Motivational Fees

I love food. Live to eat – will apply aptly in my case. Happy – celebrate with food, tempo down – cheer up with food, anxiety attack – need an endless supply of food to calm down!

It was April 2020, a bright sunny morning. Everybody was locked down in the house. In an attempt to introduce some variety into the monotony, I decided to weigh myself after an extended period. 70kg. Heaviest of all the time. My ideal weight, where I function best and look presentable – is approx. 57kgs. It is not a ‘bikini ‘ ready toned look though at 57 kgs but yes pretty healthy I must say to start with! 

“Are you serious? This is too much this time.”

I have many times ‘'malingered” before and taken a break from my minimum required daily exercises. When you malinger, you pretend to be sick or fake illness. If you ever claimed to have a stomach ache - to stay home from the office or - to not work out, you know what it means to malinger. And I am 100% confident you too have done it many times, haven’t you?

Certainly, I was very much aware of the steady weight gain and the butterball I was turning into in 2020, but my brain was smart enough to keep this fact constantly in the background. Because working on it required extra, out-of-comfort-zone efforts! But this time chubby cheeks, neck disappearing slowly but steadily, period problems, headaches, loss of enthusiasm, etc., it was all there and adding up daily, monthly. I turned into a typical frustrated ‘an annoying boss‘ figure of the house who was toxic enough to often deflect blame and responsibility onto others when anyone made mistakes or faced challenges with no constructive action on my part. It was all in the brain and the excessive ‘Fat’ that was working like this! 

I opted for the easiest thing being in the lockdown – cribbing about it daily, doing nothing around it, and, eating more because,

“Oh, I am so depressed because of my health issues!”

One June afternoon, hubby got an online reference of a nutritionist in the city. She offered online diet plans for a monthly fee of 5k. We could not move out of the house for vacation, and hoteling (outside food) was halted for many months due to the pandemic. No socializations of any kind – that means no food outings too. I decided to try her plans for a couple of months.

“Let me try this! Nothing much to do this year, everything is on hold. The online thing looks doable, no harm experimenting!”

But there was a constant voice echoing in the brain,

“Every single day if you do not follow the plan and do not exercise, you’re “losing” money on your investment”.

Every week a new balanced diet plan was shared by her, and I followed it RELIGIOUSLY. Also, I started walking in our campus for 1 hour in the morning around 5.30-6 AM before my daughter woke up. It was such a herculean task. Carrying 70kgs for one hour is something, so boring, and tiring! My pace was bad to start with. The only thing that was driving me was,

“5k is already paid. It is not coming back. Better run for the sake of it and make every penny worth it!”

Actively following the plan for the next 6 months, I lost 12kgs in 2020. I worked with the nutritionist for 2 months and paid her 5k per month. For the later 4 months, I continued myself the same regime.

I find the psychological takeaway from my ‘weight loss saga’ interesting. I started the plan to lose weight, feel good, and look good, deep down I was skeptical if I would waste the 5k paid to the nutritionist by not giving my best to this commitment. My penny-pinching side was at rescue, and it was this ‘’external’’ motivation I used (unknowingly then) for the first two months. I guess sometimes, we tend to be more motivated by losses rather than gains. If I were offered a reward of 10k rupees at the end of the plan, only on completing the plan successfully like some voucher to shop for, or discounts on shopping, etc – I don’t think I would have worked hard. The motivation would not have been enough to take it this forward.

People (like me – sometimes maybe?) are more motivated by immediate consequences than future possibilities. How about paying a “motivational fee” where you agree to pay more if you miss your scheduled workouts? In my case, the consistency eventually with visible positive results every month, improved the level of internal motivation – and helped in sustainable weight loss.

Do you think this will work in your favor? Anyways, whatever floats your boat buddy! Important to get going for once. That matters.

Prompt of Story #7 – an annoying boss, a bikini, fake illness

Prompt by: Authoropod