Tag Archives: goals

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DAY 289: You betcha!

This isn’t going to be a very exciting entry.  I’m mainly posting today for some accountability, and out of bafflement.

As of right now, I am entered in six concurrent Diet Bets.  It’s a bit wild.

Here’s the breakdown:

Transformer, round 5 ending 1/15
Money pot (this round):  $2,475.00
Players:  188
74% to goal (10% of starting weight)

Weekly Kickstarter ending 1/17
Money pot:  $10,220
Players:  284
0% to goal, having just returned to my pre-holiday low weight that I joined this bad boy at 2 weeks ago (4% of starting weight)

Winter Onederland (my bet) ending 1/24
Money pot:  $150
Players:  6
31% to goal (4% of starting weight)

Make 2016 Your Year with Jessie Pavelka ending 1/25
Money pot:  $25,320
Players:  844
31% to goal (4% of starting weight)

Get Lean in 2016 with Heidi & Chris Powell ending 1/31
Money pot:  $336,480 (and counting)
Players:  11,216 (and counting)
14% to goal (4% of starting weight)

Transformer, round 1 (January 1st overall start date) ending 1/31
Money pot (this round):  $55,875 (and counting)
Money pot (total):  $588,775 (!!!!)
Players:  4,466 (and counting)
87% to goal (3% of starting weight)

 
I think I redirected my post-holiday sugar crash into Diet Bet cravings.  I joined the January 1st Transformer game before Christmas, knowing it would attract a huge pool of resolutioners, and made a promise to myself that I would have an uninterrupted downward trend on my 6-month progress chart rather than the chaos I see on the Transformer I’m in round 5 on.  I wasn’t wrong; the pot is ENORMOUS and sign-ups show no sign of slowing down, all the way through to the day Diet Bet closes it to new participants.  I stand to win a fairly epic amount of money from that bet, as sadly, I believe the vast majority of people who joined the bet were in a New Year’s haze and did it to kick themselves in the butt, but weren’t actually ready for this.  They’re hoping this will MAKE them ready, but it’s unlikely to.  I’d love to be wrong about that so that more people can get healthy and feel wonderful, but I don’t think I will prove to be.

The Heidi and Chris Powell bet was a total impulse buy.  They ran a bet over the summer, before I really knew who they were, but I remembered they had a massive following and a correspondingly massive pot.  When I saw they were hosting again, I figured that I might as well participate; I’m already in bets that require me to lose weight that’s basically equal to the amount I would need to lose in their bet.  If I’m already doing the work, why not increase my winnings?  Plus, I’m not gonna lie, that growing pot was a huge attraction.  Happily, Heidi and Chris are proving to be involved hosts.  They aren’t doing much direct interacting with participants, but I’m not at all disappointed, given the size of the group.  It’s just nice to hear from them via posts and announcements every few days.

Likewise for Jessie Pavelka’s bet.  I joined his before Christmas, at the same time as I was launching my tiny bet, figuring it would be a pretty big draw for players.  I was honestly a little leery of getting into another Biggest Loser trainer’s bet after having done Dolvett Quince’s VERY disappointing bet over the summer, but Jessie has been outstanding.  Like the Powells, he doesn’t do a lot of direct conversing with us, but he actively blogs, shares tips, and incites discussion through posts.  He seems much more invested than Dolvett ever was.  (Interestingly, Dolvett has a bet starting up in a couple of days.  I briefly considered joining it, but I remembered what a let-down his first bet was.  Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m in quite enough bets as it is.)

The DB-hosted Kickstarter and my round 5 for Transformer 1 seem rather like long shots, but I feel on fire right now and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that I can actually meet those goals.  It will be insanely difficult, but what a redemption if I can pull it off!

To revisit my January 1st Transformer, round 1 is virtually in the bag already.  My true goal for that one is to get near or to the round 2 goal (6%) before the end of this round.  If I achieve my goals for the bets in the previous paragraph, I’ll have done that.

My own game is small, and I have to admit that I’ve been a fairly negligent host this time around.  I am trying to up my presence now that my real life has returned to normalcy, so there’s hopefully time for me to be a good enough leader that my merry band of participants will remember me as a NON-negligent host.  My hope for that game is that everyone reaches their 4% and I don’t win any of their money.  As of now, everyone seems on track, so it could happen!  (I’m still a better host than Dolvett.  Just sayin’.)

OK, just had to blab about all of that because the number of bets and the amounts of money are making my head spin.  I didn’t post this on Diet Bet because the blog posts there are automatically advertised in each bet, and that means that thousands of people would be informed of the entry.  I’m not at all ashamed of it, it’s just that I wouldn’t want those people, who aren’t my DB “friends” and don’t “know” me to think I’m some kind of maniac who is mocking them for joining bets that I smugly believe will end up lining my pockets.  (Not that it matters, but that sincerely is not my attitude.  I want everyone to succeed, but that sounds like a total lie coming from a competitor.)

