I may be a loser, but I'm not the biggest loser...

My workplace is having a biggest loser contest - one of those contests where you compete with your coworkers to lose the highest percentage of body weight.

I'm not doing very well. The only good thing I can say is that I haven't actually gained any weight yet, so I haven't had to pay any penalties. But I've lost a grand total of 5 pounds over the course of 6 weeks or so, going from 150.8 to 144.8 . They aren't publishing percent lost beyond the weekly winners, so I have no idea how I'm doing compared to other people besides the people who are winning.

There's a pretty good reason that I'm not doing too well - I'm not trying very hard. I'm not really doing anything additional. I am trying to keep up with my normal eating habits and exercise routines, but I'm not really cutting back any more or exercising anymore. Every now and then I'll do an extra 15 minutes of cardio - an hour and 45 minutes instead of my usual hour and a half - but that's about it.

About 6 months ago, I decided I wanted to lose some weight, and dropped about 10 pounds in a month - by dropping my caloric intake by about 1000 calories, and increasing my exercise to 2 hours a day. The problem was that I was miserable - I was always hungry, I couldn't enjoy any of the foods I liked, and the extra gym time meant I wasn't getting home until 8pm or later. I decided that it wasn't worth it.

Now that I'm taking some grad classes that are eating into my time, the extra exercise really isn't easily achievable. And while I feel like I could stand to lose a few more pounds, and get rid of a little bit of the spare tire I still carry, I'm pretty close to a healthy weight - I'm in the normal category for my height, although I'm very close to the overweight mark. But I'm also within about 5 pounds of being the lightest I've been probably since grade school. I'm a 34" waist - which isn't really something to brag about, but I was a 46" 6 years ago.

So I'm having a hard time convincing myself it's worth trying to lose more. I'm also trying to figure out why I entered in the first place.