Back to Basics : BRIBERY 101

I've been having a hard time tracking my food for awhile now.
Say....the past 3 years of Weight Watchers.
And so I'm going back to what I know works for me...bribery.
Yes friends, it's true, I can be bribed.  And how!!

I've told myself that if I can track my points honestly until Thanksgiving, then on Black Friday I will treat myself to something fun that I want.  So far, it's working marvelously.  I've been tracking like a fiend.  I may not necessarily be staying within my points, but that wasn't one of the stipulations.  I only have to track, and be honest, that's it.  But I'm finding that tracking my points is leading me to eating within my points range.  Nobody likes to have a negative balance.

I've gone through half of my weekly points so far, but I have some activity points racked up as well, and I'm really hoping that this week I'll see a loss, even with Thanksgiving.

I don't know why putting things down on paper is so hard for me to do.
It's hard with points and food, but it's also hard with money.
I'll be honest, I'm not the best at budgeting and keeping track of our finances.
I let Koichi be in charge of that, but recently we decided to put Lily in preschool and that's an extra $300 a month.  We weren't sure that we'd be able to afford that, but after crunching the numbers we realized that we *SHOULD* be able to afford that.  However, our money is disappearing somewhere...mostly to places like Sonic, McDonalds, and in Koichi's case, to George Lucas because of his Star Wars addiction.

So, I bought Quicken, a money management software, downloaded it, set up all our checking/saving/credit accounts, and had a great big wake up call about where all our money is going.  Let's just say that Mr. Lucas is probably putting his grandkids through college thanks to us.  Somebody in this house is about to get his credit card snipped if we don't get things set straight.

Even though it was a big ol' slap in the face to see how much money has been wasted, it's a great wake up call to our potential savings if we get our act together.

Similarly, when I track my food, and am eating mindfully instead of mindlessly, I can really stretch those points, stay full, and still lose weight.  It's all about being deliberate, thoughtful and mindful.

Thank you bribery, for teaching me a valuable lesson.