The Results Are In

Myself and Finlandia both lost the bet last night. I know it seems impossible that in a two horse race both horses can lose, but we managed it. In a nutshell, in case you’re not familiar with the situation, here’s what happened.

Three weeks ago, we all had our skinfolds done. Stephen was 2 weeks out from his fight and in camp, and I had done maybe 5 sessions in the last month. To Stephen’s great dismay, he was exactly as fat as me, at 119mm or in and around 16%. I laughed. Then I laughed some more. After that, I just chuckled for a good ten minutes. That fed directly into some grinning and then once I was done with all the external expressions of mirth (I was still giggling on the inside), we came up with a challenge.

The loser would do 15 rounds of pro MMA, one after the other, on Tuesday 22nd of December. Now I will be the first to admit that this was perhaps not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. I’ll also admit that it was a Saturday before training, and we were perhaps a little bit fueled by our hormones, and there may have been some one-upmanship going as we decided the criteria for the bet. The final decision was that we would have 3 weeks to lose as much off our skinfolds as possible. The loser is the man who lost the least. A week or so later, we added in a caveat that if were both to not lose anything, or were even to gain bodyfat, then we would both lose, and both do the challenge.

I think that was the only smart thing I included.

Last night we measured up, site by site, again. As the numbers came in, something began to dawn on us. Not only were we neck and neck, we were fatter than we had been on the day of the test. We both came in at 122mm. Now you’re sitting reading this, and you’re thinking “hold on, this guy WORKS IN A GYM”, but please also note that Finlandia was training for a fight. So if you’re going to think I’m pathetic, please also include him in your scorn. I’d guesstimate that the normal distribution for the test is probably in and around 5%, so basically, nothing has changed. We are both exactly as fat as we were when we started.

So, how did I do this remarkable lack of transformation? How did I manage to not lose any fat at all in the three weeks since the bet? Indeed, how did Finlan manage to do the same? Let me share with you my top tips for no fat loss whatsoever.

1. Eat a lot. If you don’t eat, and eat badly, you’ll lose weight. Some of this weight will be fat. You have been warned.

2. Do no training. Take the car as much as possible, and park in the wheelchair spaces, they’re closer to where you want to go.

3. If you do have to train, like say if you’re an MMA coach or fighter, make sure you stuff your cake hole immediately afterwards, and for some hours after that.

4. Feeling hungry? Paté is your friend. So is cheese. My favourite way to eat cheese is to garnish it with beef and sauces and place it between two buns. You can do this with any type of cheese.

5. Feeling thirsty? Water will fill you up, so avoid it and switch to a sugary beverage. My preference for this is milk, shook, and added to ice cream.

6. Still feeling thristy? It’s the run up to Christmas, so time to enjoy beverages of another sort with friends, clubmates, family and anyone who’s buying.

This was actually a remarkable feat- to stay exactly the same. Why? Because I upped my training, and upped my eating and drinking as per the festive season. Apparently I upped both to exactly the same degree. Finlan I feel sorry for. If we did this a week ago when he climbed out of the ring, he would have hammered me. Lucikly, he decided that he was on a break from training once he’d fought and kept the pizza man on speed dial. Good man Stephen.

In the new year we’re doing a genuine fat-off with no Christmas season, no post-fight partying and no added sugar. Let’s see what happens when we take it seriously this time. Before that however, there’s the small matter of a forfeit to take care of.