So back in January, Alli and I started Weight Watchers Online. I’ve never been very good about watching what I eat, so being forced to enter my points every day was something I had to get used to at first.

But the progress I saw initially was pretty great. I lost my first 10 pounds in 4 weeks and felt better. Alli said I almost immediately stopped snoring, which made me feel even better.

Over the year, I’ve lost an additional 25 pounds, prompting me to get a tattoo as a reward.

Since I got over the first 30 pounds I wanted to lose, I have kind of floundered. I haven’t put all the weight back on, but I haven’t been losing anymore. It’s easy to identify why…I’ve stopped tracking my points, being less diligent about watching what I eat.

That hasn’t caused me to balloon up to my original weight, but I haven’t gotten past my initial 35 pounds, which is frustrating.

My last weigh-in, though, a small miracle. I lost 2 pounds and I finally feel like I’m back on track. This has been a challenging weekend since it’s Alli’s birthday today, but my hope is that I can make up any ground I might lose this weekend during the week.

We’ll see. My weight has been a battle for much of my life. I love food and I particularly love nights like Saturday night that are spent around a dinner table with people that you love, talking, eating and enjoying each other’s company. Honestly, if I gain any weight this week because of that, I won’t be mad.

Still, I’m hoping for more progress and less plateaus.

Part of the deal with buying the cow was that by not eating the red meat, I intended to lower my cholesterol. By combining the lack of red meat with my daily oatmeal, I hoped that by altering my diet, I could bring down my HDL level.

Well, that didn’t work. So my doctor put me on a statin (yay Zocor!) and told me to take it for 2 months and then get tested again. My cholesterol wasn’t totally off the charts, but it was 203 with only about 1/5 of that being good cholesterol. I took the medicine for two months, but then forgot to schedule my follow-up appointment. The doctor gave me another 2 months of medicine and I got my appointment scheduled, complete with the 12-hour fast beforehand.

I got my results back after a few days to some fascinating news: my cholesterol had dropped 60 points.

You read that right: 60 POINTS.

Apparently the statin did what not eating red meat and having oatmeal everyday could not. All 60 points that I shaved off my cholesterol were of the HDL persuasion. Awesome.

After meeting Tyson (who comments as Ty on this here web space), I found him to be much more approachable as a person, especially considering that he and I soon bonded over subjects like nerdery and technology.

He never really pushed his fitness on me, but I found him the kind of person who makes you want to be a little more active. Several months later, I’m totally happy for my sis-in-law because she’s got a great guy. It’s really great that they’ve found each other.

A few months back, Tyson launched StartBeingFit.com, a website devoted to fitness and health, built to help connect folks interested in those subjects with information and resources that they need. Even more cool is that he built the site himself using the very capable web application framework, Joomla.

If you are a person interested in fitness or even in just learning more about fitness and some tools, articles and other resources, go check it out.

In related news, Tyson is trying to encourage me to do the Chicago Urbanathlon with him – a 10-mile trek around the city of Chicago over obstacles and up stairs in Soldier Field and more. There’s a 12-week training program that I’ll have to start pronto in order to do it and I’m considering it because WHY NOT. Like I shouldn’t have a reason to get more fit. Still, if I stop posting entirely sometime around October, it’s likely because I HAVE BEEN CONSUMED BY THE URBANATHLON.

For those who are new to the game, in January, I challenged my blog readers to raise $500 to buy a dairy cow from Heifer International. The catch was that if the money was all raised by the end of the month that I would swear off all red meat until Memorial Day.

It’s the home stretch. I should have made my boycott until Memorial Day weekend so I could eat it tomorrow, but it’ll be like my last big challenge. And it will be a big challenge because we have a huge weekend planned.

More on that in a bit…

So I thought.

Today, after my physical and subsequent lab testing I found that 4 months of eating no red meat actually managed to INCREASE my cholesterol by 6 points, bringing it over that dreaded 200 mark and bringing my doctor to prescribe Lipitor, made famous by the creepy Jarvik artificial heart guy.

