Goals

Four months have passed in my six month bet to lose thirty pounds. The bet will pay me $3600 if I manage to lose the weight ($3000 of the amount is my own money being returned to me) and if I don’t manage to lose the weight I’ll be out $3000. The idea behind the bet is that the prospect of losing $3000 will motivate me to lose the weight.

My starting weight was 226 pounds so I need to get down to 196 pounds to win the bet. Last month I weighed 211.4 pounds so I had lost basically half of the weight I need to lose. This month I weighed 210 pounds. It is good that I lost weight, but I need to lose weight much more rapidly if I am going to win this bet. I still have fourteen pounds to lose in two months. Losing seven pounds a month will not be easy. I’d like to have a little safety margin so it would be better if I could lose eight pounds each month.

Despite the slow weight loss after the first month I still feel that I can lose all the weight. This past week I did great at exercising and eating better and lost four pounds. I just need to continue doing that and I will win the bet. Taking the necessary steps to lose the remaining weight isn’t that hard, but it isn’t easy either. When I’m tempted to skip my exercise or eat junk food I just have to remind myself that I have $3000 on the line. Momentary pleasure is not worth losing $3000. I’ll have another update at the end of this month. I hope to report that I have lost the entire thirty pounds or close to it.

As of July 10 I was halfway through my weight loss bet to lose thirty pounds in six months. I have bet $3000 that I will lose the weight. If I manage to lose the weight then I win $600 plus get my $3000 back, if I don’t win the bet then I lose $3000. I have since found out that the max you can win in addition to the amount you bet is $600. If I had bet $600 I could have won $600 for a total payout of $1200. That is obviously a lot better return on investment than my bet. The extra $2400 I bet wasn’t totally without benefit though. I was able to place that bet with a 2% back credit card so I did get a nice amount of credit card rewards from placing the bet. Additionally, the thought of losing $3000 scares me a lot more than the thought of losing $600.

My starting weight was 226 pounds so I need to get down to 196 pounds to win the bet. At my July 10 weigh-in I weighed 211.4 pounds. If I round that down then I have lost a total of 15 pounds in the first three months. That means I have lost half the weight I need to lose and am exactly on track to lose thirty pounds in six months.

However, I would like to lose the weight before the six months is up. Not losing all the weight until the last-minute doesn’t give me any margin of error in case something goes wrong. Ideally I would like to have all of the weight loss by the end of August or early September. After a strong start of losing twelve pounds in the first month my weight loss has been very slow the last couple of months. I am going to continue to try to lose weight while I’m working, but I don’t think I’ll be able to lose weight quickly enough while working. Therefore, once my current work project is finished I will take some time off. I plan to give biking the Katy Trail another try. I know from past experience that I can lose weight quickly from hiking and I think I should experience similar weight loss from biking. It will be hot for biking, but it would be worse if I was hiking. I’ll update my bike plans once I know when the bike ride will be.

My goals for July are going to be the same as my goals for June. I’m going to just keep making the same goals until I do a satisfactory job of meeting the goals. If you don’t remember from my previous posts the goals I’m referring to are exercising for 30 minutes or more  and writing 1000 words or more at least five times a week.

I kept track of how often I met both goals in June thinking that it might help me to make goals more often. That didn’t prove to be the case. There were only five days in June that I met both goals. One positive of keeping track of the goals is that I know exactly how poorly I did on making the goals. It is easy to see that there is plenty of progress to be made. If I can just meet my goals more than five days in July then progress will have been made.  I didn’t keep track of how often I met just one of the goals. There were many days that I exercised at least thirty minutes, but didn’t write 1000 words. This month I will keep track of both items so I can see how I’m doing on each goal. I’d like to get these goals to where they are just an ordinary habit and then I can add some more goals.  I am working this month, but that isn’t a good excuse for not meeting these goals. I know there are lots of bloggers out there working full-time or longer hours and getting more done than me.  It is entirely possible for me to achieve both of these goals and still have plenty of leisure time.

My plan for my next adventure is to bike the Katy Trail. Actually, my plan is to bike it both ways. This is a 237 mile long trail and it has been almost ten years since I last rode a bike so this plan might be overly ambitious. Unless I get a job before next Tuesday though I will at least be attempting an out and back ride of the Katy Trail.

I’m thinking it will take me about six or seven days each way to bike the trail. I’m guessing that I will be able to bike about 40 miles a day. Back in 2005 I biked 17 miles on the Virginia Creeper trail in about 2.5 hours with several breaks. The Katy Trail is also a relatively level, crushed limestone trail so I figure in a full day of riding I should be able to do about three times as much mileage. A bike ride from nine years and 35 pounds ago might not be the best basis for establishing my current bike riding ability though. My other thought is that I was able to hike 14 mile days on my recent hike. Biking should be at least three times as fast as hiking and 14×3 is 42 so that is another basis for my 40 miles a day estimate.

My method of biking the trail does allow me to scale back my daily mileage plan if it proves to be too ambitious. I’m going to ride out and back to my car each day. For example, the first day I might bike from the Clinton trailhead to Windsor and then ride back to the Clinton trailhead. The next day I would drive to Sedalia and ride from the Sedalia trailhead to Windsor and then back to the Sedalia trailhead. The trail has mile markers so if halfway through the day I feel like my initial goal for the day is too far I can note my current mile marker and turn around there for the day. Or if my initial goal was too easy I could push to a further mile marker before turning around for the day, but I doubt that will happen. This method will give me a lot of flexibility on how far I bike each day.

This method of biking will also help keep my costs down since I’ll be sleeping in my car rather than staying at a hotel at night. I’ll still stay at a hotel or campground some days since I won’t want to go more than a couple of days without a shower. This method will increase my gas costs since I’ll be driving each day, but overall the trip will be relatively cheap.

It is costing me a bit of money to get ready for this trip. I’m borrowing my girlfriend’s bike which has the advantage of being free. Unfortunately, it also has the disadvantage of being pink. It is also a cheap Walmart bike which might not be reliable for such a long ride. Since I’m riding back to my car each day it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle to make any needed repairs or possibly find a replacement bike.

That is my plan for now. Since I’m returning to my car each night I’ll be able to continue blogging and I’ll keep you updated on how the plan works.