I forgot a vital step...

Many of you will remember the letter I wrote back in December of 2009 to my television. I banished the television from my house as it was distracting me from my goals. In discussions with friends at the time and over the past year I got a lot of “You did what?!?” followed quickly with “Well when will you reach your goal and get a new TV?”

So what did I forget?

Well at the time I had lots of goals, both specific and vague. What I didn’t do was choose ONE of the goals to reach to qualify as television purchasing goal. Honestly at the time I wasn’t entirely confident that I’d be able to reach any of them. I had convinced myself that giving away my television for the year was better than setting yet another New Year’s resolution that I wouldn’t accomplish. What I THOUGHT would happen was I’d go the whole year without a TV, feel like I’d sacrificed enough to then justify the purchase of a new sparkly 37” LED/LCD paper thin flat screen television. Yes, I’m that bad.

Then a weird thing happened.

Life.

It’s happened to me before; I’m not sure why I’m surprised.

The difference is that the results however are usually negative rather than positive.

Let me explain by listing both the specific and vague goals I’ve had in my head since I started this journey…

Specific:

• Weigh less than my husband. He’s a freak of nature (sorry honey…I love you but you are) and weighs pretty much nothing and, if you remember, is the reason I started this whole thing.
• Lose 100lbs from my highest weight
• Run a sub 5 hour marathon
• Compete in the Danskin Tri in a two piece swim suit like the “proper” athletes and not be worried about the jiggly bits.

Vague:

• Run faster – never set a specific number here. Whoops!
• Hit a certain number on the scale – my final goal number has changed several times this year. It keeps going down!
• Spell out the word A-T-H-L-E-T-E on my charm bracelet. You’d think that this would be specific but I’ve changed the amount I needed to lose for each letter at least a dozen times.

So as you can see all the goals fall into two categories, either a number on the scale or the speed I’m doing something.

And what’s the status of my goals?

Well I weigh less than my husband. I have for a couple of weeks now. He’ll tell you I did a little happy dance around the kitchen the first time I did. It was a GOOD day.

I’m around 10lbs away from being at that 100lb lost target

While I haven’t run a marathon recently, you’ll know that I’ve handily finished several ½ Marathons in less than 2:30 so I’m pretty confident about the marathon pace.

I still have “jiggly bits”.

I AM running faster. I actually ran a sub 10 min/mile pace the other day over a 5 mile course in the park. Also a GOOD day, something about being under the number 10 made me feel great. That’s about a 2min 30 second improvement per mile(on average) since the beginning of the year. I’ve seen such a dramatic improvement and still have a ways to go on the scale that my current thought is I should aim break the four hour marathon mark, or even better, qualify for Boston.*

Based on the current “loss per letter” my charm bracelet spells A-T-H-L and I’m about a pound away from the next letter “E”.

So what is my problem?

I can hear you now. “You’re doing great! You’ve hit some of your goals.” “Go buy a TV!” (Cindy, JL –I’m speaking to you both specifically on this one.)

Well I don’t feel like I’ve really earned the TV yet because I didn’t have a specific goal. And while getting to my current state (lighter and faster than I’ve ever been in my memory) I don’t feel like the journey is close to finished. I’m having TV purchasing guilt and I haven’t even bought it yet.

How can you help?

You’ve all been part of this odyssey and I feel like I’m cheating if I set my own goal. I’d like YOU to choose my specific goal, the one that earns me the right to go out and buy the TV guilt free.

So which should it be?

100lbs lost?

Sub 5 hour marathon?

All the letters on my bracelet (would require me to lose another 21lbs from my current weight)?

2 piece suit at the Danskin?

Something else?

I’ll take suggestions in whichever form you want to send them: Facebook, Message boards, email, phone calls.

Do a girl a favor and give her a goal. J

 

*to qualify for the Boston Marathon next year based on my age I’d have to have run a marathon in less than 3 hours and 50 mins.

**Note: this would also mean I wouldn’t get a TV until next June at the earliest – just sayin’.