I have an awesome personal trainer who is a godsend to me. This week while working out, he asked me how much weight I have lost and I told him 45 pounds. He then had me do a bunch of exercises with 40 pounds (two 20-pound dumbbells). And it was so incredibly hard! Even just walking around carrying those weights was difficult! Then he said to remember that I was carrying that weight around each and everyday for 24/7. (Granted that weight was distributed through my body, not all concentrated into two 20-pound fat bulges, but still....) Then he said to imagine how great you will feel when you are another 40 pounds lighter. It was very profound and meaningful to me.

So try it at home or at the gym -- pick up some weights that are about the amount of weight you have lost and try to even just walk around with them for awhile. You will be amazed and really feel great about your accomplishments thus far.

Best to all of you!

I can't pick up that much

I never realized how much weight I was carrying on a daily basis until I held my toddler (who weights 10lbs less than I've lost) for a while. OMG!

wow, had never stopped to think about that, but your trainer is absolutely right.....i'll be sure to do it on monday as soon as i get to the gym. thanks and thankyou for motivating me to continue with my workouts!!!

Great post!

For a while, I was rewarding myself, for pounds lost, with money. I "paid" myself in quarters. Why? Because each roll of quarters weighs half a pound. Each week, I went to the bank and got rolls of quarters equivalent to the amount of weight I lost.

This was really helpful for me. Even on weeks when I'd only lost half a pound, I got a real appreciation for my achievement----carrying half a pound of quarters in your pockets for a while, and you decide that it's not insignificant!

Hehe, i've tried this, in a different way.

Before I was doing boot camp, I did my own circuits at home. Sometimes I take my daughter to the park, which has a large perimeter, 500 metres. I would do circuit style exercises on the play equipment, and run the boundary in between. But - some of my exercises involved my daughter, who at 7 is about 50lb. I do squats with her on my back, or I piggyback her and run the perimeter (yes run!, lol, its a good way to make yourself puke).

Man, that's hard. When I think I've lost 100lb, no wonder I was so exhausted all the time. My BMI was 36 with 100lb to lose and I marvel at the idiots who tell me I wasnt heavy enough (mainly on here, sadly). If I tried to get through my day with 100lb on my back, I can see how much I needed this surgery.

BetsyB, that's got to be the most creative, ingenious reward I've ever heard of! I love it!!

What a great idea! Some of the weight machines I use at the gym are set at 55 pounds, and those last few reps are simply a matter of willpower to get through.

I stood in the grocery store recently and tried to lift and hold 50 pounds of potatoes. I only lasted a minute or two. How did I ever walk around as heavy as I was?

Thanks for the tip!

Christine

I need to lose a 50 lb bag of chicken feed, and my toddler. That sure as heck puts in in perspective!!!! Thanks for the creativity and motivation!!

What an awesome way to relate your weight loss. I often let my purse load up with change. Every other month I empty it out and boy what a difference that makes. Now that I can visualize what seems like a small amount of weight I will be able to appreciate the 1/2 lb of loss. Thanks so much!

Great post Betsy. Thanks for reminding me of the 'paying oneself' method to keep up good practices. I've done it a couple of times and it really works.

I initially used it to help motivate me to quit smoking. I smoked a pack a day and they cost $3 per pack when I quit so I would put $21 into a special bank account each week to help motivate me to stay away from cigarettes and that bad habit. I kept it up for about 1 1/2 years and had about $1600 saved at the time. It was used toward the down payment on my first home.

The other time was when my significant other decided we were too busy and needed to hire somebody to clean the house every two weeks. My fiscally conservative nature just couldn't deal with that so instead I managed to convince that we should pay ourselves what the cleaning service wanted to charge, which at the time was $75. So, we setup a special savings account and deposited $75 into it every two weeks when we would do major house cleaning and it ended up paying for a trip to Maui. Not bad.

LOL, things have changed though and now there is a cleaning person who gets $100 each time she cleans. If it were up to me, I would still be doing the self-pay thing and cleaning ourselves.

This is a great idea to incorporate into a weight loss routine though. I've actually been wondering just how much will be saved in terms of restaurant and grocery bills.

For a while, I was rewarding myself, for pounds lost, with money. I "paid" myself in quarters.