The Biggest Loser

Cullen Wade

Ten of Wands

My sister was the one who told me about these online weight loss gambling pools. The way it works is this: everybody sets their weight loss target and we all pay into the pot. If you don’t meet your goal, the money you put in gets evenly distributed to everybody who does. But here’s the secret: Americans are weak. People get way too ambitious and don’t meet their goals. The way these pools work, if half the people fail, you double your money. Sure, the buy-in was usually like 20 or 30 bucks, but if you joined 10 pools at once, you could make some easy money. Especially since most of them operate on the honor system. Honor systems and money don’t mix.

So here I am making 250 or 300 extra bucks a month joining groups with undisciplined lardasses and lying about my weight. I could really turn this into something. Then, somebody I met in one of the Discord servers introduced me to the high-stakes version. No more honor system—supervised weigh-ins are administered by the gambling organization, but you stand to earn a lot more. Every week, the bottom half of the pool gets eliminated, based on who lost the least weight. This happens every week until there’s just one winner, who gets the whole pot. With a $500 buy-in and 16 people per pool, there was some serious money to be made.

I had an ace up my sleeve. I was on that Ozempic train before almost anybody else had heard of it. I would deliberately bulk up before the initial weigh-in, then I had a plug who would shoot me up with Ozempic for a percentage of the winnings. Like I said, easy money. So I worked my way up the ladder: $500 buy-in, $1,000 buy-in, $5,000 buy-in … I was living large. Then something went wrong. My Ozempic plug got busted. My supply was cut off. I started losing. Losing the $5K buy-ins, losing the $1K buy-ins, losing the $500 buy-ins. But I kept trying, because I knew I could shake back. I had the willpower. All I needed was one big win.

I went broke. Bills piled up, eviction slip under the door, the whole bit. But just when things looked hopeless, I found another Ozempic plug. A whale I knew from the circuit told me about the mother of all weight loss pools: $25,000 buy-in, 64 participants, winner take all. A mil and a half, even after my dealer’s cut. With a renewed supply of Ozempic and the gift of desperation, I knew this was my shakeback. My credit was shot, but I managed to borrow the $25K from some disreputable characters … you don’t even want to know what I had to promise to get the loan.

I cruised through the first few weeks. The Ozempic was working. I made the first cut, then the second, then before I knew it I was in the elite eight. But something started to go wrong. The Ozempic wasn’t cutting my appetite like it should. I was desperately hungry, and even when I ate a modest snack it seemed to stick to the scale. I made it into the final four by the skin of my teeth, then I had to run miles in a garbage bag and dehydrate myself to death on the day of the weigh-in to get into the final. I was dizzy, irritable, in constant low-grade pain, but at least I was losing.

Before I knew it, it was the morning of the last weigh-in. I jumped on the scale as soon as I woke up … 10 pounds short. Oh God. I wasn’t worried about being flat broke so much as what those guys would do to me if I didn’t pay back their 25 Gs. Ten measly pounds. I started thinking about what I wanted on my tombstone. That is, if they could find enough of me to bury.

I went into my garage, moved aside some paint cans, and found the hacksaw. A tender fingertip test told me it was sharp enough. With the hacksaw in one hand, I took out my phone in the other. A text from the gambling organization’s representative, saying he was on the way to my house to do the final weigh-in. I swiped the text away and opened a new Google search.

How … much … does … a … human … arm … weigh?

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Author’s Note & Bio

Sometimes your burden is literal, sometimes it’s symbolic, usually it’s both. The protagonist here is carrying ten extra pounds, but more importantly he’s carrying ego, duplicity, and a culture’s pressure to be thin at all costs.

Cullen Wade (he/him) is a writer, musician, and high school teacher. He is the author of the upcoming book S(p)lasher Flicks: The Swimming Pool in Horror Cinema, published by McFarland Books. His film writing has appeared at HorrorGeekLife, Deaf Sparrow, and boy in a box. This is his first piece of published fiction. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA with his wife Emma, cat Bishop, and pit bulls Hazel and Libby. Follow him on letterboxd at tobe_whooper and Bluesky @cullenwade.bsky.social.