Mayor Rob Ford’s weight-loss challenge, launched with fanfare and smiles Jan. 17, ended Monday with a grim-faced mayor missing his goal by 33 pounds and then falling off the scale.

Ford’s ankle appeared to buckle as he stepped down after weighing in at 313 pounds. He yelled “Ow!” and fell heavily on his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, in front of TV cameras outside his city hall office.

“It hurts really bad,” the mayor later told reporters before limping back into his office. “I don’t know what happened but I twisted it pretty good.”

Doug Ford dreamed up Cut the Waist, a 50-pounds-in-five-months challenge, and convinced his 330-pound little brother to participate. There is a website urging others to lose weight and pledge money for charity, an official logo and an oversized scale from their label company.

“Enough’s enough,” the mayor said in January. “It’s the heaviest I’ve ever been . . . I’ve got young children, and this is not healthy.”

He enjoyed quick success, eating “like a rabbit” and avoiding ice cream. He was photographed running lonely laps on a high school track.

Pounds also vanished from Doug Ford’s 275-pound frame, thanks to daily exercise and diet changes that curbed a serious chocolate milk habit.

But the weekly weigh-ins became a chance for reporters, who see relatively little of the mayor, to pepper him with questions on topics including his losses at council on transit expansion and other initiatives.

In late February, Ford was down 22 pounds, the best he would do, but he warned that resisting fattening foods was “getting very, very hard.”

As pounds started to come back, Toronto got insight into the brothers’ close but competitive and complicated relationship. Though Doug Ford is fiercely defensive of Rob Ford, he repeatedly mocked him for cancelling weigh-ins, eating fast food, and failing to match his own weight-loss success.

Fed up, the mayor appeared to quit the challenge during their May 27 radio show, but later said he would continue dieting privately and attend the final weigh-in.

“I was pounding Rob every day, which is unfair,” Doug Ford, who lost 35 pounds, acknowledged Monday. Still, his brother showed “lots of nerve” and inspired people, he said, adding that his only regret is making the pressure-filled weigh-ins weekly instead of monthly.

“I feel like a champion, and we’re going to continue helping people,” he said, adding the amount raised for charity is being tallied.

Mayor Ford stood back while his brother talked, going to mic only when prompted.

“I could’a done better . . .,” he said. “Anyways, we’ll keep working hard and get down, that’s all I can say. But I want to thank the people that came out and supported us the last five months. We got a lot of support.”

Registered dietitian Mary Bamford applauded Mayor Ford for losing 17 pounds, saying that without the challenge he might have gained weight instead.

The public’s lesson, she said in an interview, is that losing weight is extremely difficult and takes more than personal commitment. To help, we need a more encouraging environment around us, with ample access to pools, sports fields and safe cycling and walking routes, she said.

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“Being healthy is so much easier if the city is set up for it.”

With files from Daniel Dale

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