BIGGEST LOSER 2 -- WEEK 9

This week’s winner was Steve Johnson, and I’m sure he’d say “Finally!” As you know, Steve won last year’s contest by losing 44 lbs. Then he took off another 20 pounds over the past 8 months. His goal this time was to use the contest to take off another 40 pounds.

The first seven weeks, this time around, he’d always had good results, but never quite enough to win. Even so, his numbers were always good enough to keep him on top for total weight loss. Then, last week, the holidays caught up with him and he put on a couple pounds.

You’d of thought his favorite dog had died. For the next few days he was moping around, trying to figure out what happened. Finally, he realized he’d had a few days off from a fairly physical job, and he had the Thanksgiving meal still with him during the last weigh-in.

He redoubled his efforts in the gym, got back to his eating plan, and it paid off this week, to the tune of 7.8 pounds. He’s not the only one who turned it up.

Tony was second this week with a loss of 5.4 pounds. Remember, he’d had a bad week a couple weeks ago, and realized he wasn’t hitting it hard enough in the gym. Now he’s doing more, and it shows.

You see what it takes? All of us have bad weeks. We’re all going to fall down at some point. But what do you do when it doesn’t go your way? That’s when the rubber meets the road. Do you get back up and hit it harder, like Steve and Tony? Or do you just figure that’s the way it is, and the way it’s always going to be?

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when it’s wise to back off a little bit. But there are times when you just need to step up and see what you’re made of. And you know what? It’s not the destination that you’ll remember—although it’s pretty nice when you get there. It’s the journey along the way that you’ll remember.

It’s the people you did it with, and the hard times—especially the hard times. It’s the times you wanted to quit, but didn’t, and how you felt proud of yourself, maybe for the first time. When’s the last time you felt that way?

My son got married some years ago, but it’s not the wedding that we still talk about. It was the trip out west, and all the things that went wrong. Like the train that got cancelled in Chicago. The rental car that was way too small. My daughter’s baby crying all the way. The relief when it was finally over. But we were together.

Now we look back and can laugh about it. I think that most of these Biggest Losers will look back on these 12 weeks and realize that their lives have changed. They embarked on a new journey. What are you going to be able to look back on? What memories are you making?