Let the Underdog Dynasty Biggest Loser Competition Begin

I'm not going to mince words here, I'm just going to cut straight to the meat of it. There are five guys who are either staff members of the site or are directly affiliated in some way, and we all could stand to lose a few pounds. We also absolutely suck at motivating ourselves to do anything about it. So, public shaming it is. Here are the rules:

1) Every month starting with this one and ending with December (so July 1 - December 1), each of the five of us will provide bi-weekly updates about our progress, and at the end of each month there will be a full update.

2) The monthly updates will include a monthly winner, which is the person who lost the greatest percent of weight (pounds lost/weight on the 1st of the month) over that time. The winner will win... something, and the four losers will each donate $25 into a pot.

3) At the final weigh-in, first, second and third place will split the winnings 60/30/10 percent. Everyone else will leave with their dignity, if they are lucky.

4) Must always weigh yourself on the same scale, and if you ever miss a weigh-in without a damn good explanation, you are automatically one of the four losers for that month.

5) This is the most important rule. Anyone who posts personally attacking, negative or hateful commentary in any of the comment sections of any of these posts over the next five months will automatically get banned from the site, no discussion and no questions. None of that will be tolerated for even five seconds.

So without further ado, let's meet your contestants!

Nicolas Lewis, Site Manager

Height: 5'9"

Weight: 220

So this entire contest was my idea. I was around 170 when I left the Army and was feeling and looking great. Then a high stress, low movement job plus mom's cooking shifted my baseline up 20 pounds. Then generally learning to drown my sorrows in sugar over the ensuing decate pushed my baseline up another 20. Now I'm at an unsightly point where my belly sticks out in too many directions. This must end now. And I'm super excited about taking these suckers' money.

Christopher Hondros, Guy Who Won't Leave the Staff

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 225

Thanks to multiple degrees and a previous sit-down job with minimal exercise, my weight bloated to 225 before the start today.  I was 180 pounds when I graduated high school.  I was struck with the Freshman 20 my first year of college, but I stayed constant at 200 throughout all 4 years of undergrad. If you think the Freshman 20 was bad, the Grad School 20 and Thesis 15 was even worse as my weight toppled to 235 pounds when I finally graduated.  I haven't really gotten in a constant exercise routine which is what I think will help me drop a bit of weight (I eat relatively healthy, but I can always do better).

Jared Kalmus, The Guy Who Just Had To Flex

Height: 6'3"

Weight: 256

I did a pretty awful job staying active in my first year out of college. When I was in school I walked up and down hills for nearly an hour per day. I also played hours of pick up basketball every week. Now I sit on my ass all day at work then go home and lay on my ass playing video games at home. It's time to do better. I've started playing basketball twice per week again and I'm going to start cooking meals again starting next week. I'm not trying to get shredded or anything but getting back down to my college weight of 235 would be fantastic.

- Fat Jared

Matt Monte, Guy Who Used To Have A Job Title

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 303

For most of my life I've worked on my feet. Painting, retail, and roustabout-ing on an oil platform. I've never really been in "great" shape, but I was passable. Then I had to go and get myself college educated and land a desk job. It doesn't take long for the universe to catch up to you when you're half Cajun, half Sicilian and live in fried food paradise. I never really understood how active my life was before, so I never made the adjustment when I went from walking 12 miles a day to none at all. Guess it's time to stop making excuses.

Contestant X, The Mysterious Interloper

Height: 6'4"

Weight: 349

I'm at 6'4" 349 right now and I'm not proud of it by any means. My weight's steadily gone up since I was an (already chubby) kid and had some plateaus where things stayed stable for a while--210 in high school, then around 270 in college, then I've bounced around between 320 and 350 since. I don't have any really good reasons or anything to how I got here, I just either get busy with work and use that as an excuse to not exercise and/or I eat like crap. Lately it's been both.