Five Things I Buy at the 99 Cent Store

You can’t count on the 99 Cent Store to actually have anything that’s on your shopping list. Merchandise changes as frequently as I change my underwear (once a week) (kidding). That said, in the past few weeks, I’ve been going specifically to the 99 Cent Store looking for a few items, and, for the most part, I’ve been lucky because they’ve had them in stock. I’m aware that my luck with change any day now (probably as soon as I publish this blog), but that’s a risk that’s worth taking, just because nothing at the 99 Cent Store costs more than a buck.

Here’s my list of healthy items that I’ve been buying at the 99 Cent Store:

1) V8. I love vegetable juice!

My Weight Loss in Corn Dogs, Toilet Paper & MORE!

I love a good visual weight loss comparison.  These posts are probably the most fun for me to research and compile, so if this is your first time reading one of these posts, then welcome, and enjoy!

The Backstory:  It all began last fall, when a friend and I piled up 147 pounds of dog food as a visual aid to represent the weight that I’d lost at that point.  Since then, I’ve occasionally scoured the internet and calculated all sorts of outrageous and interesting weight loss comparisons, from quarters and Oreos to bowling balls and KFC to Butterfingers and iPads (they’re all archived in My Favorite Posts).

I’m ready for some new comparisons.  Are you?  Let’s see what else there is on this vast planet that also weighs 167 pounds – the amount of weight that I’ve lost!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I PRESENT TO YOU, MY WEIGHT LOSS IN…

…CORN DOGS.  It’s state fair season, and I don’t even want to know how many different deep-fried menu items are sold each day.  I did calculate, however, how many corn dogs I’ve lost.  A single corn dog weighs 2 and 2/3 ounces, which means I’ve lost 1,002 corn dogs!

…JERKY.  Jonesin’ for some protein, but don’t want a deep-fried hot dog?  Try some jerky, which is low-calorie, low-fat, and high-protein (it’s also high-sodium, so don’t each tons).  This jumbo bag weighs 6.2 ounces, so I’ve lost 430 jumbo bags of beef jerky!

…TOILET PAPER.  One roll of toilet paper weighs a tad over one-fifth of a pound, which means in total, I’ve lost 795 rolls of toilet paper!   And here’s where it gets really fun: A two-ply roll of toilet paper has 500 sheets, and each sheet measures 4.5 inches square.  That means that if you unrolled one roll of toilet paper, it would be 187.5 feet long.  Unroll 795 rolls of toilet paper, and lay them end to end, and they would stretch 28.23 miles!  That’s the distance across Lake Erie (at its narrowest point)!

The toilet paper fun’s not over yet!  Now that we’ve unrolled 795 rolls, we’re left with 795 cardboard tubes lying around.  Stack them, one on top of another, and they’d reach a height of 298 feet – only 7 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty from the ground to the tip of her torch!

…MY FRIEND TOM.  A couple weeks ago, my friend Heidi noticed a rare weight-loss-related eclipse.  Her husband Tom reached a weight of 164 pounds (he’s lost more than 55 pounds since January) – which was exactly the amount of weight that I had lost.  It was a short-lived eclipse (the next day I had a weigh-in, and I had lost two more pounds), but his weight and my weight loss are still eerily close, and I can’t imagine carrying Tom around on my back all freakin’ day long.  It might be fun for him, though.

…GASOLINE.  A gallon of gas weighs 6.16 pounds, so I’ve lost slightly more than 27 gallons.  My car gets about 23 miles to a gallon of gas, so 27 gallons would get me from my home in Los Angeles almost all the way (within a few miles) to the Arizona/New Mexico border!

…GIANT OCTOPUS.  The largest species of octopus on the planet is the North Pacific Giant Octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini), and the largest specimen on record tipped the scales at 156.5 pounds.  That is one giant Giant Octopus, and I’ve lost that giant Giant Octopus!  See the Giant Octopus in action.

…CROCKPOTS.  I love my crockpot, and it’s a heavy bugger.  But it’s not as heavy as this top-of-the-line All-Clad Deluxe Slow Cooker, which sells at Williams-Sonoma for $280 (!) and weighs 18 pounds!  So I’ve lost NINE of them.

…CHEEZ-ITS.  One of my favorite crackers.  A box of regular Cheez-its weighs 9 ounces, so I’ve lost 296 boxes.  Wanna know the damage if you eat 296 boxes of Cheez-its?  A grand total of 399,600 calories and 21,312 grams of fat!  If you’re watching your figure and choose to eat 296 boxes of the reduced-fat variety, you’ll only take in 269,360 calories and 9,324 grams of fat.  Only.

…SUITS OF ARMOR.  A full suit of armor that knights wore in medieval times could weigh anywhere from 40-90 pounds.  The replicas pictured above weigh in at 55 pounds each, so I’ve lost all THREE of them.  One of those replicas, by the way, can be yours for only $2,998.00 – get out your credit card and act now!

If you have ideas for other items I could compare my weight loss to, leave them in the comments section!  No need to do the research or math – leave that up to me – I’m good at it!

Keep it up, David!