There you have it!  Those are the stakes.  I’ll be sure to report on progress as these weigh-outs come up.  Wish me luck!

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DAY 284: You say you want a resolution

Well, you know, we all want to change the world.

Have you ever made a resolution that actually stuck?  Probably not.  I can think of only one person in my own life who has made one successful resolution:  When we were kids, my brother resolved to eat exactly one potato chip the entire year.  For what it’s worth, he nailed it.  So much for the betcha-can’t-eat-just-one myth.

Apart from that sole example, these things are basically giant pillars of fantasy.  People tend to create lofty, overblown objectives — ostensibly for self-improvement — that are unattainable, grandiose, and inherently unexecutable.  Either their resolutions are not specific enough (“I’m going to lose weight!”) or far too specific (“I’m going to go to the gym EVERY DAY and never eat sugar and go paleo and gluten-free and lose 100 pounds by June!”), and we have ourselves to blame for the impracticality.  (Learn your SMART goals, people!)

It’s an honorable effort to create things to strive for in any situation, but making resolution-setting A THING is exactly the problem, especially when it’s for losing weight.

First of all, the time of the year is a trap.  It’s a freaking trap.  From Halloween to New Year’s Eve — two SOLID MONTHS — we stuff our faces with candy and pie and cookies (among other things) under the code of holiday conduct.  That’s two months of steadily gaining weight just through the interruption of whatever routine you have in place, in combination with the calorie fests accompanying each holiday in the forms of parties, receptions, and the celebratory meals that mark the occasions themselves.  So all the while, we have in the back of our heads that we’ve got to get right… but might as well wait until this holiday-laden time of year has passed, cuz it’d just be a lost cause before then.  *shrugs and eats another cupcake*

Furthermore, those two months of splurging on enough sugar and carbs to destroy a doctor’s soul, are two months wasted on regression when they could be spent maintaining, if not making progress.  It’s digging yourself into a deeper hole to work out of when the arbitrary date of January 1st finally comes and you can make your precious resolution.  Honestly, think of the damage!

So New Year’s Day becomes THE HOPE.  We don’t set goals, we set RESOLUTIONS.  (Those are more serious, y’know.  *eye roll*)  The ball drops at midnight on January 1st, and BAM!  You’re magically different and inspired to go lose the weight you haven’t to this point been motivated enough to tackle because… wait, why again?  Because NEW YEAR’S!  That bizarre top-hat-wearing New Year’s baby is your spirit animal, and he will guide you to win!  OO-RAH!

Next on the list of pitfalls is the delusion of time.  You figure, “hey, I have all year to hit this (fucking insane) goal I’ve set for myself.  Totally gonna happen, brah.”  But have you thought it through?  Do you have a plan for how to eat right, build muscle, and work off fat so that you can even get close to hitting that likely bonkers goal of yours?  Or were you just putting it on future-you in the midst of all those holiday smorgasbords to deal with current-you’s horrible decisions so you could continue eating and drinking your way into oblivion without feeling too guilty?  Was it ever a serious decision, or was it a sugar-fueled pledge made in the throes of a mad jones for more of the sweet stuff?  The amount of time you have to hit any goal is meaningless if you haven’t figured out how to spend it on achieving that goal.

Finally, the amount of pressure from this HUGE demand you’ve put upon yourself is crushing.  You have formally resolved to lose weight, and you must succeed!  It’s A THING, after all.  A THING!

No.  It’s too much.  The stakes are too high.  Resolutioning for weight loss is the prime example of the all-or-nothing approach, and unless you’re a wiry 9-year-old boy with a weird defiant streak against potato chip advertisements, ALL OR NOTHING DOESN’T WORK.  It’s why people fail. It’s why I’ve always failed in the past.  You kill it and kill it and kill it until you have one little slip-up, then it’s THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD and you’ve totally ruined everything and you might as well just stop exercising now.  Better luck next year.  Pass the cake.

If you’ve made any resolutions relating to weight loss, I highly recommend you try them the SMART way so you aren’t set up for failure from the jump.  I also sincerely wish you luck — some people do respond well to the magnitude of SUCCEED OR BUST, but those individuals are rare.  Prove me wrong.  Please.

For my part, I resolve to try very hard not to lose my mind when my gym is suddenly overrun with starry-eyed resolutioners who are all up on my elliptical starting tomorrow.  Other than that, my resolution is to make no weight-loss resolutions; just to make more weight-loss progress.

Happy and healthy 2016!

