The one with snooker & our first weigh-in

Monday 23rd April 2007

OWEN – Well, we’ve now got a sign up option in the top left of the page. Put your email address and your first name in and we’ll send you a newsletter to let you know of any updates or special punting events you can take part in.

So the London Marathon was finished in 2 hours 7 minutes and 14 seconds for the men and 2 hours 20 minutes 38 seconds for the women. I got the winning lady right, C Zhou, but unfortunately my pick for the men’s pulled out after 18 miles and it was won by M Lel.

With us both getting one right in terms of time and one right with winners (Jack bet against me being right) the marathon turned out to be a bit of a no result for us. Luckily we had a few other bets on that day on various sporting events to give us a bit of a change on our bankrolls.

Firstly, our diet bet. Sunday morning we stepped on the scales to see how much (if any) we had lost. I went first and was pleasantly surprised to have lost 9lbs! I was now a much more svelte 14stone 4lbs, taking me from being technically obese to just being overweight, hardly inspiring terms however I want to look at it.

I am required to lose another 32lbs to be “normal” and this would be my target weight of 12 stones. So if my weight loss continues at the same rate I will reach that in another three and a half weeks. Of course I know that my weight loss will slow down and I’ll be lucky to be losing 2 or 3 lbs a week.

There is a lot in the news just now about diets and size 0 models and it should be noted that losing 9lbs in a week is a lot. The safe level of dieting is round about 1 or 2lbs per week and I am going to manage my diet to be around about that.

I did a food diary and calculated that I have only been eating an average of 550 calories a day! This is ludicrous and can result in some permanent damage if I’m not careful. I wasn’t aware that was how little I was eating as I have breakfast, lunch and dinner and snack in between. To remedy the situation I immediately went out and bought myself a 6” turkey and ham on wheat from Subway.

However as things stand I still have a secret weapon – exercise. So far all my weight loss has been a result of changing my diet. I have not taken up any new sports or played more often and I have not gone running in the mornings to give me that extra boost. Once I have worked out a reasonable diet I will begin getting up earlier and going for what will probably begin as a mild jog and eventually building up to a run.

The weekends other bets comprised of Ronnie O’Sullivan winning his opening match at the World Snooker Championship, which he did and we both had a bet on that. Jack also had a bet on Steve Davis to win his match which was a nail biting 19 frame spectacular that he was slightly unlucky to lose. So, evens for the marathon, and I was £110 up thanks to Ronnie’s win.

JACK – I was concerned by Owen’s incredible 9 pound loss in just one week, and I was quite relieved when I stepped on the scales to see 15 stone 4 lbs, which puts me right behind him, having lost 7 pounds. However, we have both realised that we weren’t really eating enough, so I would predict that future weeks weight loss will be a bit less, hopefully around the 3 pound mark.

I had a healthy bet on Ronnie O’Sullivan to get rid of Ding Junhui in the first round of the Snooker World Championship so after Ronnie took it down by a very comfortable 10-2 margin, I had netted around £175 profit. Unfortunately, Steve Davis failed to beat his good friend John Parrott, and that cost me £90 so I was £85 in snooker profit for the day.

Owen and I have a £100 side bet over the course of the Snooker World Championships to see who can make the most profit from betting. I’ve had an early £110 on Neil Robertson to win the tournament at 20-1, which is fairly optimistic considering he has Ronnie O’Sullivan in the next round if he wins. But I have faith in his abilities, and his odds will plummet if he gets past the Rocket.

I’m going to join a sports centre tonight and start playing a lot of squash and badminton, and I can hopefully convince Owen to play me on the courts for a bit of cash, and anyway, it will benefit both of our weight loss plans.

We’ve been noticeably lacking in crazy bets recently, and we need a helping hand with inspiration so I think we’ll try to get a competition up and running very soon where you readers can help us out with suggesting some crazy activities we can bet on. We have to live up to our Crazy Punts name!

Current Bankrolls

Owen £1,133

Jack £1,215