Goals

I intended to post more frequent updates on these. Now that the year is almost 3/4 over, I’m finally posting an update. My goals for 2022 were: 1. To weigh 170 pounds 2. Hike the remaining VT section of the AT or Katy Trail 3. Make $30,000 or more for the year.

Not surprisingly, considering the lack of attention I have given these goals, I’m not on track to meet any of them.

At this point it isn’t realistic for me to weight 170 pounds by the end of the year. I currently weigh 206 pounds. Getting down to 170 would likely require an unsustainable amount of exercise and calorie restriction. Earlier this year, I got my weight down to 188 pounds. I’m going to make getting down to 188 pounds or less by the end of the year my new goal.

I think that is attainable. I’ll be going back to Thailand at the end of this month and I do much better at losing weight when I’m in Thailand. Unfortunately, when I’m in the U.S. I rapidly regain all of the weight I lost while in Thailand. Part of that is because I don’t sleep well which leads to me not exercising and eating junk food. The next time I get back from Thailand I’m going to change my environment so I can hopefully sleep better. Although, I got a new mattress just a couple of years ago I might buy another one to see if that helps my sleep.

I never had time to hike the VT section of the Appalachian Trail or the Katy Trail. This is because I was working almost all of the time I was not in Thailand. I don’t feel bad about not completing this goal since it was more important for me to work and make money than hike.

So far this year I’ve made approximately $13k. This makes it quite unlikely I’ll make the $30k goal. Even though I have mostly been working when not in Thailand, I just don’t make enough to meet this goal. I need to find a way to make decent money while I’m in Thailand to have a shot of at least getting somewhat close to this goal.

I’m not going to cut back on how much time I spend in Thailand to increase my income though. I enjoy my time in Thailand too much and I want to be with my wife as much as possible. Since I live frugally, my modest income is sufficient to pay all my expenses and still save money every year.

This will probably be the only update on my 2022 goals. I’ll post the results at the end of the year sometime.

For this post, I will share my plans for this year and some goals I’d like to achieve this year. These won’t be SMART goals now. There will be later posts where I list specific actions I’ll take to reach these goals.

My big plan for the year is to return to Thailand at later this year and marry my girlfriend. After that, I will apply for a visa so that she can live with me in the US. The visa process takes quite some time so it will most likely be next year before the visa is approved.

I have three simple goals for this year. The first is to weigh 170 pounds and maintain that weight. That is a healthy weight for my height. The last time I weighed that was probably sometime in the early 90’s. It will be difficult to get to this weight, but I do believe it is a reasonable goal.

My second goal is to finish hiking the Vermont section of the Appalachian Trail. Since my free time might be limited as an alternative I might hike or bike the Katy Trail. The Katy Trail is actually longer than the Vermont section of the A.T., but it would require less travel and I could do bigger mileage days.

My final goal is to make at least $30,000. Although that might not seem like much it is more than I’ve made the last couple of years. If this goal ends up being too easy, I’ll adjust the amount upwards. I’m going to have a lot of expenses this year so I need to make more money.

Each month I will share specific actions I am taking to achieve these goals. What goals do you have for 2022?

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.