Rob Ford’s latest cut: his weight-loss challenge

In January, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Doug, launched the "Cut the Waist Challenge," a weight-loss plan to lose 50 pounds in six months. They would track their progress with public weekly weigh-ins.

"Enough's enough," Rob said at his first weigh-in. "It's the heaviest I've ever been. And Doug and I went down to Florida and we just discussed it. I've got young children, and this is not healthy. You can't be running the city, you can't be doing all this, at 330 pounds. You guys know it, I know it."

The Fords even encouraged — somewhat tactlessly — other mayors to join the effort.

"The first mayor we might target is our friend over in Calgary [Naheed Nenshi], because he has a little beef on the front of him," Doug challenged at the time.

The brothers also targeted New York City's Michael Bloomberg. His spokesperson did not sound impressed:

"Mayor Bloomberg exercises daily and very avidly watches what he eats — two reasons why he's about as thin as he was in college 50 years ago and not at all overweight," Bloomberg's spokesman, Stu Loeser, said in an email.

Apparently Rob has since changed his mind about running the city while overweight. Just three weeks before the scheduled conclusion of the challenge, Rob Ford made his latest cut: dieting.

"I don't care about the weigh-in. I'm not even dieting anymore. It's gone! It's water under the bridge. So I gotta — we gotta refocus," Rob said on the radio show the brothers cohost this past Sunday.

At his last weigh-in, Rob was up four pounds. He then accounted that he would weigh-in at City Hall once every two weeks rather than weekly.

"I love how the mayor just changes the rules," Doug Ford said at the time. "All of a sudden, boom, bang, every second week now. Doesn't matter: June 18, there's no escaping it, we're weighing in."

No, they're not.

The end of the weight-loss challenge follows five weigh-in cancellations in nine weeks. The public weigh-ins — and abrupt cancellations — led to media and public scrutiny over Rob's eating habits, with his every trip to KFC and McDonald's well documented by his naysayers.

The "Cut the Waist Challenge" also had a charitable angle. On the official site, Torontonians were urged to pledge per-pound-lost donations to the charities of their choice to help encourage the Ford brothers to slim down. But with neither making their weight-loss goal — Rob lost just 22 pounds, while Doug dropped 27 — the Fords have made no mention of the charitable donations in cancelling the campaign.