Today marked the end of “Thin It to Win It,” the weight loss competition we’ve been having at work. I won! I lost 41.5 lbs over 18 weeks, which was a 21.2% change in my body weight.

I was already trying to lose weight, but the competition made me work for it harder. Here you can see the my weight change since I started tracking. I marked the start of the competition. My weight definitely started dropping faster!

The second half to the competition was body fat. It was based on percent change in percent body fat. I had a 32.9% change in percent body fat, but I came in third actually. My friend Mario beat me at 36.4% change in percent body fat, but the winner had a 49.6% change in percent body fat! I’m not sure how accurate the device is, but as long as it’s wrong for everyone equally, I guess it’s okay. For the people who knew their body fat percentages, it seemed higher than it should be. Again, consistency was what matters.

All in all, I went from 195.5 lbs at the start of the competition to 154 lbs today! I needed to be 163 lbs to be in my normal BMI range, so I’m securely in that range now.

I feel like I didn’t change that much. I was still full, and I still ate a piece of candy almost every night. I think the big difference was that I made sure to stop eating unhealthy things that I didn’t even enjoy, and I ate more fruits and vegetables. I also proved that I wouldn’t need to go to a gym. That’d be boring and too much work. I jogged in my neighborhood and exercised in my room. I purchased one dumbbell.

I thought about celebrating by going and eating something terrible, but there really isn’t anything I cut out of my diet that I want to start eating again. Tonight I’m going out for sushi, something that I ate regularly on my diet (and before). However, I think I might have some sake, which I wouldn’t have had on the diet. Also, pancakes this weekend!