5 out of 7 days! That's right - I exercised 5 out of 7 days last week! Wooooo-Hooooo - yay me! Ok, so it's overboard but I need to congratulate myself a lot for it to have any affect. I have what's called an external locus of control for motivation (take a quiz on yours here) - in other words if you tell me 'good job' it means much more to me than if I say it to myself.

Exercise does make a huge difference in my sugar levels, my fasting level today was 88!

I have been using stars on our kitchen calendar as motivation. Yes, the little star stickers that teachers use. Blue stars for 15 minutes or more, silver for 30 minutes and above and the elusive gold star for an hour. Sounds silly and I felt silly about it until I started getting a glow seeing the stars stack up on the September page. We all have to find what works to motivate and reward ourselves.

Speaking of rewards, I reached 40 pounds lost since my daughter's arrival. Now I know that she weighed almost 8 pounds by herself, but I still count from my weight the morning I went in to have her because that is my life-time high. For my reward, I got a microdermabrasion at my beauty salon on Friday. My face certainly feels smoother than it has in some time, but it doesn't look much different. Too bad, I was hoping for the much-vaunted fine line improvement.

But, I digress. What will be my next reward? I haven't thought about it too much, but I did decide that when I reach my goal weight and maintain it for 6 months, I can get laser hair removal on my legs. Boy, never shaving my legs again - that's some motivation!

Any suggestions for my 50 pound reward?