The Fomerly Fat White Guy Project…UPDATE!

// May 11th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Uncategorized

Here is the update on the “contestants” as we are now 2 weeks into the competition:

Remember what is at stake here: UConn Tickets, T-shirts, Ownership of this blog, personal pride, self respect (or lack there of).

Fat Pickle Fatty:

How did I get to be such a fat ass? Hard work, that’s how! A commitment to bad food choices, 50 beers a week, and little to no exercise. The “perfect storm” of fatness. I’m 6 feet tall and currently weigh 203.5 lbs. My “playing weight” is 180-ish. So I could stand to lose 20. And truth is I’m ready to. And I love a contest/bet/challenge.

Tex:

Walk on Boy:
Tony:
Put down that beer…what is that? Schlitz? For shame, for shame.

Fat Pat:
The two weeks have been kind to Fat Pat—careful not to be distracted by his beautiful mane of sparsely distributed chest hair.FWG:
I was told that it’s not fair if I do not have a personal stake in this competition. So here you have it, my “before” picture(s).

Final Thoughts (yes, it HAS been a while since I’ve had any):

Thinking of doing the “Ten Commandments of Blogging”:
“Thou shall not blog on the Sabbath, lest he receiveth a brandy glass full of brown M&Ms, with an orientation of north by northwest”

I am so out of touch with American movies, but having visited Movies.com today, I am willing to bet that “The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” is not exactly “Oscar worthy.” The smart money is on “Hotel For Dogs”

Yesterday my teammate Ryan was told by an Austrian club-goer that he always enjoyed it when “Germans tried to speak English—stick to German, you’re English is terrible.” Ryan is neither German, nor does he speak a lick of it. That being said, his English is pretty poor.

Meet The Fatties

// April 22nd, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Uncategorized

The Formerly Fat White Guy Project is OFFICIALLY underway.

So after sifting through hundreds, if not thousands of emails. I have found my chosen few.

Meet The Fat Guys:

Pat: He’s Fat

Meet Fat Pat. Pat is fat. Watch Pat eat. Watch Pat walk. Pat walks slow.

Fat Pat hails from the state of Massachusetts. Another former football player, resigned to a life of mediocrity, stuck in a cubicle 8 hours a day. Pat now passes the day eating his feelings.

That’s Mr. Walk-on-Boy, to you

This next picture comes to us all the way from Sweden (by way of Minnesota). His name is also Pat, aka Walk-on-Boy, who tells us that “playing European football, coupled with mid-week drinking-sans social stigma” has left him in need to drop a few LB’s. This picture, which he took solely for this contest is like a car accident, I need to keep driving, but I..can’t…look…away.

The Local Flavor: Meet Martin

Martin is the biggest man in Austria. Literally. Here’s his story (in his words):

After 17 years of almost no sports 2 classmates of mine returned from their high school exchange year in the US with 2 footballs in their luggage. Not knowing any rules we decided to play football instead of the regular sports classes. Then I met a guy at some party who mentioned that he played football in Vienna.

Thursday after the party I joined the first practice.

So a 12 year O-line career began.

The problem is this was 1988. While weighing in at around 120kg (265lbs) as a player—eating the same and not playing has gotten me to 180 kg (296lbs). BRING ON THE CHALLENGE!

The Underachiever: Meet Tony

A lot of people go to school for 9 years, we call them doctors. But in this case, we’ll call him “Tony.” Tony sent me an email telling me that he was basically a chronic underachiever and in keeping with that theme would only be trying for second place, meaning he’d get to take over the blog for a day, score a free t-shirt, and go back to his life of mediocrity. I like his commitment (or lack thereof?). Anyway, Tony weights in a clean 310lbs.

Bonus Points: Tony has a website: Tobacco Juice Sports (heavy on the Skoal, light on the boring).

Football Fatty: Meet Morgan.

Insert Guten Morgen pun here. Morgan, another former football player making his way in the exciting world of medical device sales, has had a few problems with his weight. He’s on the right track, and he’s nearly my cousin so I had to put him in (ahhh nepotism at its finest).

And then there was Tex…

“ I don’t remember where Tex was from”-Forest Gump (see what I just did there.)

I told you skinny-fat counted.

“Ryan” who will hence forth be referred to as TEX comes to us from the state where everything is bigger, including his waist line. In his words, “Fried chicken, bacon cheeseburgers, twinkies, and excessive amounts of candy are among my weekly consumptions that contribute to my physique. Also, my fat hood includes a great deal of sloth which is also another reason I should be a candidate.” Oh Tex, you had me at fried chicken.

Meet Kevin Weiss

// April 17th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

With The Formerly Fat White Guy Project underway (registration closes on Saturday), it’s time for you to meet the man helping with all this. Football in Austria is a little short on strength and conditioning coaches and nutritionists. Kevin Weiss has agreed to help the FWG achieve his goals.
Kevin is a native of Alberta, Canada and a competitive natural body builder. His life has stretched the spectrum of strength and conditioning, from power lifting (personal bests of 567lbs. in the squat, 463lbs. in the bench press, and 573lbs. in the deadlift, at a bodyweight of 196 lbs.) to natural body building (where he has won at the provincial, national, and international levels), his years of experience and training make him invaluable. In this day and age of performance enhancing drugs, Kevin has been a lifelong natural bodybuilder.
He has signed on to this project with the hopes of turning my football physique into something more palatable for the general public.

