Mission Accomplished

I first did a posting on Tim on Jan. 23 (see archives). He wieghed 261-lbs. on that day and he stated that his goal was to weigh 240 pounds by June 2, the day he was leaving for Hawaii for scuba diving for his 20th anniversary. He's leaving tomorrow for a two-week trip. Aloha, Tim. He weighed in at 236.5 this morning, beating his goal by 3.5 pounds!

That's 25-lbs in 4 1/2 months. Pretty impressive. To the right, is the picture I took back in January. You can really tell a big difference when you see him in person. A person doesn't lose 10% of his body weight without it being noticable. What helped him acheive his weight loss was the fact that he set very specific goals. He wrote them down, and, he went the additional step of telling people what they were, just to add a little more pressure. That's a good stratagy. You start with a long-term, measurable goal, them make a series of short-term goals to get you there. Like, lose 5-lbls this month, or, walk 20-miles this week.

I also believe that the goals should be somewhat challenging. I like to use the 50% rule. That means, that with hard work, you still have only a 50% chance of meeting the goal. If you don't quite get there, so what? You probably still get futher along than if you had set an easy goal and made it. Also, the feeling of accomplishment you get when you achieve a difficult goal is fantastic. You got that Shela? A trip to Boston is waiting for you. But have to want it.

Yesterday, I ran to the track and did 4 hard 200-meters, and ended with a hard 100-meter. I have to get my body used to the fast pace of the 800, which I race in next Thursday. The distance to and from the track was almos 4-miles. I was a little sore today from that workout, but, I felt compelled to do a 15-mile bike ride, because some bastard brought a bunch of pasties to our group at work today. I had 2 1/2 creame-filled, chocalate-covered long johns. That son of a bitch.