Incentivize
To encourage myself in my new path to holistic health, I first created a Wall of Willpower and Self-Love. This wall, shown below, includes fitness and diet tips as well as personal quotes that inspire me to get fit.
My next phase of self-encouragement is actually naming reasons why being fit would be awesome. I narrowed it down to 5 amazing reasons to change my lifestyle and become super fit, and here they are:
1. Fitting into my WEDDING DRESS!!!!
2. Being able to walk up the stairs/fight off zombies in the case of a Zombie Apocalypse.
3. Buying new clothes that fit!
4. Eliminating all of the self-hatred that accompanies being heavy and out of shape.
5. Living forever. Or at least having a wonderfully full and healthy life.
Lastly I decided that I would be very encouraged to work out and change my life if I set aside money to buy new clothes once I look and feel awesomely fit. Therefore, I have decided to put $1 into a jar every time I work out.* Half of the proceeds will go to the honeymoon fund so my fiancée and I can have a rockin' honeymoon. The other half will be for me to buy sexy new threads for myself once I reach my goal of weighing 160 pounds. Right now I weigh 179 so that is a little ways off. However I feel this goal is entirely reachable within the next 3 months. So I am 90 days and 19 pounds away from a kickass new wardrobe!
*Note: In order to be considered a work out and thus receive a $1 into my Workout Savings Jar, the regimen must be more than 30 minutes and include some intermediate strength training, cardio or bodyweight exercises.
Demonize
This phase of my path to health and happiness includes many of the aspects of Incentivize. In this phase, however, these aspects are negative. First, I will also include a tally on my Wall of Willpower and Self-Love which will denote all of the times I eat or do ridiculously unhealthy things to my body. This will include eating desserts and fried foods, not drinking enough water, getting drunk or smoking, or wasting an opportunity for exercise.
Next I have come up with 5 reasons as to why continuing on my normal path of life sucks and will not help me in the long run. These reasons include the following:
1. I will never feel as beautiful as I should on my own wedding day.
2. I will still feel anxious and angry when I can't breathe while walking up flights of stairs. I will also continue to feel pain in my joints. Double whammy.
3. Every time I buy clothes for the rest of my life, it will suck because I will not feel comfortable in my own skin.
4. See numbers two and three and note the subtle levels of anger, discomfort and self-hate.
5. I will continue to be on a path to heart disease and diabetes. Added bonus: I will be paranoid about the facts of my impending and inevitable death.
Lastly I have decided that each week during which I work out less than 4 times, I will take out $5 from my Workout Savings Jar. This will encourage me to have 4 days of at least 30 minutes of continued exercise.
Criticize
The last step in my plan for prolonged life through diet and fitness involves a weekly critical analysis of my journey. Each week I will write a blog about my weaknesses and strengths, my successes and failures. This will include a complete summary and analysis of my diet and fitness, my emotions and feelings about my week, and the statistics of my journey thus far.
Conclusion
Therefore, I return to my journey feeling refreshed and focused. My goals for the next 109 days (until the end of March) include the following:
- I will lose 19 pounds.
- I will acquire at least $50 in my Workout Savings Jar.
- I will complete 15 weekly blogs, one for each of the next 15 weeks.
While these goals may seem small or easy, I assure you that my willpower is fragile and freakishly weak. However, with the help and love of my fiancée and close friends, I will fight my way to the end and complete all of my goals.
Baby steps just got real.
