminder, the competition states that I must lose 12 pounds within 10 weeks and Paul must lose 13 pounds within 10 weeks. This works out to 6% for each of our body weight, in order to make it fair.

The halfway mark has already come and gone, and there’s just over 31 days left in the challenge, which means that both Paul and I really need to kick things up a notch.

Paul’s Weight Loss Status

When I last posted Paul’s weight, on April 5th, he had lost 3.4 pounds.

On April 12th, Paul went to an ooga booga witch doctor (think Cosmo Kramer’s “holistic healer” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHxRkXrBMKo) to get his Live Blood Analysis Results. After being “scared straight”, Paul decided to really change his diet, which he started on April 15th.

He is not revealing what his diet changes are yet, but has told me that it’s a fairly dramatic change. Paul was eating out like a maniac… picking up KFC, Taco Bell, McDonalds, or something else about once a day on average. And I thought I was bad!

This actually annoys me a bit, because I think that since Paul was eating out so often before, that all Paul needs to do is simply stop eating out and drinking pop and juice, and the weight should shed right off him… he wouldn’t need to even do any exercise or anything.

It’s frustrating because I’m killing myself with both exercise and diet, and it would seem that he only needs to do avoid all the fast food.

Anyhow, as of this morning, Paul has lost a total of 3.4 pounds… so no change during the past 15 days! However, yesterday he was at –4.2, so I definitely need to keep an eye on him.

With 31 days left in the challenge, Paul still has to lose 9.6 pounds. That means that Paul needs to lose about an average of a third of a pound every day for the next 31 days straight. Can you do it Paul?

What I’ve Been Doing

I’ve been sticking with my regular routine, doing my “daily lists”, going to badminton thrice a week, and doing Westwood Lake whenever I can push myself to do it. I’m also continuing to avoid unhealthy food such as fast food, pop, etc.

Since my last update, I also increased my daily crunches by 1, and my daily walk by a minute. And a couple days ago, I also increased my daily fruit/veggies quota by 1 as well, which is actually a major change for me. This sounds ludicrous as it sounds like such a small change, but it could actually be a game changer. This is part of my “daily list” so it’s something I must do everyday no matter what, which is why I take such changes very seriously.

Eating even 1 more serving of fruit or vegetables per day will “replace” unhealthier and higher calorie foods, which will slowly help in weight loss over time.

New Westwood Lake Record!

On Saturday, I went around Westwood Lake with my friend Den for the first time. I normally go around with Lisa or by myself, but Den told me he needs to lose some weight too and get into better shape, so we finally arranged to go.

We walked briskly for the large majority of the trail, as it takes my body so long to recover after the first hill, and then did a couple jogging stretches at around the 5KM mark. The closer we got to the end, the more we did little jogs to try to speed things up as I knew that we were on pace for there to be potential to set a new record.

We ran for a bit near the final stretch of the trail before it hits the open area which is the start of the park/beach, and then shortly after where the beach begins we ran hard and non-stop for the rest of the way to my car which is the finish line. It was insanely tiring doing that last run, especially since I have a mitral valve prolapse and shouldn’t be running in the first place.

But all our hard work paid off, as I set a new personal best time! My last best time was set during last year’s blogging weight loss challenge, on June 12, 2009.

The unfortunate thing is that after my hard run to my car, I somehow didn’t press the stop button on my Blackberry stopwatch, even though I thought I did. But I had been watching it during the final run as I always do, in order to know if I would beat my record or not, so I knew for certain that I had set a new record. The only question was what was the exact time.

Being conservative, I would estimate that it took me around 15 seconds from the time I touched my car’s bumper at the finish line, to where I got into the car and started filming. The video shows that I stopped the stopwatch at 35 seconds into the video, which then showed a time of 58:12.

So with 35 seconds of video plus 15 seconds of getting into the car, I’m determining my official time to be 57:22. Man, it feels so good to beat your best time…

That’s over a half-minute improvement over my previous best time.

I wanted to go around a second time, but Den was beat. When I go around the second time, I just walk casually the whole way and don’t go for speed, but he still seemed too beat. It’s too bad, as I haven’t gone around twice yet this year, but he promised that next time we go he’ll go at least twice with me.

Here’s an update on my charts:

Westwood Lake Time

(Note: Times are for first 6KM only)

Weight Loss Status

I lost 8 pounds during the past 5 weeks! Not bad!

However, I still have to lose 7 more pounds during the next 31 days (and keep it off) or I’m out $600. So that’s 9.6 more for Paul, and 7 more for me. Let’s hope Paul doesn’t make it so that he has to pay me $600!

First thing I’m buying with those $600? Big plate of ribs.

Apart from just humiliation on the line, if one of us doesn’t lose our weight quota on May 21st, 2010 at 10PM Pacific Time, we will have to pay the other $600 out of our own fat pocket.

As a reminder, I must lose 12 pounds within 10 weeks and Paul must lose 13 pounds within 10 weeks. This works out to 6% of our body weight, in order to make it fair.

I have to tell you – that $600 penalty is really making me not want to lose. I’m actually more motivated to “not lose” rather than “to win”… I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but it’s certainly very motivating.

Weight Loss Updates

I just texted Paul to ask him his weight as he is not answering me on MSN and hasn’t updated his blog with his current weight in several days. He responded saying he isn’t at home to weight himself right this moment, but estimates to have lost 3 pounds so far.

On April 1st, he lost 3.4 pounds so he seems to be hovering (well, fat people don’t exactly hover…) around the 3-4 pound mark.

I just got back from badminton and weighed myself and am down 2 pounds off my official starting weight. However, if you read my last update, you’ll know that my actual starting weight was really 203 so I actually lost 5 pounds so far. But I posted 201 as my official starting weight so I have to honor that.

That means that Paul and I each have to lose 10 pounds (and keep it off) within 46 days. It sounds easy, but I envy those of you who find losing 10 pounds in a month-and-a-half easy.

What I’ve Been Doing

I’ve been sticking with my regular routine (as described in my last update), except I’ve added another day of badminton to my weekly schedule and am now going to a different badminton club on Sunday’s.

This new club has players that are much better than the players at my other club, and so they tire the hell out of me. I sweat so much when I play on Sunday’s that sweat is literally dropping off my face and messing up the floor. I actually just got back from badminton an hour ago, and lost a pound as a result, and that’s with drinking 3 cups of water!

While adding this new source of badminton is a good addition to my weight loss, the bad news is that I haven’t been going to Westwood Lake very much at all. In fact, I only went twice during the last 18 days! Last year during my weight loss challenge I was going nearly every second day!

I admit that part of it is laziness, but it’s also been raining here a lot lately and I am often too tired to go with all my badminton nights and house viewings (where I have to clean like a madman beforehand). I hope to go again more though once the weather improves. I started my weight loss challenge a month later last year, which is why I never had many bad weather days then.

Since my last update, I also increased my daily crunches by 1, and my daily walk by a minute. Laughable, I know, but it adds up over time.

Here’s an update on my charts:

Westwood Lake Time

(Note: Times are for first 6KM only)

Weight Loss Status

I only have 46 days left to lose 10 more pounds or I’m out $600. Wish me luck – I’m going to need it.