Goals

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.

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.