Destination Walking and Goal Setting

Photo by MoneyWalker: A European coffee shop

 

Topic:  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