Tips for Weight Loss: Set a Goal...AND a Reward

Of the 3 facets of taking control of your life, Health, Wealth, and Love, my main focus right now is on Health.

I have a lot of goals, a lot of interests, and a lot of hobbies. However, one of the most persistent goals throughout my life has been to be a normal weight.

There's Something about Paul

When I was a newborn baby, I was an underweight child - I was lactose intolerant but my parents didn't know it right away. I threw up every night (can you imagine how awful it must have felt to have a child who was sick constantly? I love my parents - that had to be awful). Then, when they figured out that I was intolerant of lactose, I was able to keep food down (lactaid to the rescue!). I got to a normal weight, and then I just kept going, and going and going. You see, except for a few brief months as a newborn, I've been overweight all my life.

I was on weight watchers by age 10 (maybe 8? It's hard to remember), worked with a nutritionist, and was even featured on Food Network's Cooking Thin. The host, Kathleen Daelemans worked with overweight individuals to show them they could be successful at losing weight - because she had been in the same shoes.

For a very long time, now, I have weighed over 300 pounds - when I was 16, I was nearly down below 300, and then my Birthday happened. I know it sounds crazy to let one event throw off years of work, but it happens. It's a perfect storm of cravings, low will power, and one event to push you over the edge. The bad habits come flooding back in. This often occurs with the following promises "well, it's okay to cheat for one day", "Once I get back home, then it's back to the diet", "I worked hard, I deserve a little break, then back to it!" Eventually, the promises stop, and the weight comes back.

I had a few bouts of weight loss in college, and another one earlier this year (lost like 20-30 pounds), but the weight came back. Now, I'm back to where I started - realizing I need to change.

Now, this post is not about the psychological challenges I'll face - I'm sure I'll post about those in the future. This is about the goal I am setting for myself, and the associated reward.

My Goal: To reduce my weight to 200 pounds

My Reward: A trip around the world

Now, let me walk you through the reasoning. I've recently gotten into travel hacking as a mild hobby. It's a fun one. Travel hacking is essentially finding a way to travel more than the average person, for much less than it would cost the average person, usually by acquiring frequent flier miles and hotel points, and by using those strategically to book travel for a very low cost - sometimes an international trip for hundreds of dollars.

Why Wait to Travel?

For domestic travel, I'm fine - airplanes and hotels are built for fat Americans now, so it's not that big of an issue.

However, when looking at International travel, a lot of compromises must be made. Smaller planes, middle seats, small hotel rooms, these all favor someone of a smaller stature.

Additionally, enjoying a lot of these countries requires one to be in semi-decent shape. I have bad knees, and am developing a bad back - I don't want to get to Thailand and not be able to walk around to see the country!

Furthermore, one thing almost no one thinks of - clothes. Taking clothes for someone my size takes up a lot of space - One of my shirts takes up the space of like 3 shirts someone at a normal weight would - this makes it even more difficult to travel!

So what's a guy to do? Easy, I'm putting off my trip around the world until I reach my goal weight. To make sure I work toward this, I have set up a separate account in ING Direct with $1,000 (now Capital One 360) for my 'round the world Trip. I have defined the goal in Mint, and am putting away $385 per month to reach this goal. This means that in 2 years or so, I'll have $11,000 saved up to take this around the world trip. I don't know if I'll need the whole 11 grand (I hope not!) but this will allow me to live in some luxury along the way. I am currently planning on 21 days, though that will obviously be subject to change when I start booking my travel in 2 years - I'd love to go for 2 or more months!

This is my story: in the coming days, I will provide you with the guidelines to set your own goal and reward. 2013 is the year for goals, and what goes great with Goals? Rewards!!!