I did it again! I laced on my running shoes and hit the pavement. I gave myself a little bit of a break this time, skipped the hills and settled for flatter terrain. I did, however, push on to week 5 day 2 of the running program I’m using. It didn’t get really hard until the last 5 minutes, which is way better than Monday’s run.

Looking forward to week 5 day 3 on Friday!

Okay, so I have to admit that immediately following my last post, in which I promised to start doing my 5k gamification exercise regimen, I came down with a rotten ear infection. Just when the ear was getting better, I crippled myself with blisters from a new pair of shoes. The result is that I didn’t even put on a pair of running shoes for a week and a half, right after I said I would. The universe has an awesome sense of humor.

Today was the day, though! I ran out of excuses, so I ran out in the neighborhood. I don’t know if it was hubris or impatience or a combination of both that caused me to skip up to the fifth week of this 8 week program, but I did. I also added a little extra insult to that injury by choosing a new running route that involved more hills. Now I understand why working up to the mid-point of the program is probably the best way to do this. Ugh.

Of course, pride won’t let me back off to an earlier point. I’m not in pain, I can still breathe, so I’m going to go forward with week 5 day 2 on Wednesday. The worst part of today was while I was gasping for air in the middle of the run. I glanced down at the program on my iPhone to see how much longer the torture would last, and I noticed that today’s inspirational quote was “You’re so much stronger today than you were one month ago.”

I’m not. A month ago I was still running at least once a week. Now I’m a soft wimp who had to recover after a week 5 day 1 workout. I was so much stronger a month ago than I am today. I made my running program lie to me by going out of order. Sigh.

I’ll let you know what’s left of me after Wednesday’s attempt.

HH

If you’re like me, it takes a little extra motivation to keep you on the proper dietary path. Especially during those holidays! I’ll admit, I completely undid all the good that I had done by allowing myself to stop counting calories, only exercise when I felt like it, and expand my portion sizes all out of proportion over the last two months. Now I’m stuck at my pre-diet weight and I’ve lapsed back into the bad eating and exercise habits that got me this size in the first place and I want to make a change. Again.

So what can I do to get back on my diet and exercise regimen? I’ve tried scheduling my food and exercise around my work schedule and trusting myself to follow the new plan, but I’ve done more backsliding than jogging lately. I think I need to resort to some gamification to get back in the swing of this diet stuff.

What’s gamification, you ask? It’s the most devious and entertaining behavior control mechanism ever devised by Madison Avenue. Gamification takes a normal, everyday activity and offers rewards for completing it. Green Stamps were the original gamification devices. All you had to do was shop at the right store and you would get a book of Green Stamps that could be traded in for nifty prizes once you collected enough. You might spend three times as much as the price of a toaster earning enough Green Stamps to cash in on a new toaster, but it’s money you would have spent on groceries anyway, right? And it’s just plain fun to get something for “free.”

Modern technology has put gamification in the palm of our hands. Advertisers offer free iPhone apps that seem like games but are really cleverly designed ways to keep their product in your brain. Some of the gamified apps let you earn points for scanning items when you shop. They get you to find certain items, pick them up, and scan them into your phone so that you can earn the next badge or a certain number of reward points. What are the odds you’ll drop that item in your cart instead of putting it back on the shelf? Foursquare offers badges for visiting specific stores – because there’s a good chance you’ll buy something if you go to the trouble of walking in the door so that you can get your badge.

Gamification can be used for behavior modification as well as advertising. In my case, I adore earning badges and levels on silly games. I’m going to use that gaming addiction to get myself back into shape. I have an app for my iPhone called “5K Runner.” The app promises to get me off my rear end and running 5K after 8 weeks if I follow each step as outlined in the app’s plan. How does this get me back on the road to fitness? It offers badges! I get a badge every time I pass a milestone. To make it even more fun for me, the app will upload my progress (and my badges) directly to Facebook so that all my friends can bask in my reflected glory every time I run a little further. Posting my progress on Facebook has the added incentive of knowing that all of my friends will see it every time I skip a workout. It’s bad to know that I dodged my exercise on my own, but it’s worse to have to confess it to all my Facebook buddies. That combination of public tracking and private badges should keep me working steadily toward my 5K goal – which will go a long way toward getting me into the healthy shape I really want.

Truth is, I’ve done “5K Runner” through Facebook already and I’ll be kind of embarrassed to start all over there. So I’ll post my progress here instead. You guys will have to keep me honest. I’ll start over with the program on Monday, January 30. If  I don’t check in with an update every third day for eight weeks, you have permission to shake your finger at me and remind me of how much I don’t like my “fat pants.”

Here goes!