The H20Audio XTERRA Chubsmas Challenge Week 3 Weigh In: Powered by fat!

Each year as the holiday season seems to become more and more commercialized, the warnings about the mass consumption of consumer goods seem to grow louder and louder, with most of us growing increasingly deaf to them. I know the economy is in the dumps, and so it honestly gave me a clear conscience to spend as I felt like for this holiday season. Knowing I was helping a sagging economy as one of the lucky ones who is gainfully employed made me feel good for reasons other than the traditional giving of gifts to love ones.

Where I should have headed the warnings was in regards to physical consumption. Between 2 work holiday parties, dinner out a couple nights, and the dozens of cookies my wife baked, I was hopelessly sunk this week by the lack of willpower against the food around me. I did more than my fair share of working out, and I even got in some pretty hard workouts.

Chuck ran into very similar problems, and had the added difficulty of dealing with an all-you-can-eat night at the hockey game last night. They have the best food at those games, including unbelievable Skyline Chili cheese dogs. Sooo yummy. I'd have walked out of there up at least 5 pounds, so I'd say Chuck deserves a medal for his performance against such overwhelming odds.

Anyways, here's this weeks less than spectacular tally.

Ben: 316.5 + 1.5 = 318
Chuck: 251 + 3 = 254

Total lost:

Ben = 3.5
Chuck = 1

We've now got just a week and a half to go. And with Christmas and New Years Eve in the mix, it's crunch time. Even worse, I have a new wrinkle on my end. My memory problems have been getting worse so the plan is for me to take a few days off from serious workouts in order to see if the symptoms get better in response to the rest. It's potentially post-concussion syndrome as a result of the header I took during the Landmine Classic.

So while I'm taking it easy, with little more than some walking to burn fat, Chuck will be headed south to spend time with his family where the gravy flows, but walking the dogs is as much a part of the holiday as the mistletoe is.

Notes:

- The memory symptoms have been bad enough that I've also scheduled an MRI to be safe. Talk about nervous, my memory is a huge part of my job, and while my work hasn't been suffering yet, I've really had to work hard to overcome the holes in my recall in order to keep things moving.

- While I talked about the food as a big part of the struggles this week, I think we all know the real problem: Lack of a new sponsor for the week 3 weigh in. Remember, company representatives, we have week 4 and the finale weigh in left. Wouldn't your company benefit greatly from sponsoring a weight loss competition between to late 30's fat computer folks on a blog that has almost as many readers as your local NPR station has listeners?