Retail Therapy

So...you may be wondering what retail therapy has to do with my weight loss blog.  What do spending some hard earned cash and working out have to do with the price of personal training in China??  Well...I will tell you! I have the attention span of a 2 year old.  I am like a fire cracker...I get super excited and fired up, then I explode in a burst of 2 seconds of gloriousness...then it is on to the next sparkler or better yet...The Big One! One of the things that made me super nervous about committing to a 12 week exercise program and setting a goal that will take 3 months to reach, if it is even reachable, is my spastic tendency to race from one thing to another.  As a self proclaimed and previously proven "commitmentphobe", 3 months might as well be 3 life times.  I decided that if I was going to keep going I needed 2 things:

 1. A strong support team - aka "The Moodsters" =) Totally have to make T-shirts!
 2. Some sort of reward system to keep me motivated when I want to quit

When rewarding myself, I usually run to DQ for a delicious Georgia Mud Pie blizzard or Applebees for a Maple Butter Brownie of joy and merriment.  And I will be honest, I was seriously tempted! What better way to celebrate weight loss than gorging myself with morsels of pure sugar and fat?!?!  After some deep reflection that lasted a solid 45 seconds (remember the whole attention span issue, 45 seconds is phenomenal for me!),    I decided to do a little shopping.  I have to honestly say that it was the first time in a year that I have truly enjoyed shopping for clothes.  I was able to buy sizes that I haven't worn in years!  I have gone from XXL to Mediums or XL to Large! I literally lost inches!! It is so nice to see changes in my body that correspond with the scale!  What's even better is that all it did was make me not just want to date my treadmill but MARRY it!! Ok...perhaps a little extreme, but now I find that I am even more focussed on my goal!

So...tonight I was able to head back to the gym, and....drum roll please....I was able to jog for a solid mile at 4.5 and even ran at a 6 for 4 minutes!!! BAM! That just happened!!! I owned that conveyor belt!! I stomped it into submission and had it crying for its mommy!!! I was the master of the....well you get the point! Now all I need is another non-sugar coma inducing idea for the next time I need something to keep me going!!