I think I figured out most of the details on how to manage my personal weight loss challenge for 2023.
My official weigh-in today, Sunday Jan 1, is 242.8 lbs. That’s the most I’ve ever weighed. As I’m only 5’8″ tall, so that puts me well into obese territory.
I’m committing to losing 50 lbs this year, so ending 2023 at or below 192.8 lbs. That’s an aggressive but attainable and sustainable goal. Approx 1 pound a week.
I’m bargaining $100 for every pound, or $5000 total. If I achieve or exceed the goal to lose 50 lbs, I get $5000 at the end of the year to spend, guilt free, on something I want. I have something in mind but am still developing the idea. For every pound I fall short of the goal, I’ll donate $100 to a charitable organization.
If my weight loss was a steady downward slope of approximately 1 pound a week, this would be easy. But it doesn’t work like that. From experience, I’ll be able to drop the first 20 lbs or so fairly quickly without a ton of effort. It gets considerably harder after that, and the last 10 lbs or so are a real struggle. So, I need a way to track this that keeps me on track and motivated, and doesn’t punish me when things get tougher. The whole point is to lose the weight and treat myself, after all.
To accommodate this, I’m going to set milestone dates with a specific goal. When I hit the date, I’ll allocate the reward money appropriately ($100 to me for each pound loss, $100 to charity for each pound under the milestone). I’ll assess where I’m at, and set the next milestone based on what I think is achievable.
My first milestone is to reach 232.8 lbs by the end of February, so, to lose 10 lbs in about 8 weeks. I expect that I’ll lose more than that, based on my history, but I want to set myself up for success.
Let’s say I lose 15 lbs by the end of February. That exceeds the milestone goal, and I’d get to add $1500 to my reward fund. I could choose to make the next milestone more aggressive, say, to lose another 15 lbs by the end of April.
On the other hand, I may only lose 6 lbs by the end of February. In that case, I’d put $600 into the reward fund, and $400 goes to a charity. I may decide that the goal for milestone 2 will be to lose 10 more pounds by the end of April. Or, I could decide to make up for lost ground and make the goal 15 lbs by the end of April.
However the milestones go, at the end of the year, I’ll settle up the overall 50 lb goal. If I only lose 30 lbs, that’s $3000 for my adventure, and $2000 for charity. If I exceed 50 lbs, awesome. I’ll have earned the $5000. I can then decide if I want to continue some version of this into 2024.