And I’m back. August 4th seems like as good a day as any for the first progress update to my 2010 Weight Loss Goals, written way back on Saturday, January 16th, 2010. Boy, things sure were different back then. I had hope for the New Year! Now it’s just another New Year of Regret. I’m joking of course, I don’t regret things much—maybe I should? I see that I even created a fancy little Google Spreadsheet for tracking all of my amazing progress back then! Funny thing is, I forgot I had done that until today. I’ll see if I can update it, but I’m probably lacking most of the data points needed.
In case you can’t tell from the tone of the above paragraph, things haven’t gone well this year. In fact, as things stand today, I’m a big fat zero on the progress chart for 2010. Seven months later and I stand exactly where I did when I was full of optimism and hope for the New Year. Oh well, that’s pretty much standard operating procedure for me over the past few years (as you can see if you check any of the weight loss archives around here).
But it’s all in the past now. That’s the funny thing about me. I must be too dumb to give up because I’m always optimistic that I can turn things around and lose 50 pounds before the year is over. Well, 50 might be rough, but I’d be happy with 30. In fact, that is my new goal! Look, a shiny new goal! Surely everything will be better now.
Okay, so things probably won’t be better now, but I’m going to try. I really am. I learned a couple of things this year. Like when I was walking regularly and eating lots of vegetables my weight was going down. The one month I managed to do both at the same time, I had lost about nine pounds. So there is hope, and at least I have a simple way to get started. Just some vegetables and some walking…that shouldn’t be too hard, even for me. Only time will tell of course. Hopefully I’ll be back to update this in less than seven months.
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.
I want an iPhone. I’ve had my eye on one since it was released back in June of 2007. However, I’ve resisted purchasing one because I don’t NEED an iPhone. It is purely a WANT, an indulgence, a waste of money. I could try to justify it, but it’s just an expensive toy.
While it’s true that the iPhone is just a toy, there are no rules in personal finance against buying toys. You just have to be smart about it and, for me, that means planning ahead, saving the money, and paying cash. I can do all of that, but I still haven’t made the purchase.
Yesterday, I decided that I am finally going to do it. However, there is one big caveat. I made a deal with my wife that I won’t buy an iPhone until I get my weight down to 210 pounds.
I think this is a great way to incentivize my weight-loss by adding a tangible reward. It’s something I really want and it’s also easy to put up pictures of the iPhone as motivation/reminders for me to stick with my exercise and diet routine. It also gives me plenty of time to save the money, decide for sure that I really want to buy one (of course I do, but it sounds good to say that), and hopefully enough time for Verizon to start selling the iPhone so I won’t be stuck with AT&T.
To be clear, I’m not only losing weight for an iPhone. I want and need to lose weight and I’ve been working on it, unsuccessfully, for the past two years. This is just another tool in the motivational toolbox that I’m trying out. If weight loss was only about rational decisions, I would have lost the weight already. It’s obvious that I need more help on the emotional/mental side and that’s what I’m hoping this little game will do.
As of my last weigh-in, on June 30th, I was 263.4 pounds. Losing 54 pounds will put me just under 210. Obviously, this will take some time. Averaging 1 pound per week means this could take more than a year. However, I have a lot of weight to lose and I think I could get it done a lot faster if I really work at it. This will be an interesting test of the benefits of external motivation and whether I will do better than I have so far.
I’m going back to weekly weigh-ins and reports on this blog so please check back in to see my progress. Also, please let me know if you’ve tried a reward system when losing weight and how that worked for you and if you have any tips for success.
Based on the poor progress of last year, I’ve decided to keep things simple in 2009 and only focus on two big goals.
1. Lose 50 pounds
How I’ll get there:
I had the most success last year when I was part of a friendly weight-loss competition with some of my family. We helped motivate each other and knowing we would share results each week was extra motivation to stick with the plan. We did this for about four months and it worked well for all of us. Unfortunately, over the rest of the year I gained back all the weight I had lost and then some.
We are trying the competition again this year, so far we have about 10 people signed up, and our plan is to keep this going for the whole year. We are also putting in some small amounts of cash each month ($5 per person) and giving it to the ‘biggest loser’ on a monthly basis. This is a little extra motivation, which doesn’t hurt, but obviously the important part is getting in shape and staying that way.
