It’s that time of year again! The time of year I pretend to turn over a new leaf and fool myself into thinking I can be productive and fix all the mistakes of the previous year. Of course, I still believe that I can really do it so maybe one year things will come together as planned (I’m hoping it’s this year!).

I’m starting 2010 at about 259 pounds. That’s 8 pounds less than I started 2009. Certainly not good progress, but it beats gaining 8 pounds so I’ll take it. My goal for 2010 is to get down to 219 pounds. That seems to be a long way from 259, and especially considering my poor efforts in 2009, but I believe I can do it.

Here’s my approach for 2010. I’m breaking my annual goal into quarterly goals. So the first milestone is weighing in at (or below) 249 pounds by April 1st. This works out to 10 pounds per quarter, figure about 12 weeks per quarter and I can reach my goals while losing less than 1 pound per week (about .83 pounds per week if I used the calculator properly).

We’re already a couple of weeks into January and my weight is basically unchanged, fluctuating up and down by 1-2 pounds each week so far. Not the most promising start, but these pounds should be the easiest to lose so I’m still confident I can reach the April 1st deadline. There’s probably some irony in choosing April 1st as my first milestone, but that’s just how it worked out so I’m going to go with it.

Look for more regular updates on my progress this year and probably even more frequent updates on Twitter (follow @financeandfat if you’re into that Twitter thing). By the way, I’ll be tracking my progress on a publicly visible Google Spreadsheet.

By Eden, Sat 16 Jan 2010, Comments Categories: Goals, Weight Loss

Regular readers may have noticed the weekly weight loss report has changed to monthly. On the other hand, the weekly reports haven’t happened much at all lately, so I’m not really missing out on anything here.

My weight loss efforts have been a total failure over the past few months. I weighed in at 265 pounds today, which is within two pounds of my all time high (where I started this year). I guess the silver lining is that I’m at least down two pounds for the year. But with so much weight to lose, I really need to be making faster progress than that.

My iPhone challenge hasn’t helped at all either. Frankly, I think it’s made me not even care about an iPhone anymore! I suppose that’s a good thing, but I’d feel better if it was motivating me to exercise more.

It’s not all bad news though. I actually went out for a run today. I’m running a 5K in December and I finally started training today. I’m doing the Couch to 5K Running Plan. The plan is intended to get a sedentary person off the couch and ready to run a 5K in nine weeks. I’m happy with day one. It was challenging, but not too tough that I felt like I couldn’t finish it. Today’s workout consisted of a five minute walking warmup, followed by intervals of sixty seconds of jogging and ninety seconds of walking. The intervals last for twenty minutes and finish off with a five minute walking cool down.

As usual, I feel great after finally getting myself off the couch and actually doing some exercise. If only I could remember that I would feel this good when I’m making excuses to avoid exercise. Hopefully the race in December and this training plan will help me to stay on top of things this time around.

Lessons Learned:

I feel better after exercising. Maybe this should be obvious, but apparently it’s not because I always forget.

There are no tricks or shortcuts. I have to choose to exercise and stop making excuses.

Tracking progress helps. I’m using Daily Burn to track my calories and exercise. It can be a bit cumbersome at times, and adding exercise is not always intuitive, but overall it’s a nice application and I’ve found it to be helpful (it’s free by the way). I really like the stat tracking. It helps me to see my progress built up and charted over time. It makes it seem worthwhile to go for a walk even if I only have ten minutes. Little efforts do add up!

I’m not happy that it is almost the end of August and I’ve only lost two pounds this year. On the other hand, there are still four months left in the year, so it’s far from too late to give up. I can still easily finish the year down twenty pounds or so. I think the 5K will help a lot. Even though my marathon plans turned into a complete and utter failure last year, I did reach my lowest weight of the past several years when I was in the early stages of training for it. I have a marathon in mind for the end of 2010, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself yet. We will see how the 5K goes this year.

By Eden, Tue 25 Aug 2009, Comments Categories: Weekly Weigh-in, Weight Loss

I started using a new fitness and nutrition tracking website this week (Daily Burn) and was quite shocked when I found I had consumed 3,200 calories one day. To be honest, I know I’ve been eating horribly lately. Trying to treat my stress with fat and sugar apparently. But I had no idea my diet had gone that far out of control. I guess that’s why it’s good to keep a food journal. It would be even better to not eat 3,000 calories in the first place, but now I know what I need to work on.

Favorite Quote:

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. Better to assume you are a moron and occasionally surprise yourself.” Funny Quotes by Quotes for Idiots

Favorite Links:

• The Source of Frugal Misery [from The Simple Dollar] When you spend money, spend it on things you value. Spend as little as possible on the things you don’t value.
• How to Network With Busy People – Part 11 [from Steve Pavlina dot com] Don’t begin your first contact with an apology (like ’sorry to bother you’). Just because someone is busy doesn’t mean you’re not an equal.
• On the Proper Use of ‘Me’ and ‘I’ [from Foldedspace] It may be something simple, but this is a nice overview and good for reference in case you forget.
• Planning Fallacy [from Less Wrong] Great read if you’re a project manager or if you make plans for the future…yeah, that should be everyone. It’s an important concept to understand.
• Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy by Moving to Remote Village [from The Onion] This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen for a while (it’s a video by the way). Of course it’s just a parody, but it’s not really that great a stretch to imagine this in our future.

