Thank you Holly for the comment and kind words. It's painful to see so many people spinning their wheels trying desperately get their health back only to be side tracked time and time again by the latest "if you're not doing this, you may as well not be getting out of bed in the morning" idea. People are waking up though and I do love when I can help someone along!

Michelle, That's a very interesting concept trying to blend the two ideas to create something that gets you going. I have two comments on that and then I'll get to my suggestion. First, once you get going with your delayed gratification side, these things start to build momentum and a feeling of accomplishment that can be addictive enough to satisfy your IG voice. If you're on a role with working out and you suddenly miss a few days, you will start craving it. This is as far as I've found, the best way to blend them because... Second, instant gratification is after all, instant. Anything outside of "right now" instant creates cognitive dissonance which is part of the discomfort that drives our need for instant gratification. Doing something else can actually make us physically uncomfortable and this is how the IG voice works. It's an interesting thing that also connects in with a lot of our "OCD" characteristics. If you've ever had something like a piece of balled up paper on your coffee table that was just driving you crazy because you know it shouldn't be there, you know how it's physically uncomfortable until you or someone else get's up and moves it. Your brain knows the paper shouldn't be on the table (reality should be one thing) but since it is on the table (actual reality is different than your brain's "should be" reality) it actually causes you discomfort as your brain doesn't know how to process it. Cognitive dissonance at work. You have to move it to fix your perception, stop the dissonance, cure your OCD, and shut that IG voice off which as you can see are all really functions of the same thing. That said, rewards don't work for most people unless they are HUGE and even then many times they don't. This is because of cognitive dissonance which works in real time. Often times rather than rewards, the best thing to do is set up something that will provide even more discomfort than the cognitive dissonance. I hate to be so negative but in most cases it's true. Try this... Call a few friends and tell them what you're going to do like "I'm going to workout on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of this week (barring sickness or emergency)." Tell them that if you don't do it, you will pay them each $100 and you want them to check on you. Cognitive dissonance is like gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe but the potential for loss is much more than a mere annoyance to us and will act as a major motivator for most of us. Then once you get on a roll, you won't want to quit anyway and you can stop the negative reinforcement and just enjoy it. One more thought... being aware of cognitive dissonance can lower it's effects on you. Next time you feel it, pay attention. Really experience it. Is it something you can deal with? Is it really all that bad? I bet you'll find it's usually not. Then just keep an eye out to try to recognize it in the future. You already know it's not so bad so then prove it to yourself and beat it. It only gets easier.