A pact with the gym

There is this supposedly great program out there called Gympact that allows you to set up a punishment for missing trips to the gym, monetary punishments.
I have a friend who has used it and likes it and thought i'd give it a try.

The way the program works is you tell it how many days you are going to workout during the week (can change every week) and how much money you are willing to risk per workout if you don't live up to your end of the bargain.
Minimum of 3 workouts and $5 per workout.  You have to "check in" at the gym (a verified gym only) when you start your workout and check out when you leave and must stay there for at least 30 minutes.

Today I "checked in" when I arrived at the gym and when I went to check out almost 50 minutes later the app said that I failed because I left the gym too soon.  So somewhere between check in and check out the app lost it's WiFi or GPS signal to prove that I was there and decided that I left before I finished 30 minutes.

I'll probably give this another couple of tries for the rest of the week and see if I can figure out where I went wrong or if the app maybe just sucks on my phone or at my gym, then after 3-5 more try's I'll determine if I'm going to use the app or not.
The payouts (per week I think) are very minimal, estimated at maybe 40 cents per workout (while losing $5 or more per workout missed can add up quickly) so it's not really about making money but just trying to find that extra little incentive to get my fat ass to the gym on the days when I'm lacking the motivation.
Is $5 enough to make me get a workout in?  Who knows, we'll see.


Last July I posted some pics of myself when I was around 270.
Today I decided to take those same pics again (well, not all of them) and see if I could actually notice any results based on this one particular outfit.

April 2013

July 2012

April 2013

July 2012

The photo's were taken at two different locations and different distances from the mirror so we're not talking ideal conditions here but whatever.
I would have expected for the difference to be more dramatic dropping from 270 to 235 which is why I had set my weight goal to be 220.  However, after looking at these pics and seeing where I'm at I realize that I still have a good way to go still and think 200 is much more reasonable.

Today at the gym I warmed up on the treadmill for 10 minutes or so, then when an elliptical opened up I jumped on that and set my time for 30 minutes.
I was going to just do an easy 30 minutes and not push myself too hard but once I started I noticed that I was keeping a pretty good pace.  After a couple of minutes I decided to see how quickly I could do the first mile and pushed myself to hit it in nearly 8 minutes.
From there I slowed down for a mile and reached mile #2 at about the 18 minute mark.  Mile 3 fell at 27:30 give or take and I finished my workout by hitting Mile #4 at 36 minutes exactly.