I’m not thrilled about the news in the least.

After 4 full months of not eating red meat, I was expecting my doctor to say, “You’re doing great. Your cholesterol is no longer a problem.”

Not so much.

After talking it out with Alli, I’m pretty sure I know why this is: I lead a sedentary lifestyle. My life consists of getting up, showering, driving a half-hour to work, sitting at a desk all day, driving a half-hour home, and sitting all night. Occasionally (when it’s nice out), I’ll take the dog for a walk, but that’s not happening nearly enough.

In talking with my doctor, I found that I need to lose about 55 pounds to get into the “normal” range for my BMI. I’m a tall, big guy, but 55 pounds is still a lot of weight. It’s daunting, for sure. But now I know that diet alone is not going to cure my health problems. (Let it be stated that I consider myself in “okay” shape. I couldn’t run a marathon or anything, but I grew up an athlete, so the muscles are still there.)

Whatever my circumstances, something has to change. Maybe this latest bit of news will be the kick in the pants I need to work harder.

This may have been a bit over-zealous, but I’ve stuck with it for the last 106 days. 42 days left.

I’m excited because next week, I’m going to the doctor for a physical and I’m planning on getting my cholesterol checked. Prior to the Red Meat Experiment, I had received a note from my doctor that my cholesterol was too high and I needed to keep an eye on it. For the past several months, we’ve been diligent about eating food that should help with my cholesterol, specifically eating natural steel cut oats for breakfast.

With the decrease in red meat as well as other changes I’ve made, I’m looking forward to seeing the progress I’ve made. And while my weight hasn’t necessarily decreased, I am confident that my cholesterol has.

Thanks again to those of you who helped make it happen. My cholesterol thanks you, my heart thanks you, and my wife thanks you for helping me cut down my red meat intake.

So there you go. I’m not sure if I’ll receive anymore than that, but hopefully, I’ll get a picture of the cow later. But I doubt it.

Payment Method: CREDIT

The following summarizes your order:

Total: $500.00
ID: 75592991

Thanks again to all of you that donated. You guys are awesome. It’s only 3 1/2 long months until I can eat red meat again. Man, this is going to suck.

Rather, WE did it.

The idea originally came from a fast that Alli and I have been doing. Where the idea came from doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that – thanks to a last-minute donation by Alli Arnold Art – as of midnight last night, I have the money needed to purchase a dairy cow from Heifer International.

I’ve bent the rules a little to allow for some mailed donations to come in, but I know they are coming so we’ll just consider them donated.

I’m so excited that I accomplished my goal. HOWEVER, since I achieved the goal by midnight on January 31, I’m going to give up red meat until Memorial Day.

This is going to suck.

Then again, yesterday Brian D directed me to this article in the New York Times, which gives examples of how meat consumption is similar to that of the excessive SUV driving that we do in the United States. Consider this:

an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation. [This figure led a University of Chicago professor of geophysics to calculate] that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius.

Not only that, but since most cattle are “grown” rather than “raised” (the distinction being that normal cattle graze on grass and industrial cattle are fed grain, which is far more abundant than grass and since cattle aren’t built to digest grain), they have health problems and have to be given antibiotics to stay alive. That’s one thing that I like about Chipotle — their Food with Integrity program which means that they buy only meat that has been raised humanely without antibiotics.

I love red meat. I love cheeseburgers and steaks. But if this means that I’ll be reducing my consumption by 20 percent for the year, so be it.

There are a lot of people who helped me get to the $500 goal:

• Chimpotle was the first one to jump on board and donate.
• My family came through and donated over $200
• KC Bloggers Average Jane, KC Sponge and Meesha all donated.
• Thanks to my friends Laura and Brian D for donating
• Thanks to Tony for mentioning me on 980 and his blog
• Thanks to Alli for all the support and the last-minute donation to get me to my goal

I’ll be purchasing the cow later today and I’ll keep you updated. I will be happy to be out of fund-raising mode and return back to regularly scheduled discussions like last night’s Lost episode and some other randomness.