I ate and drank my way across France and Belgium last month on a holiday with my sweetie. In the south of France, surrounded by vineyards, I did my best to taste more than my share of France’s biggest export. I waddled onto the plane. The picture is me and my family at The Vimy Ridge Memorial in the North of France. Note the wine belly.
I came back and tried to figure out how I was going to lose that 40 extra pounds that had found me over the last couple of years. I’ve tried a lot of diets. I’ve just finished the 8 Hour Diet (only eat in an 8 hour window), the Virgin Diet (eliminate wheat, dairy, sugar, peanuts, soy, eggs, artificial sweeteners, and corn), and The Fast Metabolism Diet where you eat gentle carbs and no fat for 2 days, meat and fat for 2 days and both for 3 every week). Not really new information, but a lot of it made sense. What they didn’t talk about was the motivation and structure for losing the weight.
Then I picked up The Game on Diet by Krista Vernoff (The Emmy nominated head writer for Grey’s Anatomy) and Az Ferguson (an Australian buff personal trainer). The story goes that when Krista couldn’t lose the weight by conventional means, Ferguson designed a game to keep her motivated. The duo set up two teams and pitted them against each other with a prize at the end after 4 weeks of following the game. You had to support your teammates daily and were allowed to trash talk your opponents. Points were pooled. But the results weren’t based on weight loss. They were tabulated around points for healthy eating habits. That means nobody got to know your starting weight.
My new body Image and Sexuality women’s group is going to start this challenge. We are cool, we are motivated and we are in need of opponents. I you think your butt is too jiggly too, and are serious about losing some weight then I want to hear from you. I’m setting up the game and really want to make this work. This is not just a diet game, it’s a better life game, a goal-meeting game, a health-improving game – it’s whatever kind of game you need it to be.
So… if you have weight you want to lose, are able to commit to communicating with your teammates, and be honest about your points, and have fun while getting skinny then email me now at suem@rogers.com. *
If you have any of the below things (as listed by Krista Vernoff) going on with you then I WANT TO KICK YOUR BUTT, all the while making myself skinnier.
*You want to tone up.
* You want to change any aspect of your life.
* You want to improve your self esteem.
* You want to have more fun.
* You want to build community.
* You want to stop feeling like a victim and start knowing that you have the power to change.
* You want more motivation to exercise.
* You want more motivation to eat healthy whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
* You’ve become complacent.
* You want to improve your sex life.
* You’ve fallen out of love with your backfat.
A fantasy about Patrick Dempsey is the closest you’ve come to a social life in the last few months.
You’re sick of the ho hum every day and you’d like to shake things up with something slightly healthier than a torrid affair.
You’re having a torrid affair and you think your ass looks fat in bed. Okay, I’m getting silly now but you know and I know that there are a thousand good reasons to play. Pick one. Or make your own list of a dozen.
