I combined that with an equation I found that really worked. If you are a norml, fairly active person, multiply your weight by 17 and that is what you need to eat to MAINTAIN right where you are. Subtract 500 calories or 1000 calories from that figure daily to lose 1-2 pounds per week. If you are very inactive, muliply by 13 and very, very active, multiply by 21.

Actually, don’t go much below 1400 calories per day, as you’ll be in starve mode and your body will store fat more carefully.

Being a perfectionist, myself, I must employ the salvage approach to any endeavor. I will never do anything perfectly, so I must accept as sufficient that which I can accomplish at any particular time. So maybe I’ve blown my goal to reduce entertainment spending by $100 this month. Instead of giving up, I ask: What can I salvage? Hey, an $80 dollar reduction is still progress, right?

I’m trying to do it slowly and make small changes, I slip up or make bad choices, but I go back to trying to do the small things and make those a habit.

Much harder to implement depending on what your current diet consists of.

The key is to come up with challenging but reachable goals with an end in mind.

Start where you can, celebrate your progresses,and soon you’ll get to where you want to be.

I think any goal that is” moving away from goal”- like losing weight or cutting down spending…to work smoothly has to have a “moving towards” counterpart…..or spending only 100 dollar a month or 1200 annually on entertainment..can be better achieved by…having more time indoors with frnds..board games, volunteer work, free entertainment that trent writes about…

or even better..i think having a goal like..” restrict 100 dollars on entertainment” one should see ones values…wrt to over all budget.if one values girly times more than some other things in life..those should be eliminated 1st..we cannot see a goal..as stand alone..everything should fit naturally in overall fabric of life ..cheers

Sandy, you are also right about Biggest Loser. First, the more you weigh, the easier it is to lose weight, but as you get closer to your goal, 1/2 pound a week is a victory. BL diets, I believe, have you multiply your body weight by 7 and eat those calories per day. So if you weigh 200 pounds, you eat 1400 calories. This is unnecessarily radical, but the basic idea is pretty interesting. The more you weigh, the more you need to maintain, so as you lose, you should be stepping down your calories to continue to lose at about the same rate. So multiplying your body weight by 9 or 10 enables you to gradually ease into a diet of lower calories. (If 9 seems too slow, try 8). Using this method a heavy person can eat a great deal and still lose. As they approach their goal, they have to become more precise about the foods they choose to get a balanced diet and also the volume to feel full. So there is adequate time to learn calorie values and refine strategies over a period of months.

At least find replacement activities. In this way you are replacing something you find pleasant with other activities that are also pleasant.

Limiting or cutting back is scarcity thinking and you will find yourself feeling deprived and moving back into these activities without any way to sustain them.

This concept definitely works with reducing spending as well. I spent 1 month tracking no-spend days, trying to have as many days as possible where I spent nothing.

@John, I understand the frustration of changes taking longer than you’d like, but really that’s the only way to make them stick. Trying to change too many things at once is likely to fail.

Having small victories, one at a time is probably a much easier,sustainable way of making change. I think I read it take 3 weeks to make a habit stick. So maybe it take 18 weeks instead of 3 to completely alter your eating habits. That’s a lot better than starting, failing, and starting all over again.

Interesting post.

I wrote a while back on my weblog about living without cable OR a TV. I watch everything that I can get online.

Here’s the blog post for those who might be interested.

There’s a lot of content you can find online via free services, and Netflix Watch Instantly is a really great value at $9/mo.

Also, related to exercise/fitness, I recently joined our student rec. center, which is $75/semester. They have a set of 10 workout machines that promise a workout in 30 minutes. You do 10 reps on each one, and ride for 5 minutes on a stationary bike. I started out doing one repetition every other day. On off days, I’m walking around the neighborhood. That tends to cut down on the “all-or-nothing” approach. Now, I do 3 reps on the 30-minute workout, and walk a couple of laps around the gym in between.

It might be worthwhile to check into a local gym to see if they have that kind of “beginner” workout section.

Certain personalities (mine included) see things as very black and white and have a difficult time adjusting a goal once we’ve set it for ourselves. We feel like a failure if we don’t reach it.

Maybe Cindy will realize $100 is not a reasonable limit or perhaps she shouldn’t include cable, girls night AND shopping in the same spending category. She needs to know it’s OK to keep adjusting the budget until she finds something that works well for her lifestyle and her income level.

Blessings,
Sandy