*As always, you can find all of my ‘weekly web favorites’ and many more links on my StumbleUpon page and my Delicious Bookmarks.

By Eden, Sat 15 Aug 2009, Comments Categories: Web Favorites

Debt is Slavery: and 9 Other Things I Wish My Dad Had Taught Me About Money, by Michael Mihalik. This book is short, to the point, and packed with lots of great advice. I’ve read it three times and I would put this in my top five personal finance books, possibly at number one. I think for someone just getting started with figuring out their debt and finances this is probably the first book to read. It’s short enough to get through very quickly and find some immediate advice and inspiration to get your finances under control.

The book offers this definition of slavery: “The state of being bound in servitude as an instrument of labor” [pg. 23]. Do you ever wake up in the morning and not want to go to work that day? Do you go anyway? Do you go because you really love your job that much or do you go because you owe money to someone (probably many people) and even though you may have a choice of how you’ll earn your money, ultimately you have no choice but to go to work and get that money. Lately, I’ve been dreading Monday mornings as early as Saturday night. I feel trapped and bound to this service by my debts.

“Too many people hate their jobs but are afraid to leave, because they wouldn’t be able to pay their mortgage, credit card bills, car loans, or boat loans. Debt can turn a free, happy person into a bitter human being. Debt can turn you into a slave.” [pg 25].

It’s possible for debt to be good, but debt is still slavery. A mortgage can usually be thought of as good debt, but you still must make sure you can afford the mortgage you are signing up for.

“The word ‘mortgage’ is derived from the Latin word ‘mort,’ which means ‘death’, and the Germanic word ‘gage’, which means ‘pledge’. So ‘mortgage’ means ‘death pledge’. What does that tell you?” [pg 30]

When we spend money, we are really trading our time for the things we buy. We make this even worse when we go into debt to buy things. We are now committing our time in the future to work to earn money to pay for the things we bought in the past. This becomes even more painful if you don’t like your job.

‘Stuff’ ads busywork and stress to our lives. So much stuff we buy we don’t even need. Eliminating unwanted stuff from our lives is an important part of getting control of our finances and getting out of debt.

Experiences are more valuable than stuff. Don’t find happiness only in buying things. You won’t look back on your life when you’re older and fondly remember the stuff you accumulated.

It will be easier to stop buying stuff if we avoid advertising and understand that we are constantly being marketed to and a lot of money is being spent to convince us to buy things.

Make a goal of saving 50% of your income. If you do this, you would have the ability to take a month off from work for every month you work (assuming you’re earning an income from a job and not passive sources). Don’t spend more money when you get a raise. If you keep your expenses the same as before, you can increase your savings exponentially, even as your income may not be increasing at such a high rate.

Money doesn’t buy happiness, it buys freedom. This is my greatest motivator for making more money and getting out of debt right now. I want to be free again.

This book is packed with solid advice, expertly fit into a short, easy to read format. If you’re just getting started with fixing a financial mess in your life, I would buy this book immediately. If you need a little extra motivation and a better understanding of the mistakes of the ‘normal’ American way when it comes to money and work, read this book. I had planned to give away my copy after reading it, but I decided this is one I want to keep on my bookshelf so I have it available to read again when I see bad habits creeping back into my life.

By Eden, Sat 15 Aug 2009, Comments Categories: Books, Reviews

I’m really struggling with my diet and exercise lately. I’ve realized that I first turn to food when I’m feeling stressed or depressed. The only healthy replacement I can think of is exercise so I’m going to work on making exercise a priority, even when I don’t feel like it.

Favorite Quote:

“One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. Unless you’re a raccoon. Then it’s basically all one category.” – Funny Quotes by Quotes for Idiots

Favorite Links:

• I have two favorites from Early Retirement Extreme: Survival Preparedness – a great starting point for emergency preparation and Extreme Early Retirement vs. Friends and Relatives offers a look at the issues you’ll face with friends and family when trying to save money to the extreme.
• What We Wish We Knew When We Were Younger [from Get Rich Slowly] – a great look at things we wish we had known before, since I knew virtually nothing about money these all apply to me and many more too I’m sure.
• The Short Term and the Long Term Choice [from The Simple Dollar] – Ask yourself where you’ll be in the future when making a decision, this is great advice and something I’m trying to put into practice in my life now. I have far too much of a short term focus.

Carnivals

I was fortunate enough to be included in the Carnival of Personal Finance: Famous money quotes edition, hosted by Christian Personal Finance and the Festival of Frugality #189, Extreme Heat Edition, hosted by Modern Tightwad. Many thanks to the carnival hosts for the hard work they put this week!

*As always, you can find all of my ‘weekly web favorites’ and many more links on my StumbleUpon page.

By Eden, Sat 8 Aug 2009, Comments Categories: Web Favorites, Weight Loss