In For A Penny; Out For A Pound

With the beginning of the 2^nd month of 2012 comes a renewed determination to focus more on eating right and exercising to get to my goal by the end of the year.

For the first 6 months of last year, as a way visual reminder and to motivate me to keep saving for our 10^th anniversary cruise aboard the Disney Dream (we have since decided to postpone the trip) I began filling up a plastic tumbler with Mickey Mouse drawn on it with golden US dollar coins. It worked rather effectively I had it almost full to the top before we changed our plans.

The other day Paula was looking at weight loss tips on the Internet and she saw one that reminded me of my Disney savings plan. It works on the same principal but in the opposite way.

This picture represents the number of pounds I want to lose to get to my goal weight. This set up reminds me of the one of the counting segments that used to be on Sesame Street when I was a kid. You can and count them if you’d like. 

I've placed those pennies in a small glass mug and set it on the top of my dresser. From now on every time I lose a pound I’m going to take a penny out and put it in my change bank.  My goal by the end of 2012 is to have all the “Lincoln heads” transferred into the change bank, the mug emptied, and the scale show me the number I want to see for the rest of my life.

This is really going to help keep my goal literally in front of me. As each morning, I go into my top dresser drawer to grab my keys and my wallet and when I put them back every night. I’m excited about how effective this is going to be for me.

If something like this would work for you I encourage you to try and come up with your own unique version. What object other than pennies would serve as something more symbolic to your goal? Buttons, marbles, beads. Use your imagination to come up with a symbol that's going to mean something to you. 

I strongly discourage using chocolate kisses, skittles, or any other type of candy or snack. Because if you’re like me they’d never make it past the first week and that would defeat the purpose.

So based on the amount of weight I want to lose and the time frame I’ve set for myself for the next 11 months each week there's one thing I’m really looking forward to; removing my “two cents.”  Once again I am making the commitment to getting to my goal.

In for a penny…out for a pound.