Fat Shed with Phat Shred

So, I glanced at the USA Today yesterday and their cover story got me thinking:

Obesity is a key link to soaring health tab
Report: Costs double to $147B in a decade (source: USA Today, July 28th, 2009)

Approximately 9% of all medical spending is directly related to treating obesity and about 1/3 of adult Americans (72 million people) are obese. Without getting into the somewhat fuzzy definitions of what exactly classifies overweight and obesity, let’s just say that I’m fat (that’s me in the picture), and I’m ready to get back to a healthier weight.

In the past year and a half, I’ve gained somewhere around 35 pounds. I’ve gone from running Freedom Footbags full time (and kicking an average of at least an hour/day) to working full time at Power Engineers and spending the remaining “free” time working for myself (and kicking about an hour/week, sometimes less), while my caloric intake essentially remained unchanged.

As the debate over a national health care plan rages, I’d like to propose the “Freedom Plan”.

Estimates for Obama’s health plan vary widely, but it is likely to cost at least 50 billion (some estimates say twice that) per year.

The US population is currently just over 300 million. This means that the government is going to be spending at least $167 per person per year on their health plan. At the same time, costs for treating obesity will be about three times that amount, or about $480 per person per year.

Now, this is clearly not an exacting scientific study, nor am I necessarily comparing apples to oranges here, but it seems to me that if Obama was to buy, say, 300 million Mr. Sandbags, then every obese man, woman and child in the US would have about three footbags. I’d be willing to offer them at a very good wholesale price (wink, wink), making the cost to the US taxpayer only very small fraction (perhaps 2-3%) of the overall health plan budget.

But the question is, would it actually work? Can you lose weight kicking? For me, I’m quite sure it’s plausible. And, I’d *much* prefer hacking the old sack to hitting a treadmill, jogging, or using some gadget or pill available form an infomercial for just $19.99 (plus $8.95 Shipping and Handling – that part is always in small print) that I’ll use twice and never again. I love the fact the my weight loss method also builds skills and neuroplasticity.

So I figured what better way to prove that kicking it works to shed those pounds than do it myself. The “before” picture is up. We’re currently doing an informal “Biggest Loser” competition at Power Engineers, where we have bi-weekly weigh-ins. Last week I weighed in at a large 223.5. There are five official weigh-ins left in our competition, and I have the footbag on my side (er, on my foot). I’ll keep you all posted…