As of January 6, 2009, my official weight for the start of the competition is 267.6. Sadly, that is almost exactly 20 pounds heavier than I was when I wrote about achieving my first weight loss goal about a year ago—on January 7, 2008.
I’m frustrated that not only did I fail to lose weight last year, but actually gained 20 pounds when I was supposed to be focused on losing weight (that is one big reason for this blog after all), but I have to get over that and move on with things this year.
I need to take my frustration and turn it into increased effort and change my attitude this year. I can no longer accept being over weight and thinking that everything is okay just because I haven’t been hit with any major health problems (yet). I know my current lifestyle is leading me down the wrong path and I need to make some big changes before it’s too late. I’ve been overweight for about 3 years straight now and I’m getting seriously concerned about the long term effects on my health and well being.
I said my goal is to lose 50 pounds…and while that would be great, it is really just an arbitrary number. What I really want to accomplish this year is to become fit and to make exercise a regular part of my daily routine. I know now that just putting in some extra effort for a short while will get me some results, but without continuing that extra effort the weight will just come back on. I need to change from a mostly sedentary life to a regularly active one.
Rather than just making diet or exercise plans, I’m going to try to focus my time this year on developing new habits that will lead to health and fitness. For the short term, I just need to get off my butt and do any kind of exercise. For right now, that is going to mean using my treadmill and doing equipment-less exercise like pushups.
I’m also considering joining a gym, mostly because I have an inexpensive one right next to my office and it would give me access to more equipment. I’d really like to use an elliptical trainer rather than a treadmill so I’m also checking Craigslist for a good deal on an elliptical machine. For me, that’s a better way to get my heart rate up and it takes a smaller toll on my joints. Jogging can really be tough on the knees when you have an extra 50 pounds of weight to carry!
I’ll be updating my weight progress once a month and I’ll be writing a lot more this year about fitness and diet. I’m looking forward to making some big changes this year!
2. Pay off all credit card debt
How I’ll get there:
I recently wrote about finally getting our credit card debt out of the five figures. As of the start of this year, our total credit card debt is $9,776.07. That means we need to average about $815 per month of principal paid to be done with the credit cards this year. In reality, we need to add on about $50 per month for finance charges, though that will of course decrease as the year goes on. I’ll make my plan to pay $850 per month on the credit cards and to throw any extra money we have toward them.
We shouldn’t have any problem accomplishing this in 2009, but I also thought we’d get this done last year so I can’t be too sure yet. We are tightening up our budget even more than we did last year and we are continuing to cut unnecessary expenses from our lives. I think those efforts combined with some extra income from side business will be enough to accomplish this goal.
That’s it for the big goals this year. I want to keep things simple and really focus on these two things. I hope I’ll have more success than last year. Best of luck to all of us with our goals this year!
Pay off all Credit card debt – Failed! We paid off about half the total for the year. We could have done better, but there were too many times during the year that we slacked off on the budget and just spent more money than we needed to on unnecessary things.
Get body fat percentage under 25% – Massive failure! My weight loss efforts for the year turned into a rather sad joke. In the first few months of the year, I was down about 20 pounds. I finished the year up about 13 pounds. Absolutely horrible. Losing weight and making exercise a habit is my primary goal for 2009.
Increase our emergency fund to $5,000 – Pass. I decided this was too much to save for now while still paying off the debt. I have increased the cash float in my primary checking account, which helps make budgeting easier and can serve as an emergency fund if needed.
Earn $20,000 (gross) from side businesses – Not bad. I didn’t make it to $20,000, but if I include the ’selling stuff’ category (ebay, yard sales, etc) I got a little over 3/4 of the way there. I don’t have any new side business lined up yet, but I’m going to really work a lot harder at this in 2009 and try for $20,000 again.
Start a Roth IRA with at least $1,000 – Partial success. I started a Roth IRA, but only funded it with about $500. Again, I decided to hold off until more debt was paid.
Buy life insurance – Mostly done. We added some life insurance, but not as much as we would like yet.
Write a will – Fail! No excuse for this, we need to get this done in 2009.
I’ll be posting my 2009 goals soon. I’m going to try to keep the list shorter this year and try to get back on track with regular reviews so I don’t get complacent and lose track of what I want to accomplish this year. I hope you did a lot better on your 2008 goals than I did!
