My dear husband is trying to come up with different kind of ideas to motivate me.

The newest;

He said, for each pound I lose, I should put $15 aside. And at the end of my weighloss, I would have $600 to spend on new clothes.

I think he has a great idea. Now that I am not buying junk food/ Starbucks/wine; I easily shave that $15 each week off of our food bill.

What are you doing to motivate yourself?

I love that idea! I'm going to put $135 in my savings account right now!

My grocery bill was $50 cheaper yesterday and my alcohol budget has gone from $80/month on wine to $25/month for a 2-12 packs of beer that each last me 2 weeks.

The savings pays for my Weight Watchers & now I'll squirrel away a bit of the rest!

That's a great idea!!! I did a similar technique...if I went to the gym and did an honest work out four out of the seven days of the week, then I'd set aside $25 for a new wardrobe. I was living by myself at the time (then-fiance was in Iraq), so in order to stay accountable, I put stickers on each day of the calendar that I worked out. I ONLY put the $25 in the envelope if I had 4 stickers that week. It was a fairly elementary system, but I needed to ritualize it or else it would be too easy to sneak things by myself, hehe.

Oh, and word from the wise...RESIST the temptation to tap into the goal-weight-shopping-spree money until you're at your goal weight. After losing about 30lbs, I desperately needed a few basic garments, otherwise my pants were risking falling down. I had planned on going shopping for one pair of jeans and a few basic shirts. Well I was so thrilled that I had gone from a very tight 12 to a well-fitting 8 that I blew nearly all of my new-wardrobe money. Turns out, when you get smaller and closer to goal, you drop sizes waaaay faster. The last pounds that I lost caused me to go from a size 8 to a 0/2 in the same brand! I had to trade in all of my brand new clothes at the second hand swap store. I definitely should have been more patient, haha.

Good advise!

Now it makes sense; At this weight, a drop in size seems to be 10 to 14 pounds...but way back when I was around 130 pounds, each size was 5 to 7 pounds. Interesting. I never thought about that!

Another version of the same idea is to donate xx amount of dollars to a cause that you *don't* agree with if you don't meet your exercise goals. (For me, it's a PAC of an Alaskan politician who will remain nameless but who I think is absolutely odious.) That way, if you don't meet your goals, you're not denying yourself positive things.

//b. strong,
Kim

WOW! I'm jealous, I LOVE that idea!!! Especially using the money when you reach your goal to buy new outfits!

This is a fantastic idea!

I will probably only put $5 aside for each pound. Money is a bit tight since my fiancee's friend moved in with us. He is doesn't have a job, and is bringing no income in at all. We are feeding him etc. etc, it's a big stresser in my life right now. After I hit my goal of losing 43 lbs. it will only be about $215 but hey, that's better than nothing!

LOVE the idea! Especially the stickers on the calendar and rewarding yourself the weeks you have at least four. Thank you! I think this will help me make myself go to the gym!

Wow, that's a really cool idea! I'm not working right now so I think my only reward right now will be losing the weight! Haha.

These are great!
I bought this beautiful hand painted jar and every day that I stay "on plan" (including taking my vitamins and drinking all my water etc) I put in a dollar: To go towards new clothes as I drop in size. The only problem is that during black friday I went a little crazy and bought gap jeans in every size down to my goal size and ended up having to put an IOU in the jar lol