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DAY 271: Before pants

I pulled these out today.  They’re my Lane Bryant (gag) size 24 (vomit) “nice” pants that are on my milestones aspirations list as the ones I want to be able to fit into one leg of some day soon.

Here’s where we’re at on progress to goal:

 

For the record, I did try to fit into one leg today just to see, and it almost actually happened.  If my calves weren’t Superman size, I think it would have been a go.  I’ll run the experiment again in a couple more lost pants sizes and see.

In the present… check out all that extra fabric!

The first photo is with the pants zipped up and pulled as high up as they will go (which is just below my bust), and pulled all the way to the side (NOT the front).  The photo is turned in the wrong direction in this post, but I noticed it after uploading and am far too lazy to fix it.  😉

The photo in the middle is with the pants pulled up to where they’re supposed to be with the extra fabric pulled forward to make them fit my form.

The final photo is the bouquet of fabric in my hand as seen from my vantage point after I took the middle picture in the mirror.

I’ve been feeling really raggedy this week, so I’m glad I did this.  I’ve donated several boxes of clothing every month since July or August, and this is the only article of clothing that no longer fits — aside from the before dress — that I’ve kept.  I’ve tried these pants on a couple of times since starting my weight loss, but the loss hasn’t been as striking before today.  Today, it was impossible for them to stay on; they just fell right to the floor, no matter how many ways I bent or twisted to anchor the waist band onto a curve so they’d at least hang off me.  I can’t believe these were my go-to professional attire just 9 months ago.  They look ridiculous now, both on me and off.

I still have time to make the weight goal I set for myself for the end of this year, and I may have found the motivation I need to get me there.  I think I’ll keep my sad pants out in plain sight for a while.

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DAY 262: Once an addict…

Some people, like me, have addictive personalities.  I’ve been this way ever since I was a small child who obsessively watched the same movie over and over again on repeat until I got sick of it.  I’ve done this throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, with everything from movies to TV shows to songs to books and even to people.  It’s an odd pattern of novelty becoming comfortable, then too familiar, then boring and/or annoying, which triggers a need for something new… until the pattern itself gets annoying and I return to something old and known until I again wear out my interest in that and need to go back to the new again.  I don’t know what it is that makes me this way, but I know it’s always been how I am, and I therefore have no expectation of changing it.

Obviously, the worst place where this special little cycle of mine pops up is with food.  Remember Oreo Cakesters?  You don’t?  Well, you must have been sleeping during that period where they existed, and I ate them all before you had a chance to try them.  (They have since mercifully been discontinued.)  I also had a Papa John’s phase, a fried chicken phase, even a freaking Hamburger Helper phase, just to name a few.  These were all bad food-addiction/compulsion-fueled habits I had before I had the thing that changed it all:  a routine.

Now that I have a framework within which to conduct my daily life, everything else is so much easier.  I’ve learned to adapt my addictive personality to a healthy way of life, which means preparation, preparation, preparation.  I’ve also learned that you can apply a potentially dangerous pattern to a positive endeavor by simply replacing the addiction.  (Simple in concept, of course.  It’s certainly a challenge in practice!)  I’m no longer obsessed with filling my belly; I’m obsessed with shrinking it.  I’m addicted to exercise.

Yesterday was the first time I’ve attempted my (formerly) usual elliptical run since before I got sick, which was well before Thanksgiving.  I’m still not entirely recovered, and my body is not keeping that a secret; I was coughing and my nose was running from just a couple of minutes in.  In the end, I was only able to do one mile of my usual 3+, but I’m happy to report that my speed is still intact (under 12 minutes!), and DAMN, it felt good to sweat from something besides a fever!

I’ve amped up the fitness addiction by signing up for more Diet Bets.  As of yesterday, I am now committed and paid into a total of FIVE (one of which I’m hosting — join me!) between now and mid-February.  I’m still trying to recover the lost ground in my Transformer, and it doesn’t look like I’ll quite get there in time for the round 4 weigh-in a week from now, but I WILL win the game.  I’ve also set a pretty ambitious goal to hit for the end of the year.  I won’t be crushed if I don’t hit it, but I WILL totally redeem myself — and be a total fucking champion — if I do.

Finally, I set up another follow-up appointment with my fabulous doctor for January 19th, 6 months after my last visit with her.  I can’t wait to hear what she’ll have to say at that visit!  It gives me extra motivation to reach my goals.

Through replacing the addiction, I’ve become so singularly focused on achieving my fitness goals that I’ve gone back to not even caring about my old trigger foods.  Those plates of temptation are just masses of needless calories that will sabotage my plans and make me mad at myself.  Why go down a path of destruction?  I’ll pass.  Gym, please.

Sorry, Christmas cookies.  Maybe next year!