Kevin is also offering his services to all FWG readers at a discount. His services are unmatched in quality–and as I have already learned–he will hold you to the highest standard of excellence.
Get in touch with him.

What If Things Turned Out Differently?

// April 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Walkon Boy: Being Fat–A Lifetime Membership

// April 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Meet “Walkon-Boy“–his name is Patrick, he was a walk on at Minnesota, and much like me hasn’t given up the dream of playing football. While I toil in Austria, Pat is in Sweden–doing whatever it is Swedes do best (which by my account is Dip SNUZ and play hockey). Anyway–since The Formerly Fat White Guy Project is OFFICIALLY UNDERWAY, Pat wrote something for all the nay-sayers out there, who want me to to stay fat. I’d also suggest, checking out his blog, it’s hilarious. Anway, Enjoy:

There was a bit of backlash when FWG mentioned chronicling his weight loss efforts. Some people were disheartened that the self-appointed Fat White Guy would be dropping the fat from his body. Rob asked me to write a piece explaining the ‘lifetime membership’ concept of the Fat club {if he goes reverse Michael Jackson and has a sex change operation - then we may have some problems.}As a former fat white guy, and current chubby white guy, I am here to say that once you have learned the true ways of fatness there is no way to unlearn them. Essentially, you have a lifetime membership in the corpulent fraternity for which there can be no double secret probation {And your parents don’t even need to be rich to buy your friends!}.

Here are my fat white guy qualifications:

- I entered college at 217 lbs and left in the 280-ish category. This was achieved by cramming 4-5 meals in my mouth every day. It sounds fun, and it is for about two weeks. After that, the constant attention is almost as draining as {what I imagine} trying to lose weight is. Also, living with four offensive lineman helped the cause, there was always food in the house. Or someone making a food run.

- My nickname was ‘Fatty Paddy’ the second half of my college career.

- And to prove that fatness is a lifetime trait that you can’t unlearn, I put down a triple burger with over a pound of meat on it last weekend without too much of a hassle. The next day the burger brought a bit of discomfort, but so it goes.

Being a fat guy is a bit like learning martial arts, training and mental toughness allow one to progress up something like the belt system. {I am not aware of one, but that may be the next quest - to codify a ranking system of fat proficiency.} And even though you may stop training in El Gordo Dojo, you will always have the lessons learned to help you along the way.

Here are some of the lessons learned {Most of it can be summed up in the eloquent Bar Darwinism post}:

- Being interesting: Skill or glamour postion players in life feel like people will automatically defer to them, and most of the time that is the case. However, fatties need to be either entertaining or intelligent to garner attention. Hell, some of the time just by being fat is interesting enough.

- Humor: Fat people are funny. It’s science. Part of it may be by beating people to the punch making fun of oneself then people allow more leeway when fat people poke fun at others. Self-deprecation as a means of protection. Offensive lineman are typically the funniest guys on a football team. At Minnesota, before games they had joke time in the locker room before they went out to warm up.

- Thick Skin: The world is a cruel and unfair place. Fat guys realize that a lot sooner than most, and therefore are usually much better at dealing with it, being persistent and turning negatives into positives.

The positives of fatness are many, but people you love want you to stick around for a while, and if losing weight helps you do that, it’s something that can’t be all that bad. FWG, and anyone else who wants to lose weight will always be fat at heart and they’ll carry their fat skills for the rest of their life. When I dropped about twenty pounds basically by not working out as hard and eating a more realistic amount of food, my joints felt better, I had more energy - and my grandma {Who is the sweetest lady in the world and who’s most vicious taunt in card games is : ‘That’s niiiice.’} even added some lard-ass levity by saying, “But Patrick, you were so… biiiiiiiig.”

You can take the fat off a white guy, but there will aways be a little fat left in the white guy.

Visit more of Pat at:
click.

The Formerly Fat White Guy

// April 13th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

A while back in “Final Thoughts” I floated the idea of losing some weight. Well after some e-mails contacts, and discussions with my arteries, I have decided to launch The Formerly Fat White Guy Project. I have enlisted the help of the very best in the business of weight loss, Kevin Weiss (a natural body builder–from Canada–but we’ll forgive him for that). But The Project is not just about me (how boring would that be?). Instead I am asking you (that’s right–you) the reader to participate:

First prize: 2 FWG T-shirts (of your choosing)
and TWO (2) FREE tickets to a UConn Football game (home or away)
Second Prize: 2 FWG T-shirts–and ownership of the blog for a day
Third Prize: 1 FWG T-shirt of your choosing

Soooo…how do I enter?
Email me (TheFatWhiteGuy@gmail.com) a “before” picture–along with 200-300 words on your “Fat-Hood” *Remeber–skinny-fat counts too!
We will post the “contestants” at the end of this week.
A “winner” will be chosen on July 18th.
Based on total weight loss/physical improvement/best story

Get to it!