Photo by MoneyWalker: A European coffee shopTopic: Destination Walking and Goal Setting
The MoneyWalker is meeting weight loss/maintenance goals
this year. Jan 1, weight was fluctuating
between 179 and 180 lbs. Resolution was to have weight in the 173/174 range by
April 1, 2014. Done! April 1 scale reading equaled 173.8 lbs. Hope the readers are meeting their 2014
weight loss goals.
The problem of reaching a weight loss milestone is
continuing the vigilance of caloric restraint and exercise continuance. The MoneyWalker keeps his walking regiment
refreshed by supplementing money-finding motivation with other sources. Recently
he has been experimenting with “destination walking.” The trick is to determine worthy destinations
that are within walking distance from the home base. They can be a bank, the
post-office, a coffee shop, a thrift store, Costco, etc. One example that allows the MoneyWalker to
combine hobbies is “Little Free Libraries.” These yard boxes with free or
exchange books are cropping up in neighborhoods across the country. There are several in mine. The LFL’s homepage provides their addresses
and with Google Maps, I plot my walk. The
motivation comes from gaining a free book while charting 4 or 5 miles on my
walk journal.
Four or five miles logged has another important
reinforcement. I need to limit daily
caloric intake to about 2300 hundred calories.
But with 4 or 5 miles, I can bump that to 2800 calories, enough so that
a modest sweet tooth can be honored without crashing the weight scales.
The base motivation system for the MoneyWalker will always
be the Ventral
Striatum Celebration that comes from finding
coins-on-the-street. The human brain
loves money, but it also enjoys short term goals such as reaching worthy
destinations; double the pleasure if the destination involves free books.
With “destination walking” the MoneyWalker might
soon be pushing into the 170/171 weight zone.
Take away, if you want to lose more weight by exercise, find a way to
tweak your motivation system. When
walking, as they said on Hill Street Blues, “Be careful out
there.”
MoneyWalker
