I just signed up with Stanford Univ. Health and Wellness. They have some $$ incentives for taking health classes and two free sessions with a personal trainer, stuff like that. Here's the deal. You get two "health berries" (if you rack up five berries, you get $100) for setting two personal short-term health goals and sticking to them...honor system.

The website thingamabob in which you do this urges you to give yourself a "peripheral reward" for achieving your goal. They discourage things like "If I lose 15 pounds over two months, I get to buy myself a chocolate sundae". Like, *doh*

So my two goals are:

1. get into the gym, even if it's just a light workout (on days when my back hurts) twice a week

AND

2. ride my bike to work twice a week

...for two months. That means if I start tomorrow, I have to do this until mid-April.

My "peripheral reward" is: If I pull this off, I get to take my beautiful gray sportcoat that I got at the goodwill for $12, six months ago, to a professional tailor to be adapted to a braemar, rather than I HAVE TO DO IT.

Talk about *Motivation*!