Everyone LOVES going camping. They love when we go swimming, rifle shooting, playing games, and any number of activities. Elective merit badges are awesome.
Required ones, however, are a lot harder to get them to work on. Citizenship badges, while VERY useful and informative, are - let's face it - boring compared to the Game Design merit badge.
So sometimes I bribe them. If they complete this badge, we'll have an activity of some sort. A lot of times it's just making popcorn at my house while I let them play Mario Kart, something like that. We don't do this a lot, but it really does help.
Well...
I have now decided that I am not above bribing myself. I know what it is that I need to do to lose weight. I really do. It's just getting the motivation to get things done. So how am I going to bribe myself?
Obviously food is out. A task that I have, which is something that I'm going to be working on for the next several years, I expect, is to come to a much healthier relationship when it comes to food. This is going to have to be an ongoing thing - not something that I think I can come up with quickly.
So food is NOT a reward that is going to work for me.
However...
I don't buy a lot of extra things. It's really hard to justify spending money on myself except for when I get money for a birthday or Christmas. Oh, I'll buy a book if I need something to read, I'll buy a movie, small things...
But larger purchases - $250 for RC car upgrades, $1000 for a vacation, $3000 on a musical instrument...
That's the kind of thing that I don't spend money on. Just can't justify it.
This is the sort of thing that intrigues me. I think that bribing myself with the thought of a larger purchase can possibly work. The last time I lost 85 pounds, it was in a Weight Loss competition where the prize was a $1500 travel voucher. My wife and I used it to go to Hawaii. It was amazing.
But just saying "someday in the future you can buy something big" isn't immediate enough. I need something way closer to the moment.
So I've decided to put together of a way that I can "earn" money. Here's what I've come up with so far:
| Activity | How much |
| First 10000 steps | $0.00005/step |
| Calorie deficit | $0.0002/cal |
| Workout (strenuous cardio) | $0.0005/min |
| Workout (pyramids, other) | $0.20/day |
| Veggies | $0.10/serving |
| Fruits | $0.05/serving |
This means that a calorie deficit of 500 will give me $0.10 per day. Strenuous cardio is $0.30 per hour. Steps - this is $0.50 per 10000 steps.
This doesn't really seem like much. But if I do 10,000 steps per day, have a 1500 calorie deficit per day, do a 30 minute workout, do my pyramids 5 days out of 7, and eat 5 servings of veggies and 3 fruits per day, that would work out to around $13 per week.
I know...I know...this isn't a lot. But for me this is about LONG TERM changes.
I'm going to tweak this. Maybe have some "boosters" for pounds lost, for certain milestones, etc.
In the end, after a year of doing this, there is a chance at this becoming some serious money. Well, serious for a middle-class income type guy - but enough to buy something nice for myself.
Time to consider for this. I believe that this will start on Sunday.
I will be back. Something has to change, and I'm feeling positive about this one.
-Silas
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