Yesterday, we took the first major steps in our walk to Hawaii.
Eh?
Oh, very well, you want me to explain.
I am a VERY goal-oriented person. I’ve come to the conclusion that I won’t get anywhere with my exercise program if there isn’t a really big carrot at the end. The stick (obesity and ill health) hasn’t been working, and in case anyone was in doubt: Nagging does not equal Motivation. It doesn’t. Nagging, criticism, any negative training or reinforcement only serves to add negative feelings to something that already feels negative.
However…. the carrot…. the carrot works. In this case, the carrot is a trip to Hawaii, after I’ve logged 2,340 miles (the distance from Santa Cruz to Hawaii). At 2-5 miles a day, it will take over a year, even if I never take a day off. It’s about 4,690,000 steps (a good goal for health is 10,000 steps per day, or about 5 miles). On Friday, I logged just over 1200 steps. Saturday, even less than that. Sunday: 12,159 steps! We went for a hike– it was awful. I mean, it should have been great and everything, but I just don’t “get” hiking and walking and such, and the return hike was all uphill and painful. Meh.
BUT I got my 10,000 steps in for the day!
Only 4,675,741 to go!
It actually feels a little like doing NaNoWriMo, you know? Make a daily goal. Hit the daily goal. Make a goal for tomorrow…. Of course, this isn’t a one-month project, which makes it rough– I like shorter-term goals. But I’m going to look for goal-settings to make for the in-between goals. Like maybe I’ll have one for number of days in a row that I make my 10,000 step goal, or something.
Also: I invite ANYONE who wants to have a motivation to walk and lose weight to join me in this challenge! At my moderate rate, I figure I’ll be able to get to Hawaii at the beginning of 2009, so there’s not just a walking goal, but a saving one as well! You can walk, run, bike, or swim to Hawaii, though I think if you bike, you’ll probably get there faster than me! 🙂 And you can start in Santa Cruz, or in your own hometown (unless you LIVE in Hawaii, in which case you should walk to the Taj Mahal or something). I’m using Kahului as the end-point for the journey, simply because it’s on Maui (MAUI!!!) and there’s an airport there.
With any luck, I’ll even look good in a bikini when I get there (although, I look pretty good in my bathing suit already!)
Sounds like a wonderful plan. I think I will look into doing that soon. How do you track your steps?
I wear a pedometer all day (my new one came today in the mail!) and enter each day’s total in a spreadsheet. I set up the spreadsheet to calculate miles based on steps, and to calculate the number of miles to go (daily as well as to Hawaii) based on the steps/mileage entered. Plus, the spreadsheet displays True and False based on whether I’ve reached my daily goal each day.
The pedometer has a 7-day memory function, so I only have to enter the data once a week. The booklet that came with my pedometer suggests *easing* into 10000 steps a day, so for the first few weeks, I’m making my goal 5K, and upping it by about 1000 daily steps each week.
Well that is such a great idea!!!!!
I think I will do it along with you….that is a great challenge and goal.
HMmm I think the the even bigger challenge will be to convince Robin to take me to
Hawaii ;-O