Goals

Looking back to my January 2021 post I didn’t make any goals for 2021 at that time. I did list three things I’d like to do. They were to hike the Camino de Santiago in Spain, complete my section hike of the AT, and spend three months in Thailand. 

In September 2021 I went to Spain and hiked about 300 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago. I skipped around some since I didn’t have time to complete the entire hike. I hiked the last approximately 164 kilometers from Ponferrada to Santiago de Compostela as a continuous journey which qualified me to receive an official Compostela certifying the journey I’d completed on the Camino. I count this plan as done, although I might go back someday and hike more of the Camino.

I did hike more on the Appalachian Trail, but didn’t come close to finishing the trail. I did finally complete Massachusetts which wasn’t too hard since I only had about 4 miles to hike to finish the state. I also completed about half of Vermont. I’d like to go back and at least finish the Vermont portion of the AT sometime this year.

Lastly, I want to spend three months in Thailand. Due to the immigration rules, I did not fulfill that plan. I did make it to Thailand at the beginning of September and will be here until January 28th. I will come back to Thailand at least one more time this year. As of this writing, the one night quarantine Test and Go program I entered under isn’t available. I’m hoping it will return. If not, I will enter under one of the quarantine of Sandbox programs. I didn’t want the expense and inconvenience of entering under one of those programs last year, but now I don’t want to be apart from my Thai girlfriend for too long so I’ll do one of those programs if it is my only option.

I did make one goal in 2021. I made a goal to lose 29 pounds and motivated myself to meet that goal by making a wager with Healthy Wage. I did manage to lose the 29 pounds and I’m working on losing more. I’ll set some goals related to my weight and health in a future post.

For now the only plans I have for 2022 are to do a section hike of the AT sometime during the year and to return to Thailand at least once. Overall, I’m happy with what I did in 2021 and hope to improve in 2022. In a future post I will set some financial and physical goals for 2022.

I intend to provide monthly updates on my progress on weight loss bet with (affiliate link) HealthyWage. I’m a little late for the first update.

My bet was that I would lose 29 pounds in six months. The six months started on June 14th. My initial weigh in was 218 pounds and I now weigh 210.4 pounds. That is behind where I should be. To be on track my weight should be at 209.8 or lower.

The last half of June I did a two-week hike on the Appalachian Trail. That gave me a great start on my weight loss. My weight was down to 207.4 in early July. Unfortunately, since then I have gained weight. I’ve been very inconsistent with exercising and eating healthy. I’ve got to make some changes if I am going to reach my weight loss goal and win my bet with HealthyWage (affiliate link).

Starting now I am going to track my food using MyFitnessPal. Also, I will have some form of exercise every day. I’ve been eating fast food almost every day which is not helping me lose weight. I’m not going to have fast food again until Monday when I’ll be out of town most of the day. After that I’ll make a new plan for limiting my fast food intake. In a week I will see what progress has resulted from these changes and determine what additional changes need to be made.

My initial weigh-in for Healthy Wage came in at 218 pounds. That is higher than I was expecting. I usually weigh myself first thing in the morning wearing just my skivvies. I underestimated how much weighing later in the day and wearing more clothes would add to my weight. It didn’t make any difference on the amount of my wager. I still need to lose 29 pounds or more in the next six months. Losing 29 pounds would put me at 189 which would be my lowest weight since 2006. If you would like to lose weight with Healthy Wage please consider using my referral link. Using the link will add $40 to your prize and add money to my prize too.

I haven’t come up with a specific plan to lose the weight yet. I’m starting a section hike on the Appalachian Trail tomorrow. Hiking 10-15 miles a day with about 25 pounds on my back and having limited food options will cause me to lose weight so I won’t worry too much about my food choices while hiking.

When I get back from the hike I will need to be more careful with what I eat. My friend Jon at MyFrugalMiser has had great success with the Keto Diet. I’m not sure I would be able to stick with that diet. Perhaps I could stick with Dirty Lazy Keto. If I don’t decide to do Keto, I will come up with another plan to improve my diet and reduce how much I eat. I have had readers offer weight-loss tips in the past and I’d be happy to hear more suggestions.

Long-time readers might remember that I was able to sucessfully lose 30 pounds back in 2014 with the help of being motivated by a $3000 bet with Healthy Wage. I was able to go from 226 pounds to 196 pounds. Unfortunately, after the wager was over I started gaining back the weight. I ended up setting a new highest ever weight of 232 pounds back in 2018. I’ve lost some weight since then and currently weight about 217 pounds. I haven’t been able to lose weight consistently though and I’ve never gotten close to getting to a healthy weight.

I’ve wanted to do another HealthyWager but I thought I wasn’t eligible since I was above my final weight at the end of winning wager. I recently learned that they now have a Yo-Yo rule that allows you to make another wager even if you weigh more than you did at the end of your previous winning wager. You can only make one wager using the Yo-Yo rule and they apply a downward profit adjustment for wagers made under this rule. Even with the smaller potential profit I think this will provide the motivation I need to lose a significant amount of weight. Of course, this time I need to keep losing weight even after the wager has ended.

For this wager I’m betting $1200 that I will lose 29 pounds over 6 months. If I win, I’ll get back my $1200 plus $185 profit. The $185 profit includes a $50 boost that was added for signing up through a specific link. If you would like to try Healthy Wage by signing up through my referral link you can have a $40 boost added to your wager and I’ll get a boost added to my wager as well. If you haven’t made a previous Healthy Wage you should get a better profit on your bet than I’m getting.

Betting $1200 to get a profit of $185 might not seem like much of a return. Compared to how much I’d earn in interest on that money though it is a great return. Plus I was able to pay the wager with a 2% cash back credit card to get a little more return on my money. This is somewhat risky, but I know from past experience that I’m able to lose weight when motivated and I actually do the things I need to do (like eat health and exercise) to lose weight. And if a few people sign up to do a HealthyWager using my referral link the return can get a lot better.

I haven’t weighed in for this wager yet. I’ll provide an update with my official starting weight and my goal weight later this week. I’ll also provide updates on my progress and what I’m doing to lose weight at least once a month. Have any of you tried HealthyWage?