As I said in my first post, money is a damn good incentive, but it's not the only one for me. My first extra incentive, then, is probably the most immediately short-term one: no more pain.
I mentioned in my first post that, in the past, I had been "overweight" or even "obese" but had also been healthy. This always distorted my view of what was happening with my weight. After all, I can't really be obese if I can do the 40-mile Five Boro Bike Tour, right? Wrong. Obesity certainly does affect fitness (which I'll cover separately), but I have realized that it also affects day-to-day movement as well. As I've gotten heavier, I've developed a wide range of physical maladies, the most obvious of which have to do with pain.
As I type this, I feel an intense pain in my upper back as it tries to hold up my upper body. My lower back is happy for the respite--it otherwise does so much to keep me upright--but my hips are screaming, "Please, stop sitting down!" When I eventually get up, I will stumble and have to support myself on the edge of the table because my heels feel like they have nails stuck in them, and my insteps will feel like they are about to tear. I'd stretch my calves to ease the pain, but whenever I do, my stomach gets in the way, and I can only get so far. Once I've managed to walk a bit, the pain in my feet will dull, but my left knee will start to feel like it's being crushed out of place. I'll try to massage it, but even my hands have started to hurt, and so I'll only be able to do so much before my finger joints give up. And so I'll sit back down, starting the process all over again.
This is my daily reality: my bones and muscles are slowly but surely losing the ablity to cart this heavy load around. Counteracting it will be a two-pronged approach: lose weight, and get stronger (another incentive!). I look forward to the day when I can bend down to pick something up off the floor without fearing my back will give out, or walk down a set of stairs without feeling like my knee will buckle.